WEBVTT

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Boardroom: Good evening. We're going to call tonight's regular meeting to order

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Boardroom: Mr. Kilstrom. Could you please call the role closer to that?

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Boardroom: We're going to call this this evening's meeting to order Mr. Kilstrom, will you please call the roll

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Boardroom: chair? Taylor?

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Louis Taylor: Present.

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Boardroom: Vice chair, Wyatt, here director, shoemaker here.

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Boardroom: director, sloop here, Director Vidal, here. Thank you.

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Boardroom: Our 1st order of business this evening is to hear from our student representatives. So 1st up, we're going to hear from Riverside High School, and I'd like to welcome Lucia to the microphone.

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Boardroom: Hello, board members. I hope you had a great holiday season.

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Boardroom: I am so excited to be here and give you an update on the school we are at right now. This is such an amazing opportunity, not for myself, but also for Riverside.

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Boardroom: 1st of all, last Friday was our rock band's 1st concert of the year. They performed at the Youth Music Project at 7 Pm. And had a great turnout.

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Boardroom: We are also going to have another information night on January 29.th So stay updated. Everyone here is welcome to join us at 6 pm.

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Boardroom: On to the athletics. Our boys basketball team has played a huge variety of teams from 5 a to one a. From frosh through varsity teams. We are growing as a team and are having a great time. We have a home game on Thursday, at 4 30 Pm. You all are invited to come and support our raptors.

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Boardroom: We have a combined team again this year with Riverdale Riverdale for our girls basketball team. This has been a great partnership for both schools that we are able to have the numbers for 2 teams and cross school relationships.

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Boardroom: We have a great group of both boy and girl wrestlers. We wrestled at one of the Westland matches last week, and we came out undefeated against 6 Ajv opponents.

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Boardroom: We have a significant group of boys and girls swimmers who had their 1st big meet last Saturday, and another 2 coming up this Thursday and this Saturday.

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Boardroom: We also have a handful of athletes on the ski and snowboard teams this season, that they are enjoying the snow up on the mountain and competing against other athletes

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Boardroom: off of the athletics. This week is the start of our essentials. Drive students can bring canned foods, lightly used clothes, and anything else on our long list to be donated to those in need.

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Boardroom: Our drive ends on Friday, and whoever's life class brings in the most items will get a donut party.

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Boardroom: Everyone's very competitive.

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Boardroom: Next week is finals. Week students are cramming in the last of the studying before they have to test their knowledge on the past semester, and after school academy is a great place to do that. They can work on assignments, study with teachers and peers, or take missed tests

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Boardroom: as well as some classes have already started their final project. One of those classes is our business management class. Today was the 1st day of the shark tank final. Our business class teacher, Mr. Mitchell, had created some students in groups, me and my group included, create a product that they present to a table of sharks or a couple teachers and other business people who are friends with Mr. Mitchell.

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Boardroom: So far only one group has gotten an offer for their outstanding product.

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Boardroom: We are rapidly approaching the Isof Science Fair date, with all of the students, myself included, trying to finish up the last of their research to start conducting experiments and and tests to present next month.

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Boardroom: Riverside is so happy to be hosting this year and hope to wow. Everyone with an amazing Science fair this year. Thank you so much for having me here today.

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Boardroom: Next up we welcome mia from Westland High School.

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Boardroom: Awesome.

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Boardroom: Good evening, Weston Wilsonville School Board. It's nice to see you all again. I hope you all had a very relaxing winter break, and had some fun while you were at it.

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Boardroom: December 9.th Through 20th was Westland's winterfest winterfest takes place during the last 2 weeks before winter break. During this time Asb decorated the school with silver snowflakes, chains, and tinsel had a winter themed Spirit week and held lunch activities in the library alongside some of Westland's clubs.

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Boardroom: Some of these activities included Karaoke, hosted by our Thespians, chess and jazz cookies handed out by the Psychology, Honor society, and many more. Asb also sold candy grams for winterfest, in which students could purchase a candy cane for their friends and write a heartfelt holiday message to be delivered to them. At the end of the 2 weeks

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Boardroom: Winterfest came to a close with our winter Assembly on December 20.th During this assembly we got to see and hear performances from the Westland High School choir, fresh pitch, our staff choir dance team cheer team and the winners of our club's got talent competition. The Asian Pacific Islanders Club. Our student body competed in a few fun. Rounds of lions, feud our own, take on the game family feud, but ultimately lost to our staff team in the final round

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Boardroom: the Westland High School band, choir and orchestra all held their winter concerts on the week of December 16th they were all very successful, and sounded absolutely wonderful.

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Boardroom: This past Saturday Westland had our winter ball at the Portland Art Museum. Our theme this year was silver bells, and our students had a blast and danced the night away.

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Boardroom: Our Westland athletics are absolutely crushing it as of now in the beginning of their seasons.

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Boardroom: Currently, our boys basketball team has 10 wins and one loss. Our girls basketball team has 6 wins and 6 losses. Our girls and boys swim teams also have had a lot of success in their season so far, taking wins over many teams, including St. Mary's and Tigard.

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Boardroom: our wrestling team, beat Lake Oswego in their duel last Thursday and Current, and last, but not least, senior dance team. Captain Lily Walsh had an incredible performance and was selected for the 2025 Osaa Slash, Ddca. Allstate dance team.

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Boardroom: That is all I have for you tonight. Thank you so much for having me, and I look forward to reporting back to you next month during semester 2.

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Boardroom: And now we welcome Carter from Wilsonville High School.

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Boardroom: Little taller. All right.

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Boardroom: Good evening, Dr. Ludwig and members of the School Board on behalf of leadership and Asb at Wilsonville High School. I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to speak. Today.

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Boardroom: I am the Asp president at Wilsonville, and excited to give you an update for the last month here at Wilsonville.

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Boardroom: Also, as it is School Board appreciation month. I would just like to say thank you to all of you, and all the hard work you've put in, and hours and things you do for our community.

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Boardroom: This past month was spent mostly during winter break, but that did not stop Wilsonville High School from rolling as usual. In the world of athletics our boys and girls, basketball teams have both started their seasons, the boys, 8 and 2, and girls 3 and 8, both very excited to start off League play

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Boardroom: wrestling has also started their season, and have had 2 matches, and are looking forward to the rest of the season as well as swim. Team. Season is off, and already having 3 meets one. This last weekend, where the boys placed 4, th and the girls placed 3rd

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Boardroom: as well as this winter season. We have had snowboard team, was hitting the slopes very often, and has been prepared for their banked, solemn competition on the 18th and 25.th

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Boardroom: In the world of drama our program is well into practice of radium girls. They look forward to this production and getting everything order and ready to go, as they will be performing. February 27, th 28, th March 1, st 6, th 7, th and 8th

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Boardroom: seniors have been working hard on college applications, financial aid applications and thinking about this. Next school year one group of students spent last Friday working on preparing for scholarships. The event path to scholarships was planned by the Oregon Association of billing administrations and was supported by our language specialists. These students learned about opportunities that are available to them and had time to organize their thoughts to write their essays.

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Boardroom: We also have a group of students who have started volunteering at Sunshine Division each month as an option during live class access time.

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Boardroom: This opportunity is open to all students, but this last week they packed 250 food boxes.

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Boardroom: being that this is located in Wilsonville. It is nice for Wilsonville students to go and serve their local communities

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Boardroom: in the student realm. Our senior class council has been planning our Wilsonville winter formal, which will be held at Wilsonville High School on February first.st

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Boardroom: Our asp class continues to be hard at work in planning assemblies and new activities to help build school spirit and community as well as we had our recent necessity drives before break, which helped us raise over 400 items that will then be given out to our community.

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Boardroom: Also. The day before break we had our winter assembly, which included many games like jeopardy, as we also presented awards to our State champions in football and girls soccer as well as our art department, was recognized and awarded a $10,000 donation from the Charbonneau Arts Commission, who have been partnered with them for many years. Now.

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Boardroom: And yeah, thank you for your time, that's all I have for you, and look forward to reporting to you next month. Thank you.

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Boardroom: Next, up on the agenda are recognitions, and I'll turn it over to Dr. Ludwig.

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Boardroom: Thank you. And and again, thank you to our students. You are excused to go if you'd like to thank you for being here preparing those reports, and I know, Lucia, you didn't hear me because my mic wasn't on. But the rock band concert was so great. Friday night. So please extend my appreciation to the group

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Boardroom: every January we get the opportunity to recognize the volunteer service

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Boardroom: of our School Board and School boards across Oregon and across the nation, and I think about

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Boardroom: how these roles have taken on more over the years than perhaps school boards in the past.

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Boardroom: Just the season of whatever's happening in the community or nationally.

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Boardroom: and what I'm always impressed with is how school boards today not only think about their own school districts and the plans ahead, but really have become a collaborative across the State, visiting each other's school districts, attending conferences.

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Boardroom: advocating in Salem for K. 12 funding.

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Boardroom: We'll hear more about that tonight, but I just want to thank each of you for going above and beyond what I think. Perhaps you thought you were signing on to

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Boardroom: during these times, but just being so approachable, available to the community. And again, so much of your time away from family, your work.

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Boardroom: to volunteer in this role. So thank you.

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Boardroom: We have a proclamation that we read each month.

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Boardroom: and this is the School Board, Recognition month, Proclamation, and all across Oregon school boards are being recognized with proclamations like this.

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Boardroom: whereas school boards create a vision for what students should know and be able to do.

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Boardroom: whereas school Boards establish clear standards for student performance.

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Boardroom: whereas school boards ensure that student assessments are tied to established standards, whereas school Boards are accountable to the community for operating schools that support student achievement.

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Boardroom: whereas school Boards align school district resources to ensure that students meet standards.

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Boardroom: whereas school boards create a climate that supports the philosophy that all children can learn at high levels.

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Boardroom: whereas school boards build collaborative relationships based on trust teamwork and shared accountability.

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Boardroom: And whereas school boards are committed to continuous education and training on issues related to student achievement. Now, therefore, we hereby declare our appreciation to the members of this Westland Wilsonville School District School Board

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Boardroom: and proclaim the month of January to be School Board Recognition Month.

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Boardroom: We urge all citizens to join us in recognizing the dedication and hard work of Local School Board members in preparing today's students for tomorrow's world.

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Boardroom: And this is dated January 13, th 2025, and I'll be signing it and putting it into record

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Boardroom: at your table. You have several tokens, I think the ones that

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Boardroom: will perhaps be the most dear to you are messages from students and staff and and leaders of their schools in appreciation.

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Boardroom: So I want to thank each of you again for your community service for your many, many hours.

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Boardroom: and for just being such a spectacular school board to our community with great gratitude. Thank you.

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Boardroom: and I invite folks to appreciate the School Board with a round of applause.

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Boardroom: All right. It is now time for board reports, and we will get started with Director Shoemaker.

