Updates on the Fight for Quality Public Education in Brevard County, FL
5:00 (upbeat music)
5:12 - Good morning, the June 16th work session is now in order.
5:15 Paul, roll call, please.
5:16 - Mr. Susan.
5:17 - Here.
5:18 - Ms. Wright.
5:19 - Here.
5:20 - Mr. Trent.
5:21 - Here.
5:21 - Ms. Campbell.
5:22 - Here.
5:23 - Mr. Thomas.
5:24 - Here.
5:25 - Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.
5:29 - I pledge allegiance to the flag
5:31 of the United States of America,
5:33 and to the republic for which it stands,
5:35 one nation under God, indivisible,
5:38 with liberty and justice for all.
5:42 - Dr. Riddendall, can you speak to the board
5:44 about the items on the agenda for today?
5:49 - Thank you, Mr. Chair.
5:50 On today’s agenda, we have the first public hearing
5:53 for some proposed policy revisions,
5:55 and then a series of presentations.
5:57 First presentation will be on our update,
6:00 our student achievement at PM3, really good news to share.
6:04 Then we’ll have a presentation
6:05 on some proposed policy revisions
6:06 to the procurement and contracting policy,
6:10 and then some updates about our strategic plan
6:14 with facilities, strategic plan update
6:16 with financial services, and then a financial update
6:19 for fiscal year 26 and 27.
6:22 - First on our agenda, we have the first public hearing
6:25 on policy revisions.
6:26 We will, in accordance with Florida law, accept speakers,
6:28 board policy review, and rule development
6:30 on the following policies.
6:32 Policy 5610, is there anyone present
6:34 who wishes to address these items?
6:37 Is there anyone present who wishes to address these items?
6:41 Okay, policy 5771, is there anyone present
6:44 who wishes to address these items?
6:46 Is there anyone present who wishes to address these items?
6:50 Policy 7540.02, is there anyone present
6:53 who wishes to address these items?
6:56 Is there anyone present who wishes to address these items?
6:59 Policy 7540.03, is there anyone present
7:02 who wishes to address these items?
7:05 Anyone present who wishes to address these items?
7:07 Paul, it looks like you might get out of this.
7:10 Policy 7540.04, anyone present
7:13 who wishes to address these items?
7:15 Anyone present who wishes to address these items?
7:18 All right, you’re good, Paul.
7:19 Thank you, sir.
7:21 Our first presentation will be by Ms. Tara Harris,
7:24 Assistant Superintendent in Intergalactic Curriculum
7:27 and Instruction.
7:28 Intergalactic? (all laughing)
7:31 Thought I’d have a little fun, Ms. Harris.
7:33 It’s one of those mornings.
7:35 I’ve been called a lot of things, yes.
7:38 Good morning, Ms. Dampier and I are here today
7:41 to discuss our PM3 data, and while we did
7:45 a high-level overview last week at Ascend
7:47 with our school leadership teams, we are super excited
7:50 ‘cause we’re gonna go into a deeper dive today
7:53 to see a lot of the hard work that the school-based teams
7:57 and district-level teams have done,
7:59 and I think we are very proud of our students
8:01 and success that they’ve had.
8:03 So we’re gonna dive right in.
8:05 We wanna connect this with our strategic plan,
8:07 so we talk a lot about being intentional
8:09 around school improvement and changing student outcomes,
8:13 knowing that one of our objectives
8:15 is all schools an A or a B, and I just cannot wait
8:19 for the state to release our school grades
8:21 because I think we’re gonna be very proud
8:23 to see some increase in percentage of schools.
8:27 What I will tell you is that’s typically around
8:29 the second or third week of July,
8:31 but as soon as we have that information,
8:34 we will be sure that you have it as well.
8:36 Another one of our metrics that we measure
8:39 is looking for an annual increase for ELA
8:42 with 3% annually, and in math, 4%.
8:47 I think it’s very important to say
8:48 that we have challenged our school teams,
8:51 but also our district teams to make bold moves.
8:54 So I know you know that we had partnership
8:57 with school leadership of an intentional
9:00 instructional walk system where we walked hundreds,
9:04 had hundreds of school walks.
9:06 This was not always loved by many,
9:09 but I think that success breeds success,
9:12 and we were very intentional with how we utilized
9:15 our positions, both at the district level
9:17 and the school level, and I see that now,
9:20 I think you will see that we have data showing
9:23 that was the right work and really leveling up
9:26 and raising the bar and expectations for our schools.
9:30 So we’re gonna start right out with K-2 early literacy.
9:34 We’ve talked a lot about Mighty Moves over the year,
9:37 and I think these next two slides,
9:38 you’re going to see the impact of that.
9:41 Typically, this is where I do the messaging
9:44 around ELA assessments for K-2.
9:47 We’re not all students take the same assessments.
9:51 For a quick review, I also have it on the slide
9:53 to help with this.
9:54 So for on grade level students in kindergarten,
9:57 they are taking that early literacy assessment.
10:00 So you will see increases there.
10:03 When we look at that early literacy for first grade
10:06 and second grade, those are students
10:08 with substantial deficiencies, and so they start
10:12 with the on grade level assessment and it bumps them back.
10:15 So you will see district-wide, less than 170 first graders
10:19 took that early literacy, and less than 45.
10:22 When we’re talking about district-wide,
10:24 with approximately 5,000 students per grade level,
10:27 very few students in first and second
10:30 are taking this early literacy assessment.
10:32 - So to clarify for those who don’t understand,
10:34 you want as many students in the far left bar as possible
10:38 and fewer students in the middle and the right.
10:41 So moving in the right direction.
10:45 - So now where we see, this is where the majority
10:48 of our first and second grade students,
10:50 this is their on grade level assessment.
10:53 We have kindergarten on here because you see,
10:55 we do have kindergarten students that are working well
10:58 above grade level.
10:59 And so this is something we wanna celebrate.
11:02 So we showed this on here, but that is not where
11:04 the majority of our kindergarten students,
11:06 that would not be their typical assessment.
11:09 So you see, again, increases across the board.
11:12 And again, I go back to, you know, we have talked a lot
11:16 about those Mighty Moves being foundational literacy skills.
11:20 This year through grant funding, we were able to train
11:22 all of our K-2 teachers in UFly, which is a system,
11:26 an instructional system, to support the Mighty Moves.
11:30 So this number, these percentages of proficiency
11:33 will only increase.
11:35 And the ultimate measure of that K-2 ELA program
11:39 is your third grade student achievement.
11:42 And so we’re now going to move on.
11:46 And if you will see, I don’t know if you remember,
11:48 but last year, we were down 1% in third grade.
11:53 And I just wanna recognize the elementary team back here
11:56 because our students and teachers actually get it
12:00 off the ground, right?
12:01 They implement.
12:02 But when we talk about having a district-wide plan
12:05 in response to that, especially when the numbers
12:08 are not as expected, I think we’re now seeing
12:11 the results of that, and I just wanna acknowledge
12:13 the hard work that went into we need to do
12:15 something different to provide our students
12:18 with different experiences in third grade.
12:22 Something I also wanna highlight is millage funds
12:25 were used for any school that’s not a school grade of A.
12:29 They receive a third grade reading interventionist,
12:33 and then our schools with underperforming subgroups
12:36 funded by millage receive second grade interventionists.
12:39 So those positions were integral.
12:42 I also will highlight here, again, I’m gonna,
12:46 sometimes they’re unpopular decisions.
12:49 But in January, we moved our literacy coaches
12:52 into interventionists.
12:54 And because at the mid-year at PM2,
12:58 our trajectory of data was not where we wanted it to be.
13:00 And so I think you see a big jump in third grade this year,
13:04 which we are super excited about.
13:06 That is its own cell when we talk about school grade
13:09 and district grade.
13:11 So to see that improvement, we have a lot of
13:13 different efforts, but we need to thank the people
13:15 in the schools because they had to make some moves
13:18 that we were moving their area of comfort,
13:22 but it changed outcomes for students.
13:25 - That’s awesome.
13:26 Before you leave that slide, I just wanted,
13:29 because of something that you said about last year’s
13:30 third grade scores going down, when we’re looking
13:34 at all these, I just always keep in mind for me
13:38 that we’re comparing last year’s third graders
13:40 to this year’s third graders.
13:41 But I always like to look and see where they went.
13:43 So if you compared last year’s third graders
13:44 to this year’s fourth graders, same cohort of students,
13:47 amazing progress.
13:48 So that means that this fourth grade teacher set
13:51 was able to pull that class up too.
13:53 So that’s really, really exciting to see as well.
13:56 - And I think to that point, when you look,
13:59 we do apples to oranges when we’re doing last year’s
14:01 third grade to this year’s third.
14:03 But then when you look cohort across the cohorts,
14:06 you’re seeing, we’re sending more students on grade level
14:08 at the start of the next grade level,
14:10 but then the teachers that they have in that grade level
14:13 are continuing that growth.
14:14 So we’re seeing a lot of growth, even apples to apples.
14:18 - Mr. Chair? - Yes, sir.
14:20 - This is awesome.
14:22 Great news.
14:23 I’m just curious, is there, can we get this information
14:25 broken down by our district schools,
14:27 the schools in our district? - Absolutely.
14:28 I will get that to you today.
14:29 - And are we, do we see improvement across the board,
14:32 or are there still some schools that are needing additional?
14:34 - That’s an excellent question to have.
14:37 What we now know is we can pinpoint schools,
14:40 and we’re doing deep dives of what is happening
14:42 on those campuses, ‘cause we now have a recipe for success.
14:46 And so we need to ensure that every student
14:49 has an opportunity to experience that recipe.
14:51 And so to your point, we have schools of concern
14:55 that we are already working with.
14:57 And last week at Ascend, talking about school improvement,
15:01 our team has already worked closely with school leadership
15:05 on what our walkthroughs will be,
15:07 and the frequency will be based on schools,
15:11 their area of need.
15:12 So you will see some schools are areas of concern,
15:17 but overwhelmingly, we’re seeing an uptrend,
15:19 but I’ll send you the report
15:21 that shows where we are concerned.
15:23 - Perfect, thank you.
15:25 Great work.
15:30 Okay, now we’re gonna move to our secondary schools.
15:33 So again, you will see, moving in the correct direction,
15:36 even across cohorts, you will see growth.
15:39 And this is a testament, I believe,
15:42 to just tier one instruction.
15:45 When we strengthen tier one instruction
15:47 through teacher clarity, through coherence,
15:49 through explicit instruction,
15:51 that results in increased outcomes for students.
15:54 And so you will see that in grades three through 10,
15:59 well, K through 10, but we talk about district grade
16:02 and school grade, three through 10,
16:04 but you will see upward trends in all areas of ELA.
16:07 So we’re super excited to celebrate with our students.
16:16 - Sorry, and when we get to this part, talk about reading,
16:20 my heart is always just burdened
16:23 for the way the public sometimes sees this data,
16:25 interprets it, because sometimes we get,
16:28 especially when you look at third grade,
16:29 and so I’m gonna take just very brief two minutes,
16:32 I promise, to address this, ‘cause they’ll look at,
16:34 let’s say, our third grade reading scores and say,
16:36 why are we celebrating?
16:37 Only 63% of our third graders can read,
16:40 and nothing could be further from the truth.
16:42 And I just, as a person, I always wanna add
16:43 this personal element, as a parent of a child
16:46 who struggled to pass the ELA test for years,
16:53 but could read fluently, could read fluently,
16:56 and no one would ever know.
16:58 What this child couldn’t necessarily do was share,
17:01 what is the tone of this poem?
17:03 What was the character’s motivation?
17:04 These tests are difficult, and if the student
17:07 is not passing, one, we are supporting them right and left,
17:10 you guys are supporting them right and left,
17:11 with the interventionists, with the coaches,
17:13 with the teachers, with small groups and all of that,
17:15 it doesn’t mean they can’t read,
17:17 it means they can’t pass the test.
17:19 And we’re gonna do, I mean, I’m glad for this data,
17:21 I celebrate when we have more students pass the test,
17:23 but I wanna make sure the public understands
17:26 we’re not celebrating that only 63%
17:28 of our third graders can read.
17:29 No, many, almost all of them can read
17:32 what we would think of, consider traditionally reading,
17:36 but this ELA test is so much more complicated,
17:38 there’s other layers that some students have disabilities,
17:41 they’re not coming with the background,
17:42 they didn’t get read to as babies, some of ‘em,
17:44 but even the ones who got read to as babies
17:47 still struggle with this test.
17:48 So I just wanted to take the moment to point that out,
17:51 because sometimes the public looks at,
17:52 interprets it differently, and as a parent
17:55 who knows what it actually looks like,
17:58 to finally celebrate the passing of the ELA
18:01 when it mattered for graduation.
18:03 You know, I, this is something that,
18:05 it just frequently gets misinterpreted,
18:07 so just want, thank you for letting me take that minute
18:09 before we get off of ELA.
18:11 - Great point.
18:12 - Ms. Campbell, you can talk all day today
18:13 for all of us.
18:14 - Yes. - Thank you.
18:16 - I think I need something on my–
18:16 - Yes, yeah. (audience laughing)
18:20 - Well, and I think I just, I will add before we move on,
18:23 and this is where our partnership with student services
18:25 and school leadership is so important,
18:27 because I think sometimes when you’re making judgments
18:31 about our traditional schools,
18:33 there is a misconception or forgetting
18:36 that we do serve every child that walks in the doors,
18:39 and so students come with all different skill sets,
18:43 and the school-based teams
18:44 have to wrap those students around,
18:46 and so sometimes it is not until further
18:49 in their educational career that they are meeting
18:51 with what the state considers on grade level or proficient,
18:54 but a lot of services and support have come into that,
18:57 so we definitely celebrate increases.
19:00 You know our goal is all students a learning gain,
19:03 all students proficient, that we will keep working towards,
19:07 but we have much to celebrate.
19:09 Our schools really have bought into the work,
19:12 and we celebrate alongside them.
19:16 So now we move to the area of math,
19:18 and I’ve been sharing with you for a couple years now,
19:22 and sometimes this is the slide that would get me,
19:25 and this is where I’m going to speak
19:27 to very strategic supports.
19:29 At PM2, the elementary CNI team repurposed their staff
19:34 to serve directly in our lowest 10 schools,
19:37 because we knew that we have a lot of growth
19:39 we wanted to make, and the numbers were not where we wanted,
19:43 and so you will see, again, celebratory growth.
19:48 These are not just small shifts.
19:50 We’re super excited to see the results
19:52 of that very intentional work.
19:55 This is not our stop.
19:58 This summer we’ve had teacher teams come in,
20:00 and we’ve already created resources for ELA and math
20:03 to hit the ground running for next year August,
20:06 but every year that we have more students
20:08 working on grade level just builds
20:10 that foundation for that student.
20:15 So again, you will see continued success across the board.
20:20 If you’ve been studying elementary math,
20:22 this has not always been what our data has displayed,
20:26 and so it’s been very intentional supports,
20:29 and again, we’re able to go into those schools
20:32 that need support the most and really help those students.
20:36 - Mr. Chair? - Yes, sir.
20:37 - I’m just curious, is there a reason for the big jump
20:40 for third grade, since it’s so much greater
20:43 than the other grades?
20:44 Is that because these kids are having
20:46 a stronger foundation early on?
20:48 - I think it’s twofold.
20:49 I think there’s stronger foundations.
20:53 Our second grade data looked better last year than it had,
20:56 so I think students are coming with greater skill sets.
20:58 We also did something that was optional,
21:00 but a lot of our schools are participating,
21:03 is actually making slide decks of instructional tools
21:07 for teachers so that teachers can use their planning time
21:11 practicing delivery for students,
21:14 and so I feel like when we’re looking at
21:15 how many teachers are actually using them,
21:18 I think you’ll see third grade.
21:19 They really grasp onto that,
21:21 and a lot of it is because if you’re a third grade teacher,
21:24 that’s a big year.
21:25 That is a heavy lift for our third grade teachers
21:28 because it’s the first year of that statutory language
21:31 around third grade proficiency,
21:33 and so oftentimes, the data doesn’t look like this
21:36 in reading and math for third grade,
21:38 and I think that teachers are grasping onto those resources
21:42 so they can focus with intentionality around that ELA.
21:45 That is, and again, we’re looking at by-school data
21:49 and really talking to teachers about
21:52 what led to this success.
21:53 You heard me at Ascend.
21:55 If you can’t name what worked, you don’t replicate it.
21:58 Like if it’s luck or happenstance,
22:00 that’s not able to be replicated,
22:02 but I think now we have systems in place
22:04 where we’re able to say this worked, this didn’t.
22:08 If you’re not doing this, you need to start doing this.
22:11 Like when something’s working, we need to name it
22:13 and identify it to replicate.
22:18 So now we’re gonna talk about seventh grade,
22:20 and I know you’re familiar with this,
22:22 but I know the public will look at this data,
22:24 so I put it right on the slide.
22:27 We made a very intentional decision.
22:29 So students taking their advanced seventh grade math class,
22:33 because the benchmarks that are assessed
22:36 are both seventh and eighth grade,
22:38 we moved to that eighth grade assessment.
22:40 So we knew we would be making a flip.
22:43 What our goal was is that the percentage we went down,
22:47 that we would go up plus three or plus four
22:50 to make that strategic plan goal,
22:52 but you will see our increase is significantly,
22:56 it’s, we went down 14% and we went up 21%,
23:01 so we exceeded what those outcomes were.
23:04 While we don’t have other districts’ data public yet,
23:08 to see this will align us better to many districts,
23:12 so when we’re looking at ranking, making this flip
23:15 will give us a better idea of where we fall
23:18 in comparison to other districts.
23:21 So super proud of this data, even though the chart is,
23:25 we knew that one year it was just gonna look uneven.
23:29 So now we’re gonna move into our EOCs,
23:31 and so for these students, this is their,
23:34 at the end of the year assessment,
23:36 and so these numbers represent for algebra and geometry,
23:40 but again, you will see increases.
23:45 Moving on to science, again, I’m gonna do a shout out
23:48 to our voters’ assistance with millage,
23:50 because we put in STEM units that heavily support
23:54 our fifth grade science instruction.
23:56 So that was like an extra dose
23:58 of fifth grade science instruction,
23:59 and a hands-on, really exciting way that students enjoyed,
24:03 but you will see, across the board, in fifth, eighth,
24:06 and in biology, increases of 4%.
24:10 So that’s across the board.
24:12 We also, this year, implemented new instructional materials
24:16 in the area of science, so we’re seeing some outcome of that
24:19 as well as adding penda to seventh and eighth grade.
24:23 So we’re very excited to see science improvements
24:26 across the board.
24:27 - Ms. Harris, can you go back to the EOC stuff?
24:29 They’re really exciting stuff
24:30 that people don’t know anything about, really.
24:33 As, again, just like Ms. Campbell had talked about,
24:37 the reading scores at 63%.
24:39 Same thing as a testing coordinator and a math teacher.
24:43 That Algebra I and Geometry, 54%, that’s getting to three.
24:47 You know, there are many A and B students
24:49 that fail to get that three for various reasons, right?
24:53 It’s just, it’s test-taking skills.
24:55 It’s, you know, test anxiety,
24:58 not seeing the question worded exactly the same way,
25:02 not taking it as serious because they think,
25:05 you know, I’m an A/B student.
25:06 That’s a very difficult test.
25:09 I made quite a bit of tutoring money,
25:13 tutoring kids on the EOC because it’s challenging.
25:16 So any increase like that, that’s a big deal.
25:19 So that’s good.
25:20 I know when I’m in the schools,
25:22 the math departments and the testing coordinators,
25:25 everyone takes these tests very serious
25:28 ‘cause they know it’s tough for all the students
25:30 regardless of what your class grade is.
25:32 So I like seeing the increase there.
25:35 - I have a question, too.
25:38 Oops, sorry.
25:39 So these aren’t broken down by grade.
25:42 And in Algebra I, it’s a graduation requirement.
25:44 So does that percentage include students
25:46 who might be ninth, 10th, 11th, even 12th graders
25:48 who are trying one more time to pass it
25:51 and they end up doing a concordant score?
25:53 - So these numbers do.
25:55 This is all raw data.
25:58 What we are awaiting is where we’ll splice it
26:00 because the data we’re celebrating today,
26:03 we know the potential of increase will be there
26:06 when we get our finalized numbers.
26:08 The numbers that we’re seeing today,
26:10 those are students that tested in May on our campuses.
26:14 If they were not in attendance in October and February,
26:18 their scores will be pulled out
26:20 when we talk about school grade.
26:21 But this, so this is all raw data
26:23 to include students that are taking it–
26:25 - Who might have already taken it before.
26:27 So when it comes to school grade,
26:28 it’s only the ones who are taking it the first time.
26:31 So actually these numbers will be significantly higher.
26:34 - Correct. - Okay, awesome.
26:36 - This is our initial getting it to you.
