and while that's getting transitioned over I think the key thing is um for years you know we've been making reductions some of this maybe seven or so years ago was a bigger time when we made some key reductions and then we had the Hiatus during Co where we had inflated uh fund balances and now we're back to the reality of where we started in 2018 before covid funds came in and kind of ballooned out um districts to kick that can down the road and so what we're seeing here is this cumulative effect and we have been keeping it away from the classrooms as much as we possibly can we're not sure how much longer we can do that because the surrounding supports are now at their bare minimum and so things are starting to get challenging as we find ways to reduce the budget um Tam will walk through um kind of what we what we've identified to date um and again as we consider um this the budget reduction process I had mentioned at the start the the you know again tonight we're not coming to you all for you know directional support um just really trying to get a good common level setting of where we're at financially and some of the tough decisions before us and what we're identifying um of of areas to consider if we go into February um for the study session um one of the things that we have to keep in mind is that that's about two weeks a later than what we've typically identified as when we would like to roll out our staffing allocations to schools we're we're fairly close but if there's some things that between now and then um you all are saying yeah we'd like to see more of this or less of this there could be some secondary impact to our staffing and so we'll have to hold on our staffing which is usually around mid-February um for about a two week leg um it's not the end of the world because we used to be a little over a month leg in the past um but we've gotten used to pretty quickly being competitive in the Staffing Market when other districts are posting positions we might be now two weeks behind them and when we're buying for a comp competition of folks wind Lan folks going to education your first round draft picks go pretty quickly um so that's something that will have the balance and if there are certain things that we can continue to move forward with we certainly would make that request otherwise I think we'll have to adjust kind of our timeline to on Staffing um uh based upon being able to be thoughtful and in the recommendations that we uh move forward but so but that I'll turn it to you T thank you Dr Thomas um because we have some new board members I'm going to do some little bit of refresher um so I apologize if you've seen this before but just wanted to make sure we're all on the same page as we look at at Revenue so in um in our Revenue sources we have non-categorical Revenue which is our flexible spending dollars and you've seen many of these because it's part of our Levy um certification when we talk in December so some of these you've already seen but um a lot of these are formula based based on enrollment numbers so I've kind of given on here I'm not going to go through every one of them but these are um the non-categorical that we can spend however we need to spend and I've referred to the statute that um gives us that Authority so you can see all of these are um flexible and then we have you have categorical which are restricted again some of these you've seen on the levy certification um and others of these are um formula based um all of these are I think the board has seen well in the last budget cycle there's a spreadsheet that I've given the board that has our Revenue projections and it lists have two section on it there's the uh Levy or the state aid portions and I show you what the formula is um what the enrollment number is and then calculate out to show you what that state aid entitlement is and then the bottom section has the levy that they do the same thing um so these will be the same categories that you'll see um on that general cost um Revenue sheet that I give you when we get further into the budget that the categories they're very restricted we have to spend them on these particular um items uh if we don't many of them have to be put into a designated Reserve in our fund balance if you don't spend them all uh again I'm not going to go through all of these but you can see there's Career Tech Ed achievement integration our ly incentive um student support Revenue all of those we have to spend the exact way that it's stated in statute um this is just kind of get us grounded what our enrollment looks like um again you've seen these numbers these numbers have um all the different grade levels for the next few years forecasted out so when we look at that because many of these are formula based we look at the allocations that we currently did this current year in 242 we had of our total revenue 104 million went to schools um 18 million to departments so that was 123 million our Revenue projection was 122 million this board authorized use a fund balance of $957,000 that's this current year if we look at and this is the report that I was referring to that I give you to show you all the state aid um categories and the revenue projection so our basic formula a because it's going up to 7,465 per pupil unit um you can do the math and it's going to be about 70 million um all of these are formula based so our St total state aid that we're projecting for revenue is 96.7 million we look at the levy which we already approved this in December so we know our Levy is going to be 17.8 million again in these categories um we've seen them when we talked about the levy um so our state aid projections 97 or 97 million the levy projection about 18 million and then we have other funding um categories that include investment earnings our federal grants donations third party billing we're estimating that to be about 5.7 million so our projection for our revenue for 2526 is 12, 43,000 so given that we have to build get uh the expenditure projections so when we do that we have to make some assumptions and I've listed the assumptions that we're making that um we're going to use the basic gened formula allowance that's approved whatever it's going to be in the legislature if they change it this year we'll adjust our our project C but right now they've got it set at $746 um our salary increases will be based on negotiated collective bargaining agreements we have to pay what we agreed to in those bargaining agreements um I'm assuming that the weather patterns will be similar so when we look at utilities and some of that facilities planning way that we typically will build a budget as we look at for instance the utilities budget we'll take a five-year um actual average out for the 5 years if we know that um utility company has given us for instance this past year they said we're increasing at rates 8% so the budget would be 5e average plus 8% that's what we're going to build in for utilities um again that's assuming that we're weather patterns if we have um 3 ft of snow in February that out loud then that may create a different um planning um student support I'm assuming is going to be consistent with the previous years again we're looking at a fiveyear history um I'm we have to assume that those categorical funding will be used for the required purposes um the revenue that we get for 25 26 will be spent for the students who are in school uh in 2526 any legislative changes will have to follow of those as required um and then contracts and supplies we're increasing those by a reasonable amount assuming some CPI index and the enrollment will be close to projected if any of those assumptions don't hold then our budget will not be what the original budget looked like um and I let me just say that the contracts and supplies so for instance our transportation contract um they are also on the hook for SST and unemployment and family medical lead they for a contractor the way that they pay for that is to charge their V their um suppliers so we are going to be seeing that cost increase not the transportation company I mean they're going to have to pay it we're going to see the increase in our contract and that's the same for any contract that we have for um sub services that are going to involve people so we just have to take that into consideration as we're looking at some of these um contracts and supplies um again I know inflation may just really skyro it if that does we'll have to re-evaluate what we're um assuming for supplies but again these are we have to build a budget so these going to be our assumptions that we're going to use as we build that budget um you've seen the fiveyear projection I'm giving you a copy of the 5year forecast um it's last year the year before when we presented this 5year projection the trajectory hasn't changed if and this is a projection if nothing changes so if we continue to do things the way that we have every year for our expenditures um we're going to have to be making reductions every year the revenues um again I'm con assuming a flat enrollment if we all of a sudden gain many more kids this is a different um projection but right now I don't see that happening the county has said that we're flat on birth rates um there's a whole bunch of other factors to look at I don't really I'm I'm assuming flat enrollment and if that's the case then we'll be reducing our expenditure budget for the next at least five years we look at the district Service Center app um I think this question has come up several times I've got on here what each of the Departments the positions that each department has in their um in their budget um you can see not all of these are administrative positions but there are many that support buildings um so for instance the tosa the culum tosas are usually out in the buildings so while they're workplace is assigned here they're not necessarily um here all the time they're outs supporting buildings and you also need to keep in mind that many of these positions are funded with categorical funding so we pulled out um on the right you can see that of these staff that are assigned to the district service center 64% of them are F paid out of the general fund um the rest of them are paid out of categorical funding and some of them are in fund two and fund four which aren't even part of our general fund so we just need to kind of keep that in mind as we're looking at how we pay our staff um because we do have to spend our categorical funding in the way that it was intended to quick question Tammy so is this 7.1 million in change um part of the of the whole 12 this part of the the total budget that's well that is all rolled in correct this is okay there's no different funding that's been no we say General funding includes all other than fund two the general fund is just fund one so it's incl excluding um Child Nutrition and Community Ed but everything else will be part of the general um in general fund definition so I have a question about I'm just going to pick special it because it's right at the bottom um so you mentioned the categorical funding for this is it categorical to the point where you have to have these positions or if with these positions potentially you could take that money and hire more Paris I'm just just for yeah you can have whatever categor within that category but not specific to the okay thank you can I ask two quick questions on a financial projection um if you go back aside so there was um just two kind of outliers that stuck out to me so the local sources of property taxes for 2526 decreased um notic that was like a longterm facility maintenance thing on this page what what is that for why are we projecting that's decreasing in 25 26 in the top row for property taxes or the long term yeah so from from this year's budget to 2526 it decreases 2 million before it kind of goes back up and when I was looking at like I think it might tie to this long-term facilities maintenance that suddenly goes down to 500k next year what is y so we had been um overspending our long-term facilities maintenance every year which by Statute you're allowed to do um you can like because with the long-term facilities maintenance you have to submit a 10-year plan to the state and um they allow you to kind of borrow against the future years if you have a project that you need to do that year um and we had a few things that we the repair and the pools there was a weak in the dive well so we had to kind of take future money that we had planned and spend it but you have to make up for that so we ended up having less long-term facilities maintenance because we'd already borrowed in the future so like when we did the parking lots the last year and we had to close everything down we did a whole bunch of other projects that were scheduled for other years because we had already shut down the schools so take out and then the second one was the instructional Support Services I saw that is going up like 500k or like 5% increase next year so instructional Support Services um will be all those um support staff that are essentially at the schools um you're going to have salary increases we've added some um support staff at the buildings um so and we also have highly tenured so that so that fact that's 5% year over year high to me includes health and benefits correct yes yep it's salary plus benefits and then any contracts that we have and remember people that have been here longer the 10ur and were very top heavy they actually take an increasing percentage they just it was a higher percentage than the other um employees so liar is curious yeah I we can certainly break that down further um I think it's actually in our budget document I think we break