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Boardroom: Thank you. 1st of all, I want to thank Principal Chapin for hosting us tonight. It's kind of nice to get out of the district office building sometimes for these meetings. So I appreciate that.

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Boardroom: you know, I think what's what's been on my mind. Most recently obviously is is that our our me are so many great meetings with our elementaries?

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Boardroom: but also funding in general, and as someone who's been in education or had been in education for a long time. I've certainly seen

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Boardroom: the big swings that feel like massive swings in school funding, and

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Boardroom: I still have enough contacts in other districts to know just how challenging this challenging. This is all around Oregon at this time, and a reminder. And I want to thank directors, Sloop and Vidal for the work they're doing around advocacy in Salem around this because it just feels like.

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Boardroom: you know, when when things are this hard?

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Boardroom: You know, when my colleagues in other districts are saying they cannot believe the numbers they're talking about.

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Boardroom: that something's got got to be done. So that advocacy is so important. And I appreciate your willingness to work with anyone who wants to support in that way.

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Boardroom: I wanna. I wanna compliment our community on on the the tone around. The work we've been doing around. The the work with the primaries. And this discuss discussion of consolidation.

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Boardroom: I I feel like I've seen this tone shift from sort of a

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Boardroom: sort of a stunned to. Okay, let's let's get down and dig and figure out what we can do. And I've heard so many people offering suggestions. And I've really appreciated that. And I want the community to know that. Obviously, we take our stewardship responsibility. Incredibly, seriously.

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Boardroom: but also that you do have really good ideas. There's a lot of really good ideas coming from our community that's not lost. That small Schools Task Force report is voluminous. And sometimes it's just a note that someone just dropped in that maybe they didn't even share with the table group that they just dropped a note. Or it might be an email. They sent one of us. But these are all good ideas, and I'm convinced that so that any time we're dealing with this level of funding

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Boardroom: deficit that there's no one single solution that's going to get us there. There's a lot of work to be done, and a lot of ways to look at this. So I appreciate everyone's

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Boardroom: you know, continued willingness to look at the hard things, and I'll stop with that.

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Boardroom: Thank you. Director sloop.

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Boardroom: so I will. Echo, director, Shoemaker.

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Boardroom: that I'd like to also thank the small school task force

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Boardroom: for their time, their dedication and commitment over the past several months.

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Boardroom: and I'm sorry that you were not able to gather for the last meeting to generate a collaborative report.

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Boardroom: But I do appreciate receiving from the parents on the task force who created a report of their own findings or their own report of the findings.

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Boardroom: I'd like to thank the Pta presidents from Cedar, Oak, Bolton and Stafford for organizing the listening sessions.

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Boardroom: and I'd like to extend a heartfelt thank you to the parents, community members and staff and the teachers

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Boardroom: for meeting with us and sharing their stories from their school community and as well as their experiences.

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Boardroom: Community voice is valued as well as teacher voice.

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Boardroom: I wanted to also mention that last week Director Vidal and I went to a community solutions forum. And as Director Shoemaker said, there's some great ideas we I definitely appreciate.

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Boardroom: The ideas, the solutions, and the collaborative effort. So thank you for taking the time and

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Boardroom: and organizing, and as well as offering ideas and solutions to get us with through our budget shortfalls

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Boardroom: tonight on our under our consent. Agenda agenda is

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Boardroom: information on transfers coming into our district as well as going out.

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Boardroom: And you can also go on the website. And there's information on the school district website.

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Boardroom: There's nothing new. We're just going to go ahead and vote vote on the consent agenda. But it's basically the same decisions that were made last year will apply to this year.

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Boardroom: and that is that they will. Our district will release 20 students to transfer out

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Boardroom: if that school districts that they want to go to will re accept that release, and then we will be accepting

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Boardroom: anyone that wants to come into our district who would be released by their school.

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Boardroom: we in K through 8. And then there's a number of students that would be accepted in just 9th grade, 15 at Riverside and 5 at Westland and Wilsonville High School for 9th grade.

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Boardroom: More details are again listed in the agenda, and

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Boardroom: wanted to mention also that the tuition. We are not a school that charges tuition because we we want to have it be an equitable opportunity and not have it based on who can pay to come to the school district.

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Boardroom: And then, lastly, Director Vidal and I would like to extend an invitation to join us for 2 upcoming legislative events.

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Boardroom: The 1st is this, Wednesday, January 15, th from 7 to 8 30 at Clackamas Community College. It's the Harmony Campus in Milwaukee.

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Boardroom: and then the second is a pre-session. Town Hall is the other slide up

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Boardroom: with Representative Neuron and Bowman and Senator Woods. This Saturday from 2 to 3 30

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Boardroom: at the King City Civic Association. This will provide an opportunity to hear about their legislative priorities as well as we can share our advocacy for special education funding

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Boardroom: and Director Vidal.

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Boardroom: There we go. I 1st want to thank Riverside High School for hosting us tonight. It's so great to be here. I want to also echo director, shoemaker, and director sloop in thanking all of the small school task Force members for their very hard work.

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Boardroom: I would also like to thank the parents, families, neighbors, teachers, and paraeducators who have come out to the events

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Boardroom: the listening events this last week, and then also, who have emailed us

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Boardroom: about their unique school stories, about their ideas for solutions to our incredibly serious and real budget shortfall.

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Boardroom: causing the Board to make difficult decisions this year, and, like Director Sloop said, we are committed to advocating for the full funding of the Governor's budget of 11.3 6 billion dollars.

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Boardroom: So thank you so much for having us. That's it.

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Boardroom: Chair Taylor.

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Louis Taylor: Good evening, everybody

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Louis Taylor: good to see you all which I can't see you, but if I could, I wish I could. I had to travel this week, so my apologies for not being able to be there in pre in present

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Louis Taylor: and in person. Excuse me.

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Louis Taylor: and my voice is a little bit raspy just from the travel. These planes will get you so. I think that most of you have covered everything. That I would have to say or

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Louis Taylor: provide any insight on. I just wanna say thank you for all of the people who may be in the room that I can't see

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Louis Taylor: for coming out. I know tonight is a a meeting that is heavy on the community's heart.

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Louis Taylor: and so I hope that

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Louis Taylor: in this meeting you get some clarity, maybe, on questions that you've had or some some better understanding of

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Louis Taylor: where we are. I think it's it's probably been pounded in pretty good.

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Louis Taylor: but you know sometimes it's just hearing it a few times for it to kind of set in, and I know that everything that is heard tonight probably

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Louis Taylor: will not sit well with everyone.

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Louis Taylor: maybe there's gonna be more questions that you walk away with, or our emails will get some friendly. We hope friendly request. So

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Louis Taylor: just know that as I speak to myself, and I know I think I understand the character of my colleagues that

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Louis Taylor: you know. We'll do our best to respond and answer questions. If something is missed tonight, or maybe didn't sit well or I don't know. Maybe you just got some things on your mind that you'd like to share. So just know that we're here. We do our best to respond in a timely manner. Sometimes with travel like this

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Louis Taylor: we might be a little bit behind, but I just want to say, Thank you for the patience and the grace that has been extended in some of these in person listening sessions, and to the Pta Presidents at all 3 schools that are kind of in the crosshairs of this

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Louis Taylor: particular topic.

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Louis Taylor: We thank you for your hard work. I know that was mentioned earlier, and opening up your schools and your communities even further to us. So

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Louis Taylor: that's all I have for this evening. And I look forward to seeing you guys all in person

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Louis Taylor: again real soon. So thank you.

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Boardroom: I'd just like to echo that. Thank you to the Bolton Cedar Oak, and Stafford Ptas, and especially the Presidents, for accommodating all of us at your Pta meetings last week.

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Boardroom: I know that took time out of your calendars and just really appreciate that time, and also just want to make sure that we mention that we did move our meeting to Riverside High School today, and then Westland High School at the end of the month. Obviously, as you can see that took a lot of preparation to make sure that we were able to broadcast this meeting.

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Boardroom: If you are watching from home, and if the sound and the video isn't what you're accustomed to. Thank you for bearing with us. But we did think it was important to make sure we had a venue that could accommodate everyone that wanted to attend. And so and we're hopeful that this is a space that everyone could access and be part of this meeting. So thank you, too, to our staff for making all of this possible

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Boardroom: and so at this point, we'll turn it over to Director Ludwig for our superintendent report.

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Boardroom: It'd be going back and forth between glasses on and glasses off. But I I think we can all see the screen here. And again, I want to thank also our staff, for there's a lot of work in just setting up in another venue that sometimes we don't think about so even things like microphones and and screens. So thank you.

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Boardroom: We can go ahead to the next slide.

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Boardroom: I am going to spend my report tonight talking about budget I typically

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Boardroom: highlight things happening in the district, and I'll catch up for that in February. But given presentation tonight and the Board's deliberation at our next meeting. There's some information we want to make sure is clear to our community.

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Boardroom: Additionally, I want to mention well, and thank Director Vidal and director sloop for your advocacy at many different functions last month and this month

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Boardroom: on the back. If folks came in and they signed up on clipboards. There are also some flyers put out by Clackamas County

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Boardroom: that just described the funding need and the advocacy around the State. So it's it's encapsulates what we're going to talk about tonight as well, collectively put together by all 10 school districts and our community college.

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Boardroom: So

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Boardroom: where we just want to start is just reminding ourselves that the Governor came out in December, proposing for the next biennium

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Boardroom: the 11.3 6 billion which we've mentioned. And so that's that's the starting number. The governor can propose a budget, but it's really the legislators that approve it.

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Boardroom: So there is time in the next couple months where the Ways and Means committee will consider that amount. They have the purview, the ability to raise that amount to lower that amount or to keep it at the Governor's proposal.

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Boardroom: The Governor also, in addition to that renewed and set forward 127 million towards early literacy

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Boardroom: portion of that is, towards the early literacy grants that school districts receive others is towards early childhood literacy.

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Boardroom: and then also 78.5 million towards summer learning. And that's over the biennium. So for each year year, and

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Boardroom: towards all, 197 school districts and charter schools that are eligible

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Boardroom: even with this budget. What you're going to hear tonight, and you already are hearing across school districts across Oregon is that budgeting challenges still persist.

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Boardroom: and that districts across Oregon, including ours, will be making reductions next year.

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Boardroom: and that's what I want to talk about tonight.

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Boardroom: There is collective movement across various groups. The Oregon School Board Association, the School Administrators Association.

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Boardroom: Oea, which is the Licensed Oregon Education Association of Licensed Teachers.

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Boardroom: and quite a large number of legislators, and to that. I do want to thank Representative Neuron, who has been a steadfast advocate for public school funding.

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Boardroom: And collectively, each of these groups

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Boardroom: Is advocating for securing the 11.3 6 billion.

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Boardroom: not to go any lower than that or higher. If the Ways and Means Committee will agree.

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Boardroom: and then some areas of additional funding, one of those being raising the special education cap.