26:39 But we know that when we get that data that’s scrubbed
26:42 that will remove those students
26:44 that maybe were not BPS students or were retakers
26:48 that our numbers should increase.
26:50 - Right, I mean, I love seeing these,
26:51 but I love knowing that it’s gonna be even better.
26:55 - I also mentioned slide decks with some other content areas
26:59 but algebra is also an area.
27:01 So we will have next year in elementary ELA and math,
27:06 we will have some ELA secondary
27:08 and algebra slide decks and biology.
27:11 So what we have found from teachers
27:12 is they’ll be able to customize them however they want,
27:15 but that the heavy lift will be taken care of
27:18 to ensure benchmark aligned instruction
27:21 and then teachers can customize them to meet their needs.
27:25 Those optional resources will be available.
27:30 So we’ll have them also for biology.
27:37 And now we’re going to move
27:38 to our social studies achievement.
27:40 And I will say in our school walks
27:43 that we’re prepping for for next year already,
27:46 this was an area that when we walked campuses
27:49 we really focused on ELA and math.
27:51 And we’ll be adding to ensure science and social studies.
27:56 So we will only get better in year two
27:58 of our district-wide instructional walks,
28:00 but we want to be sure in our secondary sites
28:03 that we’re including coaching and feedback
28:06 through those instructional walks
28:07 and our action planning in this area as well.
28:12 So I’m now going to turn it over to Ms. Dampierre.
28:21 - Good morning. - Good morning.
28:27 - I wanted to share some important information.
28:29 I think I was sharing this information with Dr. Rendell
28:32 and we know this is good preliminary information.
28:35 Our full data sets will come out in July.
28:38 Like Mrs. Harris said, they will take out those students
28:40 who are not here for both FTE periods,
28:42 which would be October and February.
28:45 So this is preliminary data
28:47 that we’re very pleased to share with you.
28:49 And this piece of the pie is looking at the cohort,
28:53 apple to apple, because what we wanted to see is
28:56 are our interventions and our supports and resources
29:00 making a difference in our classrooms?
29:02 Because we put a lot of resources
29:05 and supports in our schools.
29:07 As you can remember and recall that we restructured
29:10 and provided an ESC support specialist for each school.
29:14 And that position was very important
29:16 because we wanted to make sure we focus on
29:18 not just compliance, but also programming.
29:21 And it goes hand in hand.
29:22 So we committed to an ESC support specialist
29:25 that actually spends 50% of their time doing compliance
29:30 and 50% walk in classrooms with the teachers
29:35 as well as the principal
29:36 and as well as our program specialists.
29:38 And that was another important position
29:40 that we actually implemented the first,
29:43 I think it was last year,
29:45 where we put program specialists at the district level
29:47 that really focused on a cycle of support,
29:50 tiering our schools and looking at those schools
29:53 who are not being successful with the federal index
29:56 and saying, where do we put the support that is needed?
30:00 And so our program specialists and our resource specialists,
30:03 they have a set of schools that they visit weekly,
30:07 some weekly, some biweekly and some monthly
30:10 based on the data to provide that cycle of support
30:12 with walking with the ESC support specialists
30:14 as well as with the administrator.
30:16 And that’s very important ‘cause when we were at Datacom,
30:20 we have them say quite a bit of positive things
30:23 about the support that they’re getting with our team.
30:26 As well as the professional development
30:28 that we’ve provided over the last couple of years,
30:31 we really are looking at more inclusive settings
30:33 for our students,
30:34 because we know when students are with their like peers,
30:36 they are going to improve tremendously
30:38 and this data will show that.
30:43 The number of students achieving level three
30:46 increased from 24% to 27% in 24 to 25,
30:51 which represents a 3% increase percentage gain.
30:56 We saw a substantial increase to 34% in 25 to 27,
31:01 which is a seven percentage point gain over last year
31:04 and a 10 percentage point increase overall
31:07 compared to the last two years.
31:09 So we’re seeing positive results.
31:11 And I would be remiss if I didn’t recognize
31:15 the support team that I have.
31:17 We have Dr. Fontan and Dr. Baez,
31:19 and we really have worked together to problem solve
31:22 when we see that our schools are struggling
31:24 to provide that support, that cycle of support,
31:27 where the principal and the teacher is a part of that work,
31:30 as well as classroom visits.
31:32 We actually visit schools on a weekly basis
31:35 to make sure that we’re providing that support.
31:40 Yes.
31:41 And again, these results reflect the implementation
31:45 of targeted support, and I said we were very strategic
31:48 about the support, tier one, tier two, tier three.
31:50 We’ve tiered our schools and consistent progress monitoring.
31:53 You see in the pulse, you see that data.
31:56 We’re constantly looking at the data
31:57 as far as student achievement.
31:59 We collaborate with CNI.
32:02 We’ve done some co-professional learning development
32:05 for our teachers to make sure that the general ed setting
32:09 is cohesive with not just our general ed teachers,
32:13 but also with our ESC teachers as well,
32:16 and we provide collaborative teaching,
32:17 and we’ve been monitoring that to make sure
32:19 that our schools are providing that.
32:22 So far, this year, we’ve provided over,
32:27 it’s about 40-something face-to-face
32:31 professional learning opportunities,
32:32 and we really feel like our teachers,
32:35 when they’re working together in the classroom,
32:38 that all of our students would benefit,
32:39 our general ed students as well as our ESC students.
32:42 So overall, we’ve seen a 10% percentage gain.
32:48 For our students with disabilities for math,
32:51 we’ve continued to tread upward.
32:56 The slide represents the number of students
32:57 at level three and above,
32:59 increased from 27 to 32%,
33:03 which is a 5% percentage point gain,
33:07 and we saw a substantial increase to 36% in 2025-26,
33:12 which is a 4% percentage point gain from the previous year,
33:15 and a 9% increase from the last two years.
33:19 And we credit this to really being strategic
33:22 about looking at data, going in the classrooms,
33:26 and working with our school teams,
33:27 and none of this would be possible without the teachers.
33:30 They’re boots on the ground,
33:32 but working collaboratively with those teachers
33:34 to make sure they have the supports in the classroom.
33:36 And like I said, I would be remiss if I didn’t say it,
33:39 also school leadership,
33:40 we’ve been all working collaboratively
33:43 to make sure that all students are excelling.
33:48 This is our ELL students,
33:50 we have about 2,000 students who represent for fast reading.
33:54 This slide shows the number of ELL students
33:57 achieving level three increase from 2% to 5%,
34:00 which is a three percentage gain.
34:03 We saw a substantial increase to 20%,
34:10 which is a 15% point gain over the last year,
34:12 and 18% over the last two years.
34:15 And I credit this really to imagine learning as a resource
34:19 that we really were strategic about,
34:21 making sure that our school teams were trained on it,
34:25 providing that support,
34:26 and then also monitoring that implementation.
34:29 And you guys remember in the Pulse,
34:31 we’ve been actually showing all of that data
34:34 to make sure that where we see pockets
34:37 that still need support,
34:38 that is going to help us with where we need to go
34:40 as far as school visits as a team,
34:42 as well as boots on the ground,
34:43 our staff here at district, they’re at schools.
34:48 We’re all at schools,
34:48 making sure that we’re monitoring instruction
34:51 in the classroom.
34:52 - That’s tremendous.
34:53 - I have a question, I have a question.
34:56 This is fantastic, fantastic.
34:58 And I remember, I don’t remember her name,
35:00 it’s slipping, the teacher that came
35:02 who was our ELL district person.
35:05 I think she–
35:06 - Anne Skinner. - Yes, Anne Skinner,
35:07 come and tell us, yeah, she retired,
35:09 but she came the first and presented this program
35:11 and talked about how important it was.
35:12 And so thank you for, we adopted it,
35:14 but then the implementation is so important.
35:17 But the question is, these students are counted as ELL,
35:21 we track this, right, the state tracks this,
35:23 but this also contributes to our overall increase, right?
35:27 So when these students succeed,
35:28 it helps the whole school, the whole district,
35:32 everything goes up, right?
35:33 - Yes.
35:34 - So what important work?
35:35 And to see 2,000 students, some of whom come in
35:39 with just bare minimum English,
35:42 and to have this kind of success, this is fantastic.
35:46 - And that’s why it’s so important
35:47 that they get immersed in the language,
35:48 so then they can get the skills
35:51 that they need to be successful on grade level work.
35:55 So that was very important.
35:59 - Quick question. - Okay.
36:01 - Are those numbers affected at all, or skewed at all,
36:04 because of having less number of students
36:06 that don’t speak English to start with?
36:08 - No, I think that when we look at the data overall,
36:13 when we were, like Ms. Campbell said,
36:15 we really took an effort to make sure
36:19 that imagined learning was being utilized and tracked.
36:23 We tracked the usage, we actually tracked
36:26 the number of minutes, and we provide support
36:29 if they’re not actually utilizing the resource,
36:31 ‘cause we spent a lot of money on this resource.
36:34 So it’s very few students compared that we’ve lost
36:36 compared to how we’ve improved.
36:41 - Wanted to see that it might be helpful to know,
36:44 like how many students are in that first column,
36:47 how many students were in the second column,
36:48 how many students are in the third column,
36:49 because if it’s pretty consistent,
36:51 that would be able to–
36:53 - And we’ll have that information, like I said,
36:54 the full set come July.
36:56 We’ll have those schools that hopefully
36:58 will get off the federal index list,
37:01 and we’ll have that data for you in July as well.
37:03 - Awesome.
37:06 - Our last slide is really focusing
37:08 on three through eight, fast math,
37:09 ELC, algebra, and geometry.
37:12 This slide shows the number of ELL students
37:14 achieving level three increase from 14% in 2023 to 23%,
37:20 which is a 9% point gain.
37:23 And we saw a substantial increase to 32% in 2025,
37:29 which is a nine percentage point gain over last year,
37:31 an 18 percentage point increase overall
37:34 compared over the last two years.
37:36 So we’re steadily making progress.
37:38 We’re not done yet.
37:41 We really wanna thank our teachers.
37:43 This would not happen if the teachers, like I said,
37:45 their boots on the ground, as well as the administrators,
37:47 and then as well as all of our teams working together
37:52 to make sure it’s not just students with disabilities
37:55 and ELL over here, it’s a concerted effort
37:57 to make sure that what’s happening
38:00 in the general ed setting is what we want
38:03 as far as instructional strategies,
38:05 and we’re working collaboratively together.
38:07 So I really wanted to share this information.
38:10 We do have it by school if you want that data,
38:13 and I can provide that for you as well
38:15 along with Ms. Harris.
38:17 Any questions?
38:19 - Anybody else?
38:21 - Thank you.
38:21 Thank you so much.
38:23 Well, no, I can’t.
38:28 - I just wanna say real quickly to all you guys,
38:31 and it starts with you, Dr. Rendell.
38:33 I mean, if I think you make a mistake,
38:34 I’ll point it out, but this is phenomenal as far as,
38:38 and this starts with you and the team you’ve assembled,
38:40 your cabinet, and then the team you guys have assembled.
38:42 I mean, to make these gains and to see what’s happened
38:45 in two years is pretty phenomenal.
38:46 So just can’t give everybody a big enough shout out.
38:50 And the best thing I think just from being an old coach
38:53 is what I detect just from your comments
38:55 and in conversations with you guys
38:57 is that you’re not resting on your laurels.
38:59 It’s always about evaluating what you’ve already implemented
39:02 and trying to figure out how you can tweak it
39:04 to make it better and then going back at it
39:06 to keep getting better, and that’s why I think
39:08 this is gonna be just the tip of the iceberg.
39:11 So thank you for all your work.
39:13 - Yeah.
39:14 - Dr. Rendell, how many, Dr. Rendell,
39:17 what subject areas did we improve in?
39:21 - All right, so I actually have a whole list of highlights
39:24 that I wanna make sure we cover because of all the data
39:27 that we measure or all the KPIs or all the things
39:30 that we look at, this is the most important.
39:33 This is student achievement.
39:34 It says school on the door.
39:35 This is our job.
39:37 And we’ve only spent about 30 minutes on this,
39:40 and this is the result of hundreds and thousands of hours
39:44 of work by teachers and students.
39:46 And all the things that we have put in place
39:49 over the last several years are showing
39:51 a positive return on investment.
39:54 So the classroom walkthroughs, the data comms
39:57 that seemed like tough work, and for some people,
40:01 a little resistant, has proven to be very beneficial.
40:05 I mean, these are really phenomenal results.
40:08 They’re raw results right now, and when the state matches
40:11 the students from October to February FTE,
40:14 typically, we see an increase, not much,
40:18 but a slight increase.
40:19 So these should get better when the state releases
40:22 the official numbers.
40:24 So last year when I was going out in the community
40:27 and presenting about our school district
40:29 and talking about how great we are and the things
40:32 that we are doing that are great, I was able to say
40:35 in 20 of 21 tested subjects or grades,
40:39 we either maintained or improved last year,
40:42 the previous year, and again, this year, it’s 20 of 21.
40:46 And this year, it’s not 20 of 21 have either maintained
40:48 or improved, 20 of 21 have all improved.
40:52 The only grade level tested that we didn’t improve
40:55 was seventh grade math, and we knew that was gonna go down
40:58 ‘cause we were taking the seventh graders
41:00 who were in MJ Advanced and have them take
41:02 the eighth grade test.
41:04 So we knew we were gonna go down in seventh grade math.
41:06 The increase in eighth grade math was greater
41:09 than the loss in seventh grade math.
41:11 So kudos to all the teachers in seventh and eighth grade
41:14 who worked really hard with those kids,
41:16 but kudos to all the teachers in all grade levels.
41:19 The primary grade K1 and two data is super impressive.
41:24 Lots of big growth there.
41:26 You may remember, it seems like two years ago,
41:28 maybe it was two years ago when we crafted
41:30 this literacy plan, and it started in the early grades,
41:35 and we knew we weren’t gonna see the results
41:36 for a couple of years.
41:38 So hats off to the staff for believing in investing
41:43 in the primary grades because we’re starting to see
41:46 the results of that.
41:47 Third grade increase of 5%, 6% rather, in ELA.
41:51 That’s incredible, and the third grade test
41:53 is very difficult, as Mrs. Campbell mentioned.
41:56 In fact, the ELA assessment in all grade levels
41:58 is very difficult, especially the 10th grade exit exam.
42:02 And again, in 10th grade, we increased,
42:04 and in 10th grade, we increased last year.
42:06 So we’re actually gonna, they don’t know this,
42:09 but we’re gonna go to a three-year look back
42:11 because we had those increases last year
42:14 from three years ago, and I wanna see the trajectory
42:17 over the three-year period.
42:19 But so again, 20 out of 21 tested grades or subjects,
42:23 we improved, and the only one we didn’t is the one we knew
42:27 we were gonna decline in.
42:28 ELA, a third grade increase of 6% is really, really strong.
42:35 That’s great, that’s better than the state improvement.
42:38 It’s, and it’s a result of the literacy plan,
42:41 but also, as Mrs. Harris mentioned,
42:44 we used millage money to hire a third grade interventionist
42:46 for every school that wasn’t a grade,
42:48 every elementary school that wasn’t an A, right?
42:51 And that direct investment paid off, you know?
42:55 So the additional funds being provided by the voters,
42:58 we put to good use, and then took some additional funds
43:01 and helped in one and two for other schools.
43:04 So we’ll see that dividend the following year.
43:08 Every ELA grade improved from between 2% and 6%
43:12 in proficiency, every grade level.
43:14 And then the data that Mrs. Dampierre showed,
43:18 think about the fact that over a three-year period,
43:20 students with disabilities proficiency growth grew by 10%,
43:24 but then ELLs by 18%.
43:27 So good work, lots of good programs being put in ELA.
43:32 And then math, again, all but one grade level increased,
43:35 the one we knew wouldn’t,
43:36 and it all increased from either 1% or 6%.
43:38 There were several grade bands that was 6% increase in math.
43:43 Lots of good work, lots of,
43:44 and then Mr. Trent was right to point out algebra.
43:49 Algebra is a graduation requirement as well,
43:51 6% increase in algebra.
43:53 It’s a very tough exam, and 6% increase is great.
43:57 And then again, Mrs. Dampierre’s data,
44:00 students with disabilities in math
44:02 over a three-year period, a 9% increase,
44:04 but ELLs, our students that are facing a new language,
44:09 a new culture, a new way of doing things,
44:12 again, an 18% increase over three years.
44:14 So in ELA and math, 18%.
44:17 So a lot of targeted resources put in the right place,
44:21 yielding a lot of great results.
44:23 Science increase in all three, fifth grade, eighth grade,
44:27 and biology, a 4% increase in all three.
44:31 The fifth grade probably impacted by the STEM teachers,
44:33 again, paid for by the millage.
44:35 So again, we’re using those resources in a positive way,
44:38 impacting student achievement.
44:40 And then U.S. history and civics up three and 4%.
44:43 So increases in every grade level and every test,
44:47 except seventh grade math
44:49 when we knew we were gonna do that.
44:51 And so I just can’t thank the teachers enough
44:55 for their hard work in the classroom.
44:57 The administrators for following through with the plans,
44:59 the district teams for going out and supporting.
45:02 It was a culture shift, you know, halfway through the year
45:05 when we said the literacy coaches,
45:06 we want you to get in the classroom
45:08 and work with students directly.
45:09 You know, we weren’t where we thought we should be.
45:12 And so that work probably helped us get to where we got.
45:15 So just a tremendous effort by a lot of people.
45:20 And we’ve only taken 45 minutes or so to talk about it.
45:23 And hopefully when the state matches the data
45:26 and everything, the results are this good or better,
45:28 and we can celebrate even more A and B schools.
45:31 So really kudos. - Mr. Chair.
45:33 - Yes, sir.
45:34 - Are you planning on or if you’re not,
45:35 I just hopefully you’ll share this data with the teachers
45:38 so they realize they can see the product of their work and.
45:41 - Yeah, typically we don’t do that.
45:43 It’s every school does it when they come back in August,
45:46 they’ll celebrate, they have a lot to celebrate.
45:48 There’s, you know, and we’ll do a district-wide state
45:52 of the schools and stuff and, you know, but.
45:55 - I know it’s shocking,
45:56 but they probably won’t be watching this.
45:57 - No, I’m probably not watching today.
45:59 In fact, if they are, they need to be doing something else.
46:05 Yeah, they’ve all, yeah,
46:06 they get to see the data right away.
46:08 And so they’ve probably been celebrating.
46:09 A lot of them have been celebrating
46:10 ‘cause it’s good work.
46:12 I mean, they have done a tremendous amount of positive work
46:15 and we should thank them for all these great numbers.
46:18 So really good stuff.
46:20 And, you know, if anything from today,
46:23 this is the presentation to remember.
46:25 This is the most important stuff.
46:27 - Absolutely.
46:28 (audience applauding)
46:34 - Dr. Endell, do you know when the,
46:36 is it the first week or the second week of July?
46:39 - I check it every day just as well.
46:41 - So Mr. Susan’s question was,
46:43 when do we anticipate the grades to be released?
46:45 By statute, they’re supposed to release the grades
46:47 by June 30th.
46:48 They have not met that deadline
46:50 for the last three or four years,
46:51 usually in the first week or second week of July.
46:54 - Maybe we do this year.
46:56 - Yeah. - Thank you.
46:58 Next presentation’s by, presented by Mr. Wilson,
47:00 Chief of Operations and Sean Hines,
47:03 Director of Procurement.
47:18 - And just as a follow up,
47:19 as they’re preparing the slide presentation,
47:21 this presentation is actually a follow up
47:22 to some work we presented earlier,
47:25 some suggested policy revisions in the area of procurement,
47:28 and the Board wasn’t really ready,
47:30 and we hadn’t really briefed you
47:32 on some of those suggested policy revisions.
47:34 So this is something we had on the agenda
47:37 at a previous meeting.
47:38 We pulled it so we could do a presentation
47:40 to talk to you about the rationale
47:42 for some of the recommended changes to these policies.
47:45 So Mr. Wilson, Mr. Hines,
47:47 you’re gonna walk us through that.
47:51 (gavel bangs)
47:53 - All right, good morning.
47:55 - Hello.
47:56 - Board Chair Susan, board members, Dr. Rendell,
47:58 thank you for your time this morning.
48:00 We are here to present the proposed updates
48:04 and revisions to Policy 6330.
48:08 As Dr. Rendell mentioned,
48:10 the last time this policy was brought to your attention,
48:12 there were some concerns,
48:14 and hopefully we can get those concerns cleared up
48:17 during this presentation.
48:19 To guide us through the specifics of the updates,
48:21 I’m joined by Sean Hines,
48:24 the Director of Procurement and Distribution,
48:27 and Sean is here to walk us through the rationale
48:31 behind some of the proposed changes and revisions,
48:35 and most importantly, to answer any questions
48:37 that you may have in regards to Policy 6330.