it down um so given all of that um these are our recommendations for reductions um the first section this was already discussed at the December board meeting and we got a thumbs up so those we've already kind of put in motion um the rest of them are this it's two pages so it's this and this so that's the conversation that we're hoping to have the remainder of tonight okay just one quick question Tammy before we dive in your your projections are assuming flat enrollment I I see declining enrollment as we move forward can you help me understand your projection based on so so far our we have a slight decline in the enrollment and I've built in what that decline is in our enrollment in the projection in the fiveyear forecast um this year we actually got more kids than what we thought we were going to have and we're hoping that happens um I did ask our um enrollment folks today if what our kindergarten look like and we're slightly below what our kindergarten looked like at the same time last year but again we still have a few months to um try to improve that and we did meet with all of our elementary principles last Friday and they are working on they all got a list of um the students in their area in their would be assigned to their building and they are trying to make contact with some of those families your projections do correlate this decline you over here okay y um I'd like to get some clarification I went back and watched our meeting in um September and because there's been C several um things that have elevated to our level regarding registration and my understanding from watching that board meeting again is that we as a board gave directive to go ahead and start the enrollment process and then once the enrollment process kind of shook out then we would come back and revisit this to see how many um FD reductions needed to be made or whatever versus um maybe I'm hearing this wrong where you said that's already baked in and we're done and we cannot touch that the 2.3 million so I said this is kind of the ship is sailed that that we got thumbs up to go ahead and and move forward with those that first three and that's what I'm saying I'm hear when I went back and watched the meeting again I just watched it today it was very clear that and please chime in half of you guys were here that we were going to open up registration and that's what the thumbs up was and then once registration we came to registration I remember I was almost in Reverse we we we needed they need to know what the cut so they could do register we had to adjust the registration manuals and we needed to know what we would put and adjust the elective schedule at the secondary as well as address our um class siiz caps and discuss discussion caps and targets cuz all that had to be ready for registration before we can open up the registration um process so all of that was supported directionally and that was done and and now we're working through that revised schedule for registration and our discussion caps and targets so I think there is a major concern at the middle school right now as you've seen in emails and I've heard a lot of noise I think the word streamline electives on here and I think it was very misleading and not not transparent we've changed the election the elective schedule for our sixth seventh eighth graders to not allow them to take both a music and a band or a music and a language option at the same time and instead like forcing these other electives on them that you know art or whatever that aren't necessary it is a very hot topic amongst parents right now and they are very irritated um I have a bound seventh grader and that was not clear based on the December discussion that there would be major changes to the options pre presented to parents I don't know if there's a way at this point to go back and adjust that or I don't know I mean you guys were here at the board table caution strongly against that because it was it was the one directive that we discussed quite a bit in December and um and you're right I'm sure it is super inconvenient and super but we had to get a starting point based on registration timelines we had to decide something and this is this is what we decided after our discussion so to go back now would I'm afraid would Buddy the pool move forward I think the biggest problem is is that the decision was made and then it wasn't communicated right because we both sat in the audience and we understood it one way as it was a discussion point to say that we would come back and have a discussion on this this wasn't a decision that was made on our midterm and longer term cuts that we would have to make that would be the future discussions that we would have we needed to make we needed to get support to a just enrollment um for registration that was the first thing that we needed to do we talked about the elective wheel that night and where there would be changes um and that's what we needed to do before do go to print on those manuals for secondary um so that that launched I mean that night with that support we printed I completely agree with you we we we had we had no idea we couldn't vote on it right we weren't we weren't the ones to make the decision but I'm just saying from someone who sat in the audience who's now here to sit at the table and let you know as we sit and we get to read the emails too we're in the same boat mhm and I went back and watch too I think the understanding was that we would you know take electives that were underutilized and remove those items not completely change the Middle School structure that that I mean I specifically said I said I asked the question especially about the Spanish Immersion because Spanish Immersion was on the list and what I got was registration will drive student interest and then we will determine um then we for Spanish Immersion yes then we will determine what cuts need to be made and I literally it's at 49 minutes and 30 seconds anybody wants to go back and watch it we we did differentiate between middle and high school we did but we'd also said that we had to give direction and I think part of the question about coming back and discussing it is we were supposed to have another study session and the board agreed that we did we're going to go ahead and give the thumbs up to the very first box up there um in order to uh reduce the full-time equivalence and plann for not only class sizes but also the classes that were going to be offered um and future uh discussion on that and a study session was not uh approved by the full board they said no just go ahead with this and this is exactly what was up there so if if there wasn't Clarity on it no I understand from the from the um audience perspective but um I thought that everyone on the board was clear that we were giving them Direction to do this exactly as I think clear but the uned consequences were not clear like it wasn't clear that the students key course offerings not just electives like these are music and language it's not electives like are like this is these are key courses student those are electives they are they are but and and the other thing is is that when we started the Spanish Immersion there was always an issue wor kids being able to take band and the Spanish Immersion uh at the same time now that's that's also due to our the cheapest schedule we can be on so it's not just Spanish Immersion students it's all no no I get it but that was that got thrown into the question too and no I I get it it's frustrating but we had to cut the budget and we were we were minimizing streamlining limiting elective opportunities for students and I think that message was very clear that it would be very different than the previous model that we had in place where we had multiple choices for students to uh have particularly in the seventh and eth grade and to streamline and uh realize that FTE reduction we were I felt very clear that night that it would change the experience for students around the elective the elective offerings I guess my concern is is that the three FTE at the middle school for $381,000 all the problems that's that's causing and the concerns and the the impact that that is having on our students seems greater than what we had anticipated and I don't know if that was to lose enrollment yeah we're going to lose enrollment I mean but but was that thought through that you know $380,000 is going to have an impact that the the massive amount of impact that it that's having you I I would say that um cutting $4 million folks from our budget is going to have an impact we're we're we're going to poke The Hornet's Nest no matter which people can maybe logically understand the math of we need to cut and they will Advocate yep we need to cut and will'll also hear but not the thing that I love most and if it's not that and we pull it from something else then we will have another raise up to say well why are you cutting that that's what we love most and if we not do that we do something else like we're at a point folks of our budget is very lean and we've cut 3 million for this current school year we're cutting 4 million for the foreseeable future every year we're not going to have the capacity without having impact to to make reductions we've we've kept things away from experiences as much as we possibly can for years and we are at bone and muscle and this is not something that I take lightly nor has any of the administration when we're having to make these tough decisions there's a lot I wouldn't want to have to do but we're at a we have to do state and I'm I'm you know I don't control you guys but this this difficult decision was was made in in December and for us to revisit now we can't is not going to do any good and we really can't the horse that left the barn I think we really need to to to focus on the the other bullet points um leading down to that 3.3 number at the bottom and um yes it's difficult it's cutting that was difficult but I I really think we need to to move past that top bracket there a decision that has been made the past meeting I would just challenge like do we really feel that as a board you're sitting here all seven of us that that directive aligns with our strategic plan and if if it doesn't then what are we going to do I mean yes we can start talking about the rest of this the rest of this how do we get our middle School line back to our strategic plan of meeting the unique needs of our Learners and also you know offering them rigorous um you know all the words that are in our strategic plan how do we do that because we by doing this I feel um which again I wasn't clear that that was going to have the impact that it did especially with the Middle School my understanding is that we were going to take those classes that didn't hit that 20 y like we talked about Dakota language we talked about lots of classes that night I remember the conversation well and we were basically going to open enrollment up and say okay which classes don't meet that 20 threshold and those would not be we would not continue those classes uh that would be in addition um to to the en the regular enrollment process that we do every single year and and that night I was very clear with the board we need this directional support to be able to go to print for registration I I was very clear that conversation uh director Aon I remembered that as well that yes every year we have to look at the demand for elective enrollment and if the demand and we talked about that night if we are at a cut uh enrollment of 20 or so maybe was 22 I can't remember 20 policy um so then we'd have to have the conversation of can we afford that and that's something that we're going to we've been allowing various classes because saying no to kids is is a tough thing you're you're seeing it this is our lived reality every single day um with enrollment um so so we're at a point where we are going to make tough decisions for what we can actually afford and direct ACC your point is well taken I've said this as well that the very thing that we need to deliver on a lot of things that we've gathered as a strap plan cutting 4 million is going to compromise every aspect of that it it's not a it's not a small cut if we don't if we don't take it there and we find it somewhere else it's going to have an impact based on what we just saw earlier tonight we are so leaned everything's going to tip that scale and people are going to feel it and they're going to come alive about it so um for me it just feels like these weren't low demand courses as discussed that were cut this was music and and language course in Middle School two key Ives that all students take so I guess why the decision to cut you know not have the option for music and a language versus like you know facts and business and art classes and that was discussed as part of the model to give uh exposure to those courses throughout the Middle School to help guide their selection into the high school and we once again we differentiated between High School the conversation was very much that at FTE would be realized by addressing those uh class size uh the 3ft it was very clear that the model was going to change even speaking of uh the analysis that we did of Area Middle Schools and their offering model particularly those that were on a six period day like us and we were that's how we were going to realize the 3F was to change the offerings in the elect the elective areas and those are elective areas that include music physical education um there are some requirements within physical education there are some requirements of offering within the Arts both Visual Arts and uh music as well as um our offerings in uh the facts in the teched area and