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Boardroom: Right now, we get reimbursed 11%, but raising it to 15%, which is what that is nationally in other States.

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Boardroom: but asking that this increase be additional funding

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Boardroom: and not just redistribution of the current funding. So there's a difference there, funding high cost disability.

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Boardroom: fully funding that and increasing the funding to early childhood services.

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Boardroom: There are many times when legislators have very worthy

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Boardroom: mandates around the State to make changes. Sometimes they come to school districts with no extra funding.

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Boardroom: and then to enact those mandates across the State school districts, then have to draw from their general fund to meet those new mandates.

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Boardroom: And often in the passing of those mandates folks are thinking about

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Boardroom: the change it will make to people's lives, and we'll talk about a few of those, but often aren't thinking who's going to pay for the changes.

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Boardroom: And we've received over the years a number of those as school districts, and they increase over time.

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Boardroom: and you'll hear about those tonight. So our request also to legislators in Salem is, please, no more unfunded mandates, if you do have.

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Boardroom: were the ideas for legislation that does impact employees.

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Boardroom: then we ask that you think about sending the funding with the mandates next slide.

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Boardroom: So for those of you have been attending many of these board meetings over the last 6 months in particular, or even last year.

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Boardroom: these slides might look familiar. The topic is familiar, but we do know that sometimes in people's busy lives they enter the conversation at different points. It's like opening the book to Chapter 4, and not knowing what happened in the previous chapter. So some of this will be review for people maybe watching for the 1st time tonight, as neighbors have told them about what's happening, or are curious and haven't been reading some of the information out there in the media. So how is it that school districts are in a budget shortfall.

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Boardroom: Well, really, it's kind of a simple formula. In a lot of ways. Revenue is decreasing

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Boardroom: and costs are increasing, and for us revenue is decreasing because our enrollment is decreasing. When a large part of our funding

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Boardroom: is per student allocation.

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Boardroom: and you're going down in enrollment. That's a significant amount of revenue. Then that is decreasing.

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Boardroom: We'll hear about some other revenue sources that have been decreasing over time, but essentially, our largest portion is about our State school fund

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Boardroom: and our local property tax which is connected to our enrollment.

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Boardroom: And then you'll hear again tonight, and you can just

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Boardroom: go on the Internet and Google, and you'll hear about cost increases in Oregon and nationally, that contribute to school district. But school district budget challenges

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Boardroom: next slide.

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Boardroom: So I won't read through this. But you can see essentially that across Oregon, from Covid until now.

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Boardroom: K. 12, public schools have lost about 35,000 students.

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Boardroom: So these were students in our system right before Covid. But then, when we, the pandemic, hit a lot of families, made decisions about schooling that fit their needs. Whether it was to homeschool or Virtual Charter School.

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Boardroom: His families relocated and so across Oregon we are down 35,000 students

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Boardroom: since the fall of 2019

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Boardroom: there was a sense. And I wonder if the students would come back after the pandemic, which is why school districts were kind of in a holding pattern, not doing a lot of layoffs, keeping programs as they were.

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Boardroom: even though enrollment had gone down.

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Boardroom: We all hoped that it was temporary. But we're just in a new reality. Around our new enrollment

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Boardroom: level in the state next slide you can see here where Westland Wilsonville school district

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Boardroom: was. This was in 2324.

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Boardroom: We could update it to this year, but we're actually not finished with the year, and so the number would probably fluctuate a little bit.

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Boardroom: but almost 900 students less than where we were right before Covid.

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Boardroom: And you can see other school districts in a similar predicament

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Boardroom: paired with that. If you've been watching the news globally as well as nationally, the birthing rate has slowed down

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Boardroom: economics, all sorts of situations.

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Boardroom: That has come alongside the pandemic. And now we are seeing fewer students entering kindergarten.

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Boardroom: whether it's connected still to school choice or

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Boardroom: the number of children in our community.

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Boardroom: Those are things that

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Boardroom: we don't have a very clear picture on. But we do have demographic forecasts around how both of those will impact our school district over the next 10 years.

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Boardroom: And this is not just Weston Wilsonville School district, but we're experiencing across the State.

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Boardroom: We had a 10 year projection completed by flow analytics

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Boardroom: upon request, from the long range planning committee. As we were putting together our long range plan

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Boardroom: in that flow, analytics used a complex methodology, using census data.

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Boardroom: community planning birth rate, death rate, move in, move out

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Boardroom: and through that they project over the next 10 years. What they think is going to happen in terms of enrollment in a school district, and I know it's hard to see those numbers. You have it in your. You'll have it in your binders.

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Boardroom: But the the real numbers we have are on the left. You can see that blue line right up until the tip of the Arrow. You can see where we were close to 10,000 students, and then Covid hit, and how

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Boardroom: enrollment has gone down.

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Boardroom: And now it's continuing to go down in our community as well as in some other communities in Oregon.

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Boardroom: Right at that tip is where flow analytics has the most accurate information, because it's past information. Anything forward from that is their projection, and they put them into a low medium and high scenario.

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Boardroom: the one the scenario we were using with our small schools task force and our long range planning committee is the middle scenario.

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Boardroom: the Green Bar.

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Boardroom: Well, we are one year into now that projection to see how close we are to flow analytics

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Boardroom: projections. And we're actually below that middle scenario with today's numbers

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Boardroom: just almost halfway in between the middle scenario and the low scenario.

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Boardroom: So all that to say again, we're only one year into that projection.

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Boardroom: but it is bearing out that we are still on the decline.

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Boardroom: We weren't on the other side of that green graph towards the red. We're actually trending below.

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Boardroom: So enrollment is one of the ways that we get our State school funding

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Boardroom: and every biennium. The ways and means committee and legislation appropriates a certain amount of the State fund to K 12 schools.

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Boardroom: There's other places where funding goes, social services, housing, law enforcement, higher education.

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Boardroom: But we are a large portion of that State funding as government agencies, and so K. 12 schools get a portion and an allocation.

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Boardroom: and each biennium, there's a percentage increase of that allocation.

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Boardroom: You can see each of the bienniums on the left, 1113, 1315, 1517, and each biennium

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Boardroom: there is an increase from the year the biennium before, and I put that in the middle column. So from the 1113 biennium to the 1315, you could see that that was a 12% increase.

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Boardroom: And so there was a pattern of a certain amount of increase that actually was keeping pretty proportionally around

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Boardroom: inflation, increase, cost of living employee raises utilities.

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Boardroom: That school districts were able to kind of keep up with expenditures based on the biennium that was given

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Boardroom: the biennium amount that was given.

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Boardroom: But here's where we start to see a little difference

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Boardroom: in the last few Biennia. In 1921, there was a 9 billion dollar

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Boardroom: revenue allocation. It was 10%

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Boardroom: from the biennium before so slightly less than what it was trending.

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Boardroom: But at the same time legislation passed around what was called the High School Success grant.

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Boardroom: and a large grant was given because of the concern around graduation rates. A. Grant was given to school districts, public school districts to improve graduation rates.

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Boardroom: Majority of the funding had to go towards staff in high schools

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Boardroom: and programs in high schools. It was given per student.

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Boardroom: and it was called a supplemental grant. In other words, you couldn't put current people who you already had

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Boardroom: in your budget

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Boardroom: into that grant. This was to go above and beyond. So it was adding new staff new programs and new teachers, and the funding to go with it.

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Boardroom: Oh, stay back on that slide! Thanks.

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Boardroom: So a slightly less in the State School Fund in the Biennium.

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Boardroom: But there was also this grant.

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Boardroom: but the grant didn't support the general fund. It was to do additional work

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Boardroom: in the next biennium. You can see the increase

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Boardroom: only went to 9.3 billion a 3% increase from the biennium before.

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Boardroom: At that same time there was additional legislation called the Student Success Act.

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Boardroom: Out of that is a grant called the Student Investment Account, the Sia Grant.

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Boardroom: and in this Grant school districts were asked to really work on closing achievement and opportunity gaps where there was academic disparity for students as well as mental health support. And you can see the timing of that. We were looking to come out of Covid

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Boardroom: districts were told, this is this is extra money for you to be able to help students coming out of the pandemic for you to be able to close achievement gaps and for you to address mental health concerns.

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Boardroom: particularly also achievement gaps for students who have been historically marginalized.

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Boardroom: When you add the money there from the grant

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Boardroom: to the shortfall that we can all see in the State School Fund.

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Boardroom: You could get close to that 9.9 billion, maybe in some school districts it was a little bit more of that percentage because this grant was not given per student. It was given based on demographics, so it had a weighted capacity to it, and some districts got more than others, even if they were the same size. School district

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Boardroom: so improved outcomes were expected with this extra money, even though it really wasn't extra money. It was just carved out

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Boardroom: of what school districts were hoping to get in their new biennium.

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Boardroom: because it was a carve out. Legislators and ode were lenient, and said you could supplant.

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Boardroom: in other words, Staff, who you already were paying for your general fund instead of letting them go because there was a reduced biennium funding you could pay for them out of the grant.

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Boardroom: So we moved counselors over to the Grant social workers over to the Grant teachers over to the grant

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Boardroom: who were doing this type of work identified

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Boardroom: in the description of the Sia Grant

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Boardroom: the following biennium, the one we're finishing up right now came with a 10.2 billion dollars increase.

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Boardroom: which was 10%.

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Boardroom: But 10% of the already low amount, not 10%

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Boardroom: of the State School fund plus the Sia grant.

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Boardroom: Otherwise it would have been 9.9 with another 10%.

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Boardroom: We still have the High school success grant funding those additional staff.

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Boardroom: we still have the Sia grant. But remember, we moved Staff into that. It wasn't really extra money.

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Boardroom: It just supplanted what we should have received in our State school fund.

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Boardroom: And then the Governor in the last biennium

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Boardroom: approved an early Literacy grant to school districts

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Boardroom: coming out of Covid and noticing that there was still

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Boardroom: achievement gaps around early literacy. But it required districts to match it with 25% of their own fund.

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Boardroom: So even if we were, we had to kind of show where we were already spending 25% of that grant amount towards early literacy, and then we would get

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Boardroom: the other 75% from the grant.

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Boardroom: And, as I mentioned earlier, the Governor has proposed renewing that again.

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Boardroom: in this biennium she set aside 127 million. It's not in legislation. This is connected to this governor's initiatives.

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Boardroom: So stay on that slide.

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Boardroom: So when I mentioned that revenue is not keeping up, as we look at

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Boardroom: that amount, that 10 or 11% that is allocated

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Boardroom: unlike previous years. It's not keeping up when costs of operations and payroll are outpacing the 10 or 11%

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Boardroom: when our payroll and benefits are increasing every year. Biennium by 12 or 15%. That 10% or 11% isn't enough

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Boardroom: when utilities and transportation are increasing

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Boardroom: and insurance liability and workers compensation. We're getting early estimates that's going to be up 15 to 20% from the previous year.