48:43 So without further ado,
48:44 I’m gonna turn it over to Sean Hines.
48:49 Thank you.
48:54 - Thank you, Mr. Wilson.
48:55 Good morning, board members.
48:58 So the Procurement Policy overview,
49:03 the Procurement Policy provides the framework
49:05 for compliance and accountability of the public funds.
49:09 Procurement is responsible to ensure the compliance
49:12 of the procurement rules
49:14 and protect the integrity of the process.
49:17 We wanna promote ethical standards and transparency
49:20 along the entire process.
49:23 Procurement Policy governs how we purchase
49:26 using public funds,
49:29 but it’s important to note that budget allocation
49:31 is separate authority from procurement authority.
49:36 So just a quick overview of the agenda.
49:39 Just gonna speak about the signature authority
49:41 and quote quotes thresholds,
49:42 clarifications about the changes to the policy,
49:46 agreement review, signature authority,
49:48 and amendments and change orders,
49:50 and then causes for debarment.
49:53 So first up, there will be no changes to the,
49:58 thank you.
50:00 There will be no changes to the signature authority
50:02 or quote thresholds.
50:03 The board approval threshold will remain at $50,000
50:07 and above, and quote thresholds will remain 5,000 and 15,000.
50:16 Thank you.
50:18 So just a few clarifications.
50:21 First one is just to clarify that the FAC
50:25 stands for Florida Administrative Code,
50:27 which clarifying that acronym.
50:29 Our second change is to clarify that we work
50:32 with the entire Office of Legal Services,
50:34 not just the board attorney,
50:35 and that’s just to ensure that the entire legal services
50:41 has the opportunity to speak with vendors
50:42 during that cone of silence when we need them to,
50:45 particularly during a protest period.
50:48 And then the final clarification,
50:51 just to note that directors and principals
50:54 have the authority to approve non-monetary contracts
50:59 when we execute a contract at zero dollar value
51:02 and there’s no cost to the district.
51:09 Yeah.
51:10 - Can you give us an example?
51:12 I know we have some, like with our agreements
51:15 with the cities and stuff,
51:16 but can you give us an example of a non-monetary agreement
51:20 that the principal and director level would be approving?
51:24 - Right, yeah.
51:26 So we have several contracts that we execute
51:28 for volunteer work.
51:30 For example, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts of America.
51:33 We do a lot of free services with software.
51:37 So we’ll execute a data protection agreement,
51:39 but there’s no cost to the district.
51:41 It’s a free service that’s provided to the schools.
51:44 And like you mentioned,
51:45 we also execute free contracts with the city,
51:47 MOUs for services, things like that.
51:51 - Okay, thank you.
51:53 - Can I ask a follow-up?
51:54 Just do the principals have access to a legal opinion
51:59 that any of our staff, the district staff,
52:01 as far as being able to evaluate a contract
52:03 just to make sure, even if it’s non-monetary,
52:05 that it’s not putting them at a disadvantage?
52:09 - The principals don’t have the authority
52:10 to sign the contract until procurement has reviewed.
52:13 And during that procurement review,
52:15 we will engage legal services
52:16 to ensure that it is up to staff.
52:18 - Awesome, thank you.
52:27 - So the changes to this paragraph is just to clarify
52:34 the process of the agreement review.
52:37 It expands the review to include non-monetary agreements
52:42 and those with no district expenditure,
52:44 ensuring consistent oversight
52:46 of all contractual relationships.
52:48 It also clarifies procurement services’ role
52:51 in coordinating review with legal risk management
52:54 and other departments to ensure compliance.
52:57 The goal for this change is to strengthen
52:59 our internal controls.
53:07 - I have a question, I’m trying my best to get it out.
53:14 Will this apply to contracts that were in place
53:17 prior to the policy being revised?
53:18 So like when we have the situation with the logos
53:22 that were being used and things like that,
53:23 do you guys, will you see those contracts now
53:26 and run them through the same process?
53:28 - Yes, they should all be running through the same process,
53:31 any of these contracts that are executed.
53:33 - So what will procurement’s process be
53:35 as far as tracking down contracts
53:37 that are already in existence
53:38 that maybe didn’t go through procurement or legal services
53:42 that were signed prior to the change, you know what I mean?
53:44 - So this change is, it hasn’t changed the approval process.
53:50 The contracts that were signed were,
53:55 I guess I’m not sure.
53:58 - Okay, I mean, maybe from a procurement side,
54:00 it might be wise of us to reach out
54:02 to each one of the school sites
54:03 to make sure that we have a good firm grip
54:05 on the contracts that are already in place
54:06 with that school site that might’ve been signed
54:08 prior to it going through this process.
54:11 I like this process a lot more,
54:12 so I’m very happy with this outcome.
54:14 I just have concerns about things
54:16 that might’ve happened before this was in place.
54:19 If that makes sense.
54:22 - Yeah, the legalities of it,
54:24 if a contract was executed and was a three-year contract,
54:27 then it would still be in effect after the change is in place
54:30 unless we move to terminate or renew and update the contract.
54:34 So if a contract for no money was signed
54:37 by someone at the school
54:39 and they didn’t go through procurement,
54:41 it would still be there.
54:43 - From a district standpoint,
54:44 that might be wise to look at doing that
54:47 just because there is some exposure to liability there.
54:49 If it’s not gone through risk management or legal
54:51 or any of that,
54:52 we could potentially be exposing ourselves to things, though.
54:55 - We run into that all the time
54:56 where somebody signed an agreement
54:58 without going through those other channels
55:01 or the proper channels.
55:02 - Well, that was just my ask to protect the entity.
55:09 Yeah, thank you.
55:16 - So the next change is an adjustment to the signature,
55:21 the physical signature on the contracts.
55:23 This change is to change the physical signature
55:28 from the board chair
55:29 to the director of procurement and distribution services
55:32 once it’s been approved at the official board meeting.
55:35 It maintains full board authority,
55:37 but it removes the administrative execution portion
55:41 of the contract.
55:48 - Yep, all these right here.
55:50 - All those right there. - Yes.
55:52 - Yep.
56:00 - So this change is to the amendments
56:03 and change order section.
56:04 It is a new addition to allow the superintendent
56:07 or designee to authorize the approval
56:10 of the contract amendments or change orders
56:12 which are non-monetary
56:14 or have a cumulative amount of 20% or $50,000,
56:17 whichever is less.
56:20 Procurement would see a significant decrease
56:22 in agenda items that are brought to the board.
56:25 54% of amendments are non-monetary,
56:29 while 22% fall below the proposed threshold.
56:33 Most of our non-monetary amendments
56:35 are usually bid assignments, vendor changes or acquisitions,
56:42 and non-material scope adjustments
56:44 or the addition of required statutory language,
56:47 which have no material effect on the scope of services.
56:51 - So an example would be,
56:52 we’ve had a few of these in the last year,
56:54 the company changes their name
56:55 or they are acquired by another company
56:57 and you have to bring the contract back to us for approval,
57:00 but nothing changed except for the name of the company?
57:03 - Correct, usually the team that works with us
57:06 has not changed, it’s just that name that has changed.
57:09 - So the difference will be,
57:09 rather than going through the board meeting again,
57:11 the superintendent can do that at his level?
57:14 Okay.
57:25 - And finally, this change is to add a new violation
57:32 under the authority to debar and suspend, suspend, sorry.
57:36 Currently there are 12 violations
57:37 listed under causes for debarment.
57:41 There is also a discretionary clause
57:43 allowing debarment when there is credible acts
57:51 that seriously affect a vendor’s ability
57:53 to contract with the school district.
57:55 So this addition adds,
57:57 just to clarify the board’s authority to take action
58:00 when a vendor has verbal or physical abuse
58:05 against district employees under that contract.
58:10 - Can I ask a question about this?
58:12 Just for procedurally understanding how this will work.
58:15 So say that the board becomes aware,
58:18 a member becomes aware of some vendor
58:21 that’s defaming the district and what would
58:23 the process look like?
58:24 Would that board member need to bring this contract
58:26 into question at a board meeting?
58:27 Or would we go directly to procurement
58:29 or the superintendent?
58:30 What would be the proper process for saying,
58:32 “Hey, we have an issue, there’s a vendor
58:34 “that’s doing something it shouldn’t be doing.”
58:37 - So I have to be honest,
58:39 we’ve never had to debar a vendor.
58:42 So that process would, I believe,
58:45 would just start with procurement,
58:46 determine what the issue is, can it be solved?
58:49 Is it a contractual issue or a non-contractual issue
58:53 that is causing effect to the district?
58:56 And then we would review with legal services
58:58 to determine what the outcome would be based on the facts.
59:02 - Okay, thank you.
59:08 - I don’t know if you have anything else.
59:09 I wanted to go back to a previous slide if you’re done.
59:12 - I am done.
59:15 - I appreciate the signature authority,
59:19 which was on the third or fourth slide.
59:22 I appreciate that when this came the first time,
59:23 I know I had a problem with raising the levels
59:26 to as high as they were.
59:27 And after talking to a bunch of my school board buddies
59:29 from around the state, there are several districts
59:31 that have twice as much, they have like 100,000.
59:35 But then I know Dr. Rendell pointed out that Orange,
59:37 which is quite a bit larger than us,
59:38 actually keeps the $50,000 level.
59:40 I’m fine with this, but what I did wanna ask was,
59:45 out of these levels, the superintendent level,
59:48 the cabinet level, or the principal director level,
59:52 where seems to be the biggest holdup?
59:56 Because me personally, and I think I said
59:58 at the previous meeting, I would not,
1:00:01 just me, one board member, would not have a problem
1:00:03 with raising their principal director level
1:00:04 up to 10,000 to kinda catch some of those things
1:00:09 that we mentioned from some of our large schools.
1:00:12 Or if they bring in something for a special event,
1:00:15 it can frequently go over, at a large school especially.
1:00:19 So, but if we’re talking about, that’s just like
1:00:22 less than a dozen contracts a year.
1:00:23 But if there’s one of these that we could bump up
1:00:26 a little bit to speed the process through
1:00:29 without losing what we feel like would be significant
1:00:33 accountability or authority, what would you say
1:00:36 out of those levels?
1:00:37 I mean, is just raising the principal level up,
1:00:39 would that be beneficial to the process?
1:00:44 Or, again, I’ve talked a little bit about this
1:00:47 with Dr. Rendell, but just wondered
1:00:48 what you guys think about small changes like that.
1:00:53 - It would have a small impact on the timeline,
1:00:56 but it wouldn’t have a significant impact.
1:00:58 Although there are contracts that we take
1:01:02 to the cabinet members, generally once a contract
1:01:04 is ready for signature, a cabinet member’s
1:01:06 not delaying on that signature.
1:01:09 So it would be a small impact to the overall
1:01:13 percentage of execution.
1:01:14 - Okay.
1:01:15 - So I appreciate the question because I actually think
1:01:18 it would be good if we could raise
1:01:20 the principal director’s authority higher than 5,000,
1:01:23 but also the quote threshold higher than 5,000.
1:01:27 If we wanna do anything that costs $5,001,
1:01:30 we need several quotes.
1:01:32 And a lot of times there’s only one or two businesses
1:01:35 that do that type of work.
1:01:37 And so we have to search for other businesses
1:01:41 that do that type of work.
1:01:42 It delays the process.
1:01:43 Typically something that’s a school is pursuing
1:01:46 or even the district’s pursuing that’s under $10,000
1:01:49 is something we need done fairly quickly.
1:01:51 And the $5,000 threshold kinda keeps us from moving
1:01:55 fairly quickly on stuff.
1:01:57 And then we have to get procurement involved,
1:02:00 say can you find another vendor that does this type of work?
1:02:02 We need another quote.
1:02:03 Or can you go find a piggyback contract
1:02:07 or something like that?
1:02:08 So I appreciate the question because raising that from,
1:02:12 ‘cause there’s not too much that doesn’t cost
1:02:14 more than $5,000 now.
1:02:15 - Right.
1:02:16 - Like if you were gonna do fireworks at graduation,
1:02:20 I always said to the fireworks people,
1:02:21 you gotta keep it below 5,000 ‘cause I have to go get
1:02:23 all these different quotes if you wanna go above 5,000.
1:02:26 And that’s 6,000 usually for fireworks.
1:02:28 So it’s not a lot of money, but it would free up,
1:02:32 make things happen a lot faster.
1:02:34 - So what I’m hearing you say is that the quote threshold
1:02:37 is a bigger problem than even the approval process.
1:02:41 - I think so, yes.
1:02:42 - That makes sense.
1:02:43 And we’re saying by policy that if it’s five to 15,000,
1:02:50 you have to have at least two.
1:02:52 - Yes. - Right.
1:02:54 I don’t know how the rest of you were to feel,
1:02:56 but we’re at the point now where we can,
1:02:57 they haven’t even brought it to us for the first–
1:02:59 - Correct, it’s just discussion.
1:03:00 - So I am willing to raise this 5,000 to 10,000
1:03:05 for the quote threshold and the principal director,
1:03:08 thank you for sharing that because I know most of the people
1:03:10 who are doing the approvals, like a lot of them
1:03:12 fall under Mr. Raymer for things that schools need to do.
1:03:16 And I’m sure he’s just as quick as he possibly can be.
1:03:19 But this quote threshold, I’m trying to,
1:03:22 I don’t want to loosen the reins too much,
1:03:25 but also I’m trying to appreciate that when you brought
1:03:28 this original to us, you were trying to make the process
1:03:30 more efficient and not put all these roadblocks.
1:03:33 So I don’t know, Board, but I think it would be good
1:03:35 for us to raise this quote threshold up to $10,000.
1:03:38 - So what, like 10 to 25,000 asked for additional quote
1:03:42 and then 25–
1:03:44 - Would you recommend raising the upper level too
1:03:46 or just that bottom level?
1:03:49 - I’m just thinking of like the Kingston.
1:03:50 I’m thinking of the common things that we see
1:03:52 on those reports and it usually has to do
1:03:54 with the field trip or busing and those a lot of times
1:03:57 are 12,000 or they’re like right over that 10.
1:04:00 - Yeah, I think you could go 10 to 20
1:04:01 and then 20 to 50 is three.
1:04:04 - Okay.
1:04:06 - If that makes sense.
1:04:06 - Would that be helpful?
1:04:07 - Yes, it would be helpful.
1:04:08 - Okay.
1:04:09 - I’m in favor of doing that.
1:04:10 That makes sense to me too.
1:04:11 - So 10, what did you–
1:04:12 - 10 to 20.
1:04:16 And we will need to hear it from at least one more person.
1:04:21 - There you go.
1:04:22 10 to 20 and then 20 to 50.
1:04:25 - Yeah.
1:04:26 - And that’s for the quote thresholds.
1:04:28 - Correct.
1:04:29 - What do you want to do for the principal authority?
1:04:31 - I said before, I think that we should give
1:04:32 the principal authority, I feel like that again,
1:04:35 back to field trips and problem venues
1:04:38 and places like that, that increasing that
1:04:40 a little bit would help, I think.
1:04:43 But I don’t know, I’m hearing from you guys
1:04:44 that it’s not like it’s really endering
1:04:47 ‘cause the cabinet and the directors
1:04:48 are signing off on those pretty quickly.
1:04:50 So I don’t know if it’s worth doing that or not.
1:04:53 - Sounds like the quote process is the most complicated.
1:04:55 - Yeah, the quote process sounds like the most–
1:04:56 - The quote is the biggest thing.
1:04:57 - Yeah.
1:04:58 - If we change the cabinet from 10,000,
1:05:01 the wording from cabinet 5,000 to less than 25,000,
1:05:04 would that, and then principal less than 10,000, is that–
1:05:08 - Right, you could change the principal director
1:05:11 to 10 and cabinet starts at 10.
1:05:14 - I would be for that.
1:05:14 - Do I have a problem with that speak now
1:05:16 or Forever Holder, please?
1:05:17 - Yeah.
1:05:18 - Mr. Rainburton, let me hear you.
1:05:20 - They’re meeting with staff right now.
1:05:22 They’re doing work.
1:05:23 - They’re doing work, I know.
1:05:24 - I’m not sure it’s gonna help them all that much,
1:05:26 but I’m not opposed to doing it
1:05:28 ‘cause it seems like a lot of those, like I said,
1:05:29 are running at like 12,000.
1:05:31 - Correct.
1:05:31 - It’s like a weird number.
1:05:33 It’s not an even five or 10.
1:05:35 - So again, for clarity, cabinet 10,000
1:05:38 and less than 25,000.
1:05:41 - Correct.
1:05:41 - Principal director less than 10,000.
1:05:44 - Right.
1:05:45 - Correct.
1:05:46 - Okay, so we’ll make sure we capture that.
1:05:47 - All good?
1:05:50 - Yeah.
1:05:50 - Okay.
1:05:51 - And thank you for bringing this back before us.
1:05:52 I think that the board was taken back by it
1:05:54 and I appreciate everyone’s willingness to work on it.
1:05:56 - Of course.
1:05:57 - Well, that’s the thing, you know,
1:05:58 when we had those other thresholds,
1:05:59 like superintendent threshold and so on, tripled.
1:06:02 - Yeah.
1:06:03 - You know, we were in line with a lot of other districts,
1:06:05 we’re like, oh, that’s what everybody else is doing,
1:06:06 but we hadn’t had this type of discussion
1:06:09 and that’s not fair to the board,
1:06:11 so we should have had this discussion.
1:06:12 - Well, thank you.
1:06:13 - All that was very helpful to explain,
1:06:14 not just for us, but for the public,
1:06:16 what changes we might be making and why.
1:06:20 - All good?
1:06:20 - Yep.
1:06:21 - All right, guys, thank you so much.
1:06:22 Next three presentations will be presented
1:06:23 by Sue Han, deputy superintendent.
1:06:27 - All right, Sue.
1:06:29 - You want to take a few minutes for her to set up and?
1:06:33 - Five minute recess.
1:06:33 - Take a five minute recess, thank you.
1:06:59 (silence)
1:16:22 - Welcome back.
1:16:23 We are now on to Ms. Sue Han’s presentation.
1:16:28 - All right, good morning, everyone.
1:16:29 Thank you.
1:16:30 Really excited to be here today.
1:16:32 The team from Perkins Eastman is back
1:16:34 and just gonna give you a very quick update
1:16:36 of where we are on our process.
1:16:38 And then we’re gonna spend the bulk of our time
1:16:39 this morning demonstrating a really awesome
1:16:42 community engagement tool.
1:16:44 And we will hopefully go live with that later this week,
1:16:46 but just want to give everyone kind of a preview
1:16:48 of the capacity of this tool.
1:16:50 It will allow some really, really significant
1:16:53 and important community engagement
1:16:54 around facilities planning.
1:16:55 So with that, I will turn it over to Mr. Davis.
1:16:58 Mr. Weber Dink and Mr. Perlow.
1:17:00 - Oh, you passed the test.
1:17:03 All right, well, thanks again for having us.
1:17:05 We were here about 10 weeks ago.
1:17:06 It feels like it was two weeks ago,
1:17:07 but we’ve had a really, really great time
1:17:09 getting to know the district a little bit more
1:17:11 over the last 10 weeks.
1:17:13 So we’re gonna break this into two parts
1:17:14 as Ms. Han mentioned.
1:17:15 We’re gonna do a very, very brief sort of just few slides,
1:17:18 sort of recapping some of the conversations we’ve had,
1:17:20 which really ultimately led us to the second part,
1:17:22 which is this interactive tool,
1:17:24 which we’re gonna be launching for the entire public
1:17:27 to dig into.
1:17:30 So just to recap, you know,
1:17:31 I think as we started about 10 weeks ago,
1:17:33 really the charge was to start thinking about the idea
1:17:36 of K through eight schools
1:17:38 and what that might mean for the district
1:17:40 and what that might mean for long-term sustainability
1:17:42 and enrollment, all the different elements
1:17:45 that may come with different grade configurations.
1:17:47 Initially, the focus was on three different schools.
1:17:52 So focusing initially on the feeder patterns
1:17:53 related to Johnson Middle School, McNair, and Stone.
1:17:57 As we go, we’ll start to, you know,
1:17:59 I think we started to unpack a lot of complexity,
1:18:01 a lot of things you all knew,
1:18:02 but as we came into the district,
1:18:03 there’s a lot of unique elements
1:18:05 that make some of these conversations fairly complex,
1:18:08 which really ultimately led us
1:18:10 to the development of that tool.
1:18:12 As an internal resource, initially, I then realized,
1:18:15 hey, it’s actually probably a good public resource.
1:18:16 Very amazing.
1:18:18 So we’re excited, really excited to share that with you,
1:18:20 but also with the broader public.
1:18:22 So I’m gonna turn it down, I’ll walk through
1:18:24 some of the proceedings, thanks.
1:18:25 - Yeah, this is just a quick overview
1:18:27 of really just 10 weeks.
1:18:29 Can’t believe that it was 10 weeks only.