business when um you know just to when I'm thinking about all of the work that's been done into figuring out what is being cut here and there you know I'm thinking about in my experience in this District 26 years um one of the first conversations I ever had with Dr Edwards um when my oldest was starting Middle School was our community is always tax adverse um by the time we pass one Levy you know we're already needing another um the these conversations of what is to be that we're going to be facing if we do not pass another Levy um we've been having them these conversations for a long time and now we're here and um I think as hard as they all are to stum um it's just our reality and and I'd like to see us we're we're going to continue to be faced with these really hard choices and I'd like to see us structure our district that we're not kicking the can to the next Levy you know because it it's it's so hard not only on it's hard on the board it's hard on the uh Administration it's hard on our teaching staff but it's hardest on our students and what these pains that we're going through it's our reality and we could sit and cherry-pick and say why this and not this but we also have to understand that it it's through lots of thought and lots of process by our teams that we are here and it's I don't know none of it none of it feels good none of it's easy but going back and saying why this why that when all of these things [Music] um they're they're just our reality at I think it would be helpful to just have a little bit more transparency going forward into exactly what we're changing um because I I don't think that discussion probably would have been the same had we had that and one L and I appreciate that and also it's you know we're looking at governance com uh governance versus management and so while yes many of these things um you know coming to the board level it is um you know the The District administration does bring to us to you know give our govern governance but um transparency uh um sometimes um although we I I I feel like the The District in my two years compared to being on the board compared to Prior what the administration has done as far as transparency that it's we've come far so far and so um I I respect the transparency comment and I also feel like um knowing every little uh thing is also hard too as far as making decisions so um that's just my two cents Dr BR you bring up a really good point about governance versus managerial and yes governance we gave the authorization to cut three FTE but did we managerially know the snowball effect of what was going to happen and that's where I think that's where we're questioning you know and and no we you know we're elected on behalf of our the people in our district and so had you known you know the outrage of the parents the decision might have been different right I think that's that's the key to me yeah and I fully agree director Mason I I I have never worked through budget reductions in any District that I've been a part of where we didn't have outrage y it you're you're just not going to get people to say yep we're good with that take it from US versus that I mean it's going to be here and and and that's a real bad place to be and we are choosing between what we want to provide support to our kids and what we want to provide in support our kids if we said yeah we got all this excess of whatever it might be yeah let's cut that we we've been through that exercise in this District back in 2017 to to to this current date and yeah and prior to that but I'm just I I hear you and it and it pains me to be in this reality but our reality of making the reductions someone's going to be very upset we're just not going to find 4 million without The Hornet's Nest getting kicked in some form or fashion I'd be shocked if we if we were able to pull that off it's just not going to happen so I I I like I said there's Cuts here folks we don't want to make we we don't but if we're going to balance this budget we're we're force with some really tough decisions yeah and this is the first year um and I will add that you know and quite frankly you guys weren't on the board at that time you're sitting in the audience and the board members do get the agenda ahead of time we have ample opportunity to sit down with the superintendent and ask the questions and you know we knew that this is going to you know there was going to be some impacts that probably needed to be discussed further probably we're going to end up in the same place um because they needed the direction as soon as possible but we did have another and you guys weren't honest you can vote but we did have another study session to do just that to make sure everyone was 100% on board um and understood the impact uh and also understood we didn't have a lot of other options uh but um because everything everyone at the board agreed that they understood this and they had their opportunity to meet with the administration um we opted not to have the extra study session because we basically would have ended up in the second um so that's when we gave it Direction but understanding that it's a lot different sitting at the table and having that ability to meet with the administration and ask those questions one onone from our previous knowledge of everything that had been in motion um um and sitting in the audience is is is a different perspective and um um so I want to recognize that I understand the the up you know why people are upset but um you know and unfortunately you weren't sitting there able to sit at the table and get that information and something that it is different when you're sitting in the audience yeah no I had just asked a couple word members and away so well unfortunately with kids in the district too Mary I mean director BR we're the ones that are living the consequences right we're the ones that feel the real pain so I feel the pain too that's not fair that's not a fair statement but but it's reality because we all have friends and that have kids in the district and now you know so it means less to her than it does to you because she doesn't have kids in the district that's not fair I think we need to move yeah forward I think we need to to move forward because these are the decisions that the six of you were and I was appointed to make and they're not going to be easy but we have we have to make them despite all of these these um outlying influences that that just come based on the station of life that we're in and um I would encourage lots of questions about these these next bullets about about maybe the things you're talking about Jessica I have what about these these sped pairs these are some of our needest students how does that how has that been thought thought through is that going to cause what what what are the other costs that that aren't maybe dollar related that what kind of pressure is this going to put on the staff so though I don't want anybody to feel like we're backed up against the wall tonight we're Dr Thomas indicated we have a little time to this is more of a almost as much of a discovery as a decision tonight to get those deeper questions answered so that um if we decide you know what we're going to we're going to change this we're going to move forward with that we're all have a much clearer understanding of what these Cuts actually mean so that get asked about it yeah you're right this is this is what's going to happen but before we landed so I would entertain that that kind of discussion uh moving forward and and I guess I'll I can start uh the SP pair is that's kind of a we'll walk through and contextualize each of these brackets just y um you know like I think um we've all talked about right that there's there's uh money and there's a cross subsid and and special it has a piece of that in the skin in the in skin in the game too in that general fund and so this what I put forward really doesn't I'm not concerned so as the Director of special education cutting three resource Paras really isn't that concerning to me right now we are staffed at our Elementary at like 1: to 9 so for every nine resource students there's a par um I'm just suggesting we just increase that a little bit so there'd still be like 13 at our Middle School we're at 25 and at 40 right so this isn't a a Hu I think we can still meet student needs if we can't right then I come forward and and I and I explain why I can't move anything and because we will always meet the needs of our kids always we're not going to not meet them but I am not afraid at this point by reducing um just a few Elementary Paras likely is going to significantly change our ability to provide a free and appropriate education for our kids and where does that put us with our neighboring districts at the elementary right in the middle I mean we're not we're not um the highest staff we're not the lowest staffed um we're on the lower end but not the lowest I mean there's districts that are Staffing being you know 1 to 20 or only Staffing when they have needs there's some high schools that don't have any resource Paras so it really is depended on the model of Service delivery that we give so that we can look at at how we're delivering service my team and I have been working very hard also at you know what is the job of AA and do we are we doing a very good job at what skill is being developed and and are we pulling back or are we creating longer term dependency so we're try trying to be a lot more cognizant of that too so I mean all of these things are are definitely definitely possible to do and Michelle I just want to add to the the last line on there um just um to provide some context to that and if you can please Jim in on that um in our recent um contract negotiations with msea which is the bargain unit that oversees P sped peras um we added an additional 15 minutes per day to provide them time for their team and for IEP review minutes we already had some sped Paras that had that and then some built into the day where they weren't directly servicing students they had this additional time in place so with those two overlapping um this is where we can find some efficiencies and reducing those those hours so we aren't reducing the FTE or the number of supports in those buildings we're just reducing the hours assigned each of those individuals that were still they're still there for the entire instructional day plus what we have St the statuto requirements um that were passed down a couple years ago and then the contract that we agreed to um so that that line I just want to be clear that's why there's not an FTE around it it's just to realign those fed Paras to have a similar scheduling to other sped Paras yeah and the majority of that actually is because there's too less student contact days so the pairs aren't working those days so that's the biggest chunk of that $440,000 I do think Michelle that's on the second the next page yeah not specific to the I was going say that was a okay so yeah that's just then just readjusting a few hours and that um High School one is is a student aging out who needed a one to one so it's also just looking at you know those things too um Michelle I've got a quick question um I think it's quick um the combination of the increased number of sped students that we are recognizing um combined with the extraordinary amount that I've witnessed of paperwork that is required and so when I see reduction I also see an increased amount of that non-instructional time that they should be spending you know planning and doing all that a as well as the increased number of students and the paperwork and it does concern me um to to finish that off if we eliminate three positions uh and we try to hire back pars aren't they're not a dime a dozen out there I mean it's a hard job and we've had historic a hard time attracting them and once you've laid off and hired back there is a morale issue too or reputation so when I put all that together I'm wondering about the residual effect so we um either hired or transferred 34 pairs this year and we have such a turnover that that the reduction wouldn't be on laying you off it would just be we simply wouldn't hire three PA or we just wouldn't fill three pairs that leave so that that's really non nonissue there um our numbers are growing yes but they're growing mainly in our Center based programs so we are up about I just looked a little bit at numbers from 2223 school year to 23 24 we really only had an increase of about 20 resource students so you put that across K12 that's not a big strain on the huge strain on the system but we had an additional um like 15 students in center-based programming which is like two classrooms right and that like a teach two teachers and eight Paras I mean that's that's the bigger you know when the needs are are intense like that that's where we're having our bigger increase and we are having that same sort of increase next year um right now the way things that if we Trend exactly the same we'll probably end up with about 20 more resource students K12 than we do this year so again not a huge I mean that's my guesstimate based on Just Looking Back historically um again not a huge strain right considering the amount of of um teachers and staff that we have I want to just play on something you said there were we're cutting here for the 181,000 Y um but you also said we're increasing at the high school Center based or is that did I Mis understand that we're increasing Center based across the district so you know we're going to have to reallocate and see you know what what we can do there once I know numbers the hard thing is the element elementary kids coming in to know what type of programming they need if I can