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Boardroom: And then we're all hearing right now about Frs and the retirement rates that have come out

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Boardroom: and they have doubled.

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Boardroom: And so for our district alone next year, that's an additional 6 million dollars.

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Boardroom: So it's very hard to operate year to year with

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Boardroom: what would be the roll up costs

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Boardroom: when the costs are outpacing that revenue from the State.

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Boardroom: Okay, so

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Boardroom: many of us are in this position of budget shortfalls, you can see a list on the right. It's not just happening here in Oregon, Southwest Washington, all over the State and nationally

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Boardroom: next.

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Boardroom: And I just mentioned that when costs are going up and outpacing that revenue source that's coming in, it continues to make this and widens this gap

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Boardroom: between funding in and expenditures out that gap continues to get wider and wider. I do want to talk about that middle bullet point unfunded mandates mentioned earlier that when legislators approve some legislation towards employment or different initiatives, and then ask school districts to implement them without giving the funding to do that, that then also comes out of the general fund some big ones that you can see there is classified unemployment. There was a new

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Boardroom: legislation that now allows any classified staff member

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Boardroom: to claim unemployment during winter, break, spring, break, and summer, even if they're still employed by the district.

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Boardroom: So if they're not working during that time they claim unemployment, which is portions, then, that we have to pay into.

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Boardroom: And again, no one's saying this isn't helpful or needed, or a long time coming. It's just districts. Didn't expect that they were going to be the ones to have to pay for this without additional compensation from the State.

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Boardroom: paid leave Oregon again, a very worthy initiative, which now allows employees to take an addition to take 12 weeks of paid leave every year.

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Boardroom: This is in addition to, if they qualify for femla or ofla, this is not instead of it's in addition to that.

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Boardroom: and

328
00:48:08.450 --> 00:48:17.539
Boardroom: That paid leave is paid a little bit by the district a little bit by employees. We've all heard about the program, but where the costs are for the district is in substitutes.

329
00:48:17.770 --> 00:48:27.149
Boardroom: because, as more and people tapped into this. The district is now covering employees who are not teaching in the classroom or working

330
00:48:27.460 --> 00:48:38.610
Boardroom: again. A very worthy initiative. No one's arguing that it's just the cost now to cover for employees who are not working was unexpected and an unfunded mandate.

331
00:48:39.500 --> 00:48:43.499
Boardroom: And then I'll I'm not going to talk about energy efficiency lighting. But

332
00:48:43.700 --> 00:48:51.699
Boardroom: there's requirements there that every school district in Oregon has to now move towards, and it's quite exorbitant.

333
00:48:55.840 --> 00:49:15.699
Boardroom: So just a little bit about the pers rates increases. You can again go on the Internet, Google it. You'll you'll read far more comprehensive information than you'll receive tonight if you're watching. But essentially, you can see in that top row that our rates for tier one tier, 2 employees are going from 7.9 2% to 16,

334
00:49:16.030 --> 00:49:22.709
Boardroom: and our Opsrc employees. Their rate is going up from 5.8 0 8 to 12.8 3.

335
00:49:23.340 --> 00:49:27.840
Boardroom: So you can see that it's actually a little bit more than doubling those rates

336
00:49:28.220 --> 00:49:36.230
Boardroom: for our district alone. This expenditure unexpectedly is 6 million dollars more for next year.

337
00:49:36.810 --> 00:49:41.819
Boardroom: I just put in a few other school districts that are in Clackamas County. But you can get.

338
00:49:41.940 --> 00:49:47.769
Boardroom: you know, every school district. You'll also see. Rates are going up for police law enforcement firefighters.

339
00:49:48.840 --> 00:49:50.340
Boardroom: and you can see

340
00:49:50.500 --> 00:49:59.761
Boardroom: just highlighted if you can be Gladstone Lake, Oswego, North Clackamas. But I could. There's about 127 school districts and all of their rates are going up

341
00:50:00.390 --> 00:50:03.220
Boardroom: Most doubling, if not more, for next year.

342
00:50:05.700 --> 00:50:09.159
Boardroom: Now there, if we didn't have any side accounts.

343
00:50:09.260 --> 00:50:12.460
Boardroom: our rates will actually be closer to about 27%.

344
00:50:12.850 --> 00:50:17.940
Boardroom: But our chief financial officer, Dr. Hughes, has over time.

345
00:50:18.465 --> 00:50:24.840
Boardroom: Put us into a pool with other school districts, and we've qualified for what's called side accounts.

346
00:50:25.530 --> 00:50:37.470
Boardroom: Essentially, those operate. Let's say, if you had a credit card and it was at 15%, and you went out for a loan for 7%. You could pay off your credit card at 50. That has a higher rate.

347
00:50:38.050 --> 00:50:39.659
Boardroom: and then just

348
00:50:40.170 --> 00:50:54.759
Boardroom: pay your loan at 7. So this is what school districts can do. If we can pool together and get a side account or a loan at a lower rate, then we use. That money, then, is given to Pers to draw down the amount we have to pay.

349
00:50:54.920 --> 00:50:56.600
Boardroom: Otherwise

350
00:50:57.680 --> 00:51:24.530
Boardroom: the reason 127 of our school districts have gone up. Now is that a side account that we were all in that's set to expire in 2027 is essentially there's actuarials that put out. You know how much it'll last each year. It's actually drawn down in that bucket more than it has, and so they're slowing down the payout and raising our rate.

351
00:51:24.760 --> 00:51:30.769
Boardroom: our rates. So our rate will go up again in 2027. When the side account actually does expire.

352
00:51:32.070 --> 00:51:46.899
Boardroom: we do have another side account that we took out in about 2021. And so that's where we saw some relief during Covid by taking out a side account there. So we actually have 2 side accounts, one, that one will expire in 2027. We are exploring

353
00:51:47.330 --> 00:51:54.770
Boardroom: with other school districts. If we can qualify for another side account. The challenge is around the economics.

354
00:51:55.030 --> 00:52:00.510
Boardroom: It doesn't work. If you can't get a rate that's beneficial or that's lower than the pers rate.

355
00:52:00.750 --> 00:52:03.509
Boardroom: Otherwise you're spending more money to take out that loan.

356
00:52:05.510 --> 00:52:14.450
Boardroom: So you have to factor in the risk factors. And there are financial analysts and groups that are working on that for a group of school districts and running those numbers.

357
00:52:18.730 --> 00:52:21.669
Boardroom: So just a review of kind of where we've been

358
00:52:21.970 --> 00:52:27.510
Boardroom: in 2324, I did provide a message to the Budget Committee

359
00:52:27.710 --> 00:52:32.160
Boardroom: to the community, the board that just forecasted

360
00:52:32.480 --> 00:52:46.770
Boardroom: we are getting to a place where again costs are going up. Revenue is going down, and our Federal reserve our reserve of funds from the pandemic. That cushion in reserve is getting depleted.

361
00:52:47.160 --> 00:52:48.479
Boardroom: And so there is.

362
00:52:48.730 --> 00:53:00.759
Boardroom: It's kind of like the cliff is coming, which is what they're they're calling in the media, the Esser cliff, the pandemic cliff, and we need to plan ahead and know that we need to make some significant reductions.

363
00:53:00.870 --> 00:53:09.960
Boardroom: In that year of 2324, we did some modest reductions. Some of them were around things that you wouldn't ordinarily see some supplies

364
00:53:10.740 --> 00:53:17.440
Boardroom: slight changes to some programs we did reduce our health assistance we hired for for the pandemic.

365
00:53:17.630 --> 00:53:27.049
Boardroom: but we still had such a robust ending fund balance that was really hard to make any other types of significant reductions with that type of an ending fund balance

366
00:53:29.950 --> 00:53:39.590
Boardroom: in 2425. Going into this year. Last spring I once again sent messages out to the community to the Budget Committee district staff.

367
00:53:39.760 --> 00:53:50.360
Boardroom: letting them know that we are even closer to that cliff, that waterfall, and that we will need to reduce 10 million dollars going into the 2425 school year

368
00:53:50.690 --> 00:53:59.349
Boardroom: we were in the middle of contract negotiations with both of our associations. They were fantastic partners through those difficult conversations, and we did

369
00:53:59.977 --> 00:54:14.710
Boardroom: we were able to successfully negotiate those you may hear that other school districts from last year still have not, and they're in mediation this year. But I want to thank our associations for collaborating through that process.

370
00:54:14.890 --> 00:54:28.650
Boardroom: Reductions were made and we communicated those out to the community through letters. The website, budget message. There were a number of media reports, and the next slide shows where we made those reductions

371
00:54:28.760 --> 00:54:33.526
Boardroom: in 2425. I apologize for that orange font.

372
00:54:34.580 --> 00:54:38.440
Boardroom: So the 1st says, approximately 4.5 million.

373
00:54:38.590 --> 00:54:42.979
Boardroom: So district wide across departments and then school operational budget.

374
00:54:43.240 --> 00:54:46.210
Boardroom: we made a reduction there of 4.5 million.

375
00:54:46.860 --> 00:55:09.530
Boardroom: Then we did another reduction of 4 million around personnel across the district. These are non classroom personnel. So a lot of support personnel admit some administrators, some administrative positions classified support staff, and we were able to by that time be a little more specific in what those positions were going to be. And you can see those listed there

376
00:55:11.240 --> 00:55:15.360
Boardroom: and then. So that was the 8.5 million of the 10.

377
00:55:16.040 --> 00:55:17.979
Boardroom: And then there were 12

378
00:55:18.150 --> 00:55:27.820
Boardroom: classroom teacher reductions in primary. It's where we had our most significant enrollment drop, but we had held to still quite a few staff

379
00:55:28.180 --> 00:55:42.049
Boardroom: to have very low class sizes and support students coming out of the pandemic. So by reducing those 12 primary teachers, we went from an average of about 21.3 students into a classroom to 23.3.

380
00:55:46.090 --> 00:55:51.659
Boardroom: So here we are looking at 2526, and we are

381
00:55:51.920 --> 00:55:59.610
Boardroom: in. This situation of revenue is not keeping up to pace. It's also declining for us when we're declining our enrollment.

382
00:56:00.280 --> 00:56:04.959
Boardroom: And we need to make another sizable reduction in staff and programs

383
00:56:05.720 --> 00:56:30.230
Boardroom: we have been working. We know there's some comments around. Maybe a 3rd party business analyst could be helping the district business office. And actually, we do, we have a lot of on a regular basis, a lot of people looking at our financials, whether it's our debt service, whether it's our property tax or local option tax, and we do have on retainer, a 3rd party business analyst

384
00:56:30.350 --> 00:56:35.249
Boardroom: who has been a Cfo. In school districts. And now his career

385
00:56:35.530 --> 00:56:42.139
Boardroom: is to go around and help school districts who are working on their budgets, or who have challenges with their budgets.

386
00:56:43.212 --> 00:56:47.920
Boardroom: And he has reviewed our analysis for going also into next year.