1:18:32 So we’re at the end, as Patrick was mentioning,
1:18:36 we will provide, Devin will do a show and tell of the tool,
1:18:40 but there were also some engagement insights
1:18:42 that we just wanted to go and share with you.
1:18:47 When we were talking,
1:18:48 when we discussed the K-8 opportunities,
1:18:51 there is generally an excitement around it,
1:18:54 and not specifically about the K-8 model,
1:18:57 but some of the goals that it could,
1:18:59 and that’s increased student achievement,
1:19:01 which is happening already, which is great to see,
1:19:05 but even more, student retention,
1:19:07 there are some drop off from elementary school
1:19:09 to middle school.
1:19:10 So could you continue the students,
1:19:13 or have them in the K-8 model?
1:19:17 There’s some operational efficiencies.
1:19:19 If there are more students,
1:19:20 you can provide more staff support around a larger school.
1:19:25 And if there’s a K-8 conversion,
1:19:28 that there is an opportunity
1:19:30 for facility investments as well.
1:19:32 However, there are some sensitivities around it.
1:19:35 One is that if you convert a K-8 school,
1:19:39 there might be a boundary change,
1:19:41 or potentially a facility closure,
1:19:42 which is always a very, very difficult decision to make.
1:19:47 There was some sensitivity around age groups
1:19:50 that if you bring too many students
1:19:51 of too wide of an age group together,
1:19:54 that the younger kids might feel a little bit
1:19:57 uncomfortable being around the older kids.
1:20:02 Retrofitting is expensive, and not always easy.
1:20:06 And then there was a sensitivity around the timing.
1:20:09 Whenever we are doing anything,
1:20:11 it needs to be communicated well.
1:20:12 It needs to be fair, well in advance,
1:20:15 communicated, and very clear about what the intent is.
1:20:20 Generally around the K-8,
1:20:24 the schools would be a little bit bigger
1:20:25 than what they are now,
1:20:26 but it’s about 12 to 1500 students.
1:20:29 And if we think about an elementary school
1:20:32 and a middle school within the K-8 model,
1:20:34 600 students around the middle school students,
1:20:37 and 750 around the elementary schools.
1:20:40 The goal is to increase the utilization,
1:20:43 to bring that up to around 90%.
1:20:46 - Just to sort of elaborate a little bit more on that,
1:20:49 the middle school component was a really big part
1:20:50 of the conversation with internal leadership.
1:20:53 If we get a maximum number of up to 1500 students,
1:20:57 it’s really critical they have a critical mass
1:21:00 of middle school students,
1:21:00 so you can offer that robust programming.
1:21:02 That was a big driver
1:21:03 in some of the conversations we’re having.
1:21:05 So it’s not just that total number,
1:21:06 it’s that you’re able to offer the programs
1:21:08 and the resources, clubs,
1:21:10 all the things you want in a full middle school experience.
1:21:12 So it’s not just hitting that target,
1:21:14 it’s really making sure that the split makes sense
1:21:16 between elementary and middle school.
1:21:18 So that was a big part of the conversation,
1:21:20 really delivering on that high quality
1:21:21 middle school experience in a K-8 environment.
1:21:25 Thanks for that.
1:21:27 - Some additional information
1:21:29 that when we are thinking about,
1:21:31 can we think about different models around schools,
1:21:34 make sure that we think about these following points.
1:21:38 School performance, we want to make sure
1:21:40 that whenever we’re thinking the school
1:21:42 is gonna have to perform better.
1:21:43 So that’s kind of like your baseline.
1:21:44 It’s always comparing to like,
1:21:46 is it going to improve our school performance?
1:21:49 Think about choice schools.
1:21:51 Like is there an opportunity
1:21:54 to provide choice schools within the K-8 model?
1:21:57 And then the third one was home education.
1:22:00 It’s very complex, home education.
1:22:02 There is data, it’s not,
1:22:04 we don’t have a full set of information.
1:22:05 It’s a little difficult to obtain,
1:22:07 but it’s a big chunk of the students within the district.
1:22:10 So think about what the impact would be
1:22:14 when we move forward in any way.
1:22:16 Then IB flows, there are IBs right now in the district,
1:22:22 but could we think about, maybe think about a flow
1:22:25 and start at the earlier years, the elementary schools?
1:22:29 Are there some schools that could include an IB?
1:22:33 And then lastly, exceptional student education.
1:22:36 So balance ESE needs in enrollment and facility planning.
1:22:40 So think about those components
1:22:41 when we are thinking about different school models.
1:22:46 - So just a few things as we think about
1:22:48 sort of the path forward, we’ll map out where we’re going
1:22:51 and all the things that Dao mentioned,
1:22:53 you’ll start to see them start to make themselves present
1:22:55 in the tool from a data perspective.
1:22:57 But we also heard there was not a lot of excitement
1:23:00 in the more traditional six to eight school model.
1:23:03 There was a lot of excitement for K-8s,
1:23:05 but not as much excitement
1:23:07 for a traditional six to eight model, standalone model.
1:23:11 As Dao mentioned, maybe there’s opportunities
1:23:13 to think about choice and pairing K-8s with choice
1:23:17 in some parts of the area.
1:23:19 As Dao mentioned, programmatic alignment is really critical
1:23:21 as we’re thinking about this within the feeder pattern,
1:23:24 but then also with some of the specialty programs like IB.
1:23:28 So are there opportunities to have clear pathways
1:23:31 for students all the way up through secondary schools?
1:23:35 And then some conversation around maybe we don’t do K-8,
1:23:39 maybe we just need to invest in our middle schools
1:23:41 and invest in the programs and facilities there,
1:23:44 maybe paired with some boundary adjustments
1:23:45 to make sure the critical mass of students is there.
1:23:48 So just some things in terms of opportunities
1:23:52 to look forward.
1:23:54 We also heard this is really could be an opportunity
1:23:57 to think about the homeschool students.
1:23:59 Are there opportunity to understand
1:24:01 what they may value in a school
1:24:02 and can some programmatic or grade shift alignments
1:24:06 bring some of those families
1:24:07 and resulting dollars back to the district?
1:24:10 We heard a lot about being mindful
1:24:13 and thoughtful about capital dollars.
1:24:17 So not necessarily spending capital necessarily,
1:24:20 being strategic and targeted around capital improvements.
1:24:23 So don’t build your way out of a problem.
1:24:26 It’s thinking about policy and program
1:24:29 and use capital strategically when needed,
1:24:31 but not just a complete overhaul of the district
1:24:34 just to spend capital, but being very thoughtful about it.
1:24:37 As you’ll start to see
1:24:39 when you start to play with the data yourself,
1:24:41 some of these different configurations and changes
1:24:45 and ideas around program alignment
1:24:49 and grade shifts may have an impact in travel distance.
1:24:54 So just as we’re going forward,
1:24:56 being mindful on some of those operational impacts.
1:24:59 We don’t wanna have unintended resulting operational costs
1:25:02 or experiential costs without being mindful
1:25:06 or thinking about it.
1:25:07 There may be some travel distance impacts
1:25:09 as you’re going through some of this,
1:25:10 but as you’re going through it,
1:25:11 just being very intentional
1:25:12 and very mindful of some of those operational things
1:25:15 like transportation as we go through.
1:25:17 There’s also areas where transportation may improve too.
1:25:20 So in terms of next steps, we’re in the process.
1:25:23 This is a very, very brief overview
1:25:25 ‘cause we wanna jump into the tool.
1:25:27 We’re packaging it all up into a more comprehensive report.
1:25:31 We are going to launch that public engagement survey tool
1:25:34 that Ms. Han and Devin will mention
1:25:36 and Devin will give a very good overview of.
1:25:39 But then we’re gonna continue the work.
1:25:41 I think, as I mentioned, we started with the three schools,
1:25:44 but as we started to unpack everything,
1:25:46 it’s a very sort of tangled, confusing,
1:25:50 complicated set of conditions.
1:25:52 So we wanna dig deeper and start to understand
1:25:55 how do we get feedback from the community
1:25:56 on some of the components,
1:25:58 continue conversations with you all,
1:26:00 with the leadership team,
1:26:02 but really start to zero in a little bit
1:26:03 on of the 20, 30 different things we could be looking at,
1:26:06 what are the priorities that we wanna focus on.
1:26:08 So that’s sort of going into phase two.
1:26:10 Once we get a little cleaner idea
1:26:12 of here’s where our guardrails are
1:26:14 in terms of specifying a path forward
1:26:16 on whether it’s the three schools, other opportunities,
1:26:19 then thinking about that broader engagement.
1:26:21 So we’re gonna relaunch the tool,
1:26:23 but no matter what you’re doing
1:26:25 in terms of portfolio changes or program changes,
1:26:28 wanna make sure the community’s
1:26:29 at the heart of those conversations.
1:26:30 So that will be a big part of sort of that phase three
1:26:32 once we zero in a little bit more.
1:26:34 But the tool will help us get there,
1:26:36 additional conversations with you all
1:26:37 and leadership team will help us
1:26:38 sort of zero in a little bit.
1:26:41 So that’s sort of where we’re going from here.
1:26:43 But the exciting part, I think,
1:26:44 is turning to Devin to give a quick run through.
1:26:49 - Yeah, and I think the tool is really twofold.
1:26:53 One is it’s sharing information.
1:26:56 I think in a very transparent way,
1:26:57 you can really see what your school is about,
1:27:00 what a district is about, and you can explore it.
1:27:02 And I know you and we all have a common intent
1:27:05 to really share as much information out there
1:27:08 so everyone can read it.
1:27:09 And then the second part is the survey part
1:27:12 where we can obtain as much information
1:27:15 to hear from everyone that plays around with the tool.
1:27:22 Do you want me to keep on talking or are you?
1:27:25 » All good?
1:27:25 Perfect.
1:27:26 » Confirming you can hear me OK through the mic?
1:27:30 » We can hear you great.
1:27:31 » Excellent.
1:27:32 So as Patrick and Dao both introduced, this web tool
1:27:35 that our team has been developing
1:27:36 over the past 10 weeks has been a great exercise for ourselves
1:27:40 to familiarize ourselves with the districts.
1:27:42 Some of the shifts that we’re seeing both in enrollment
1:27:45 across the district and was alluded
1:27:47 to earlier this morning, the options that families have
1:27:50 for choosing the best school communities for themselves
1:27:52 and for their families.
1:27:54 As we’ve been continuing our conversations both internally,
1:27:58 engaging with you all and other district leadership,
1:28:00 we’re very excited to now share some of our findings
1:28:04 and the tools themselves that led to these findings
1:28:06 with the general community as well.
1:28:09 This dashboard synthesizes very, very extensive range
1:28:13 of some pretty complex district data in a way
1:28:15 that we are hoping is a little bit more accessible and easy
1:28:18 for individuals to explore at their own pace
1:28:21 and on their own terms as well as providing a platform
1:28:24 to share their feedback back with district leadership
1:28:27 and our team as we begin to construct our next steps forward.
1:28:32 The landing page of this dashboard does provide some
1:28:35 of the context setting language that we previewed
1:28:37 in our conversation today.
1:28:39 It also includes a video tutorial
1:28:42 which has a complete walkthrough
1:28:43 of all the different functionalities of the dashboard,
1:28:46 how the users can access the data
1:28:48 and then eventually share their feedback back with the team.
1:28:51 We’ll walk through some of the core functions today
1:28:53 but this tutorial remains attached to the welcome page
1:28:57 of the dashboard so as users are exploring, they can always stop
1:29:01 and return to this page to learn more.
1:29:05 So as we enter the dashboard, there are three main pages
1:29:09 that the users can toggle
1:29:10 between in addition to the tutorial.
1:29:12 The first allows the user to preview existing conditions both
1:29:16 at a district-wide level and for any school community
1:29:18 of their choosing, a scenario planning page
1:29:21 which allows the user to configure their own customizable
1:29:25 what if scenarios about changes to grade levels,
1:29:28 changes to assignment boundaries or programs between schools
1:29:34 and then share your feedback page which allows the user
1:29:37 to provide some location agnostic,
1:29:39 school agnostic feedback about their own priorities
1:29:42 and facility planning moving forward.
1:29:44 On each of the pages, the configuration is relatively
1:29:47 similar that you’ll have a data panel on the left
1:29:49 which is highly customizable which works in tandem with a map
1:29:52 on the right side as well.
1:29:54 There is a how to use panel on each of the three pages
1:29:57 in addition to a link to a video tutorial that’s specific
1:30:00 to that page just to clarify what the user can expect to see
1:30:03 and what outcomes they can expect
1:30:05 to learn from their exploration.
1:30:07 For each feature and for each term
1:30:09 on the dashboard we’ve also added these descriptive tool
1:30:11 tips which just explain in more plain English language
1:30:15 for folks who are less familiar with the district
1:30:17 or with the tool about the types of concepts that we’re hoping
1:30:20 to present and explain here.
1:30:22 For the purposes of demonstration and I guess
1:30:25 under the theme of exploration we’ll use Discovery Elementary
1:30:29 School as our candidate school.
1:30:34 The user can search for from this dropdown
1:30:36 and choose a school of their choosing.
1:30:38 It will automatically zoom in on the map
1:30:40 on the right hand side as well.
1:30:42 You can open up the map layers menu to toggle on
1:30:45 or off additional information that’s either associated
1:30:48 with that school or the district as a whole.
1:30:50 So when we first opened up it automatically zooms
1:30:52 to the location of Discovery Elementary School highlighted
1:30:54 in green but you can also toggle on additional information
1:30:57 such as the greater assignment boundary associated
1:31:00 with the elementary school, the parcel or the site
1:31:03 that the school is actually located on as well
1:31:06 as additional information we’ll jump to soon
1:31:08 that provides a little bit more rigorous information associated
1:31:10 with each school community.
1:31:13 On the left side you’ll have a high level preview
1:31:16 of several key statistics related to enrollment
1:31:19 and facilities planning for the specific community
1:31:21 that the user has selected.
1:31:24 So for Discovery Elementary School we can see the grade
1:31:26 served, the specific address, the school grade
1:31:29 for the 2025 year, the date that the facility was opened,
1:31:33 the age of the site, the year of the last major renovation
1:31:35 and the size of the site as well.
1:31:38 Some of the information that we
1:31:39 and the user may be most interested in is the enrollment
1:31:43 for the 2025-2026 year, how that relates to the factored
1:31:47 capacity
1:31:47 or the number of student seats
1:31:49 that the school was actually designed to hold
1:31:51 and how these two figures, the enrollment
1:31:53 and capacity yield a utilization which is a measure of the
1:31:56 number
1:31:56 of students currently enrolled versus the number of student
1:31:59 seats
1:31:59 that the school was designed for.
1:32:02 Immediately below you can see the capture rates for that school
1:32:05 by the assignment boundary.
1:32:07 So this is saying okay for the geography
1:32:08 that we have selected on the right side here,
1:32:11 what percentage of students who live
1:32:13 within that assignment boundary are actually attending
1:32:16 that school versus chosing
1:32:18 into another district traditional district school
1:32:21 versus enrolling in a district choice school
1:32:24 or attending a public charter school.
1:32:27 We also do have some limited data on homeschool education
1:32:31 so you can toggle on or off homeschool students
1:32:34 in that count to see how the calculations would be changing
1:32:38 if you’re including homeschool students
1:32:39 in the denominator as well.
1:32:43 For each school, you can see a bar graph enrollment over time
1:32:46 at Discovery in particular.
1:32:48 The enrollment has been pretty stable both
1:32:50 for the past 10 years and a projected enrollment going
1:32:53 out to 2030 for the next five years as well.
1:32:56 » Quick question.
1:32:57 » Yes.
1:32:57 » Under other traditional school,
1:32:59 does that include private school?
1:33:00 » No, other traditional schools only includes other public
1:33:03 traditional schools associated with–
1:33:05 » So we– because we don’t have private school data?
1:33:07 » Correct.
1:33:08 We do not have private school data.
1:33:11 You can also see the feeder flows
1:33:13 which correlates the assignment boundaries
1:33:16 for the selected school with any middle schools,
1:33:18 intermediate schools or high schools
1:33:20 that those students will later be zoned to attend.
1:33:22 Here for Discovery Elementary School,
1:33:23 it’s pretty straightforward.
1:33:24 Any student who is– who lives
1:33:26 within the Discovery Elementary School boundary is also then zoned
1:33:29 to attend Central Middle School for the 7th and 8th grade years.
1:33:32 At the very bottom of the left hand page,
1:33:35 we also have some summary statistics, demographics as well
1:33:39 as exceptional student education summary sharing
1:33:42 which programs accept or sends students to
1:33:45 or from the school for each ESE need.
1:33:48 The map on the right hand side also has additional information
1:33:53 specific to that school community such as travel sheds.
1:33:56 You can see the network driving distance to
1:33:59 or from the selected school location up to 10 miles
1:34:02 and you can toggle this threshold
1:34:03 to see how far students may be traveling to access that school.
1:34:09 We also have information on the student residential density,
1:34:12 anonymized to a neighborhood size area
1:34:14 so there’s no student specific location on the front end
1:34:18 or back end of this tool.
1:34:19 But toggling this on, you can see a heat map
1:34:22 of generally speaking for the students who attend Discovery,
1:34:25 where are they actually living in the district,
1:34:26 how well does that align with the assignment boundary
1:34:28 for the school, how well does that align with the travel sheds
1:34:32 up to a certain distance for that school
1:34:34 which you can also change to show only students who are zoned
1:34:37 to that school as well as students
1:34:39 who are instead attending charter schools
1:34:42 and/or home education programs.
1:34:45 You can also toggle on some information
1:34:48 at a district-wide level including charter school
1:34:51 locations and/or private school locations,
1:34:54 varying enrollment by size
1:34:56 and for additional county context just the geography
1:34:59 of the school board districts which you all represent,
1:35:02 municipal boundaries as well.
1:35:04 Again, all the information that’s
1:35:08 on this first page is intended to just provide a user
1:35:10 with a snapshot of the district
1:35:12 and their particular school as it is today.
1:35:15 There’s a wealth of information here
1:35:16 and any one user could easily spend hours just exploring this
1:35:19 one page for each of their school communities
1:35:21 and we do welcome further exploration
1:35:24 into the scenario planning page but we don’t want
1:35:26 to be prescriptive if folks are mostly interested
1:35:29 in just learning about the current state of their school,
1:35:31 this existing condition page allows them to do so.
1:35:36 Moving on to the scenario planning tab,
1:35:38 this allows the user to learn a little bit more in depth
1:35:42 about some of those hypothetical discussions that we presented
1:35:46 about potential K-8 reconfigurations
1:35:48 or other reconfigurations to different grade bands
1:35:50 or school models across the district.
1:35:52 Everything that we present as a part of this tutorial is purely
1:35:56 for the purposes of demonstration,
1:35:57 does not suggest any real world realities at any
1:36:01 of the school communities or any of the priorities
1:36:03 that may inform future conversations.
1:36:07 So we can go back to discovery on this page.
1:36:15 And we toggle off the elementary school locations,
1:36:17 obviously where’s discovery?
1:36:19 And you can now toggle on or off adjacent schools or grades
1:36:25 at other adjacent schools to see what would happen
1:36:27 to the enrollment and to the capacity
1:36:29 at your base selected school if any type
1:36:32 of reconfiguration were to occur.
1:36:34 So say if I’m interested in seeing what would happen
1:36:36 at discovery elementary school, if we did proceed
1:36:38 with the K-8 model, you can see central middle school
1:36:41 which is the middle school that is currently part
1:36:43 of the feeder chain for discovery.
1:36:45 You can toggle on or off and the charts
1:36:48 above will automatically update to show how
1:36:50 that scenario would play out, again using the current capacity
1:36:54 at discovery as the baseline for these calculations.
1:36:58 If the user wants to fine-tune their scenarios even further,
1:37:02 they can toggle on or off selected grade levels as well
1:37:06 which will update not only the enrollment forecasts
1:37:09 and the capacity calculations
1:37:10 but we’ve also retained those demographic charts
1:37:12 at the bottom as well which would change if you selected
1:37:14 or deselected another school.
1:37:16 If the user is very excited about some configuration
1:37:20 that they found, they want to save it either
1:37:22 for their own reference later on, they want to share it
1:37:24 with their neighbors, with their local communities
1:37:27 or with school leadership.
1:37:28 There’s a feature which does allow the user to save
1:37:30 and share their scenario.
1:37:32 With a pop-up, they can customize a scenario title,
1:37:35 they can input different recipient emails,
1:37:38 put in their additional comments and both save a PDF
1:37:41 for their own records before sending it
1:37:42 out using their personal email client to the project team
1:37:46 or to any other recipients of their choosing.
1:37:48 You can also reset the scenario any point to start from scratch.
1:37:56 The other scenario planning tool that is embedded
1:37:58 into the second page is boundary sandbox which allows the user
1:38:02 to instead focus their reconfigurations rather
1:38:04 on the grade bands or programs but instead
1:38:06 to the assignment boundaries themselves.