spread them across life skills that's a lot easier than ones that need like a very specific program that's already really full like our CID program right so I don't know those answers yet because they're too little we're going to know a lot more in the next few months on where those students land did we reflect the potential increase in the center base in our budget no not right now we're looking to try to do it with the resources that we have and depending where they land we might be able to do that if not then of course that'll be a different discussion something you said brought a question to my mind and I think I understood it when the other night at the coffee and conversations which you were a part of and we talked about um special education funding and how you said special education is such a large umbrella and there's so many different categories underneath it so when we look at and I think you just hit on this to your point you know what individual kids need y so we're not worried at all about you know for lack of a better example this category being having a lot of students that need the help and this category maybe not so much like do we know where these so we would fall yeah we serve based on need not on categorical disability so a student could let's say have autism they might be able to be served in resource they might need our CID program or they might need life skills right it's totally dependent on on each child is so individual so we look at their needs and then program it doesn't really matter what the categorical disability label is is that answer D I think so yes okay thank you any others regarding the special Paris ad I'm just going to State you know we work work really hard in the last two years since I've on the board to actually up up the Paris I mean I remember when we started walking through classrooms and this is an area a little near and dear to my heart with one of my students having a par um this this cut I appreciate all your what you're saying but it really I don't know if I support it um mostly because when we look at things like child-based budgeting and you build up the need from the classroom up this doesn't align with where I would like to see us make Cuts as a district I think we have other places that will just have less of an impact on our students and so I like I said I appreciate the efficiencies and if there's efficiencies in this the high school that's great but it's for me personally it's really concerning to um make any additional cuts that hit this close home to our students and I understand I do understand what you're saying um and again I want to reiterate I will always ensure that our students in special ed get their IEP um needs met and they get a free and appropriate public education so I think it's like what representative fer was saying there's appropriate maybe there's like a little more than appropriate and and we might have some areas like that and that's what I'm trying to find out right I want to be um you know very fiscally responsible with our resources because special ed is never whole right there's always that cross subsidy piece and and so this is a way that we can it's a small amount of money but was we can you know if you add all these up they're all small amounts of money that are adding up to a bigger amount because we don't have anywhere that we can just make a sweeping we'll just take that and come up with our money so I'm confident that that we can still meet the students needs um or at least it's definitely worth worth the try and and again I'll be the first one back here begging if if we can't so but I really I really feel like like we're going to be okay I think um my question was I think you mostly answered it but just how you're forecasting the number of students that were required Paras and also did you factor in the fact that we need increasing class sizes slightly in the elementaries you know and and those teachers would have potentially another student or two to support and what is the impact so on average that's just you know there is no Rhyme or Reason to um par Staffing so even talking with all my directors across our region and state hey who's got a good par a model for resource right there's nothing that is in statute that says this is how you you stop it so it's really some of its based on just expectations and what people are used to um whether that's General Ed staff or special ed teachers um so I we've been doing fine with with where it's at um and yes you know every time that we are are taking away any supports in General Ed it could impact special ed too but in the end I think I'll just reiterate what everybody here has said my colleagues this is where we're at so I I feel like will still meet the needs of our students um will it be felt yep um but my responsibility as the Director of special education is to ensure that the students IEP needs are met and and I will still continue to do that yeah no I asked because obviously you and it wasn't something that like I didn't know we needed until you know I got into the school inside and then again in middle school after she had an in elementary I didn't know and realize until you see the dayto day and so I I would expect to probably get a lot of those last minute requests for for Paris right sometimes yeah yep but we do you know as I said we're really working on so if I'm utilizing these four Paras over here with these you know 12 kids have four of them mastered some of the skills that they're there for and now I can shift that support so I'm not really looking at support as this yearlong or lifelong kind of thing for a student it's where can we support you to learn the skill and then fade that support and then go help the next student that needs to learn the skill for for some time so we're getting a little bit better about that and that's something that we'll continue to do and then director Mason to piggy back off of that with the the class sizes I think you you mentioned it perfectly they may or may not increase by two um so just to reiterate for the community so we're really clear on that our taret tget and our discussion caps increase by two but depending on where student enrollment Falls that you you might have a fourth grade section that this year was was 26 and next year it's going to be 24 so it might be a little confusing for folks that well you said you increased by two but this is two less than my older had so I just want to be really clear on that that we we're increasing our class size targets and discussion caps by two but that does not automatically mean every class is going to increase by that much um and it will be every year we'll have our low spots we'll have our hot spots and um we'll we'll have to address those accordingly so I thought you brought up a really great point I just wanted to emphasize that so that's clear for the community okay any on this okay uh moving on to the mcaps move questions around that so uh just real quick before we uh dive in uh obviously this is a as you can see the cost associated with that uh that is uh lease Levy uh that space and as we looked to gain efficiencies in a variety of ways this is one of them as well as the transportation associated with getting some students to that uh facility and bringing that uh program into the high school um and uh the resulting uh programmatic uh administrative uh structure that's in place at the high school given our size uh we felt that a reduction in the overall assistant principal uh team at the high school could be realized in as well also been talking with uh director powers and his team about uh the cost of the move and uh that is something that we feel we can manage and and handle inhouse there's very little that we would have to do to refab spaces um and also uh has confidence that the team can address any of those kind of changes so nothing that's real substantive in terms of structal changes to adapt the mcaps program into the high school and uh the things that we may have to address they would be taking the primary lead on that they may have to sub certain things out but for for the majority of the case retrofitting that space or re uh remodeling spaces is something that uh owers and his team would be able to address is there anything more is that good no okay all right would that be maintaining all the same um tracks that we currently have in the mcaps program that would be driven by uh the registration process at this point the uh preliminary uh interest in Wind caps is is maintained actually grown over where we were last year at this time um so we anticipate and and part of that is making up for um would allow us to make up for the loss uh students from the uh Farmington program by this move the board was meeting tonight uh as well uh to review their reductions and so we would uh we we we do believe that the at least the initial interest in uh mcaps students are going through that registration process right now and we'll be uh throughout the first couple weeks of February uh we'll know more specifically about those that are in fact uh either um eligible for participation uh or interested in that participation um but I think we are U definitely uh encouraged by that interest and can you sorry can you help me understand I'm still not clear on the mcaps mve to PLS $145,000 if the lease is $30,000 and I know there's loss of revenue from Farmington and there's a lot of under you know behind the scenes type of numbers but how did you come up with the number of $145,000 so this is the monthly cost that it cost us for um administrative taxes and um maintenance so there's two parts to the invoice that we get from the um lease company the lease part the actual rent of the is under Le Levy which will now that's why it's not included there right okay yeah including the internet that we had specially set up for mcaps over there that's part of the utilities yep and um director Powers has has worked with um Dr bazo to talk about moving all in the equipment and they feel that they have it under control that there's space they they have the capacity to do that in housee so um it will be a minimal cost any trickle down retrofitting in order to dedicate a part of a pod or a whole pod to Maps that's no we we feel like uh the the dood specifically that uh the new new part of the dood um has underutilized uh spaces that were set up originally in the build uh for science to accommodate science classrooms um and so there there is sufficient space you're thinking long term y yep we're not going to Gage it anytime soon no definitely not um just for context the the high school when the addition was uh put on was built for 3200 students um we have under 2800 students now uh going into the upcoming school year um I'm remembering back to the earlier slides on enrollment so um can you walk me through the reduction of the administrator so this need to be identifying but it can't be helped um the this person was an assistant principal SL minc caps coordinator so this reduction a help we understand or walk through how to have this program without somebody leading it and then so would it's almost like we're we're getting we're reducing two roles almost because this person did a little bit of both so walk me through walk us through so so part of our reductions last year uh you might recall we previously had a coordinator at that site um um we felt at that point uh that we were needing to uh change our administrative model and uh take an administrator and assistant principal specifically from the high school and reassign a significant portion about approximately an 8020 portion So currently that person has a 20% responsibility um that position has a 20% responsibility prior like High School uh proper and then the remaining uh portion of the person's responsibility is to support the offsite the satellite campus if you will um with that satellite campus and the students who are already enrolled in Prior Lake High School um for the remainder of their day in most cases um coming back to the Prior Lake High School um we took a look at our administrative uh structure and U did frankly comparison of similar sized high schools and the administrative uh structure in place uh prake High School compared to a similar sized high school and uh fortunately uh that resulted in us looking to identify that we could goodbye with one last administrator so we would have a principal and three assistant principles as opposed to four assistant principal and um that will then be needing to be absorbed within the remaining administrative team to provide that in school support to the program that's now going to be there so so like the counselors for example the school counselors at the high school so did they already um have the minap students under their purview already they are on their case load yes so that that hasn't changed that's always been the case correct okay correct and and frankly there will be some efficiencies gained within that now those students will be housed at harling high school for their entire day um providing easier access uh for both the counselors and the students counselors to the students and the students to the counselors um and so those um efficiencies I guess for lack of a better term uh that will be gained caused us to be uh able to look at whether or not this was uh a move that could give us greater efficiency as well administrative costs and then the having the students there for another an extra couple of hours a day than before so are there anything you know is there plenty of parking for these students you know is there you know Food Service things like that where it ad admittedly since I don't have high school age kids this you know I'm probably