387
00:56:50.430 --> 00:57:03.950
Boardroom: so, as I mentioned. Last year. The majority of our reductions went towards non-classroom positions and programs. We did as much as we could around, looking at where and who and how we could reduce without touching the classroom

388
00:57:04.080 --> 00:57:18.380
Boardroom: for a district our size that's pretty challenging. We we pride ourselves on being a little as slim as possible in terms of administrative support and things like that. But we were able to trim down 8.5 million

389
00:57:19.330 --> 00:57:25.849
Boardroom: this year. The reductions we will still make some at the district level. But frankly, we're getting at a point where

390
00:57:26.020 --> 00:57:32.240
Boardroom: you could only trim down so much before you're actually eliminating perhaps whole programs.

391
00:57:33.820 --> 00:57:36.460
Boardroom: I think this just means we need to move around.

392
00:57:38.315 --> 00:57:40.609
Boardroom: Thank you, Jared.

393
00:57:41.800 --> 00:57:48.309
Boardroom: So this year we will. We will make approximately 50% to non classroom positions. Still, but

394
00:57:48.700 --> 00:57:51.010
Boardroom: a few more to classroom positions.

395
00:57:54.520 --> 00:57:56.299
Boardroom: Can you hear me? Okay, is it better?

396
00:57:56.830 --> 00:57:57.520
Boardroom: Okay?

397
00:57:58.750 --> 00:58:09.790
Boardroom: And again, just want to assure our school board that we are working very closely with our association leaders around all preliminary numbers. And of course, all processes just like we did last year.

398
00:58:11.900 --> 00:58:13.010
Boardroom: Hey? Next?

399
00:58:14.260 --> 00:58:17.270
Boardroom: So what I'm going to show you tonight is a draft

400
00:58:17.630 --> 00:58:24.500
Boardroom: of our general budget reduction plan that we're going to work with going into next year.

401
00:58:24.870 --> 00:58:27.880
Boardroom: The reason I'm sharing it tonight. It feels early

402
00:58:28.070 --> 00:58:34.560
Boardroom: because it's only January, but we know that you have a lot to think about in terms of the timeline for small schools.

403
00:58:34.820 --> 00:58:38.689
Boardroom: and your questions would be around, what are we looking at for, budget?

404
00:58:39.130 --> 00:58:43.450
Boardroom: So we've kind of accelerated the process a little bit, so that you would have

405
00:58:43.850 --> 00:58:46.429
Boardroom: a starting point for this evening

406
00:58:47.250 --> 00:58:49.750
Boardroom: and for your decision on the 27.th

407
00:58:50.370 --> 00:59:08.930
Boardroom: I can't emphasize that 1st bullet point enough. This draft is preliminary. So any media reporting tonight, but the word preliminary in your article. It is only January, and a lot can change in the life of school districts and funding between now and June.

408
00:59:09.730 --> 00:59:19.000
Boardroom: 1st of all, it's preliminary. It's only January because legislators are just now starting to draft bills, getting ready to meet the Ways and Means committee still gets to decide

409
00:59:19.140 --> 00:59:24.809
Boardroom: if it wants to keep the governor's proposal of 11.3 6 billion, raise it or lower it.

410
00:59:24.980 --> 00:59:29.639
Boardroom: So again, advocacy around that would really be helpful.

411
00:59:29.780 --> 00:59:40.080
Boardroom: and legislators are just starting to draft bills. We are hoping that if they make any that require school districts to make changes, that they would fund any mandates that come with those.

412
00:59:40.940 --> 00:59:48.929
Boardroom: as those unfunded mandates do, make it difficult for us to keep consistent with initiatives that we're doing in our in our schools.

413
00:59:50.980 --> 00:59:59.320
Boardroom: Next, again, this draft is preliminary, because revenue and costs can still change.

414
00:59:59.430 --> 01:00:06.539
Boardroom: We do get varying numbers from the Federal Government around our special education idea and title grants.

415
01:00:06.910 --> 01:00:10.189
Boardroom: Last year they went down significantly.

416
01:00:10.310 --> 01:00:25.249
Boardroom: When we inquired it was because the Federal Government has moved towards a new methodology of determining poverty, using census data and what's called a neighborhood census versus individual census to allocate that funding.

417
01:00:25.570 --> 01:00:28.950
Boardroom: So this resulted in less funding for us as a district.

418
01:00:29.650 --> 01:00:44.439
Boardroom: Some other school districts may be fared better, but our school district did not based on the new methodology, also that Sia grant that I mentioned, and the High school success, grant and the early literacy grants. Those are estimates.

419
01:00:44.550 --> 01:00:52.669
Boardroom: and once the allocation and distribution formula is determined, each school district will find out how much of each of those grants they receive

420
01:00:53.340 --> 01:00:56.919
Boardroom: other than the high school success. Grant

421
01:00:57.120 --> 01:01:05.810
Boardroom: the Sia Grant and the early literacy grants are based on demographics so weighted students so that

422
01:01:05.960 --> 01:01:09.349
Boardroom: that changes for us the high school success. Grant is

423
01:01:09.570 --> 01:01:12.320
Boardroom: per student. It's about $800

424
01:01:13.158 --> 01:01:17.819
Boardroom: for a student in high school, regardless the demographics of the school district.

425
01:01:19.060 --> 01:01:31.739
Boardroom: And then, of course, we have these preliminary numbers from utility, insurance and vendor costs. We're working with those as estimates, but we don't know in the end until we get closer to August, September, and get into those months what it will be

426
01:01:33.090 --> 01:01:33.920
Boardroom: next

427
01:01:34.990 --> 01:01:45.369
Boardroom: the draft is preliminary, because you've also not made any decision. But you will. In the next few weeks you'll be directing the staff, letting us know

428
01:01:45.490 --> 01:01:50.989
Boardroom: if there are any changes that you want us to make to the number of schools that we have.

429
01:01:51.390 --> 01:01:57.499
Boardroom: and then, once we know some of that information, we can adjust. Accordingly.

430
01:02:00.800 --> 01:02:11.049
Boardroom: if there is more revenue actualized for 2526 from the Ways and Means committee, or from funding advocates or legislators.

431
01:02:11.210 --> 01:02:13.110
Boardroom: then, of course, we will go back

432
01:02:13.530 --> 01:02:34.919
Boardroom: to what we're going to show you tonight. And we make those adjustments. We know from our community that lower class sizes is a priority. It always shows up as the number one priority. When we do. Our budget survey. That survey goes out to, I think. Well, over a thousand people took it last year, and once again lower class sizes showed up as the highest priority.

433
01:02:35.660 --> 01:02:45.589
Boardroom: So when we look at what we're going to look at pretty soon here, just know that should more revenue come through lower class sizes will be a priority.

434
01:02:46.700 --> 01:02:53.190
Boardroom: or some staff connected to some programs that we felt we had to suspend, but maybe we could bring back

435
01:02:53.983 --> 01:03:00.970
Boardroom: and then, of course, we're always thinking about, how do we keep some in our ending fund balance ending fund balance is important

436
01:03:01.240 --> 01:03:03.980
Boardroom: in case something happens during the year.

437
01:03:04.100 --> 01:03:10.720
Boardroom: and you need additional money to meet payroll or to deal with some type of crisis that occurred financially.

438
01:03:11.640 --> 01:03:17.910
Boardroom: the draft does not include any financials from the sale of opera, land or property.

439
01:03:18.310 --> 01:03:23.040
Boardroom: That's a decision you're still working through as a board with the city of West Lynn.

440
01:03:23.330 --> 01:03:28.349
Boardroom: and until there's something finalized there, there's nothing to put

441
01:03:28.510 --> 01:03:30.590
Boardroom: in our financials or an account.

442
01:03:31.510 --> 01:03:37.050
Boardroom: and we do know from you as a board that you are going out potentially for a capital bond

443
01:03:37.300 --> 01:03:42.340
Boardroom: in November of 2025. You're doing this long range plan, perhaps a bond summit in march.

444
01:03:42.470 --> 01:03:45.600
Boardroom: depending on the outcome of the bond that could

445
01:03:45.830 --> 01:03:49.119
Boardroom: impact also what I'm about to show.

446
01:03:54.830 --> 01:03:56.810
Boardroom: So again, this is preliminary.

447
01:03:57.840 --> 01:04:01.660
Boardroom: We are looking next year at a 15 million dollars reduction.

448
01:04:03.270 --> 01:04:12.699
Boardroom: Again, we're taking a sizable of a portion at district level and non-school reductions. You can see some examples there that are broad.

449
01:04:13.050 --> 01:04:19.149
Boardroom: unlike the slide before. We cannot share specifics in January

450
01:04:19.650 --> 01:04:38.045
Boardroom: that wouldn't be identifiable to someone seeing on the screen, their specific position being eliminated. So in time these will become more specific as to which support staff and programs which operations and services which classify, which administrator

451
01:04:38.750 --> 01:04:45.580
Boardroom: so as we are able to get more specific and work with our unions and associations, those will become more known.

452
01:04:46.820 --> 01:04:49.670
Boardroom: And then in terms of classroom reductions.

453
01:04:50.070 --> 01:05:05.579
Boardroom: Oh, excuse me, that is significant typo. It should say classroom classroom reductions, and then not have that parentheses non classroom. So any media here, Mac, make sure you got that, and I will fix that

454
01:05:06.690 --> 01:05:09.579
Boardroom: so that these are classroom reductions.

455
01:05:09.710 --> 01:05:18.300
Boardroom: We're looking at Hi, Mary, middle and high School, remembering that our most significant drop

456
01:05:18.650 --> 01:05:21.760
Boardroom: has still been in our primary around enrollment.

457
01:05:22.000 --> 01:05:44.330
Boardroom: High School has held kind of steady middle school has started to drop, but as smaller 5th grade classes move into middle and high school, we will start to see enrollment decline in middle and high school over the next decade and flow. Analytics has that in their report. Right now the largest decline is still in elementary, but that will move across.

458
01:05:45.210 --> 01:05:47.740
Boardroom: This leaves our ending fund balance

459
01:05:49.260 --> 01:05:56.640
Boardroom: with 2 million dollars. And if we don't need that 1 million dollar contingency that's built in that would be about 3 million dollars.

460
01:05:57.810 --> 01:06:05.499
Boardroom: That is well below any recommendation for an ending fund balance.

461
01:06:06.570 --> 01:06:17.299
Boardroom: Osva recommends 5 to 15 5 to 8% ending fund balance. Gfoa recommends 5 to 15% or 2 months of payroll.

462
01:06:18.232 --> 01:06:21.960
Boardroom: We're not looking. We're looking at about 1 2%.

463
01:06:25.790 --> 01:06:29.530
Boardroom: One of the reasons I feel.

464
01:06:32.030 --> 01:06:38.480
Boardroom: That we can move in the next couple years with a lower ending fund balance is that

465
01:06:38.780 --> 01:06:41.000
Boardroom: with the sale of Oppenlander.