1:38:08 So again, using Discovery as our base school.
1:38:13 Once you select as your first boundary,
1:38:16 the selection will automatically update on the map,
1:38:18 only this time it’s very interactive.
1:38:20 So if I want to play around with what would happen
1:38:22 if I doubled the size of the assignment boundary
1:38:25 for Discovery, you can click
1:38:27 and drag using the map selection tools to add
1:38:30 in an arbitrary additional radius
1:38:32 and it will show you automatically what would happen
1:38:35 to the enrollment at that school both by grade level,
1:38:38 you could toggle on even additional grade levels
1:38:40 that are not currently served by that school to see how
1:38:43 that would change enrollment.
1:38:45 You can select or deselect students by the school type
1:38:48 that they are currently attending.
1:38:49 So whether they are currently attending a charter school
1:38:52 or not, you can include those students or exclude them
1:38:54 in the calculations and goes for choice in homeschool students.
1:38:57 You can get a preview of the schools
1:38:59 that those students currently are attending or a zone
1:39:01 to attend as well as the demographics.
1:39:04 But one of the more exciting features is
1:39:06 at the very bottom you have a summary of all
1:39:08 of your boundary changes across your customized map
1:39:11 up to five boundaries and you can see at the bottom
1:39:14 if we did make this change,
1:39:15 the utilization at discovery would be at 126%.
1:39:18 So you can similarly erase or deselect to right size
1:39:24 to a smaller boundary, remove those hexes.
1:39:28 Similarly you can add in a second boundary
1:39:30 and select another school in the district and as
1:39:33 with the enrollment planning page you can save
1:39:35 and share the scenario using the same pop-up submitting your
1:39:37 comments to yourself, to your neighbors
1:39:39 or to the district and project team.
1:39:43 The final page that we want to preview is a more generic
1:39:46 project survey through share your feedback.
1:39:49 We have prepared a brief,
1:39:50 it’s a 20 minute mostly multiple choice survey.
1:39:54 All questions are optional.
1:39:55 Respondents have the ability
1:39:56 to include their contact information but it’s totally
1:40:00 up to the user if they do want to add their title
1:40:02 with their responses as well to get a sense
1:40:05 of what priorities have informed their school choice decisions
1:40:09 in the past, what types of improvements or enhancements either
1:40:13 by school model or programmatic decisions
1:40:15 as have been previously discussed would help rebalance
1:40:19 enrollment and better right size future facility investments.
1:40:22 The survey can be taken either directly in the page itself
1:40:26 or the users can open up the same survey in a new tab
1:40:31 and complete it outside of the dashboard as well.
1:40:35 That was a pretty quick run through of all of the functions.
1:40:39 Yes. Oh yeah, absolutely.
1:40:44 So the scenario planning page is very customizable
1:40:47 if the user does not want to start from a base school at all
1:40:51 and has a great idea that they want to share the district
1:40:53 from scratch, they can draw their own boundary free form.
1:40:56 It doesn’t necessarily have to be tied to a specific school.
1:40:59 This is also a tool that the user can use
1:41:01 to explore a specific geography within the greater district
1:41:04 that isn’t necessarily tied to an existing school boundary
1:41:06 to get a sense of the folks who currently live
1:41:09 within that assignment boundary and the types
1:41:11 of school decisions that they’re making today.
1:41:13 [ Pause ]
1:41:18 We’ll pause there for questions
1:41:19 or if there are any other quick scenarios that you wanted
1:41:21 to test your model, I’ll be happy to do so at this time.
1:41:24 » I’m sure that the one question everyone is going
1:41:26 to ask is where do we find this tool at?
1:41:28 » Oh, great question.
1:41:30 So, it is hosted at facilitiesplanning.brevardschools.org.
1:41:34 We’ve been working with IT within the district to make sure
1:41:37 that it’s directly accessible from the current district page
1:41:41 and we’ll be working this week
1:41:42 to formally launch the tool using social media channels
1:41:45 to make sure that members of the public know where
1:41:48 to access the tool, how to use the tool which will be open
1:41:51 through at least early fall of 2026.
1:41:53 So they’ll have several months to play.
1:41:55 » All right, wonderful.
1:41:56 I don’t know how we’re ever going to not have this tool.
1:41:58 Quite frankly, I feel like from a facilities standpoint,
1:42:00 we’re going to need this tool to make plans moving forward.
1:42:03 So, I’m very, very excited about it.
1:42:04 I expect we will probably be receiving multiple scenarios
1:42:08 from people in the community that have recommendations.
1:42:10 So, thank you for creating it.
1:42:12 It’s really amazing.
1:42:14 » We also just want to say thanks to you all.
1:42:16 I mean, the level of sort of openness
1:42:18 to transparency is quite frankly refreshing.
1:42:21 And you all deserve a lot of credit for that
1:42:23 and to be able to launch this.
1:42:25 No, but I think it’s really fantastic.
1:42:26 We work with districts around the country
1:42:28 and there’s varying scales of, hey, share this,
1:42:30 don’t share this for everyone in the public from day one.
1:42:33 This has been a very open conversation and just want
1:42:36 to say thanks to leadership and the board for doing this.
1:42:39 » We really appreciate you giving this
1:42:40 to us after you get done.
1:42:41 This is awesome.
1:42:41 » It’s all yours.
1:42:42 » I do have a quick question.
1:42:45 Is it possible and if that URL is going
1:42:47 to be the one that’s given out to the public,
1:42:49 but can we get a $15 BPS plans URL or something,
1:42:54 something much shorter that would be easy to remember
1:42:56 that we could put out to the community?
1:42:58 Just that, I don’t, I mean that one seemed pretty –
1:43:01 » I’m sure we can work on that.
1:43:03 » Or a link off the homepage.
1:43:05 » We’ll have it on the homepage and like we’ll –
1:43:07 » Something just makes it easy to get to.
1:43:09 » Our goal is to have it on the homepage.
1:43:11 Like you can click on it from the homepage.
1:43:13 We’ve just been working with technology and GCR just make sure
1:43:17 that it’s ready to go and wanted to demonstrate it today.
1:43:20 But hopefully by early next week
1:43:22 at the latest we should be live and ready to go.
1:43:24 » That’s awesome.
1:43:26 It’s amazing that you guys put that together.
1:43:28 Thank you.
1:43:29 » Yeah, so I appreciate the conversation that we had,
1:43:32 probably been a couple months ago now where we just, you know,
1:43:35 played and I introduced all, some more intricacies
1:43:38 on the south side more than you probably wanted to add
1:43:39 into the conversation, but this is amazing.
1:43:43 And I know that this, like the scenario planning wasn’t
1:43:47 necessarily intended for people in the public
1:43:49 to solve all their problems, but you know what?
1:43:51 We might have someone out there who solves all their problems
1:43:53 and he saves it and sends it to us and fixes everything.
1:43:56 That would be lovely.
1:43:57 But whether that is actually going to happen or not,
1:44:00 I mean it gives the public not just opportunity to see it,
1:44:04 but to try things out, to make suggestions.
1:44:09 I love the fact that we’re looking at ESC,
1:44:13 we’re looking at feeder patterns.
1:44:14 That’s something that we see every year in documents
1:44:16 that your department provides to us.
1:44:18 But for people to really understand, no, these kids go
1:44:23 to this school and this school and this,
1:44:24 and so it’s such a complicated, it’s almost as complicated
1:44:28 as school board budgets.
1:44:30 Not quite, but it’s getting close.
1:44:32 So this is fantastic.
1:44:34 I just, overall in the conversation, I, you know,
1:44:38 I’m only here through November, so a lot of this work,
1:44:41 the end of the work is going to be beyond my term.
1:44:45 But I just, you know, I have to say as we look
1:44:48 at this conversation, we just need
1:44:49 to acknowledge a couple things.
1:44:50 One, we have some really old school buildings.
1:44:53 And when I go back to, and I’m going to say this
1:44:56 because I’m not the only transplant.
1:44:58 There’s, most of the people who live
1:44:59 in our county are transplants, right?
1:45:00 I grew up in a school district in Fort Worth, Texas,
1:45:03 where multiple buildings were built during the Depression
1:45:06 as government projects to help provide jobs or whatever.
1:45:10 And they’re still standing to this day, right?
1:45:12 My elementary school, my middle school were both built
1:45:15 in Depression era, and they’re still standing.
1:45:18 But it was in Texas, not in a hurricane zone,
1:45:22 not with salt water blowing in all the time.
1:45:26 It, you know, buildings just last longer, right?
1:45:29 And building materials.
1:45:30 We have some really old schools that just,
1:45:32 I think the public needs to start getting,
1:45:34 wrapping their brains around the fact
1:45:35 that we’re not going to be able
1:45:36 to keep every school all the time.
1:45:39 We’re going to have to rebuild some.
1:45:41 You know, we had to do a really painful consolidation
1:45:43 this year.
1:45:45 Not only do we have really old buildings,
1:45:47 we also have changing demographics.
1:45:50 And I think when people get in there, this tool,
1:45:52 they’ll realize we can’t just redraw all the lines
1:45:55 so that everybody’s even-steven.
1:45:56 Because when you do that, you actually,
1:45:58 you’re going to have cross, you’re going to have one school
1:46:00 in another school’s boundaries if you do that.
1:46:02 Because part of our areas of our county are growing,
1:46:05 and part of them are shrinking,
1:46:06 because the aging population,
1:46:08 it’s not moving out of their homes,
1:46:09 and they have every right to do that.
1:46:11 But that means there’s no kids in that neighborhood anymore.
1:46:13 Whereas we have other areas, like in Palm Bay,
1:46:15 West Melbourne, Vieira, and some of the other areas
1:46:18 that are just growing so fast with families,
1:46:21 with school-aged children.
1:46:22 And so we are going to have to build schools
1:46:26 and potentially close schools.
1:46:28 I am, everything that’s coming out of my mouth
1:46:30 is the opinion of this one board member only.
1:46:33 Let me give that disclaimer, right?
1:46:35 But I believe that as we look into the future,
1:46:38 we’re, closures, it’s not just about building K-8s.
1:46:42 We’re going to have to look at some closures
1:46:43 and some consolidations.
1:46:45 We’re going to have to look at continuing
1:46:46 to build new schools because of population explosions
1:46:49 in areas where right now there aren’t even houses,
1:46:51 much less schools.
1:46:52 And to have people not have to drive, you know,
1:46:56 15 miles or more to get to their school,
1:46:58 it’s just going to have to happen.
1:47:00 So having this tool is so helpful
1:47:03 so we can see what makes sense.
1:47:05 And I, going back to this, when you talk about K-8s,
1:47:07 I totally agree.
1:47:09 If we’re going to just combine schools
1:47:11 to build a shiny new K-8,
1:47:12 but it’s only going to still have 200 middle schoolers in it,
1:47:16 you’re still not solving the problem that we have.
1:47:18 Just to be completely honest,
1:47:19 and nobody else has to say this,
1:47:20 but I’m going to say it, just me, Katie Campbell,
1:47:22 it’s still not going to solve the problem
1:47:23 that we have at McNair.
1:47:25 Because you have a middle school with 200 students,
1:47:27 or barely over 200 students,
1:47:29 you can’t provide the robust programming,
1:47:32 you know, fine arts, academic CTE
1:47:35 that you can provide at a school that has 600 or more.
1:47:38 You just can’t because there’s not enough students
1:47:40 to fill those classes.
1:47:42 And so having a K-8 that is a middle school population
1:47:48 of 200-ish and elementary school of 400-ish,
1:47:52 it’s just not going to solve our problems
1:47:55 no matter what a shiny new building we might put it in.
1:48:00 We’re still going to have their problems.
1:48:01 So I just appreciate this
1:48:02 because it’s going to help our community be so thoughtful
1:48:05 and recognize that you guys, and as the district staff,
1:48:09 and we as the board, are being thoughtful in the process.
1:48:12 We’re not just, we don’t like you,
1:48:14 we’re going to close you down.
1:48:16 Or we’re just going to, we like this area better,
1:48:18 we’re going to build a school.
1:48:19 No, we have to do what makes sense.
1:48:21 Because ultimately it goes back
1:48:22 to what we started this workshop with after the policies,
1:48:25 which is the academic growth of our students.
1:48:27 And if we don’t give them opportunities
1:48:30 in a building that is safe and healthy to be in,
1:48:33 where they can have a critical mass
1:48:36 to have excellent programming,
1:48:38 they’re not going to be able to continue
1:48:40 to succeed in the way that we’ve seen
1:48:41 that they already are succeeding.
1:48:42 So just to pull it back to academics and our main goal,
1:48:46 to me this tool is to really help
1:48:47 the community get on board with,
1:48:50 that we’re trying to figure out what is the next option.
1:48:54 And what I got walked out of my meeting with you is,
1:48:57 we really don’t know.
1:48:58 We really don’t know.
1:48:59 You guys aren’t coming to us with,
1:49:00 we think you should do this.
1:49:01 And we’re not actually coming to you with,
1:49:04 it would really be nice for us to say,
1:49:05 will you please solve all our problems
1:49:07 and y’all present to us a big fat plan
1:49:09 of do this next year, do this next year.
1:49:10 But you’re not doing that because you can’t.
1:49:13 We have to have the public input.
1:49:14 We have to have the board’s input
1:49:16 as elected representatives.
1:49:17 We have to have staff input.
1:49:18 So thank you for doing all this.
1:49:21 I think it’s going to be a really good tool board
1:49:23 and good luck with all those future endeavors.
1:49:29 - What’s left to say?
1:49:30 - No, you wanna say ditto?
1:49:32 No, I would just say this one thing though.
1:49:33 I think that it’s worth considering,
1:49:35 is consideration of the K-8 model
1:49:37 and us starting out with a smaller population
1:49:40 in the middle school.
1:49:41 While that may be true, we tend to lose those students
1:49:44 going from elementary to middle.
1:49:46 So the overall goal there might be
1:49:48 that it starts out small, but we keep them in our schools
1:49:51 and they stay through the middle school.
1:49:53 So while ideally it won’t be that way at the beginning,
1:49:57 my hope would be that we retain those students
1:49:59 and they don’t look for another option
1:50:00 because they’re at their homeschool
1:50:01 and they love that facility.
1:50:03 But aside from that, you’re 100% accurate.
1:50:05 There are a lot of decisions ahead of the board
1:50:07 that will be tough decisions,
1:50:09 but with the community’s input and tools like this,
1:50:11 I’m like, I don’t ever wanna lose this tool, quite frankly.
1:50:13 I think this is a lot of fun to be able to go in there
1:50:15 and kind of just mess around and look and see
1:50:17 like what could we do and then also point our community
1:50:20 to it so when they come to us and say,
1:50:21 “Hey, we have an issue.
1:50:22 We’re scared our school’s gonna close.”
1:50:24 We can say, “Hey, look, there’s a tool that’s available
1:50:26 for you, why don’t you spend some time there?”
1:50:28 Because I think what this tool makes people realize
1:50:31 is that A, it’s not as easy as just redrawing a boundary.
1:50:35 And B, we may not have all the solutions, right,
1:50:38 but the community might have some great ideas
1:50:40 so we would love to hear that from them as well.
1:50:42 Community input is crucial when it comes to these decisions
1:50:46 and so yeah, I look forward to being able to launch
1:50:49 this thing and put it out there everywhere.
1:50:50 Thank you, this tool blows my mind.
1:50:52 It’s amazing, very, very excited.
1:50:54 - Very cool.
1:50:57 - Well, I appreciate you guys.
1:50:59 One of the things we know that is the strongest component
1:51:02 for a lot of these families that we see in bulk
1:51:04 that are sticking in the K through eight
1:51:06 is what Ms.– - Oh, my God.
1:51:08 - Is it not on? - Yeah, there it goes.
1:51:10 - We see with, is what Ms. Wright was mentioning
1:51:13 in that the families who can transport
1:51:17 end up going to a charter school
1:51:20 because they have multiple families.
1:51:22 I heard a statistic one time that our families
1:51:25 that are above a certain wage,
1:51:27 which would be our families of affluence
1:51:29 that would be able to travel and do stuff like that,
1:51:30 have a higher amount of children in this county.
1:51:33 I don’t know why, I don’t know what it was,
1:51:36 but that would make sense in that they have one kid
1:51:38 that’s in middle school, one kid that’s in high school
1:51:39 or one kid that’s in elementary school
1:51:41 and they just wanna go to the same place to pick kids up.
1:51:43 And that plays true with a lot of the families that I have.
1:51:46 The other thing has to do a little bit with curriculum
1:51:48 and a little bit with discipline and stuff like that,
1:51:50 but we’ve pretty much cleaned all that up
1:51:51 being in a school district
1:51:52 and we have our discipline strong now.
1:51:54 So I feel very confident that your guys’ analysis
1:51:57 in bringing this to the table gets rid of all of the hidden,
1:52:00 you know what I mean?
1:52:02 When we tried to do this back in 2017 and 2018
1:52:05 where I tried to redistrict all my schools
1:52:07 because what had happened is a lot of families had left
1:52:10 as we moved into redistricting a couple of years before that
1:52:13 and moved to the charters.
1:52:14 And I asked them, I said, if we go back to this,
1:52:16 could you do this?
1:52:17 So they agreed.
1:52:18 And, but what happened is, is I ran up on the what ifs
1:52:22 and the what ifs were so outlandish.
1:52:24 And I said, that’s not even true.
1:52:25 If you go knock doors, this and this,
1:52:26 but this gets rid of the what ifs.
1:52:28 This is hard data.
1:52:29 This is facts.
1:52:30 This is what we know is true.
1:52:32 So I just really wanted to say thank you.
1:52:34 This is, I will geek out on this thing for a long time.
1:52:37 Like, this is gonna be cool.
1:52:39 And I just appreciate you guys.
1:52:41 You guys are a unique unicorn in our business
1:52:44 in that you come and you guys have been very open,
1:52:46 very nice, very, meetings have all been,
1:52:48 you know what I mean?
1:52:49 Hey, how can we do this?
1:52:50 How can we do that?
1:52:50 You developed a personalized tool based on us.
1:52:54 You know, hats off to you guys, great job.
1:52:56 Yeah, so happy to do it.
1:52:57 Mr. Chair, if I could– Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:52:58 Couple comments.
1:53:02 Okay, we wanna share this with the public.
1:53:05 We want the public’s input.
1:53:06 So we’re gonna make sure it’s on the webpage.
1:53:08 We’re gonna do a campaign to get the word out
1:53:10 about the tool and how to use it.
1:53:13 We do have several schools that are under enrolled.
1:53:15 We have several schools that are very old.
1:53:17 Unfortunately, most of the under enrolled schools
1:53:19 are not near an over enrolled school.
1:53:22 So just shifting an attendance boundary
1:53:23 doesn’t fill a school. Right.
1:53:25 And we say that and we know that
1:53:27 ‘cause we’ve seen the maps.
1:53:29 We’ve had Karen Black present to us
1:53:31 and we’ve seen all these things but the public hasn’t.
1:53:33 So this tool will allow them to see, you know,
1:53:35 if I live in this zone and my school is under enrolled
1:53:39 and I’m thinking it could possibly be closed or something,
1:53:42 let me jump on the tool and see how I can
1:53:44 redraw some boundaries and stuff
1:53:46 and they’re gonna find out there is no easy solution.
1:53:48 There are no ways to just shift
1:53:50 this attendance boundary over here
1:53:52 and then this school will fill up
1:53:54 without draining this other school.
1:53:56 You know, there are no easy solutions
1:53:58 to many of the situations that we’re facing.
1:54:01 And K-8 may be an answer for some of the situations.
1:54:05 It may not because, you know,
1:54:07 to build a brand new K-8 is the best solution
1:54:10 but that takes time and, you know, a lot of money.
1:54:13 And if you don’t build the K-8 big enough,
1:54:16 then you can’t necessarily offer all the programs
1:54:18 at the middle school level that you need.
1:54:20 So, you know, in the situations, the three scenarios,
1:54:23 we’re gonna continue to explore those
1:54:25 but, you know, that may end up not being the best answer.
1:54:29 But this tool and providing this tool to our public
1:54:31 with access for them, as has said
1:54:34 by several board members, they may tell us,
1:54:36 they may show us a solution that we haven’t thought of.
1:54:40 But it also will help if we say, you know,
1:54:43 there is no solution to this scenario except doing this,
1:54:46 closing the school or something like that.
1:54:48 People will be able to say,
1:54:49 yeah, I looked at the tool and I tried,
1:54:51 there’s no other solution, you know,
1:54:53 and this is what we have to do.