asking silly questions well they they currently have parking yep they they're all set over that struct structurally they can and the the the capacity of the um of the Child Nutrition Services area certainly again once again was built the the school itself uh structurally was built for 3200 students including the the servery and things so those students will remain there for their entire day unless they choose other options as well anything else around okay uh we'll move on to next line online and third grade Sage let me start with the online and just speak uh this is uh this is a program that we put in place following the pandemic um and we began it uh as a 612 we cut out the 68 portion of it because the demand just wasn't there we maintained the 912 and actually shied from FTE in recent years to the current model um we have been engaged in looking at the um I'll call it return on investment with the students um certainly it's a it's a a program that works for certain students and certain families do we risk losing some of those students in this I think there is that uh inherent risk here but we also are going to to be working with those families because that program is uh led by our bridges ALC uh coordinator uh Mr Brown so he is going to be working uh to see if those many of those students or any of those students are are interested in returning to either Prior Lake High School or Bridges ALC uh for their uh 912 experience and I think we're anticipating that we would see some of that we we are also that we might likely lose a few uh students who really that is the the model that they find success but again we did do some evaluation of the success looking at uh grades credits earned attendance Etc associated with students enrolled in Laker online and and we just didn't feel like the um like the investment that we were making uh was that return those students unfortunately you know there's a niche uh student uh population that does benefit from that experience and and there are options for those students students um we currently have uh I think in the mid-50s 57 is a number that's bringing a bell for me is there any partnership with like cro to offer like as an a possible partner with our collaborative agreement that we already have um that would be nominal in terms of support um I think also given um the performance of the students and the lack of credits that some of these students are having based upon the unsuccessful completion of some of the courses um they also really fit the model of an ALC um and and they're going to need that recovery at some point and so we may be looking at a both between the alc as well as uh South Metro as our primary partner because we already have the relationship and it's part of our contract um there are some other areas that Dan and I are exploring but at this time I think we're going to just really be looking internally um with our our own ALC and then our natural collaborative or natural collaboration with southw Metro as our primary entry points for support is there um possibility for them to shift to Northstar Alliance just Northstar onance yeah I'm sorry those those are those are some of the options that we might lose some right if the we lose funding if they go to Northstar correct and and when you see students who are taking online and doing well that's where we're going to see the Northstar um the students who are struggling um with their success in online I think those are the ones that we're going to be able to maintain um but if you're truly looking for online because whatever it is and that's how you thrive then by all means that might be an OP but we're going to be posing our intermediate um partner as well because with that that partnership unlike Star online U which is the dominant provider with most online in the Metro here um we actually get a portion of the ADM back because of our collaborative relationship with two um with intermediate District celf Metro um so that would be financially advantageous for them to take it there and they also have additional resources and support structures within Southwest Metro as well Dr Thomas I may ask um the amount of time that I've spent at the alc uh I see a lot of K over there doing online they do using that as a facility for backup station right and uh it works really really well for them yep yep that would be our preference that is going to be our initial uh work is to identify and and show those students hopefully that that this could be a home for them okay um I feel like a saw it somewhere and now I can't find it but I I think a large portion of the enrollment currently is seniors right um junior senior Junior seniors primarily we have we have a few ninth and 10th graders but it progressively increases as they will you fadee this out or just it's done at this point the proposal is that it would be done yep and then the illuminate third grade Sage um y um so uh one of the things that we are uh looking at with that is uh as we have seen over recent years the number of students who are meeting our preliminary our initial criteria our criteria that we had traditionally uh to participate has gone down um and we have been looking at this uh for a number of years and we have been um increasing uh in order to fill a section we have been uh lowering that uh threshold than our traditional threshold was at and uh we have been seeing that like say over a number of years so as we look above to the discussion caps uh raising at other sections across the district in other classrooms we uh looked at this as a potential efficiency that might be able to be gained and we are finding participation rate uh with that lower criteria uh of students more students are choosing to stay in their home neighborhood School than traditionally have taken advantage of the stage opportunity last year it was 49% of uh the students who were identified chose to stay at their uh neighborhood School 49% took the took the invitation to go so 51% of the students chose to stay at their neighborhood school and again that was after lowering our um threshold um and we've done some uh comparison I don't know JC if you want to step forward and talk a little bit about sure good evening um we ran some preliminary numbers on um Sage identification um last year we uh for the 23 24 school year um had 32 students um in the stage program um again with that lowering of that criteria if we had used we looked at some surrounding districts criteria um and if we had used that surrounding District's criteria um in Lakeville we would of those 32 students only three would have qualified in okah hanapin only three would have qualified um in minona only eight would have qualified um so so of those 32 um it really in in terms of your um typical um gifted programming it's it's really um only you know three to eight of those students that would typically qualify for gifted programming in a different District um this year so far um we have done the initial screening um of um the students in so we we've gone to the 98th and 99th percentile um again last year 32 students met that criteria this year we have 17 students meeting that criteria um so again if we looked at District's criteria we would have significantly less than than a class of of gift in students per culture and when you say criteria you're talking about the code coat and teacher recommendation is there more than that um teacher recommendation is not a criteria um it can um if there is it can and it can um give us a different look on a certain student but that doesn't change the criteria it's the test it's the yeah it's this yes okay so how are you getting from three to 32 well we well explain you're lowering the bar that's a that's a lot of lowering the bar well the program has um I mean we're for uh efficiency sake we are um basically like we're screening every student and then we're taking students from the top down until we fill a section because for Staffing efficiency sake if we don't go down then we won't have a section and because to Dr Edward's point we only have 49% of families opting into to Stage if they get an invitation it basically is a a numbers game to to go down the list until you've completed a section of of students so just as a comparison I just want we wanted to just demonstrate where we have gone down in terms of our we we've I think there's some advantages to expanding criteria because you might give a student an opportunity I mean it's one test so you're giving a potentially student opportunity that wouldn't necessarily have that or you know we're being a little bit more flexible in that criteria um but we just wanted to compare like in some surrounding districts where that cut would leave us in terms of our student registration yeah I mean I think our I mean we have a retest policy in the district so I don't think judging you know Sage based on one test in third grade is really you know equaling the criteria you know to say that so I agree with you 100% on that yeah and for better for worse that is how districts I understand yeah yeah so so I'm agreeing with you right giving giving more students the opportunity is is absolutely the thing and you know ultimately we've already cut you know advanced math in middle school so I think cutting a anywhere else is is not an option so you will not have my support at all for cutting anything else if anything we need to be looking at bringing advanced math back into middle school and to every other grade before we talk about anything else so currently our um sorry I have the same cough cold that everybody else has it's um currently our fifth grade Sage students um are taking fifth grade math so they are and we're we're seeing um the highest we're seeing extremely high growth in their um their fast bridge data um and I and Dr can speak to the the course offering shifts from last year um but this this doesn't um this recommendation doesn't eliminate opportunities for students to access any material they still can you know grade accelerate or any other um thing that they needed to do in order to to meet their needs and we know that half the students that get invited to Sage stay in their home schools and understandable um yes yeah so um I would just like to add I mean I had a sage kid and he's now an electrical engineer these kids in this program are some of the most unique learning brightest autistic ADHD twice exceptional kids and if you take away this program which I am absolutely not in support of um because one it goes against our strategic plan of academic Excellence which students receive challenging rigorous and relevant instruction for their unique learning needs and goals it's our number one priority it it's literally like what are we doing and I'll be really honest and candid in my conversation here in the last five or six years we as a district and all of our Equity initiatives have been that have been implemented in our district whether it's Bridges math or CPM math we are not meeting the needs the the unique learning needs of our students and what we should really be doing as a district with these budget cuts and budget reallocations is looking to see how can we bring back a Synergy type of program um because that's what we had when my kids were little and we've done everything to to spiral into this equity and teaching to the middle and we're we're losing kids and we're hurting kids because we're not challenging them in first grade and second grade so no they're not going to qualify for this test because we're not even getting them there when they're young and it's kids are not getting Dumber we as a district are disappointing our kids and so I I absolutely do not support I 100% agree with you I do not support this cut without some sort of alternative which I think is actually the better approach we need to add back Advanced courses who our upper elementary and middle school students it is ridiculous that we don't have it um I agree with you like children didn't get less intelligent over the last five years what are we doing wrong right like why are they not able to test that should be the question I'm asking um you know I think we need to just like we provide services for kids that need extra special education we need to provide some sort of curriculum for students that are gifted and talented and we are absolutely lacking in that area right now um um you know there and I also think the transparency here it was a big issue there are a lot of fifth grade stage parents that didn't even know that their math was the same curriculum as the regular fifth grade students they weren't even aware that was happening um you know I think the whole base of fifth sixth seventh graders they weren't aware that advanced math wasn't going to be an option until last week when that registration came out and that happened before the budget cuts um it's a huge concern I am not in support of removing any advanced programming without some sort of alternative so let's say we let's say the the ultimate decision of the board is to eliminate page what what gr only I'm sorry thir gr only what other options in the system could you would could be available to students that are gifted I mean they they left to their own is there I I can understand cutting it but is there a is there some kind of an internal alternative two Sage I don't want to get hooked on the sage you're still going to have gifted kids what do you do with them if you don't have this well we do have a policy around curriculum acceleration that policy can be applied to specific a curricular area or a grade level acceleration uh if truly we have students that need that uh criteria we assess students and we have and we continue to assess students um when