466
01:06:41.630 --> 01:06:50.740
Boardroom: That asset then goes into our land account. It's unencumbered, and it can serve as a contingency.

467
01:06:51.830 --> 01:06:58.510
Boardroom: So if we do get to a place where we go below our ending fund balance. The board could make a decision

468
01:06:59.200 --> 01:07:02.540
Boardroom: around using that land reserve.

469
01:07:02.950 --> 01:07:09.860
Boardroom: whatever that number is that often Lander sells for in addition to. We've got a couple 1 million in there right now.

470
01:07:10.030 --> 01:07:14.492
Boardroom: It can act also as a contingency to get us

471
01:07:15.330 --> 01:07:20.529
Boardroom: through these next few years, and hopefully a stronger biennium

472
01:07:21.000 --> 01:07:23.019
Boardroom: than what we're seeing. So far.

473
01:07:26.270 --> 01:07:29.660
Boardroom: So this is probably the hardest few months.

474
01:07:31.470 --> 01:07:34.489
Boardroom: That I've had to go through as a superintendent in terms of really

475
01:07:34.940 --> 01:07:39.390
Boardroom: looking at the numbers, looking them over again. Our Cfo has worked

476
01:07:40.300 --> 01:07:43.840
Boardroom: countless hours. We, as I mentioned, we have had

477
01:07:45.280 --> 01:07:51.120
Boardroom: other business analysts, look at it and concur. And, in fact.

478
01:07:51.300 --> 01:07:57.359
Boardroom: the one who did come in is working with several school districts around some of the same things that we're looking at.

479
01:07:57.800 --> 01:08:07.300
Boardroom: And so he's doing the same kind of analyzing, of revenue and expenditure in other school districts that are also looking at significant reductions.

480
01:08:07.710 --> 01:08:16.120
Boardroom: I think we all heard with equal shock around our neighboring school district neighboring school district, that

481
01:08:17.649 --> 01:08:22.923
Boardroom: had to make a similar amount reduction. They are a little smaller than us.

482
01:08:24.930 --> 01:08:30.880
Boardroom: so I think this is what we're going to be hearing over the next weeks and months.

483
01:08:31.600 --> 01:08:33.870
Boardroom: I can't emphasize enough

484
01:08:34.200 --> 01:08:40.909
Boardroom: the important work that Director Vidal and Dr. Sloop are doing around advocacy attending some of those sessions.

485
01:08:41.491 --> 01:08:48.660
Boardroom: Know who your State representatives are and your legislators, and so I'll also be attending on Wednesday

486
01:08:48.850 --> 01:08:51.350
Boardroom: up there at Harmony Campus.

487
01:08:51.510 --> 01:09:00.910
Boardroom: and the more collective messaging we can do to Salem around raising the special education cap funding high cost disability. If there's an appetite in Salem

488
01:09:01.080 --> 01:09:08.050
Boardroom: to fund higher than 11.3 6, that would be enormously helpful to school districts.

489
01:09:09.130 --> 01:09:22.809
Boardroom: So while we have this space and time where we're going to talk about small schools and things we're doing here. This is a bigger. It's nested in a bigger complication across Oregon.

490
01:09:23.520 --> 01:09:33.180
Boardroom: and we may be one of the few looking at, perhaps consolidating schools as some sort of mitigation

491
01:09:33.430 --> 01:09:34.989
Boardroom: towards this trend.

492
01:09:35.514 --> 01:09:38.669
Boardroom: Or you may choose, you know not to.

493
01:09:39.000 --> 01:09:48.639
Boardroom: But I think in time there may be other school districts that just have to have these same types of conversations we're having around. Where else can we make reductions?

494
01:09:49.140 --> 01:09:52.349
Boardroom: And in making those reductions

495
01:09:53.160 --> 01:10:03.690
Boardroom: consolidate resources so that we can keep class sizes where they need to be? Later this evening you will hear about the options in front of you

496
01:10:03.850 --> 01:10:10.199
Boardroom: around consolidation, and you'll see another slide similar to this one, which will show what would happen if we

497
01:10:10.430 --> 01:10:18.020
Boardroom: consolidated a school. This just doesn't show that think next slide.

498
01:10:19.120 --> 01:10:21.829
Boardroom: So we're going to keep monitoring our enrollment.

499
01:10:22.920 --> 01:10:29.629
Boardroom: We're going to keep advocating and paying attention around legislation discouraging any unfunded mandates.

500
01:10:30.580 --> 01:10:35.179
Boardroom: You have, of course, some other large factors.

501
01:10:35.300 --> 01:10:42.559
Boardroom: the sale of Oppenlander, and then this capital bond that do have impacts on our budget and our funding in our district.

502
01:10:44.520 --> 01:10:52.250
Boardroom: So thank you. I know that was an extended report, but it will make the presentation later this evening go a little shorter, because

503
01:10:52.812 --> 01:10:56.439
Boardroom: this would otherwise have been nested in that report. So thank you.

504
01:11:02.450 --> 01:11:10.050
Boardroom: Thank you for that. Next up we have our consent. Agenda. Do we have a motion on the consent. Agenda.

505
01:11:14.205 --> 01:11:15.480
Louis Taylor: I saw move.

506
01:11:17.460 --> 01:11:22.770
Boardroom: Is there a second second, Mr. Kilstrom? Can you call the vote, please?

507
01:11:23.190 --> 01:11:24.320
Boardroom: Chair, Taylor.

508
01:11:25.420 --> 01:11:26.210
Louis Taylor: I.

509
01:11:27.690 --> 01:11:37.060
Boardroom: Vice chair. Wyatt. Aye, director, shoemaker, aye, director, sloop. Aye, Director Vidal. Aye, thanks.

510
01:11:38.910 --> 01:11:56.840
Boardroom: Next up on our agenda is our board business reports, and 1st up, we have a report from our department of operations. It's our long range planning committee presentation of the small school task Force findings report. And so we welcome Pat Mcguff to the mic.

511
01:12:04.280 --> 01:12:05.300
Boardroom: Thank you. Dude.

512
01:12:05.720 --> 01:12:07.086
Boardroom: Thank you.

513
01:12:09.320 --> 01:12:26.429
Boardroom: The Board has already received the 1st part of the Small Schools Task Force report, and tonight we have one of our long range planning committee members. Ryan Ingersoll is going to formally present to the board.

514
01:12:28.730 --> 01:12:35.200
Boardroom: Good evening you. Previously received the report. So I'm not passing a big binder to you. But you've received that via email

515
01:12:36.080 --> 01:12:43.630
Boardroom: after the long range planning committee reviewed and read the report. We met and wrote the following statement, to be shared with you today.

516
01:12:44.390 --> 01:13:01.340
Boardroom: The long range planning committee of the West Lynn Wilsonville School district appreciates the time contributions and work of the community and the small schools task force. The long range planning community reviewed, analyzed, and carefully discussed all of the information we received.

517
01:13:01.860 --> 01:13:14.029
Boardroom: based on the following factors and the limited purview of the committee. The long range planning committee is not making a recommendation regarding the consolidation of Westland primary schools.

518
01:13:14.980 --> 01:13:21.030
Boardroom: We would encourage the Westland Wilsonville School District Board Directors to consider the following 4 things.

519
01:13:21.510 --> 01:13:30.830
Boardroom: the small schools, Task Force report and the appendices, enrollment trends, facility, equity, maintenance, and stewardship.

520
01:13:31.300 --> 01:13:36.400
Boardroom: and the interaction between the General Fund budget and capital improvement plan.

521
01:13:36.810 --> 01:13:48.580
Boardroom: The long range planning committee also notes the community appetite for the continuation of the Board of the Bond Summit process with the current 16 schools in our district. Thank you.

522
01:13:53.580 --> 01:13:54.710
Boardroom: Thank you, Brian.

523
01:13:54.880 --> 01:13:58.510
Boardroom: It's that concludes this report.

524
01:14:00.380 --> 01:14:03.190
Boardroom: Thank you. Are there any questions from the School Board?

525
01:14:09.820 --> 01:14:10.560
Boardroom: Sure.

526
01:14:10.750 --> 01:14:20.562
Boardroom: So as the as the liaison for the for the small or for the long range planning committee. I want to thank the committee for their work and their ongoing work, because this

527
01:14:21.050 --> 01:14:27.133
Boardroom: this small schools task for report was just a piece of this ongoing work you're doing. I and I also want to

528
01:14:27.760 --> 01:14:33.029
Boardroom: note of of the just how much time they talked about stewardship

529
01:14:33.529 --> 01:14:39.450
Boardroom: and and have talked about stewardship and responsibility that we all have to all of our schools and

530
01:14:39.930 --> 01:14:49.179
Boardroom: there are just so many different ways that folks are looking at that. But there's a lot that falls under that umbrella of stewardship, and I appreciate that commitment to that in particular. So, thank you.

531
01:14:56.360 --> 01:15:04.650
Boardroom: All right. Moving on. We have the district staff presentation of additional information on small schools, and I'll turn it over to Dr. Ludwig.

532
01:15:06.250 --> 01:15:07.742
Boardroom: Thank you. So.

533
01:15:08.790 --> 01:15:16.619
Boardroom: If you think about your years when you're on the Budget Committee and before you make any decision about the budget, you're given a lot of information. Then you have about 2 weeks

534
01:15:16.900 --> 01:15:19.350
Boardroom: to work through it

535
01:15:19.550 --> 01:15:27.030
Boardroom: and then deliberate and make a decision. So we're kind of this will follow that pattern. You're going to receive a lot of information tonight.

536
01:15:27.130 --> 01:15:33.879
Boardroom: much you've already received. But Staff also has a presentation, some analysis that we've done.

537
01:15:34.220 --> 01:15:43.940
Boardroom: We're going to walk through some of it in more detail and others we're just going to share with you what's in that section, so you can read it on your own. It's pretty self explanatory.

538
01:15:44.352 --> 01:15:55.479
Boardroom: Knowing that if you have questions or need some clarity, you can contact us in the next 2 weeks. We would also say any questions you have or additional information you want, you could email, and we could

539
01:15:55.630 --> 01:15:59.130
Boardroom: put some supplemental material together and make sure you get that

540
01:15:59.826 --> 01:16:06.959
Boardroom: so what we're going to do, we're going to start with. Perhaps if my colleagues can pass out these binders.

541
01:16:07.694 --> 01:16:32.460
Boardroom: You will get this presentation electronically. But I will tell you. We were still editing as of even an hour, you know, before this meeting, so get comfortable, you could slide your laptops up. You could move some of your tokens from children and schools down onto the floor. And we're gonna just let you know

542
01:16:32.720 --> 01:16:39.504
Boardroom: what's in these binders and what you have in terms of information.

543
01:16:40.520 --> 01:16:43.579
Boardroom: to help you with the decision ahead again.