1:54:55 So, but we have several months and we’ll get this, you know,
1:55:00 to the public to use and within a week or two
1:55:02 and then we’ll put a big media campaign out
1:55:04 to make sure everybody knows that, you know,
1:55:07 this tool is available and we want their input,
1:55:09 we want them to get in there and try some scenarios,
1:55:12 create some, you know, some ideas, you know,
1:55:14 and then maybe they’ll solve some of these issues for us
1:55:18 or give us some ideas that we haven’t seen.
1:55:20 But, and we’ll be, you know, obviously diving into the tool
1:55:23 and coming up with scenarios as well.
1:55:25 But, and the message for all of our public school residents
1:55:31 or families is no changes for this coming year.
1:55:34 This tool is, you know,
1:55:36 for us to explore things down the road, you know,
1:55:39 so that nothing’s happening this year
1:55:41 in case somebody says,
1:55:42 oh, looks like they’re gonna close some schools.
1:55:44 Well, not this year, you know, so.
1:55:46 - Well, and I think, Dr. Rendell, if I may,
1:55:48 I think this is a good challenge for our district.
1:55:50 We need a heavy marketing campaign
1:55:52 because there are students that we’ve lost.
1:55:54 And, you know, I send my kids just like you, Katie,
1:55:56 my kids have BPS students, I’m a BPS graduate.
1:55:59 And I truly know after looking at all the different schools
1:56:01 we have in our county, we have the best product.
1:56:03 We just haven’t marketed it the way that we need to market it
1:56:06 so the challenge of the district this year
1:56:08 is gonna be how can we go and capture those ones
1:56:10 that we’ve lost and do a better job at telling our story
1:56:13 of what it really is because there’s so much good
1:56:16 that happens inside of these schools every single day.
1:56:18 And I do know that we have truly the best
1:56:21 educational opportunity that exists within Brevard County.
1:56:23 It’s right here in our schools, so.
1:56:25 - Well, just to reemphasize, though,
1:56:27 the tool, we want the public to access it
1:56:29 and give us their input.
1:56:31 - Yeah. - Great.
1:56:33 - All right, thank you very much, gentlemen.
1:56:35 Ms. Hand, do you have a strategic plan update
1:56:37 that you wanna give us?
1:56:39 - She’s got all the things we have.
1:56:41 - I can’t wait.
1:56:48 - If I ever lose my voice again before a board meeting,
1:56:54 I’m, this sucks, I can’t even talk.
1:56:58 - Ms. Hand, are you just gonna roll
1:56:59 through the financial update, too,
1:57:00 or how do you wanna do this? - Yes, I’ve got it all.
1:57:02 - Okay, perfect. - Gonna roll through all of it.
1:57:04 - All of it around. - They’re auctioning everything.
1:57:07 - What’s that?
1:57:10 That’s right, I remember.
1:57:17 - Oh, this friggin’ fish thing thing.
1:57:20 Those are horrible.
1:57:21 I’m pretty sure that was fish food.
1:57:22 - Give it eight, one, two.
1:57:24 - I think that was fish food.
1:57:26 It smelled so bad when you opened it, the like.
1:57:30 All right.
1:57:31 Okay, so the first topic I’m gonna cover today
1:57:34 is the financial services strategic plan,
1:57:37 and we’re coming up on our July review
1:57:39 of the board’s strategic plan,
1:57:41 and I thought it might be a good opportunity
1:57:43 for us in the finance team to kinda take a look
1:57:45 at what has been in the strategic plan
1:57:47 and maybe kind of retool a little bit.
1:57:50 So I appreciate the conversation earlier today,
1:57:56 Ms. Harris and Ms. Dampier talking
1:57:57 about our student achievement.
1:58:00 We have really been achieving incredible results
1:58:03 for our students, and I see financial services,
1:58:06 facilities, our operational departments,
1:58:08 we are the support team for the educational team,
1:58:11 and we wanna look at ourselves that way
1:58:13 as a partner and a collaborator,
1:58:15 and so some of the things I’m proposing today
1:58:17 are both changing the way we operate in finance
1:58:22 in terms of being a partner and also providing data
1:58:26 that is timely and actionable.
1:58:29 So we wanna join everybody else in the data realm
1:58:33 and making sure that we have good data,
1:58:34 and that theme will permeate from the first presentation
1:58:38 into the second presentation.
1:58:40 So our strategic plan components, goals, objectives,
1:58:42 key performance indicators, strategies, and metrics,
1:58:45 and the important thing is that these are all measurable.
1:58:49 And so financial services is part
1:58:53 of the operational efficiency goal,
1:58:55 and our objective previously is talking
1:58:58 about delivering financial management efficiency.
1:59:01 And personally, I believe it is more important
1:59:04 that we look at outcomes versus efficiency
1:59:07 because we can be efficient but not effective.
1:59:10 And so I’m proposing to change our objective
1:59:13 to focus on service delivery excellence,
1:59:17 which is in keeping with our academic excellence,
1:59:20 and to continuously monitor, analyze,
1:59:22 and report financial data to allow the board and leadership
1:59:26 to make timely adaptation to changes.
1:59:28 So the idea is to have good financial data
1:59:33 that is timely and current,
1:59:35 and that we continually monitor that data
1:59:37 and be able to present to the board
1:59:39 when we need to make mid-course corrections.
1:59:42 So our key performance indicator currently talks
1:59:45 about maintaining a financial condition ratio annually
1:59:48 of at least 8%.
1:59:50 And I feel like I need to kind of back up
1:59:51 and just talk about what that actually means.
1:59:54 And so the definition of a financial condition ratio,
1:59:59 it is kind of like your savings account
2:00:03 relative to your salary.
2:00:04 So it’s basically the money that you have kind of set aside.
2:00:09 But it’s an indicator of financial stability,
2:00:13 and this is one of the things
2:00:14 that our rating agencies look at.
2:00:16 So they always are asking about
2:00:19 our financial condition ratio
2:00:20 and what the history of our FCR has been.
2:00:23 So it is important to us from that perspective.
2:00:28 The actual measurement of the FCR
2:00:30 is the assigned and unassigned fund balance
2:00:33 in the general fund divided by the general fund revenue.
2:00:38 And I’ll get into what those things are in just a second.
2:00:41 But basically this is the liquid assets
2:00:46 that we have at the district that we could use
2:00:48 to potentially pay back debt or something like that
2:00:50 if we needed to.
2:00:53 So the types of fund balance that we have
2:00:56 are from the most non-liquid to the most liquid
2:00:59 are non-spendable, that’s stuff.
2:01:02 Restricted, those are funds that might be
2:01:05 in the fund balance but that are categoricals grants
2:01:08 or have some restriction on them,
2:01:09 typically imposed by state federal agencies.
2:01:12 Purchase orders, that type of thing,
2:01:14 a legally enforceable contract.
2:01:16 Assigned, those are fund balance components
2:01:21 that are district imposed constraints.
2:01:24 So these might be something like carry forwards
2:01:29 or I’m trying to think of a good example
2:01:32 and it always slays me.
2:01:33 Mr. Thomas, what was the example I gave you yesterday?
2:01:35 Do you remember ‘cause I sure don’t.
2:01:37 It’s probably a contract.
2:01:39 It’s schools, like if schools have raised funds
2:01:41 for something, it would go in that.
2:01:42 Right, so schools have raised funds.
2:01:45 The other example was, this is in the capital fund,
2:01:48 not the general fund, but we had set aside funding
2:01:51 for a transportation facility.
2:01:53 And we’re not ready to use that money.
2:01:55 So the money is there, it’s assigned,
2:01:58 we wanna use it for this purpose,
2:02:00 but it is not under a purchase order.
2:02:03 So that’s an example of assigned.
2:02:05 This is not a big component of our fund balance,
2:02:08 but it is used in the calculation of the FCR.
2:02:11 And then unassigned is basically our contingency funds.
2:02:15 So I also thought it was important
2:02:17 to bring in the board policy.
2:02:19 This is not talking about the financial condition ratio,
2:02:22 but it is talking about a different financial metric.
2:02:25 And so I wanted to put this up there
2:02:27 just so that the public and we all do not get confused
2:02:32 when we’re talking about an FCR,
2:02:33 because the board policy is not actually
2:02:35 using the same metric as an FCR.
2:02:38 So the board policy is only talking
2:02:40 about the unassigned fund balance.
2:02:43 So this will come into play when I talk a little bit more
2:02:45 about our financial condition,
2:02:47 but I wanted to make sure that everyone had the distinction
2:02:49 between what’s in the board policy and the FCR.
2:02:53 Ultimately, I will probably come back to you at some point
2:02:55 to modify this to be more in alignment
2:02:59 with our strategic plan.
2:03:01 But this is what your current board policy is.
2:03:05 So the idea is to update the key performance indicator
2:03:10 from the current KPI to a proposal
2:03:14 that says by fiscal year end 2030,
2:03:17 achieve a financial condition ratio of at least 6%.
2:03:21 So right now, we ended fiscal year 25
2:03:26 with an FCR that was initially calculated at 5.2%.
2:03:30 But we did make an adjustment based on some reclassification
2:03:35 by the auditor general.
2:03:36 And so some funds in the fund balance were moved
2:03:39 from assigned to restricted
2:03:41 that impacted our fund balance and our FCR.
2:03:44 And so the FCR currently is 3.6%.
2:03:49 So if we were to move to 8%,
2:03:53 you’re looking at about 1% of FCR change
2:03:57 equates to about $7 million.
2:03:58 So that’s a pretty big jump
2:04:00 if we’re going to go from 3.6 to eight.
2:04:03 Now, good idea from a financial stability standpoint.
2:04:07 However, that translates to resources
2:04:10 that we are not able to then invest
2:04:12 in our schools and our students.
2:04:13 And you saw from this morning
2:04:15 that we have done an incredibly good job
2:04:17 of investing our resources wisely.
2:04:20 We’re making an impact in our schools.
2:04:22 And I think we need to really make sure
2:04:24 that we are balancing both the financial stability
2:04:28 of the district as well as the investment in our students.
2:04:31 Like there’s no point in having an enormous savings account
2:04:34 if we’re not doing good work out in the schools.
2:04:37 And so the idea is to continue
2:04:39 to build our financial stability index
2:04:43 while also allowing us to do good investments
2:04:45 and good work in our schools.
2:04:47 And I feel like that’s an important point
2:04:49 that we need to really make sure
2:04:50 that we’re balancing those two objectives.
2:04:53 So that is the proposed KPI.
2:04:56 So this is our target basically
2:04:58 over the next four to five years
2:05:00 is to move in that direction.
2:05:03 So the current strategies and metrics
2:05:05 in our strategic plan really talk about,
2:05:08 again, a financial condition ratio
2:05:15 that really is not achievable or wise in my opinion.
2:05:19 And then secondly, talking about
2:05:25 working, well, the current strategy
2:05:28 is more about the finance department
2:05:32 providing guidance to departments
2:05:34 on what would be a cost efficient
2:05:37 or a financial sustainability method in their departments.
2:05:43 And having operated the facilities department,
2:05:46 from my perspective, I think it’s more important
2:05:48 that the departments initiate this work
2:05:51 and that the financial services team
2:05:52 really provides the technical support to do that.
2:05:55 So I think what I’m proposing
2:05:57 in terms of new strategies and metrics
2:06:00 will be similar to these things
2:06:02 but with slightly different words.
2:06:05 So the new strategy that I’m proposing
2:06:08 is to implement a financial dashboard.
2:06:10 And this is, we looked at several,
2:06:14 Ashley Smith is one of our new directors
2:06:16 and she’s really been chasing this down
2:06:18 and she found a really good website in Monroe County
2:06:22 and I’m gonna demo that for you in just a second
2:06:23 to show you what it looks like.
2:06:27 And she is actually pursuing emulating that here
2:06:30 in Brevard County so that we can do this here.
2:06:32 And sort of like the dashboard
2:06:35 that Perkins Eastman just demonstrated,
2:06:38 this is kind of the financial version of that.
2:06:41 Financial data is awesome.
2:06:43 It basically takes the financial data that’s in AS400
2:06:46 and puts it out there so the public can see it,
2:06:49 you can see it, we can see it,
2:06:50 and we can make timely decisions based on that data.
2:06:53 And so she’s currently working with Microsoft
2:06:56 and our folks in ET to kind of make this happen.
2:07:00 So I think that’s one strategy that we’d like to implement.
2:07:06 Oh, yes sir.
2:07:07 - Just to clarify, I know you mentioned the public
2:07:09 but you kind of just went through that.
2:07:10 That’s gonna be totally open to the public, correct?
2:07:13 - Absolutely, and I’m gonna pull up Monroe’s
2:07:16 before I’m finished and show you.
2:07:18 It’ll be on our website.
2:07:19 It’s the dashboard and you’ll be able to see it.
2:07:22 - That’s awesome.
2:07:23 - So absolutely transparent to the public.
2:07:26 And then the second one is for the finance department
2:07:29 to really be more of a collaborator
2:07:31 with our operational departments
2:07:33 and to assist them in doing business case analysis.
2:07:35 And we have lots of opportunities
2:07:37 for business case analysis.
2:07:39 Things like after school care, before school care,
2:07:44 services that we provide.
2:07:46 And as we went through the budget meetings
2:07:50 with each of our departments,
2:07:51 really found several opportunities
2:07:53 where this type of business case analysis
2:07:56 would either potentially increase revenue,
2:07:58 potentially reduce expenditures.
2:08:00 But ultimately these decisions rest with our departments
2:08:03 and the board in terms of what is the balance?
2:08:08 We don’t necessarily want to always operate
2:08:10 under the philosophy that we’re a business
2:08:12 but we are to some extent.
2:08:15 But we’re also a community partner.
2:08:16 So some of the things that we do are not profitable
2:08:20 because we’re providing a service to the community.
2:08:23 Some of the things we do,
2:08:24 we probably should look at whether we are making money
2:08:26 or losing money on that particular function.
2:08:29 And so we are going to be the partner
2:08:31 in doing the analysis using data
2:08:34 so that you will be able to make those actionable decisions
2:08:37 based on good data.
2:08:39 So that’s really where we’re going with that.
2:08:41 So I think, in summary, our goal in finance is the same.
2:08:48 We support academic performance.
2:08:50 We want to be a partner and a collaborator.
2:08:53 And so we’ll be working with the departments.
2:08:56 Hopefully our budget meetings this year
2:08:58 were useful for our departments
2:09:01 ‘cause they could kind of see the perspective
2:09:03 on where we’re going financially
2:09:06 and we can kind of see what they’re trying to do
2:09:08 and what are their priorities for operations.
2:09:10 So we will be working together to build the FY 27 budget.
2:09:14 So if you will allow me just a minute,
2:09:16 I want to show you the Monroe County dashboard.
2:09:18 It won’t take too long.
2:09:40 So this is the first page of the Monroe County dashboard
2:09:49 and it shows budget to actual for all the different funds.
2:09:54 And so if you want to look at the general fund,
2:09:56 you can click on that and see the different revenue sources
2:10:02 in the general fund, federal, state sources, local sources.
2:10:07 Click on their capital fund.
2:10:11 See the different revenue sources
2:10:13 and then on the expenditure side, you can do the same thing.
2:10:17 You see the salaries.
2:10:21 So just a very good kind of overview of the budget.
2:10:27 And then if you continue to scroll,
2:10:31 this shows the budget and actual expenditures by function.
2:10:36 And so if you want to look at K-12,
2:10:41 shows the instruction.
2:10:42 If you want to look at general administration,
2:10:47 health services.
2:10:49 So it’s really a cool tool,
2:10:50 kind of very similar to what we saw from Perkins Eastman
2:10:53 where you can just kind of look through your budget
2:10:56 in a variety of detail.
2:11:01 This is another screen on their website
2:11:03 that shows expenditures by function.
2:11:05 This is in the general fund.
2:11:08 And so, for example, there’s a question about pre-K.
2:11:14 Just click on that and see the salaries
2:11:16 that are invested in that particular function.
2:11:20 Look at food services.
2:11:25 So there’s a wealth of data
2:11:26 and literally our financial system is set up the same way.
2:11:30 We have the same data with the same strings,
2:11:32 the same numbers.
2:11:33 It’s a statewide accounting system.
2:11:36 So I believe that we can get here with our data as well.
2:11:45 So this shows budgets for each school.
2:11:49 So if you want to see what’s happening
2:11:50 at Coral Shores High School,
2:11:54 you can easily click on that school
2:11:55 and see what’s happening at that school.
2:11:58 It shows the expended month-to-date, year-to-date balance.
2:12:01 So it’s really easy for those of us in finance
2:12:05 to monitor the budget.
2:12:06 It’s easy for the public to see.
2:12:08 We’ll be able to do our monthly financial statements
2:12:11 much more clearly
2:12:12 and have much greater depth of information.
2:12:18 And then this gives you kind of the cadence of,
2:12:23 excuse me,
2:12:26 shows you the budget versus actual by fund.
2:12:29 So you can see in the general fund what was budgeted,
2:12:33 expended year-to-date, that type of thing.
2:12:35 And there’s just so much data here to explore
2:12:39 that I think it will be helpful to all of us.
2:12:42 And I also think it will be good for our community
2:12:45 to be able to understand both the complexity of the budget
2:12:49 and have real-time information.
2:12:52 And then this shows the cash and bank accounts.
2:12:55 And I believe there’s another screen about our investments.
2:13:01 So I thought this was a great example
2:13:04 that Ashley found when she was looking
2:13:07 at different opportunities for dashboards.
2:13:09 ‘Cause really the goal was,
2:13:11 can we develop a dashboard for our financial data?
2:13:13 And she looked at a lot of different places
2:13:15 and found this one.
2:13:17 And I think this is a great way
2:13:20 to show our financial data to the public.
2:13:22 So we’re gonna be working towards that.
2:13:24 And hopefully very early in the fall,
2:13:27 we’ll have some start on it
2:13:29 that you all will be able to see.
2:13:31 So that is the end of the first presentation.
2:13:38 And I’ll bring this back to–
2:13:42 - Mrs. Hahn, can I ask them if they have any questions?
2:13:47 - Yeah, I’ll jump in here if that’s okay.
2:13:50 So the Auditor General report
2:13:54 was the reason for the shift in categorization,
2:13:58 which made it our ratio drop of 5.2 to 3.6.
2:14:03 Considering that, then does that,
2:14:07 the KPI was 8% and you’re suggesting get to 6%.
2:14:14 Does that, because of the categorization,
2:14:16 that’s like a permanent change, right?
2:14:17 From the way we used to do things
2:14:18 to the way we have to do things now.
2:14:20 So is that, I mean, it’s 1.6, 2%.
2:14:24 I mean, it’s still gonna be a stretch.
2:14:26 It’s still gonna be a climb to get there.
2:14:29 But does that, is that, I mean, to me,
2:14:31 that almost makes up most,
2:14:33 that’s almost the whole 2% is just the changes
2:14:36 that we’re now having to do things differently.
2:14:38 - So the most significant change
2:14:42 is the current KPI is 8% annually,
2:14:46 meaning tomorrow, at least that’s what it means to me.
2:14:50 - Right, to keep it there, to get there and keep it there.
2:14:54 The change is really to get there
2:14:56 between now and fiscal year 2030.
2:14:59 ‘Cause all districts are experiencing financial stress
2:15:02 for a variety of reasons.
2:15:04 And so I don’t want our goal in finance
2:15:08 to be overriding the academic investment goals, right?
2:15:14 So we don’t wanna be too focused on the financial piece
2:15:18 and not focused enough on the academic piece.
2:15:20 So really trying to set up more of a balance.
2:15:22 So the Auditor General’s reclassification
2:15:25 was just kind of a thing that,
2:15:29 it wasn’t anything that was a finding or anything like that.
2:15:32 It was just their opinion that it should be over here
2:15:34 and not over there.
2:15:35 And so that’s not really impacting us
2:15:38 other than it affected the FCR
2:15:40 and we need to respond to that
2:15:42 and make sure that we adjust.
2:15:44 - I guess my point is from here on out,
2:15:47 that’s the way we’re gonna have to do things.
2:15:48 So let’s forget a new Auditor General’s opinion this is.
2:15:51 You can put it back, right?
2:15:52 - Yeah, and that was, if I remember right,
2:15:54 it was about 11 to 12 million dollars.
2:15:56 So it was a pretty significant number that moved, so.
2:16:00 - Right, and that makes that 8% even harder to achieve.
2:16:03 - Correct.
2:16:04 - Okay, well I think that these new,
2:16:08 I’m in support of the new strategies.
2:16:10 I love the dashboard, I think that’s really great.
2:16:13 And I’m a big fan of not reinventing the wheel
2:16:15 so I don’t mind at all that we borrowed
2:16:18 still the idea from Monroe County.
2:16:21 I also, looking at the other strategy
2:16:25 about the case analysis, I think that that’s excellent
2:16:28 ‘cause we’re kind of moving from a model,
2:16:30 and by the way, thank you for the discussion
2:16:32 that you had with us, I think I got to go first last week,
2:16:35 of where finance comes in and tells departments,
2:16:39 here’s how you should do your job.