those students are brought to our attention either by their family or in some cases by our internal staff identifying uh students who might need to be considered uh for that and we apply that and we do apply that policy and look at those uh unique situations so that would be um something that we would continue to to do and um would you still identify them in the same way if a parent wanted to take the we do have students for example who have taken what identify is those students in the classroom because I I see this firsthand that's getting you know we got emails on this right use 100% on every test and they're bored no they've never been recommended for great acceleration so what what right triggers that yes yeah and and typically it is the parents who are uh who we just have to advocate for our students who are who are approaching um the school for an assessment uh on that and that is done by our our remaining differentiation um specialist uh who uh the policy uh calls for how that process is done um specifically uh looking at the individual SKS of that student she does work with when teachers teachers will bring forth um individual students as well who you know the teacher has identified as um possible gr acceleration she will go and um assess that student and see if they're eligible for curriculum acceleration well I can understand the curriculum acceleration piece of art the part that you're not talking about or nobody's talking about is a social emotional piece of these students um I I can tell you from again having a stage student um social emotionally he would have been a disaster in a great skip situation um because these kids you have to remember these kids are not they think differently and they Thrive with their peers who are also all electrical engineers and Structural Engineers and all these super bright kids who Thrive up of each other and so I mean if we're looking at getting rid of third grade stage then what's the point of having fourth and fifth grade stage I mean it just to me it it's a snowball effect of we're going in the opposite direction of what our Strat plan and what our community I mean our community did not come up and say get rid of advanced learning and get rid of sage they said the exact opposite they want challenging rigorous and relevant instruction for The Unique learning needs and goals I have a I have a question so um and I and I've been hearing about this for years so um the Colgate test does that still going to be given to everyone in third grade no matter what or does that I think it's on the table I me that's part of the cost reduction is we do spend quite a bit on that assessment we screen every student and then we do the full assessment on students who meet a minimum threshold for the followup um so part of the cost of sage is that assessment okay so about $177,000 I believe a year okay so that's part of the cost savings here and it is that is that I'm sorry is that actually part of the 127,000 or no I don't think it's so so here's I mean I'm trying to understand the numbers and I know I've been I I've heard about this for years and you know again I had kids to at one time that went through this um what I heard you say is that if we go by the threshold that we should be going by um we wouldn't have enough kids in third grade anyways for the class yeah and that's been the case for a number of years yes and I and I've heard that and we've had the same problem with advanced math that when they tested I'm really only seven or eight kids in the advanced math we actually Advanced our let's say a class of 30 so the whole class kind of got brought back um and that's been going on for years too from what I understand um and you know and we have parents who want their kids in advance whether they belong there or not we've had that issue too uh kid struggles you know there's all sorts of stuff so there's there's is pros and cons on both sides of that but if we take if we don't have the kids to make the class in third grade anyways at the normal threshold um do we if we don't do this will we then test again in third grade to see if there's kids that make it in fourth grade for sage or how are we going to make that determination for the next year because we're really only talking about one year in which we haven't had enough kids that made the threshold so it is a cost benefit analysis at this point providing we provide those kids like like do like chair White just said with other supports but do we make up for that in fourth grade if we just give up third grade I that's what I'm trying to understand is how do youest [Music] them talking about one year here and I'm wondering what happens next time correct me if I'm wrong but I think the suggestion is to phase out Sage starting with third grade so it wouldn't be to just eliminate a third grade stage it would be to start with third grade stop the program but not you wouldn't you wouldn't remove students from the commitment to the students who are current yeah you would keep the students in so then I have then my other question is is going back to what Cher white said when when kids are bored in class they're going to act out they don't always get 100% And A's and stuff like that sometimes they're just bored and they don't try what other supports are we planning and I understand we've been cutting differentiation Specialists for a while but I mean you're you're going to end up losing students that way too granted a lot of them wouldn't make it into maybe another school like you just said when you did the comparison but we are still going to potentially look to it because even before when we had the issue with kids that weren't necessarily belonging in Sage but were put in there we had parents getting frustrated and moving out to the magnet school in Burnsville before they closed and I remember that whole thing early on in my years here so I'm I'm just being blunt here I mean we're we're always going to have some kids that are gifted so we need to provide supports for them or we just need to tell them this isn't the place to come I mean and I hate to do that and I think it would be the it would be similar to the supports we provide currently for students who do test at that high level and stay at their home buildings I mean it's it's really up to the teacher and the peer coach and the one differentiation specialist to support that teacher in differentiating wait go that's a lot on one differentiation special speaking from personal experience like there isn't any support for that so last year they were able to go over the stage class there's nothing this year for those students um but I I also was wondering the 127,000 what is that cost consist of because those students still have to be taught by teachers somewhere in the district assuming they stay what is that so that is the that is a teaching position that would no longer exist um those students would be again absorbed into their in most cases their resident school or in all cases um their Community neighborhood school and would be part of the um overall raising of the cap um for the discussion cap and the targets so more efficiency I mean ultimately it's a efficiency of their Staffing in third grade so just a a long time ago we used to have something like a seminar where the kids that were accelerating or teacher recommended would go out and do a special class and have um like a science project a seminar discussion something would be more in advanced an advanced book to read things like that um did was that wasn't part of sage though I can't remember what it was called no it was synergy synergy that was those were Synergy um Specialists that were um approximate it was more than5 FTE at each of our sites at that time I don't recall these specifics and this was probably 8 to 10 years ago now um when those positions existed um again back to the historical uh context of our ongoing reductions not just in that area but in other areas as well we're we're not replacing Synergy obviously we got rid of synergy and yeah okay well I would just say my son was in Synergy in second grade and first and second grade and it totally did not meet the needs of his learning I mean Sage was a godson for him and it's the only reason he thrived third fourth and fifth and then unfortunately I pulled him out to a charter school because we did not have no continuation at that time into the middle school and so I think we have as a board have to decide are we going to live up to our strategic plan that was again built by our community or are we going to become a dist of teach to the middle yeah that's that's not what our community said so I I I mean it's no different than having a Spanish Immersion program I would ask if there's a way for if everone supports this is there a way for us to just do some cost analysis and getting back some advaned for offerings for these students back into their schools if this is what as an alternative well I think we make other cuts to sorry yeah she she said it correctly right this is just the beginning this is is step one to eliminate third grade sage and then fourth grade and then we're going to eliminate fifth grade so is that correct well that that that would be a a logical thing next step in a multi-year or or it so so let me just weigh in a little bit on some some pieces here because this so we know the reality that we just spoke of um we're not generating enough um at our normal cut score so to speak um so we've had to just enroll and that cut score continues to go down so the the Integrity of the program has shifted okay um and so we need to be okay with that and call it for what it is because it's not Sage um of how we envision Sage to be um based upon uh allowing it to open up for um different levels that historically have never been part of that progr program so um and dror Johnson to your point I think that's a good thing too and but I think we need to be real with ourselves then then what is this um secondly a couple of you had mentioned uh the structural challenge of the one um differentiation specialist to come in and then provide that support and coordinate you know unique lessons and it's just getting to the essence of the Crux of our issue you know we don't have resources to to do what we would love to continue to do um the these were the messages on the levy Trail you know um we we get it we understand where we're at right now from a financial standpoint something's going to give and if it's not this that might be the case we're going to pull from somewhere that's going to that's going to pinch it's going to hurt I don't know if our Community understood like they they want all of this all all of these experiences and these experiences come with a cost and I don't know if that's totally understood um because to say I want the moon but I'm not willing to pay for that that's the challenge that's that's before us are there ways to always find efficiencies and things of that nature there there are I I don't disagree with that but I I I I hope you all can understand the structural challenge in just that sheer position that a couple of you mentioned like you didn't say this but I I heard the unspoken question how would she be able to do all that it's a fair question I don't know how she does that I don't know how our p12 content specialist does what she does and we expect that these great things will come of this when you get one for 9,000 students it's like a setup so when when we talk about where we you know we say okay take it away don't don't impact the kids well let's cut differentiation specialist now look what it has brought us to this day when we did that because we kept it away from the kids for years and it we've got this cumulative effect folks where there's only so much we can keep keep away from the kids before everything is being impacted and so I appreciate this discussion that we're leaning into and I and I'd love to push are offering us to consider that will kind of take back and and review and I also understand the politic I'm just going to put that on the table GI it or not there's there's a selling factor for having this type of program that's an attracting it's it's marketing 101 so that's a draw okay and and it's meeting needs too but somebody who might be new is looking and oh you've got that program well that District doesn't have the program so I'm going to go here there's a politic on that one that politic comes with the cost of of an FTE so so if we do this which is if that if this is the will of the board um we're we're going to have to find $30,000 somewhere and I think that's get there because I think this is you're one of the cuts too so yes and I understand this folks this is just one we have more to go through I hear you and so yeah more years to go through no I mean more in the slce show because I think I mean myself as a board director I think we're challenged to optimize resources you brought these ideas to the table as a board director I have some other ideas I'd like to present so if we can get through this um got you got you that's fair so I would only if we're ready to move on I'd like maybe high level if this is the direction the boor end up going and year two and three um I'm not super crazy about it but I'd have to be made comfortable that you have some kind of a plan in place I don't want to get hooked on sa the we have individual kids with individual needs what are we going to do with them if we don't have this and I don't understand we could do the I I'd like a you know relatively well thought out plan what are you going to do kid to kid um just so we know that they're not just being lost in the weed because we don't have this program anym I don't want to be married