544
01:16:45.460 --> 01:17:00.119
Boardroom: I want to thank while you're getting acclimated there, as several of you have want to thank the small Schools task force. What an incredible group of parents, very committed in their amount of time! Curious, dedicated!

545
01:17:00.703 --> 01:17:12.829
Boardroom: I hope a number of them consider being on some district committees. The Budget Committee has 2 openings. Long range planning committee often has openings, school board openings.

546
01:17:12.930 --> 01:17:31.730
Boardroom: Just the caliber of this group of individuals was fantastic. I want to thank the long range planning committee. Thank you, Ryan, for being here on their behalf and speaking for them. They are busy still putting together that long range plan they meet this week looking at again some capital project drafts. So they're busy working on that plan.

547
01:17:32.140 --> 01:17:41.509
Boardroom: Want to thank our Ptas and Ptos for hosting the listening sessions for attending. Also many of them attended the engagement.

548
01:17:42.148 --> 01:18:02.310
Boardroom: Forums. So I thank our Pto. And Ptsa leaders, as well as all the parents who showed up to the engagement sessions, the Town Hall, and those board hosted listening sessions. I want to thank 3 J. Consulting for very short notice coming in and facilitating.

549
01:18:02.870 --> 01:18:06.269
Boardroom: I want to thank the district staff, who did a lot of work

550
01:18:06.420 --> 01:18:11.650
Boardroom: with gathering information and putting together reports for the Small Schools Task force.

551
01:18:11.820 --> 01:18:20.209
Boardroom: And, of course, the communities of the 3 schools for engaging so deeply and so genuinely.

552
01:18:20.880 --> 01:18:25.689
Boardroom: and representing their school communities so beautifully. And of course you are bored.

553
01:18:26.570 --> 01:18:45.289
Boardroom: So when you open the binder, we're just going to kind of walk through. I know this is when you get that book. You kind of want to jump to the last chapter in the middle, but you will have that opportunity to go through it on your own. We're just going to walk through some things so that you can see why there's a table here, or a figure there, or what the numbers mean.

554
01:18:45.640 --> 01:19:04.160
Boardroom: The 1st 3 pages at the very beginning. And thank you. So this is those of you at home and in the audience can see what the board is seeing up on the screen. And again, this presentation will be available electronically

555
01:19:04.420 --> 01:19:09.199
Boardroom: at the end of the evening or tomorrow, as soon as we can get it up. But again, we were just.

556
01:19:09.960 --> 01:19:14.339
Boardroom: you know, rechecking numbers and doing final edits right before this meeting.

557
01:19:15.130 --> 01:19:29.720
Boardroom: The 1st 3 pages really just sets the context. This does become an anchor document used over time. So it does set the context for what got us here. The study of the small schools? Why, those 3 were looked at.

558
01:19:29.840 --> 01:19:34.350
Boardroom: And then, if you look at page 2,

559
01:19:34.820 --> 01:19:51.259
Boardroom: after it talks about the small Schools Task force, report the role of the long range planning committee to deliver that which Ryan did tonight, and then. Now turning it over to you as a board to make a decision. The rest of this memo really is outlining

560
01:19:51.520 --> 01:19:56.749
Boardroom: the the sections that you'll have of information available to you in this binder.

561
01:19:57.230 --> 01:20:18.809
Boardroom: And so it's kind of serves as a index for you. A table of contents. And you can see section one will be the context for small schools. Considerations. Section 2. Some of the research on small schools and consolidations. Section 3. Analysis of the 3 smallest schools in Westland. We're going to be mostly talking about Section 3 tonight because it has the most charts and graphs.

562
01:20:19.000 --> 01:20:23.380
Boardroom: Page 3. You can see some of those categories in there.

563
01:20:23.930 --> 01:20:25.590
Boardroom: Section 4,

564
01:20:26.109 --> 01:20:37.990
Boardroom: about the budget, because I presented quite a bit in my superintendent report. This will be a little slimmer. And then section 5, is the long Range planning committee statement which you received tonight.

565
01:20:38.130 --> 01:20:48.079
Boardroom: Section 6 is the Small Schools Task force report of findings which you already had electronically. But it's here also for you in hard copy, with a lot of things printed out to make it easy for you.

566
01:20:48.140 --> 01:21:12.940
Boardroom: And then, section 7, other community feedback. You got a lot of emails from community members. Sometimes we got one saying, pass this along. Those are the ones in here ones that you got you already have. They're in your system. They're in your database. We didn't duplicate those, but these are ones. We weren't sure if you had ever received them. So there are a few at the back under this section called other Community Feedback.

567
01:21:13.630 --> 01:21:13.970
Boardroom: Okay.

568
01:21:14.430 --> 01:21:20.560
Boardroom: but ones that came to board meetings or came to all directed to all of you. You already have those in your in your system.

569
01:21:21.780 --> 01:21:27.040
Boardroom: So we're going to start with section one again, we're not going to go through every page.

570
01:21:27.860 --> 01:21:31.479
Boardroom: But if you look at starting on page 5,

571
01:21:34.370 --> 01:21:45.569
Boardroom: this portion of information really builds the context. For how did we get into this situation where we have declining enrollment and budget challenges?

572
01:21:45.840 --> 01:22:06.080
Boardroom: Much of what I presented tonight is also written in here. So I'm not going to go over it, but it just builds the narrative. It gives the story the chapter one, so to speak, and also creates an anchor document for someone who might download this presentation and not have heard anything else before.

573
01:22:06.360 --> 01:22:11.450
Boardroom: That table in the middle just really, fundamentally shows that

574
01:22:11.670 --> 01:22:17.630
Boardroom: our largest buckets of Revenue State School Fund and Local property tax

575
01:22:17.970 --> 01:22:27.430
Boardroom: aren't able to keep pace right now with our largest expenditure, which is personnel. 85% of the school budget is staff.

576
01:22:27.810 --> 01:22:39.510
Boardroom: And so when there's when there's a big gap there, that's the one we're trying to close. There are, of course, other revenue sources and other expenditures. But I just we wanted to show some of the larger ones

577
01:22:40.090 --> 01:22:45.150
Boardroom: moving on pages 6 and 7.

578
01:22:46.320 --> 01:22:53.009
Boardroom: Talk about the enrollment trend. You have the full flow. Analytics report that you'll be able to go through.

579
01:22:53.960 --> 01:22:56.920
Boardroom: But we've just pulled out a few

580
01:22:57.040 --> 01:23:02.220
Boardroom: of the numbers again to explain how we got to where we are.

581
01:23:02.900 --> 01:23:09.070
Boardroom: Page 8 and 9. Provide for you links where you can see articles around

582
01:23:09.220 --> 01:23:19.990
Boardroom: budget challenges nationally, statewide neighboring school districts. If you feel you want to learn more about who else is? In the same dilemma. You'll see a lot of school districts listed

583
01:23:20.170 --> 01:23:26.670
Boardroom: and budget challenges that they're going through page 10 talks about

584
01:23:26.820 --> 01:23:38.469
Boardroom: Oregon's Budget challenge. And why? Sometimes it's unique as a state, because we have measure 5 and measure 50. So prior to those 2 measures. In the mid nineties

585
01:23:39.140 --> 01:23:54.979
Boardroom: a large part of school funding was local. Those 2 measures along with the school funding equalization legislation. Now put 70% of the onus on state funding income tax and 30% from local property tax

586
01:23:55.470 --> 01:23:59.729
Boardroom: that change along with measure 5 and 50, which limited

587
01:23:59.910 --> 01:24:08.670
Boardroom: how much local tax could be collected does create a dilemma in Oregon around money that they receive from taxes for schools.

588
01:24:09.200 --> 01:24:13.540
Boardroom: So when you limit how much you can collect in taxes, you have less than to distribute.

589
01:24:15.920 --> 01:24:25.789
Boardroom: Page 11 shows you the same document that I showed everyone in the community tonight around how the Biennium allocation from the State

590
01:24:26.330 --> 01:24:38.209
Boardroom: has in the past kept up with cost of living, increases or inflation. But since covid and going forward, and the rise of inflation and costs and payroll.

591
01:24:38.310 --> 01:24:46.990
Boardroom: That same percentage is not enough anymore and should be closer to 15% increase if we really want to match what's happening.

592
01:24:47.350 --> 01:24:48.479
Boardroom: But it's not.

593
01:24:49.970 --> 01:25:02.169
Boardroom: And then page 12, just ends that summary. So that's section one. I think you're pretty versed on it. We've been talking about this for months, but anyone who downloads this presentation will have that background.

594
01:25:03.060 --> 01:25:19.110
Boardroom: Section 2. You do a lot of reading on your own. If you're interested also in the very back of the binder. Some of the articles are printed out for you, but in Section 2 there was research that we included for you around small schools and consolidation.

595
01:25:20.200 --> 01:25:36.900
Boardroom: You'll see that we actually open with this statement that ever since no child left behind in Essa school districts are accountable to money following outcomes for students. So whereas years ago, districts could make changes, and you had

596
01:25:37.190 --> 01:25:43.999
Boardroom: some very inequitable looking situations, one school right next to another that looked very completely different.

597
01:25:44.510 --> 01:26:00.089
Boardroom: That's just not where school districts are today, that there is expectation around accountability for outcomes, Federal money that then follows those outcomes and sanctions to districts and withholding of money if districts are not keeping up with

598
01:26:01.700 --> 01:26:09.149
Boardroom: academic outcomes and parity. So that change that's happened since the early and mid 2,000 S.

599
01:26:09.330 --> 01:26:14.039
Boardroom: Has really changed the landscape in terms of

600
01:26:14.220 --> 01:26:21.420
Boardroom: school closures or consolidations or reorganizational structures of school districts.

601
01:26:22.240 --> 01:26:42.180
Boardroom: The research around school closures is challenging to find a lot of it's actually referring to the pandemic. And you know, temporary closure and the impacts. But permanent closures. There is research, I will say a lot of it centers around urban school districts, or where there has been gentrification, or what's been termed as white flight.

602
01:26:42.280 --> 01:26:55.759
Boardroom: where school districts had to make some closures or significant budget challenges and the negative impacts on particularly minority students. African, American Latino students.

603
01:26:57.130 --> 01:27:09.720
Boardroom: So the article that you have in here is kind of a synopsis of many articles. But again, there are links that you can access, and the outcomes and the effects are mixed.

604
01:27:10.290 --> 01:27:19.849
Boardroom: What you will hear in terms of a trend is, if schools going from a closed school, if students going from a closed school can attend a school that's

605
01:27:20.240 --> 01:27:27.680
Boardroom: also high performing, that the results are more positive and in terms of then the resource

606
01:27:27.810 --> 01:27:37.950
Boardroom: allocation that follows them. So those are just things you'll want to keep in mind. If that's something you're considering. And then in the end, that section with just letting you know there are other school districts that have closed schools.