2:16:41 Whereas, you know, an example of this year,
2:16:43 the Superintendent gave every department
2:16:44 the directive of find 7% of cuts
2:16:48 and it’s up to you.
2:16:49 That could be people, that could be subscriptions,
2:16:51 that could be whatever, this is your task.
2:16:53 It’s not really, in the same way,
2:16:54 it’s not really finance’s job to come in and say,
2:16:56 this is how you’re gonna do those cuts.
2:16:58 But if they can be a partner to help you find opportunities,
2:17:02 I think that’s an excellent choice.
2:17:03 So I know I support both these new strategies
2:17:07 and the elimination of the other strategies.
2:17:13 - Just to let you know, I’m in support of your plan
2:17:16 and I think you’ve done a phenomenal job.
2:17:17 You’re definitely the right person
2:17:19 at the right time for this job.
2:17:20 So kudos to Dr. Rendell again
2:17:22 because I think you’re gonna get us on track.
2:17:26 I love the idea that we’re gonna keep a balance
2:17:27 between academic performance
2:17:29 and our financial goals as well.
2:17:31 Obviously, that’s always, you know, a challenge.
2:17:34 But, and the dashboard’s awesome.
2:17:36 I mean, it may not look as cool as the other one
2:17:37 but it’s definitely gonna be a great tool for us.
2:17:40 - It’s not interactive, you can’t move the money around.
2:17:42 (laughing)
2:17:47 - That’s okay, that’s good.
2:17:48 That’s good.
2:17:51 - You want me to say something?
2:17:52 No, we talked yesterday, this is great.
2:17:54 I mean, this is, you know, putting it out there
2:17:58 and I think it’s the same thing as the,
2:18:01 can’t move stuff around, but it’s the same ideas,
2:18:04 you know, when people have these ideas
2:18:06 or when we do things and then when they can see it
2:18:07 for themselves here, it’s pretty self-explanatory.
2:18:11 You know, not a lot of movement, so.
2:18:15 - All right, I’ll go next.
2:18:16 I think you, Sue, you are the right person
2:18:19 for this job right now and this is not necessarily
2:18:21 an easy one to be stepping into in this particular moment
2:18:23 in time that we’re in.
2:18:25 But I know that you’re gonna be the right person to lead.
2:18:27 I think one of the challenges our district faces
2:18:28 is that majority of our budget is spent on people, right?
2:18:33 75 to 80% I think is what you told me yesterday.
2:18:35 So when we look at, hey, we need to come up
2:18:38 with seven million dollars, that’s a lot of people.
2:18:41 I mean, that’s a lot of people
2:18:42 that you’re gonna potentially lose.
2:18:44 It’s a balancing act because while obviously
2:18:47 the dotted achievement of the students,
2:18:49 that’s priority number one, are we serving students?
2:18:51 But we also can’t overspend to do that,
2:18:53 so we have to figure out how we can do those two things
2:18:56 in accordance.
2:18:57 One of the concerns I have is, you know,
2:18:59 we’re out of compliance with our policy right now
2:19:01 as far as general fund and the unassigned.
2:19:04 So I don’t know what repercussions we have from that
2:19:07 or if the board needs to look at adopting that policy
2:19:09 or adjusting that policy.
2:19:12 I don’t necessarily wanna be out of compliance
2:19:13 with what the policy that the board has set forth here is.
2:19:18 Or do we need to figure out
2:19:19 how to get to that three and a half percent?
2:19:21 - So we’re gonna be working on that
2:19:23 for the fiscal year end 26 close.
2:19:25 - Okay.
2:19:26 - Right, the idea is to close the year above 3.5.
2:19:28 - Okay.
2:19:29 - So we’ll be in compliance.
2:19:30 - Okay, all right.
2:19:31 Or if it’s not achievable, then that’s something
2:19:33 that we would need to hear from as a board’s perspective.
2:19:35 Do we need to change that policy?
2:19:37 ‘Cause it’s not achievable
2:19:38 for the time that we’re in right now.
2:19:40 Yeah, I look forward to this conversation continuing.
2:19:43 We can’t spend more than we bring in.
2:19:45 I know we don’t wanna look at it as a business.
2:19:47 It’s not a business.
2:19:47 But we have to be mindful of the resources that we have
2:19:50 and not overspend them.
2:19:51 So that’s, yeah, you are the right person
2:19:54 for this job for this time.
2:19:55 And I’m so thankful that you stepped up to be there.
2:19:57 So I appreciate all the work that you and your team is doing
2:19:59 and to Ms. Smith, if you’re listening,
2:20:01 we cannot wait to see that match go live.
2:20:03 So that’s gonna be very, very exciting.
2:20:05 Thank you.
2:20:06 - Yeah, can I comment on something she said really quick?
2:20:08 So the policy language is in here.
2:20:10 It says the board is committed to maintaining the fund balance
2:20:12 which, you know, that is a commitment.
2:20:14 But I would highly recommend that we,
2:20:16 ‘cause there are a lot of districts
2:20:17 that have it much higher than 3.5.
2:20:19 And considering the state requirement is three,
2:20:22 I wouldn’t want to make any changes
2:20:24 because that 3.5 is already dangerously close to the three.
2:20:29 And we’ve already seen a couple of cases this year
2:20:32 of school districts who got taken over
2:20:33 because they dropped below the state requirement.
2:20:38 And maybe the same thing happened to them.
2:20:40 Maybe the auditor general came in and said,
2:20:42 nope, you gotta move this from here to there.
2:20:43 And that’s what caused it.
2:20:44 I think it is actually what happened.
2:20:47 - And so what’s interesting about your policy
2:20:49 is it’s not the FCR.
2:20:51 Your policy is just the unassigned fund balance.
2:20:54 And the state’s regulation
2:20:57 as well as just general financial metrics
2:20:59 is the FCR is the unassigned plus the assigned.
2:21:02 So that’s where I feel like we should get in alignment.
2:21:05 So we’re all talking about the same thing at the same time
2:21:08 when we’re talking about–
2:21:09 - Yeah, so that could be a possible policy change moving forward.
2:21:12 Yeah, but we wanna stay away from that.
2:21:15 We wanna pull the line far back
2:21:17 from what the state requirement is.
2:21:18 - Most definitely. - Correct.
2:21:19 - Far enough back. - Great.
2:21:20 - Let’s just say that.
2:21:23 - We’re all good? - Mm-hmm.
2:21:25 - All right, I appreciate you.
2:21:26 - One more presentation. - One more.
2:21:27 - I know, but I appreciate you.
2:21:28 - Thank you.
2:21:30 All right, so this one is a little bit more
2:21:34 of a financial update.
2:21:35 And so I just wanna go through this real quickly.
2:21:40 We ended fiscal year ‘25,
2:21:42 so this is kind of setting the stage for moving forward.
2:21:46 This was the final determination
2:21:49 of our fund balance at 50.3 million.
2:21:52 The adjustment that was recommended
2:21:53 by the Auditor General has been made.
2:21:55 So you see the assigned fund balance is four million,
2:21:57 unassigned is about 22.
2:22:00 So in FY26, when the budget was adopted,
2:22:03 which was before the fiscal year ‘25 closed,
2:22:06 we had the $57 million fund balance in the adopted budget.
2:22:13 And then as time went on,
2:22:15 we closed fiscal ‘25 fairly recently
2:22:19 and ended up with the fund balance of 50.3.
2:22:22 And so that adjustment was made at a May board meeting
2:22:27 in the April financials.
2:22:28 So we reported a reduction in the budgeted fund balance
2:22:32 from 57 to 50.3.
2:22:34 And so that’s kind of our starting point for fiscal year ‘26.
2:22:41 So again, we talked about the board’s policy
2:22:44 and just wanted to highlight for you
2:22:46 that our general fund trajectory has been going down.
2:22:50 So we’ve been investing in our schools
2:22:52 and we need to be cognizant of that.
2:22:54 So our close of FY25,
2:22:59 we had about 21, 22 million in unassigned fund balance,
2:23:04 but we also included about a $21 million capital transfer
2:23:08 to cover eligible salaries.
2:23:09 If you recall, the legislature had amended the statute
2:23:13 regarding capital expenditures about three years ago
2:23:18 that opened up the capability for districts
2:23:20 to use capital to pay for bus driver salaries,
2:23:23 educational technology folks that support
2:23:27 the things that you buy with capital.
2:23:29 So we were able to make a transfer
2:23:32 and that shored up our fund balance for fiscal ‘25.
2:23:36 So it’s late in the year in fiscal ‘26
2:23:40 and so our trends have been a little concerning.
2:23:43 When we started the year,
2:23:44 our budget for revenues was a bit optimistic
2:23:47 and our budget for expenditures
2:23:49 may have been somewhat understated.
2:23:52 And as Mrs. Wright pointed out,
2:23:53 our costs are 75 to 80% salaries.
2:23:57 So it’s not easy to make any sort of mid-course correction
2:24:01 in May.
2:24:02 So we felt that we wanted to leave the stability
2:24:07 of the schools and in testing season and all that,
2:24:09 so everybody was carry on as you need to
2:24:14 and we’ll figure out how to finish the fiscal year
2:24:18 doing with our fund balance where it needs to be.
2:24:22 So we’re gonna be talking about this continuously
2:24:26 with the board and our departments.
2:24:28 I have to say, the folks on cabinet,
2:24:30 they’ve been getting briefed on all of this
2:24:32 and they have been really diligent
2:24:34 about trying to reduce their fiscal year ‘26 expenditures
2:24:37 where they can.
2:24:38 They’ve been great partners all around.
2:24:40 So everybody is really working on this
2:24:42 to try to make sure that we end fiscal year ‘26
2:24:46 in a positive place.
2:24:48 So some of the mitigation strategies
2:24:50 that we’ve been working on,
2:24:51 the big one is really doing another capital transfer
2:24:55 this year and I’ll talk about that
2:24:57 in a little bit of detail.
2:24:59 But really policing our salaries
2:25:03 and where folks are budgeted.
2:25:05 So if you’re budgeted in a grant,
2:25:06 making sure that you are paid out of that grant
2:25:09 and not out of the general fund
2:25:10 and checking are your benefits paid,
2:25:12 are your supplements paid there,
2:25:13 and just really kind of looking at our position control
2:25:16 and making sure that if you’re budgeted over here
2:25:19 in this bucket that you’re paid over here in this bucket.
2:25:23 Looking at opportunities if we have any,
2:25:26 to transfer salary expenditures to other sources of funds
2:25:31 that we have, so really trying to move things
2:25:33 out of the general fund where we can.
2:25:37 We’ve also done a very thorough position control analysis.
2:25:40 So in fiscal year ‘27,
2:25:42 when we put the proposed budget forward,
2:25:46 we will have a very high level of confidence
2:25:48 that we are budgeting the number of people that we have
2:25:52 and that they are in the appropriate fund.
2:25:55 So we’ve been spending a lot of time on that
2:25:57 and that was kind of the bulk of our conversation
2:26:00 with our departments is just going over position control
2:26:03 and making sure we had the right people in the right place.
2:26:06 We have a lot of split-funded employees,
2:26:10 like you might be funded part of Title II and Title IV
2:26:13 or part of capital and part of general fund.
2:26:15 So we wanted to make sure that that was all
2:26:18 correctly accounted for so that we budget appropriately.
2:26:21 So that was a big effort.
2:26:25 As I mentioned, we expect to do
2:26:26 a pretty big transfer from capital.
2:26:29 We’re looking at any restricted fund source
2:26:32 and making sure that we are using that restricted fund source
2:26:37 within the guardrails of that restriction
2:26:39 and that we don’t have something hanging out
2:26:41 in the general fund that really could be attributed
2:26:43 to the restricted fund source.
2:26:45 So moving things where we can.
2:26:48 We’ve done a really good scrub
2:26:49 of all of our multi-year contracts
2:26:51 and I thank our friends in ET
2:26:53 ‘cause they’ve done a super job with this.
2:26:55 They’re the ones that really have
2:26:56 like two, three, four-year contracts
2:26:59 and we have worked with our vendors
2:27:01 and are able to make sure that we are spending
2:27:06 26 money on 26 expenditures
2:27:09 and then we’re issuing FY 27 purchase orders
2:27:13 using FY 27 money.
2:27:15 So those expenditures aren’t gonna hit our 26 budget.
2:27:19 So that’s been super helpful.
2:27:22 Mr. Wilson has worked with us to reduce the bus order
2:27:25 so that’s gonna free up some money in capital.
2:27:27 So everybody’s really coming to the table
2:27:30 to try to make sure that we end
2:27:32 fiscal year 26 in a good place.
2:27:34 So talking about capital transfer,
2:27:38 you will see this in the next budget amendment
2:27:43 that comes to you for May
2:27:46 and we’ve been able to move about $10 million
2:27:48 from capital over to the general fund
2:27:52 to support eligible salaries.
2:27:55 This initial group,
2:27:57 there are different types of projects here
2:28:01 but there are some that we’ve migrated to sales surtax
2:28:04 so our classroom renewal projects
2:28:06 are being done with sales surtax.
2:28:08 Our stadium bleacher projects,
2:28:10 they’re under design so they weren’t really ready
2:28:12 to construct anyway.
2:28:14 There is some funding in the sales surtax plan
2:28:16 for at least one of those
2:28:18 and we probably can pick up the second one in sales surtax.
2:28:23 Projects like portable relocation,
2:28:25 we had put a million dollars in the capital plan
2:28:28 thinking that we might need to move portables around
2:28:30 this summer and we did not.
2:28:31 So that’s just money that we don’t need to spend.
2:28:36 Some of the other ones,
2:28:38 we have finished the projects that we were planning to do
2:28:42 with either prior year money
2:28:44 or some of what was in the capital plan
2:28:46 and these are resources that are left over.
2:28:48 So these are funds that we can move
2:28:52 and we are not impacting any current projects.
2:28:56 Potentially will impact next year’s projects
2:28:59 but not impacting anything that we have
2:29:01 under construction right now that’s ready to build.
2:29:05 So the next round, we’re gonna do a few things.
2:29:08 As I mentioned, educational technology
2:29:10 has already done a lot of work with their contracts
2:29:14 so we’re expecting about another seven million
2:29:16 that we can reduce in 26
2:29:19 but that is going to increase the level of commitments
2:29:21 that we have in fiscal year 27 on the capital plan.
2:29:25 Transportation reduced their bus order.
2:29:28 In facility renewal, I have capital money budgeted
2:29:33 that I probably will not need to use in facilities.
2:29:36 So it’s kind of the funds that we make sure
2:29:39 we have enough money for things like if we have a hurricane
2:29:42 or those types of emergencies that come up
2:29:45 that I don’t have another funding source for
2:29:46 but I can probably chip in a little bit
2:29:48 to the pot from facilities.
2:29:50 And then looking at balances in current funds,
2:29:53 interest on our capital funds, our property insurance,
2:29:57 Mr. Dufresne and his team have done a good job
2:29:59 negotiating lower property insurance rates
2:30:01 so that’ll come off the top.
2:30:03 And in facilities, we’ll be looking
2:30:06 for unused balances in projects.
2:30:08 So doing another scrub for round two,
2:30:10 expecting another 10 to 15 million dollars potentially
2:30:13 to transfer from capital over into the general fund
2:30:17 but we’ll finalize that a little bit later.
2:30:20 So in 27, when we talk about our capital plan,
2:30:24 so when you see that with the budget proposal,
2:30:27 it’ll be all of our commitments that we have,
2:30:30 debt service, ET contracts, property insurance,
2:30:33 the things that we must do, maintenance salaries
2:30:35 and any other eligible salaries.
2:30:38 And so the rest is gonna be pretty small
2:30:41 so there won’t be a big project list.
2:30:43 There will be probably a designation of projects
2:30:46 for facilities, transportation and technology,
2:30:49 something like that and then we’ll build the plan later
2:30:51 depending on how much is available.
2:30:54 But one point I wanted to be clear on
2:30:56 is that we need to manage our cash flow carefully
2:30:59 ‘cause if we are migrating salary expenses into capital,
2:31:03 we don’t actually receive 27 capital revenue
2:31:05 until like December of 26.
2:31:09 And so we may need to shore that up
2:31:11 with a tax anticipation note,
2:31:13 kind of a standard practice with school districts
2:31:15 because of the cadence of capital revenue
2:31:18 doesn’t actually start until well into the fiscal year.
2:31:22 But our financial advisor’s looking at that for us
2:31:24 and more to come if we need to.
2:31:29 The future of capital,
2:31:31 just wanted to take a long-term look as well.
2:31:35 If we are looking to budget 25 to 35 million dollars
2:31:39 to cover eligible salaries,
2:31:41 that’s gonna reduce our opportunities for capital projects
2:31:44 and I just wanna be upfront about that.
2:31:47 But in thinking long-term and strategically,
2:31:50 potentially we can offset some of those things, right?
2:31:52 So obviously if we reduce our general fund expenditures,
2:31:56 that helps, right?
2:31:58 But we also potentially will be able
2:32:01 to use some educational impact fees.
2:32:03 Those funds have been used for primarily
2:32:06 Bayside High School Classroom Edition
2:32:07 and the Separate Day School.
2:32:09 Separate Day School’s fully funded.
2:32:11 Bayside is probably a quarter,
2:32:14 a quarter meaning a quarter of the year
2:32:17 away from being funded.
2:32:18 So potentially we can put a few million dollars
2:32:21 from impact fees into paying for debt
2:32:24 on previously constructed projects
2:32:26 that were capacity projects that are eligible.
2:32:29 That will free up a little capital money.
2:32:31 So I think there’s some things we can do
2:32:33 to offset the capital impact going forward.
2:32:37 But it’s really just kind of looking at
2:32:39 how we can manage our capital resources
2:32:42 to be as effective as possible.
2:32:45 And then our debt retirement,
2:32:47 our payment in 2032 is the last full payment.
2:32:52 So in 2033, we get about a 20 million dollar reduction
2:32:58 and then in 2036, that is our last payment
2:33:02 on our current debt.
2:33:03 And so that’s going to give us some more capital resources
2:33:07 to going forward.
2:33:09 And then just to let you know,
2:33:10 I am taking another look at the sales tax renewal plan
2:33:13 and just making sure that we’ve got
2:33:14 our mission critical projects covered.
2:33:17 So that will–
2:33:18 - So can I ask a question?
2:33:19 - Yes, ma’am.
2:33:20 - Just ‘cause I know we discussed it before
2:33:21 but the impact fees, we talked about looking
2:33:23 at an impact fee study and I think that had to go
2:33:26 through the county commission, correct?
2:33:28 - So the change in the rates has to go
2:33:31 through the county commission.
2:33:32 The county staff kind of said if you guys want a new rate,
2:33:35 go ahead and get a study done.
2:33:38 So we can do that independently
2:33:40 and then they have to enact the rate.
2:33:42 - Okay, and I mean, I just don’t know,
2:33:44 is that worth us looking at?
2:33:47 - Mrs. Wright, frankly, I have debated the merits
2:33:50 of doing that.
2:33:51 I think our rates are very low.
2:33:55 They’re probably a third of what they should be.
2:34:01 - Then we should do it.
2:34:02 - Well, yes, but there’s some state law
2:34:06 around how much you can increase your rates
2:34:09 and then it also impacts the affordability of development.
2:34:13 So there’s some offsetting factors
2:34:14 and so I’ve been kind of on the fence
2:34:16 about whether we should do that or not.
2:34:19 But if the board would like us to move forward
2:34:21 or if you’d like me to do a longer analysis of that,
2:34:24 I’m happy to do that, is that we can increase our rates.
2:34:28 But we also, the county commission has to adopt them.
2:34:31 - Right, if we order the study,
2:34:34 it doesn’t mean we have to move forward with it.
2:34:35 It would just show the disparity, correct?
2:34:38 - Yeah, and one of the things that Perkins Eastman can do,
2:34:41 that’s within the scope of the planning world.
2:34:43 So fully intended to use them for that purpose
2:34:47 if the board wanted to move forward with that.
2:34:49 So if you all want to think about that and let me know,
2:34:52 we can proceed with that anytime.
2:34:53 - I think it’s worth exploring.
2:34:54 I don’t know what it’s gonna cost the district to explore it
2:34:57 but it’s probably worth at least looking at
2:34:58 if you’re saying we’re–
2:35:00 - They’re typically pretty expensive
2:35:02 but we have pretty good data too.
2:35:04 So a lot of the work that goes into the impact-free study
2:35:08 is looking at our facilities costs and things like that
2:35:10 and we have good data on that.
2:35:11 So I can talk to them and get a kind of a draft proposal.
2:35:16 - We can get a number.
2:35:18 - Sure.
2:35:19 - Yeah, yep, thank you.
2:35:22 - Okay, so for 27, our budget presentation in July,
2:35:28 you have your first budget hearing
2:35:30 and we will basically load the department’s budgets
2:35:34 as they have been requested.