to this cuz it a understand because there's kids who are not enrolled in this age right now our our teachers are meeting unique needs in our classrooms you know it's becoming increasingly challenging to do that um based upon the variation of needs and and things of that nature but our teachers are committed to differentiate um that's good teaching so you know specifically at a very targeted high level that's that's something that we'd have to explore what if anything could be replicated at that outside of what we currently are doing you know with that niche of high high level Le to to Le's point we we have a plan in place that our goal doesn't if it's not Sav it's got to be something is my point so I just want want that to get lost there could be a partnership with another school district or something like that too I don't know I mean but I agree with um with director white but I do think that we've like you said we the Integrity of the program as well as as we experienced that the whole board voted for the elimination of the advanced math because of that same reason um you know we we need to figure that out that's not something that's going to happen here tonight we'll go through the last two yep chunks and then open it up for some thoughts for using CL what is the 9k iPad what exactly are I'm going to have Mr M come forward please four directors my name is Marcus Malo I'm the director of Technology the question was what is the K1 reduction the 9,000 reduction what is that for exactly yeah all the prices you see there are reflected off of u a savings tied to the management software that we use for these products so the $99,000 would be a reduction um for a mobile device management solution which is jam and then in regards to the desktops uh that's based off about 800 desktops and that's a reduction in our MDR which is our man detection and response program which is gr strike F in complete so the savings you see there are based off of the reduction of management software removing any iPads I'm sorry we're not removing any iPads no we would be removing those devices would there be any savings in the lease payment because we just paid last year we paid a lot of money for lease payments for iPads so these devices have been paid so the the iPads at K1 are fifth and sixth gen iPads they're 7 years old and the desktop computers so we own them out we do own them out right but I assume you have something in budget for this year to buy more to replace as you no what the think he says it trickles down so the new ones go to the high school right but and then and then as they go off lease they trickle down to the um younger so those are we're not paying for the devices we're paying for the software on them correct and we wouldn't maintain the devices right we just wouldn't keep them correct that's been the tradition for a while now especially since we got rid of the Drome books and wasn't there something in the if the levy doesn't pass I mean maybe it just production technology but I thought at some point we talked about K through five iPads but maybe I'm completely wrong I don't remember um well we started with km1 because because of the age of the the devices and the utilization at at those grade levels um grades two um uh they have fast Bridge testing that they do on the devices um three four and five uh is MCAS as well and um going back to the failed Tech Levy we've removed all of our wired Labs at the at the at the elementaries so uh in years before we had a one toone solution uh during testing season the kids would come down to Media Center labs and do the testing on the wired Labs those are now been removed oh okay and the Chromebook carts when away after the tech Levy fail as yeah and then um there's other programmatic stuff in the in the in the like with the coding stuff that goes on that goes in there and there's a couple of other uh programs not just the fast Bridge that's part of the curriculum so to make a change there too ccul very clear other questions so if we increased the reduction in iPads by a couple grade levels and up would the savings be the same with each grade levels and I us I'm not saying that we should do I'm just saying yeah you you would see an increased savings based off of the number of devices so p1's n Grand so would 2 three be another n Grand would be more potentially depending on the numbers at those gr levels yeah I think there's other software though that they get that would be probably an incremental increase is that correct Marcus could you there's a there's more software that's used for grades three four and five I believe so there based on the curriculum yes corre and would how many I mean most schools are really pushing access to understanding stem and and doing that grades K through five now with that my concern overall would be the tra Dess of our district in that area because of the you know that's not a it's they're going the opposite direction yeah I feel like that's part of our K1 Focus um I think our usage is significantly less at the K1 level right um so we part of why this is on the on the docket feel like are some curricular work um is not reliant on the technology just I was at a national Schoolboard conference in Orlando last week and talking to other board directors from California they're actually walking away getting away from the um the um technology because they they know that handwriting in when when kids are writing things they they me they yeah they remember it better so there's somewhat of a push you know there's you're seeing it kind of go both ways I would say so I'm on the national stem advisory Council for the United States and it's actually going the opposite direction to get kids more um into the critical thinking doing more science projects and coding coding is huge starting in third grade they don't do that course here though I think as a parent I would love to see them go away completely and I heard that from our I would much rather get rid of iPads and devices than teachers people want to know how to handw write like they want their kids to know how to write that's that's the disconnect so so is there anything else revolving around this particular box other questions I'd like to know about the impact I don't need to know all the details but I know that the staff desktop computers and the lack of tools to some of our staff uh could cause additional work hours or inconveniences that could take away from their time from students and that does concern me but I don't know how old those desktops are 8 to 9 years old okay so they're okay so they're just a backup for what we currently give them well the the good question um the desktop computers are tied to all the classroom AV Equipment currently which is also ping projection of casil smart for ETC you you mentioned I think maybe during our our uh intro brief that um some of the teachers prefer the desktop over the laptop because it does connect right to it and then it's all aging but you but you have to replace the laptops more right versus the desktops more sure could you explain maybe the the the cost benefit of maybe keeping desktops versus just getting rid of and then saying hey we're just going to put a desktop in every room and you don't get to take a computer home I I know nobody wants to do that but thank you for the question we we've had those conversations at senior leaders and with other groups as well um laptops no not to throw a curveball but our laptops are this is year six for our laptops so we have definitely Asian equipment out there um the desktops are more convenient in the fact that they are connected hardwired connected to the equipment in the classrooms um the issue is with the age and the upkeep of those devices um walk into a classroom and you know you have to start your lesson in 5 minutes and you didn't turn your desktop on 15 minutes before class started it's still going to be booting up um so in regards to laptops is because of the the feature set and the functionality is that they're more portable right they can be more prone to breakage um we are seeing uh that our batteries are starting to go on our laptop so that is a common fix break fix that we um deal but the laptops because of their form function allow that teaching that you know um whether you're in your resident classroom whether you're in another another space I mean the technology travels with you so it allows you to have that freedom of working anytime anywhere those there's pros and cons to both um now that our teachers have had laptops for the past six years I think it would be a really hard sale to say we're getting rid of those and just going to a desktop because of the functionality and the freedom that these devices provide um costs have come down in Hardware seems like Hardware comes down and software goes up um you know we we I have pricing for replacements for these laptops and I have a low mid and High um and they are comparable to what you can get a really decent desktop for so the cost have shifted there a little bit too we have been uh fortunate that Apple has provided us the last couple leases um with 0% financing and then with a $1 buyout option at the end of that lease so that we pay that that $1 per device and we own the device but getting that 0% financing has been big um you asked about leases coming off and um we do have a lease coming off um made a two-year we had a two-year lease for uh, 1400 iPads we're in year two that lease which we made that payment so next fiscal year we'll be exercising that $1 py out option okay so yeah you're welcome and there's another lease we have one more after that and it's for uh we would be sorry eyes are tired I'm getting old um we next year will'll be in year four that lease we're currently in year three of that fouryear lease thank you you're welcome thank did I answer your question sir you did thank you appreciate it well chair wait we have got one last box yep I just going to move to it um are reductions I mentioned earlier um that we' be uh speaking to this comp adjustment uh we would be reducing our Pure coach uh Team by two and uh this is to align our revenues where we currently with our lease uh or with our qm Levy uh we are overspending in our qm budget so this would align that and uh Dela uh changing in our uh PD and support structures at our sites because all of our Q comp uh peer coaches are assigned two sites and we would have to uh lessen the number of observations that they'd be able to give and support they'd be able to give teaching staff just in aside the governor's budget proposal is eliminating cucon 2027 um go much further but it is on that that would have a significant impact to our professional development and support and coaching for our teachers but if that in fact goes through obviously that would be on the docket for reduction next year and the rest of these are mellan so we've got through our health provider a fit committee um kind of incentive um that we we can eliminate the calendar adjustments that we've made um with two fewer student contact days you'll see they qu you know that's what that's what's driving the the last portion of that of those line it and then um we have uh the pool uh at Twin Oaks that um to maintain it is going to cost significant to bring it up to code so to speak speak so taking that offline um we could save 75,000 and then we have the admin assistant ruction so we're looking at reducing three positions for the administra of assistance um and um concert with some of the other program changes so a reduction um in the mencap administrative assistant Lake line administrative assistant and then one administrative assistant at the high school um and those that reconfiguration um will equate to about $163,000 in savings um from from that restructuring um and then looking at some meeting with the they continuing our conversations with our Task Force and meeting with them specifically to also talk about some potential optimizing resources within um the administrative assistance um that would be a cost neutral thing it wouldn't be a savings at this time but there might be additional changes in that group that we'll bring forward to the board after we have a chance to okay I got a quick question let me just let me just interject quick it's 10:30 and I don't want our brains to melt and I also don't want to cut off discussion but I want us to be very sensitive as we wrap up here because I want to have the time to have the administration say what do you need from us so we can move forward knowing that we have a bottom month is before we had to make the call so um the pool what can you I didn't see the pool at least on the long-term maintenance can you just tell us yeah I'll have uh director Powers talk a little bit about some of the pending repairs yeah mhm um so the the direct savings that we're looking at here um the utility bills um the chemicals for the pool that doesn't include any reduction in the maintenance costs for that that's just those two lineups but if we're looking at um other costs um savings is the wrong word avoidance well it's the ltfm fund so the money I don't spend at Twin o on the pool I can allocate to other projects um in all honesty our ltfm fund is low I have right now about $30 million worth of projects and I in the 10 years I'm going to have $15 million worth of money um so it's about half of what I need just to cover um the already identified problems or maintenance issues so being able to shift that money from the t o pool would allow us to do something else um that either wouldn't get done or would get done in 11 or 12 or 13 years okay what's going to happen what would you do to the Bol just fill it in no actually that would be a a not good scenario okay um there's a additional cost to do anything along those lines so to to decommission the wol I mean if if we decided we're just going to close it um there's some equipment that I could take and relocate over to Hidden Oaks which would save us um additional ltfn funds um the filter system it's going to be $135,000 to replace um there are other types of costs like that that I could transfer over to hios um so closing down the pool would be um identifying those types of things emptying the water and leaving it um we would not be doing any type of a conversion to convert that space um I couldn't just fill it in I would have to remove the entire infrastructure I can't abandon or bury um piping or any drains or anything along those lines so one of the topics that had come up to okay we could reuse this space and convert it to something else well I could but it would cost us $500,000 to a million dollar in addition to whatever other types of things I might need to do to that space um right now I there are still things that we could do with that pool that wouldn't entail just eliminating it I can't talk about those things because we haven't gone farther than that we're exploring some options for alternative usage or and management of the pool and so as we work through some of that we're going we'll come back to the board um for an update um but at this time you know for us we would take that offline um for this immediate cost savings and have time to then think about what does that long-term alternative usage look like some of the concerns that I I want to make sure all of you are aware of um if this pool is closed and I relocate some equipment that's going to add to the cost to bring it back up to being usable above and beyond just the moving the equipment um because to restart this pool I'm going to have to go through every joint every connection of pipe I mean the the thankful thing is at Twin Oaks we have a tunnel system that's underneath the pool so I can go through all those little pieces I can go through the pumps I can go through the heater systems all of those things will have to be refurbished before we can start the pool back up again so it's not a shortterm thing to close a pool um is it the best situation for us it's going to give us some direct savings and there's a lot of other things that we can spend that money on now would that effectively close that section of the building cuz then you be creating a fall Hazard and all kinds of things like that yes and no um if we could use um we could use the pool as a storage area for some of our community ed programs um right now we've got a tremendous amount of programs um both the cheer um gymnastics we don't have enough storage space for all of their equipment and they would love to take over some of that just as a storage in order to make it safe um the thing I would probably need to do would be to install some type of a temporary railing system um to make sure that people couldn't fall into an empty pool um we would look at limiting access though so this would all be under supervision would I absolutely need to do that no but as a safety item I could um I have a question during the levy conversation um one of the if the levy passes we would fix the lower entrance of the um high school if we were to do this would you be able to shift the dollars to I don't know depends on what you're talking about for the lower entry if we're talking a secure entry secure entry has to be done with capital okay that's nothing we could no it's not an LTM fundable type program okay all right thank you now legislatively advocating for expanded usage of ltfm and I mean that's it's part of the conversation you know so and then I'm sorry just quickly the the two of optimizing resources just to explain those quickly again they're not cost savings to us but the recommendation um currently we have a EAP program through fair viiew that we're recommending to eliminate um and utilize our EAP offering with our vendor for life and LTD it is not as robust and doesn't provide as many resources um but it it could still get us an EAP need with eliminating the cost that we spend it's just about $144,000 on the fa Bap to cover the vector software costs um that was previously free to us but now we've been informed by them that they're going to now start charging us again around the 14,000 for that first year um so we're recommending U eliminating our partnership with Fairview EAP to smooth those funds to cover vector vector does uh tracking for all of our mandated training with our staff so it helps us ensure we have compliance around um mandated mandated trainings um and then the other one for consideration for the board currently right now we have shared uh building substitutes at our elementary um we have our the vast majority of our subs are provided by teachers on call but we do have um Daily building Subs that we employ ourselves um that is it's a very cost neutral now that especially now the teachers on call has raised their administrative rates on us um and it could give us a a one body in those schools to meet all of our increased um needs in those areas especially with ESS and P Family Medical coming down the the line so um just for consideration um to change it in soad that instead of sharing where they have we have that inconsistency in our system to change it so they each have one Daily building sub which would be about the same cost um as our teachers on call Subs are is that similar to like what Eden prair or another thing does where they actually hire shap you said yes in the back of you so yeah so that's they they've made the decision in some cases to get rid of the teachers on call to keep no this is not recommending getting teachers on call not at all um there is a significant difference between having uh us staff one versus US Staffing all substitutes and getting rid of the administration that teachers on call does there's a lot of efficiencies with going with teachers on call they they're the ones that are hiring recruiting and liable for workers comp um fringe benefits ESS all those things I wasn't suggesting getting rid of them I just moving slowly towards getting more of the consistent and our own control over our our recommendation is one per building for elementary because we also have to takeing consideration that would be expanding our current currently right now we're around 1100 employees with about 200 casual um that would be expanding our casual by at least 500 to 600 um that would be a significant strain that would again would take resources away from optimizing recruiting Because then we're going to lose teachers on call Subs that serve in multiple districts um they they reduces their access to benefits so we might lose substitutes in that so um again this is just a recommendation for one per building it's not a recommendation to to do any more than that okay there also oper uh provides opportunity for those buildings should they have a longer term leave to utilize that built relationship ship with those students um to put the Daily building sub in a medium-term and long-term sub position um versus uh the The Continuous recruiting that goes on we'll still probably need that depending on the number of leaves per building but it gives us one more resource when looking at leaves okay um so what does Administration need from us tonight we want us to continue to discuss among each other continue to ask your questions what how do you want us to proceed I I think for for us you know I've taken some notes of some pressure points um throughout the conversation that you know will reconsider as you know reconvene as a team to review um I think a couple of you had mentioned some other thoughts or ideas I think that would be the best for us right now that we can begin to cost out certain things that a couple of you have uh kind of alluded to so if we could maybe close with that and that way we can come back um and maybe we have a mid update at the business meeting and then another you know kind of directional meeting at the last study session so just we're clear the study session in February you'll need c we we need that clear Direction by then because it's we're already going to be two weeks probably Beyond where we would ideally like to be okay first so there's a couple things that you have yeah I do have that so I mean just looking at this at a higher level and and in areas and I fully appr appreciate this is very difficult and sympathize we're we're dealing with people's jobs and understand that um you know experience with organizational planning and gone through many Cuts in my work life and it's it's not easy so I understand that but um you know I I guess the areas where I feel like could do a little more research is um first and foremost I think that we should um you know do some sort of organizational planning and um rationalization um that's typically the first step that you would take in organizational planning and just looking at your org and understanding you know the guidelines of how that sits so you know any director must have you know six to eight managing uh managers reporting to them um rationalizing you know how many employees um constitutes and AD assistant or things like that um so setting all those guidelines um you know I think we need to look at the ratio of administration and S student support staff lumping them together with you know versus direct teachers um you know just looking at last year's financial report I think that ratio was you know every four or five teachers there's one admin or Court staff um person so any cuts that we make um you should consider that Rao and make equally as many cuts um on the administration Administration side and support staff um I also think that um in June 2023 I think I sent this Dr Thomas I you know we actually made new Investments despite declining enrollment there was I think 10 and a half FTE um from that meeting and it included two middle school counselors two and a half beans one school psychologist four cultur on assistant director and differentiation specialist so have those positions been re-reviewed and you know we made additional headcount choices with despite declining enrollment I think we need to revisit some of those areas um other areas like we talked about Transportation I really would love to see some sort of capacity and average ride time I think Transportation seems to be an area where we're getting a lot of extra costs so understanding that is there anything we can do there to you know just increase the number of students on a bus you know if they have to ride the bus five minutes longer fine if we can keep a program instead um and then the last area is definitely um any additional reductions we could get in um removing k35 iPads and you know my stance is we should be removing any sort of software and application programs and um iPads before teachers um I don't know if we can do you know shared cart for testing at the higher grades as needed um or get a little creative there and and getting them off the screens um you know and I I think we need to align better to our strategic plan I do not support some of these programs that we're cutting first as first options they should be very last appreciate your uh perspectives here and some of the other things for us to take a look at review and cost out director yeah I would just ch in that um you know I've learned a little bit about I'm not a budget expert but um I do agree with um director Mason's approach um I I think when I listen to other districts and what they're doing um their Administration is bringing like a one two scenario like this is case b this is case a this is case b and um well I think you guys did do do a great job of um optimizing resources here I almost think this is a this and scenario and when I say that um one thing that I've learned is about child based budgeting and um I can share more information with you but it's basically taking a look at each classroom what does it cost to staff a classroom with a teacher and the resources resources that are needed to support that teacher and then you go into the Paras staff and then you build up your pyramid all the way to you get to the top and the top is Administration and student support service so it's very similar to what director Mason is saying is that we really should not be cutting anything on the bottom of that pyramid and what we really need to look at doing and I know I've been my message has not changed from the last probably three or four board meetings but I really believe that we're heavy in administration and support staff and when you look at the growth that we've seen over the past 10 years um our enrollment is declining and so I would like to see a scenario of you know Finding $2 million in just admin and support staff and then you know what does that look like as a scenario is what I would like to see and I know I I understand like I've been through job cuts a million times it's not easy but really committing to our Comm to our strategic plan and how do we go back and maybe maybe that is we make these Cuts but we're going to add in Synergy programs we're going to add in advanced math programs I mean we just I feel like this is a time where we we need to sort of right ship the district to align with our strategic plan um so does that clear I got you Capt okay all right that's all we for tonight talk to each other and ask questions as needed and in our one-on ones Absol and or you know with with me and our team too I think that's going to be an important piece to you know as you're processing through this um you we're we're available so okay there's something else I think we are okay thank you