2:35:36 As we haven’t looked at the revenue side yet
2:35:39 so that’s something that will be ongoing
2:35:42 for the next few weeks.
2:35:43 And then we’re planning to do
2:35:45 a pretty sizable capital transfer.
2:35:48 Couple of significant changes in the budget.
2:35:50 We do have some textbook expenses coming up in 27.
2:35:54 I believe social studies, is that correct, Ms. Harris?
2:35:59 Math, I’m sorry.
2:36:00 And fuel has gone up.
2:36:02 And then our school clinic staffing
2:36:04 through the Florida Department of Health,
2:36:06 we have a contract with them
2:36:08 that’s about six million a year.
2:36:10 They have had and applied some other resources
2:36:12 to that contract so we haven’t expended that much
2:36:15 in the past but we need to fully budget
2:36:17 for that expense in fiscal year 27.
2:36:21 But I would say, and what I’ve been telling our departments
2:36:23 is to expect some reduction between what we see in July
2:36:27 and what you all approve ultimately in September.
2:36:31 Again, mention focus on position control
2:36:34 and we also want to take a look at that
2:36:36 after six day count and see where we are with PAR
2:36:39 ‘cause that will have an impact on the budget as well.
2:36:44 Some longer term strategies that I just wanted
2:36:46 to kind of tell you some of the things
2:36:47 that we’re looking at and doing.
2:36:50 Gave you a preview of the financial dashboard,
2:36:52 position control.
2:36:54 Supplements are kind of interesting.
2:36:57 There are some supplements that are tied to people
2:37:00 such as I have this credential
2:37:03 and I get a supplement for that
2:37:04 and some that are tied to function.
2:37:06 I might be the golf coach or the whatever coach
2:37:09 and I get a supplement for that function
2:37:11 and I think we can do a stronger job
2:37:16 of understanding those supplements
2:37:20 and how they’re budgeted and where they’re budgeted.
2:37:23 A lot of them are funded through millage
2:37:24 and those are pretty very well accounted for.
2:37:28 It’s some of these that for example,
2:37:31 if I’m funded through capital and I get a supplement
2:37:33 for my master’s degree, is that capital funded
2:37:36 or is that general fund funded?
2:37:37 So we want to double check all of those things
2:37:40 and make sure that we have wrangled all of that.
2:37:43 And I believe the new ERP is going to help us with that.
2:37:47 - Nothing come out already?
2:37:48 - Yeah, I literally can’t wait for that to be done
2:37:51 ‘cause that’s gonna be a game changer for a lot of things
2:37:54 and will help us with all of this.
2:37:56 But this is a project that I’ll be working on
2:37:58 with Mr. Dufresne and the payroll folks
2:38:00 and just kind of making sure
2:38:02 that we understand these supplements.
2:38:04 For example, like I have some in the facilities department
2:38:07 that are paid annually versus the most supplements are paid
2:38:11 with your bi-weekly paycheck.
2:38:14 So the cadence of payment, the sources of payment
2:38:17 and all of that, we just want to make sure
2:38:18 that we understand all that so that it can be managed.
2:38:22 Similarly with substitute budgets,
2:38:25 there are some substitute functions
2:38:28 that are funded by outside business partners.
2:38:31 There are some that’s just general fund.
2:38:34 You need to substitute for the day.
2:38:36 I’ve learned that we have substitute bus drivers.
2:38:39 So there’s this substitute project number
2:38:42 that has an enormous expenditure associated with it
2:38:45 and I wanna help us do a better job of managing that
2:38:48 and understanding where those expenditures are.
2:38:50 So these are all things that we’re gonna be working on.
2:38:53 It’s not next week, but things that I think we can do
2:38:58 some stronger managerial efforts around some of these
2:39:01 so that we understand them better, so we budget better,
2:39:03 so that we can track our spending and understand
2:39:07 where we might have issues or where we might have gaps
2:39:10 or where we might have opportunities.
2:39:12 So, and then the last thing is we’ll probably take a look
2:39:15 at debt refinancing and if that will gather any savings.
2:39:20 Additionally going forward, we have opportunities
2:39:22 for property sales, looking at some cost recovery
2:39:25 for damage to things primarily computers,
2:39:29 but occasionally we have a building damage
2:39:32 that we need to recover.
2:39:34 We’ll be looking at school budgets.
2:39:36 That’s one thing I haven’t really looked at yet,
2:39:38 so we’ll be taking some time to do that
2:39:41 over the next few weeks.
2:39:43 Mr. Dufresne’s team looking at healthcare and risk
2:39:45 and how we can save in those areas.
2:39:49 Just heard presentation on our strategic facilities plan.
2:39:52 The board typically adopts fees intermittently
2:39:57 throughout the year.
2:39:58 We’d like to try to get that corralled
2:40:00 so that it’s a once or twice a year type of thing
2:40:03 and not a random type of thing.
2:40:05 Similarly with position control,
2:40:07 we’re looking at changing that to a twice per year cadence
2:40:12 versus throughout the year,
2:40:14 so we can keep a better handle on what’s happening.
2:40:17 Mr. Dufresne’s doing some work kind of alongside
2:40:20 of the work we’re doing in finance
2:40:22 to try to get that process managed a little bit more tightly.
2:40:27 And then again, focusing on business case analysis.
2:40:29 I think there’s a lot of opportunities there
2:40:32 for us to work with our departments and be stronger.
2:40:36 So in summary, as Mr. Bryan has said,
2:40:40 we have competition, right?
2:40:42 We’ve gotta look at that through the lens
2:40:45 of a competitive environment.
2:40:48 A lot of revenue uncertainty.
2:40:49 The legislature does different things with revenue
2:40:53 pretty much on an annual basis,
2:40:54 so trying to keep up with all that
2:40:56 and making sure that we understand it
2:40:57 and optimize how we work with it.
2:41:01 Our service delivery options, what can we provide,
2:41:04 potentially that could be a business case for revenue,
2:41:08 and also looking at services that maybe we shouldn’t provide.
2:41:12 So all of those things would be in the mix.
2:41:15 But I do think as time goes on,
2:41:18 we’re going to have to be very mindful
2:41:20 of how we prioritize our resources.
2:41:25 And then I think, oh, next.
2:41:29 So closing out 26, that’s kind of right on the horizon now.
2:41:34 We’ll be working on the draft 27 budget.
2:41:37 We’re looking at tentatively scheduling a workshop
2:41:39 with the board in advance of the first budget hearing
2:41:42 so we can kinda go over our department budget requests
2:41:44 and just make sure everybody’s clear
2:41:47 on what we’re recommending for investment.
2:41:50 And then plan to do some modifications
2:41:53 between July adoption of the preliminary budget
2:41:56 and the September adoption of the budget,
2:41:58 and then also working to finalize the sales tax plan.
2:42:01 And so I think with that,
2:42:05 just wanna say that we are proud to support our friends
2:42:08 in the academic side of the house
2:42:09 and do our best to help them have
2:42:12 as many resources as possible
2:42:13 to do the good work that they’re doing.
2:42:16 So thank you, and I’m sorry this was way longer
2:42:18 and way less entertaining than my normal presentation.
2:42:22 There was no dogs in the, yeah, we (laughs)
2:42:25 You got anything– Or minions.
2:42:27 No?
2:42:32 No, I just tried to get everybody else.
2:42:33 I know, I know.
2:42:35 I, not gonna lie, this is tough information, right?
2:42:41 I’m sure it’s been tough for everybody.
2:42:42 I appreciate the work that you’ve done,
2:42:44 and I think the thing that was missing
2:42:51 was communication, because you can,
2:42:57 raise alarm is not the right term,
2:42:58 you can kinda say, “Hey, we’re having some issues,”
2:43:01 but if you can’t, to be able to communicate it,
2:43:04 this is how we got there, this is the plan to get out,
2:43:07 this is the path forward.
2:43:09 We still have lots of question marks,
2:43:11 but to me that is what gives me confidence
2:43:16 as a board member coming up knowing
2:43:19 that you’re gonna be presenting so much more for us,
2:43:21 and of course the budget and all that stuff
2:43:22 that you guys have already been very thoughtfully
2:43:25 going through, I love the word scrub,
2:43:27 and if I had to count how many times
2:43:28 you used the word scrub in the presentation,
2:43:30 you know, I’d probably need more than one hand.
2:43:33 But this is, this is good work,
2:43:38 and it’s ongoing, and everybody’s having to chip in,
2:43:42 and I think it was good for us to be proactive,
2:43:45 you know, mid-year, when you made that request
2:43:46 to the departments, it was widely misunderstood
2:43:49 across the district.
2:43:50 - And not 7% across the district.
2:43:51 - I know, we did, we are not firing 7% of our employees.
2:43:56 I don’t know, it’s, I know,
2:43:58 because school district budgets are complicated.
2:44:00 But I thank you for doing this work,
2:44:05 and getting your teams aligned,
2:44:07 because just as the efforts between student services,
2:44:16 school leadership, and curriculum instruction
2:44:19 to not be siloed, but to come together,
2:44:21 have made such an impact over the last three or four years
2:44:24 in achieving student success, I believe,
2:44:28 and part of it, because you’re already
2:44:30 the facilities person, and now you’re the finance person,
2:44:32 you know, there has to be a breakdown of silos.
2:44:34 I believe that the continued bringing down of the walls
2:44:38 that keep all the departments siloed,
2:44:40 so that we can, I think that will result
2:44:42 in similar effects on our budget,
2:44:44 because of the communication factor,
2:44:46 not just with us and with the public,
2:44:48 but within the departments.
2:44:50 So I, even though this is, you know,
2:44:54 this is not a rosy presentation,
2:44:57 like the academic achievement data.
2:44:59 But I think that factor, the communication,
2:45:02 is what gives me confidence as we walk this process
2:45:05 over the next several months,
2:45:06 that we’re gonna get there.
2:45:08 And I appreciate your leadership in that,
2:45:10 and that everybody is, you can’t be a leader,
2:45:13 people aren’t following you.
2:45:14 You happen to be a leader that people love to follow.
2:45:17 And so that is helpful, but also I want to thank
2:45:19 all the people that are following you,
2:45:21 and the finance and accounting team, the budgeting teams,
2:45:24 because, you know, there’s been lots of changes
2:45:26 in that area, and so kudos to all of those people.
2:45:29 And kudos to your facilities team,
2:45:33 who are picking up some of the slack,
2:45:34 as you’ve had to switch hats back and forth all the time.
2:45:38 So they always do a great job, but I know,
2:45:40 and a couple of them are sitting in here,
2:45:42 so thanks to you guys for making it easier for her
2:45:46 to be able to do that.
2:45:49 - Okay, Ms. Wright.
2:45:52 - No, thank you, I mean, I’ve already expressed
2:45:53 my gratitude for your work on this.
2:45:57 It’s not fun work, but numbers are numbers,
2:46:00 and we don’t have to be emotional about them,
2:46:01 we just need to make sure we’re making wise decisions
2:46:03 with how we’re utilizing resources,
2:46:05 because that is the ultimate goal, right,
2:46:07 is to maintain the level of service we’re providing
2:46:09 to our students, and making sure they have
2:46:10 the best education, and then to do that
2:46:13 within the constraints of the budget.
2:46:14 So I appreciate your team, I appreciate your team
2:46:16 on both ends, because you do have two teams
2:46:18 now that you’re overseeing, and I say this all the time,
2:46:21 I’m like, there is not a better person.
2:46:23 I have never heard a single person say a bad word
2:46:26 about you, Sue, in the community,
2:46:27 and that’s a testimony to who you are.
2:46:29 So they trust your leadership wholeheartedly,
2:46:31 I trust your leadership wholeheartedly,
2:46:33 whatever we can do to make your job easier,
2:46:34 please tell us that, and we look forward to this year
2:46:37 being a challenging year with opportunities for growth,
2:46:40 but it’s gonna be challenging, it’s all right,
2:46:42 so we’re up for the challenge, so thank you
2:46:44 for the work that you put in.
2:46:45 - Dr. Wendell?
2:46:47 - Yeah, I just wanna say that we knew this past year,
2:46:50 the current year, was gonna be a tough budget year,
2:46:53 challenging budget year, and we did everything we could
2:46:56 to not harm the schoolhouse, to make sure that
2:47:00 if we had to make any reductions,
2:47:02 it was at the district office level,
2:47:03 district departments, that kind of thing,
2:47:06 and we did a good job with that.
2:47:07 We’ve cut a lot of expenses, and as we go towards next year,
2:47:11 we still have to get leaner, and again,
2:47:14 we’re looking for efficiencies,
2:47:15 making sure that we’re charging everything
2:47:18 to a categorical that we can.
2:47:21 It’s the general fund is what we wanna protect,
2:47:23 and so making sure that we’re responsible
2:47:26 with the money that we have been entrusted to us,
2:47:29 and make sure we’re spending it wisely,
2:47:31 and that kind of thing, and so Sue has identified,
2:47:34 and her team and cabinet have identified
2:47:36 a lot of areas for us to reduce expenditures,
2:47:40 and again, stay away from harming the schools
2:47:43 as much as possible.
2:47:45 When we do open next year, though,
2:47:47 those six-day count meetings are gonna be very important,
2:47:49 because if we can get leaner in some of those areas,
2:47:54 and we need to, we will, but right now,
2:47:57 we wanna make sure that the schools
2:47:59 have all the supports they need,
2:48:00 and we’re moving things in areas we can
2:48:05 to make sure that we, as Mrs. Wright said,
2:48:08 maintain that level of support,
2:48:10 and the only other thing I have is,
2:48:12 can you guys commit to a workshop on July 21st?
2:48:15 - Yes.
2:48:18 - July 21. - July 21.
2:48:19 - Is it daytime? - Yeah.
2:48:21 - Yeah, it could be at 9 a.m.
2:48:23 - I’m done. - Yes.
2:48:24 - Sure.
2:48:26 Somebody will be there.
2:48:28 - How about my?
2:48:34 - Yeah, go ahead, okay.
2:48:37 - Yeah, if it’s long as it’s a daytime meeting,
2:48:39 I have a nice meeting. - Yeah, we’ll do a 9 a.m.,
2:48:40 and we’ll get it on the calendar.
2:48:42 - Okay.
2:48:44 - And I just wanna say thank you to all of you,
2:48:47 and thank you for the great teams
2:48:49 that we have in facilities and in finance.
2:48:53 They’ve really been working hard,
2:48:55 and they’re doing a great job,
2:48:57 so I’m really proud to be part of that team,
2:48:59 and so thank you for saying that,
2:49:01 and Mrs. Campbell and Mrs. Wright,
2:49:01 ‘cause I was trying to remember everything
2:49:04 I was supposed to say today,
2:49:05 and I didn’t quite remember that, so.
2:49:09 - Mrs. Campbell is right.
2:49:10 We know more now about our situation
2:49:13 than we did in the past, so communication, much better.
2:49:18 - Yes.
2:49:20 - Mr. Chair, I do have two quick things.
2:49:22 Sorry, I’ll be quick.
2:49:23 I just, ‘cause we’re only gonna be meeting in July
2:49:26 with the one time, and it’s gonna be a big-budget thing,
2:49:28 so I just wanted to ask you that I’d mentioned a while back,
2:49:31 I’m not sure who needs to, you know, can run with this
2:49:35 if you guys want to, but there’s a pocket of students
2:49:38 that are west of university, east of Lipscomb Street
2:49:41 that are currently bused all the way to Riviera,
2:49:44 and University Park is down on enrollment,
2:49:46 so I wanted to, I didn’t mention it before,
2:49:50 but it’s easy, there’s a million things going on.
2:49:52 Just wanna make sure, if we could take a look at it
2:49:53 before we get too far down there into the summer.
2:49:56 And the second thing– - We have a tool we can use.
2:49:58 - Yeah, we do. - Yeah.
2:49:59 - Yeah, we do.
2:50:00 - The other thing is, I was wondering
2:50:02 if I could get on the agenda for the August 11th
2:50:06 work session, because I know what we have going on
2:50:08 August 28th, it’s gonna be busy,
2:50:10 but for the work session on August 11th, if we could,
2:50:14 I would like to get the public comment discussion
2:50:18 for our work session on that day.
2:50:20 I know Mr. Gibbs had done a memo to everybody,
2:50:22 and I just would like to make that a topic of discussion.
2:50:25 - Yep, absolutely, yeah.
2:50:28 - That’s it, thank you.
2:50:33 Are they good?
2:50:34 Anybody else have anything else to talk about?
2:50:36 - I have a question.
2:50:38 I think they’re following you guys in
2:50:40 (speaking off mic)
2:50:47 - Yeah, we do have some evaluations we have to work on.
2:50:50 - Oh yeah, that needs to probably be–
2:50:51 - Yeah, we’ve got some other–
2:50:53 - That’s true.
2:50:54 - If we, I don’t know if we can get it all done.
2:50:57 You have yours done?
2:50:58 I was gonna say, could we combine the July 21st thing
2:51:01 if it’s not gonna take very long with,
2:51:03 ‘cause Paul’s is due first.
2:51:04 - Yeah, we can do Paul’s, yep.
2:51:05 - But that depends on if Paul’s ready.
2:51:08 - I haven’t got it ready because I don’t know
2:51:10 what tool I’m using to evaluate it,
2:51:12 so we made the revisions to the tool
2:51:14 that you guys previously discussed.
2:51:16 If you’re good with me going under that,
2:51:18 I can work to have that done by the 21st.
2:51:22 - But that means we have to read it,
2:51:25 and I think that may be too soon.
2:51:27 - That’s fine, too.
2:51:28 - You could review it on the 21st and act on it on the 28th.
2:51:33 - Yeah, however you guys want.
2:51:34 - That’s true.
2:51:35 - ‘Cause he has to get it done and then send it out.
2:51:37 - Don’t we give you, don’t you have to have
2:51:38 30 days contractually or something, isn’t it?
2:51:40 - It’s fine, I’ll get it done.
2:51:41 - I know, but I don’t wanna ask you to do something
2:51:43 that’s outside of your contract.
2:51:44 - Yeah, no, I’ll get it done.
2:51:46 I just didn’t know which one I was going under,
2:51:49 ‘cause we’ve amended the one tool
2:51:53 to what you guys discussed at that meeting, so.
2:51:57 - Right, and it hasn’t been board approved yet,
2:52:00 so I’m like, am I still using the old one or the new one?
2:52:03 I’m fine with either one.
2:52:04 - Well, even though it’s over a month,
2:52:05 what I don’t wanna pressure is for Paul
2:52:07 to have to get it done, get it out to us, us review it,
2:52:11 us to do the evaluation, and be ready to talk about it
2:52:13 on the 21st, that’s way too soon, I think,
2:52:16 because it takes Lena several weeks just to track us down
2:52:19 and make sure that we got it done, our part, so,
2:52:23 and Paul, it’s a pretty large document that he has,
2:52:26 he prepares, well, it’s not as big as his, but.
2:52:29 - It’s not superintendent size, so.
2:52:31 - Yeah.
2:52:32 - Do they need board, do they need to approve the tool
2:52:35 before he can use it?
2:52:35 - If they tell me to use the old tool,
2:52:37 I’ll evaluate myself under the old tool,
2:52:39 and they can formally approve it later on, that’s fine.
2:52:41 - Approve it on the 21st, and then formally approve it
2:52:44 on the 31st.
2:52:44 - The 21st is just gonna be a workshop,
2:52:46 not a board meeting. - Yeah, just a work session
2:52:47 on the 21st. - We can add it first.
2:52:48 - School board meeting on it.
2:52:50 - What, for the tool, I mean, does he,
2:52:52 are you asking for some direction today?
2:52:55 - If you guys say use the new tool, I’m good,
2:52:57 if you guys are good with it.
2:52:58 I didn’t know if you guys had any more changes to it.
2:53:01 - I’m okay with it.
2:53:03 - I mean, it was between the two of you guys,
2:53:06 so I’m assuming you had some input?
2:53:08 You felt like you had fair good input?
2:53:09 - I mean, yeah, you guys all provided the input,
2:53:10 I went back and re-listened to make sure I caught it all,
2:53:12 and I sent it.
2:53:14 - Let’s do it. - Not moving on.
2:53:14 - All right, let’s move on to the new tool.
2:53:17 - Yeah.
2:53:18 - We can try to, if we need board approval for the tool,
2:53:21 then we can put a quick board meeting on the 21st,
2:53:24 and then we can approve it, and then we can
2:53:25 approve your entire evaluation from the 28th.
2:53:28 - I don’t feel like it’s something we ever voted on.
2:53:30 - Yeah, I don’t know if you ever,
2:53:31 I inherited it from Amy, so.
2:53:34 - If we do, we can do it.
2:53:36 - All right, we all good?
2:53:37 Anybody else?
2:53:39 All right, with all that being said,
2:53:41 meeting’s adjourned.
2:53:46 (upbeat music)
2:54:24 (silence)