607
01:27:38.350 --> 01:27:53.559
Boardroom: And how are they faring post those decisions, probably our closest neighboring school district that we've asked a lot of questions of, and looked closest to is Lake Oswego, which did close 3 schools. But there are a few others mentioned in here.

608
01:27:55.850 --> 01:27:56.750
Boardroom: Okay,

609
01:27:58.890 --> 01:28:09.470
Boardroom: the section we're going to talk. The most about now is section 3. So section 5, 6, and 7 we won't talk about. So we're going to do. The bulk of this presentation will be section 3,

610
01:28:09.690 --> 01:28:36.250
Boardroom: and then just a little bit of Section 4, which is around Budget. But I've talked a lot already about that, and so it'll go a little more quickly. And with that I'm going to turn it over now to Dr. David Pryor, our assistant superintendent primary schools, who's been very involved with this process and made himself very available also to a lot of questions and the engagement forums, and to our Pta leaders and staff.

611
01:28:37.240 --> 01:28:55.680
Boardroom: Thank you, Dr. Ludwig, and, as Kathy said, we are going to dwell a little more in this section, and my colleagues will jump in to either hurry me along, or to revise or add information, because we do want this to be helpful and clear, and it's meant to be background information to help you in your deliberations.

612
01:28:55.700 --> 01:29:17.560
Boardroom: It begins with this question that we started with with the long range planning committee around. What do we mean by a small school? And we know from many community meetings that small, that class size is one of the most important priorities of our district, as well as smaller school communities where people can know each other and feel really connected.

613
01:29:18.030 --> 01:29:27.500
Boardroom: We, as a district have had a long history of looking at that 400 to 550 student capacity in our design of schools.

614
01:29:27.600 --> 01:29:52.820
Boardroom: and we do have experience with a school larger than that, because, as I think you all know, at 1 point Boone's Ferry was built with an intentional capacity of 775 students, and after several years of operation we were hearing from the community and staff that they preferred a smaller school community, and so we thereafter worked to reduce the size of that school, and

615
01:29:53.270 --> 01:30:00.410
Boardroom: worked with all of our schools. Even our new school, designed to be ultimately within that 400 to 550 capacity range.

616
01:30:00.570 --> 01:30:19.109
Boardroom: So you know, the question that has arisen is more recently due to enrollment decline is, you know, what is too small for a school, and, as Dr. Ludwig mentioned, there is no defining research that gives you a cutoff. But we did want to share with you some things that we consider

617
01:30:19.110 --> 01:30:31.219
Boardroom: as we think, around staffing and supporting schools as they start to get below that number. And I do want to reiterate it's not a magic cutoff number. But here are some things that we do experience.

618
01:30:31.670 --> 01:30:37.363
Boardroom: The 1st thing is that there are fewer classrooms for students and and teachers.

619
01:30:38.040 --> 01:31:04.980
Boardroom: and so one way that might play out is in this. Every year we work really hard to project enrollment, to try to keep class sizes within the ranges that we hear from our community are strong for students, if we've only got an example would be when class size, due to enrollment, starts to rise. If we have 2 classes of 25 for kindergarten, we would begin to think. Let's add a classroom to bring that class size down

620
01:31:05.040 --> 01:31:19.929
Boardroom: with 2 classes. When you add a 3.rd Now you're looking at class sizes of 16 or 17 which would be unsustainable to do across the district. So we look at alternate, you know ways of doing that. But if you've got 4 classrooms of 25,

621
01:31:19.980 --> 01:31:39.419
Boardroom: and then you make another classroom for 5. Now you're looking at class sizes of 20 which becomes on the low end, but more sustainable. It's just one example of the challenges that you have when you don't have many classrooms, you also have the issue of creating. You just have less classroom for students to be placed in

622
01:31:39.590 --> 01:32:00.160
Boardroom: people. School leaders reach out to parents every year in the spring to get feedback on how to create classrooms that are balanced. And when you've got more classrooms, you can distribute students with different skills, attributes, learning needs across classrooms. So each one is balanced, and sometimes you do due to

623
01:32:00.290 --> 01:32:24.960
Boardroom: variety of factors have students that thrive better when they're not together. And so the more options you have to play students, the more options you have to create strong friendships. So that's 1 thing that that we do learn about. The second is, when a school reaches a certain size of smallness, we have to start looking at part-time support staff. We do have

624
01:32:24.960 --> 01:32:52.099
Boardroom: many amazing specialists in our district whose role is different than that of a classroom teacher. They might be a music teacher, a wellness teacher, a teacher, librarian, a learning specialist, and if their Caseload does not qualify them to be in a school full time. Then they're shared between buildings which can create some staffing challenges to the point where, you know, even they're not in a building every single day, but they're spread across multiple buildings.

625
01:32:53.570 --> 01:33:16.939
Boardroom: We also have an additional challenge where we depend heavily upon teacher leadership in helping design and run the school and teachers serve on committees like equity committees or curriculum adoption committees. And it's important to have teachers from each building and each grade level help represent those committees, and once the school gets to a certain size, you end up calling upon the same people

626
01:33:17.320 --> 01:33:18.250
Boardroom: frequently.

627
01:33:19.070 --> 01:33:36.680
Boardroom: We also, you know, we've heard so much feedback around how much parents prefer smaller school communities. We also hear feedback sometimes that parents who for a variety of factors might choose to transfer out of a smaller school if they're seeking additional friendships

628
01:33:36.720 --> 01:33:57.630
Boardroom: or a school community that has a wider range of opportunity. So we do sometimes hear, or the data supports that there are transfers out which you may see in some later data that we're going to show tonight. Also. So those are noted in here, and this was presented to our long range planning committee months ago. It may sound familiar.

629
01:33:57.630 --> 01:34:20.930
Boardroom: We have also heard and asked from the community to consider the history of our schools. So we have. We're so fortunate to have schools, histories that are over 100 years old and have been in different buildings with the same name. And so we have tried to compile some data around the Bolton Primary School, cedar, oak, Primary school, and Stafford primary school to provide you that historical

630
01:34:20.960 --> 01:34:22.660
Boardroom: context of our schools.

631
01:34:23.910 --> 01:34:31.740
Boardroom: So the next chart is trying to give some data to describe the 3 small schools that we have been discussing.

632
01:34:32.450 --> 01:34:35.819
Boardroom: If you can scroll down to the chart. Thank you.

633
01:34:36.950 --> 01:34:37.830
Boardroom: So

634
01:34:38.320 --> 01:34:50.089
Boardroom: the 1st line is 202,02324, actual enrollment for Bolton Cedar and Stafford. And that's pretty self explanatory. That is actual enrollment.

635
01:34:50.820 --> 01:35:02.069
Boardroom: The next line is the resident count. These are the number of students who live in the boundary, who could potentially go to that school.

636
01:35:02.740 --> 01:35:15.000
Boardroom: But not all the students do attend the school. Not all the students even do attend school in our district. So this is more like census data around who lives in that boundary.

637
01:35:16.690 --> 01:35:31.750
Boardroom: The next line that says resident students attending, that is, you know the number of of students that we know live in the boundary. How many of those students actually attend? So you can see, for example, if we were to look at. You know the last column, Stafford, you've got

638
01:35:31.950 --> 01:35:35.669
Boardroom: 300 you've got

639
01:35:35.950 --> 01:35:46.610
Boardroom: for 305 students, plus you've got students in the choice zone for a total of 364, 87% of those students actually attend staffing.

640
01:35:48.290 --> 01:36:02.280
Boardroom: And the next 2 lines are about transfers. I always have to remind myself which is which Intra is within the district. So these are students who live somewhere in the district boundary for another school, but who attend each school.

641
01:36:02.560 --> 01:36:08.420
Boardroom: So for Bolton, it's 29 students or 12.5% of their school population

642
01:36:08.860 --> 01:36:21.749
Boardroom: inter district are students who have transferred from outside the district. So from another school district. So you have. Bolton also has 29. That's confusing, because it's 29 for both. But 29 students who have come from outside the district.

643
01:36:22.930 --> 01:36:25.219
Boardroom: So that's for 2223,

644
01:36:25.580 --> 01:36:29.849
Boardroom: and then we. I'm I'm sorry. 2324, thank you.

645
01:36:30.310 --> 01:36:37.569
Boardroom: The next blue line begins to give a lot of that same data for 2425. And so you can see

646
01:36:37.990 --> 01:36:46.849
Boardroom: here, we we actually have the projected enrollment based on the flow analytics, middle scenario for each school.

647
01:36:47.630 --> 01:36:53.679
Boardroom: Because we are in 2425. We're also able to give you the actual enrollment.

648
01:36:53.930 --> 01:37:05.599
Boardroom: And I would say that enrollment is always fluctuating. So someone watching online who may have data from this morning may know a difference of one or 2 students, but it allows you to compare

649
01:37:05.910 --> 01:37:09.869
Boardroom: current enrollment to the projected enrollment for the school

650
01:37:13.280 --> 01:37:20.260
Boardroom: the next page top of 21. Here's where we start looking at next year.

651
01:37:20.540 --> 01:37:27.000
Boardroom: Projected enrollment based on the flow analytics, middle scenario for Bolton, cedar, oak, and Stafford.

652
01:37:28.074 --> 01:37:54.720
Boardroom: We also are able to show you how we typically forecast for enrollment. As we begin to make staffing decisions, you can compare those numbers. So what we do is we have this year's current enrollment. We know all the 5th graders are leaving. So we take the 5th graders out of that enrollment, and then we look at our current kindergarten. And we say, what if that class was exactly the same? Because it's usually pretty close? So we take out

653
01:37:54.840 --> 01:37:56.010
Boardroom: the 5th grade.

654
01:37:56.330 --> 01:38:08.379
Boardroom: we add in a new kindergarten class based on the current class, and we get this number of 194 for Bolton, 332 for cedar, oak, and 277 for Stafford.

655
01:38:12.250 --> 01:38:18.619
Boardroom: That ends the enrollment part. The next line is around the facility capacity.

656
01:38:18.720 --> 01:38:27.560
Boardroom: and this gives you data that you may have previously seen of the building enrollment capacity that has been computed by our Operations Department.

657
01:38:28.960 --> 01:38:33.800
Boardroom: the current capacity usage. So how much of the buildings currently being used

658
01:38:34.910 --> 01:38:40.999
Boardroom: and the number of K through 5 classrooms. Used out of the total.

659
01:38:42.750 --> 01:38:48.770
Boardroom: we should note that that number we in these schools we do plan for preschool. And so

660
01:38:48.910 --> 01:38:51.280
Boardroom: there is one additional classroom.

661
01:38:51.480 --> 01:38:59.059
Boardroom: So Bolton, for example, has 20 classrooms, but in here we've taken one out for preschool and said, 10 of the 19 classes

662
01:38:59.230 --> 01:39:01.790
Boardroom: are currently being used.

663
01:39:04.370 --> 01:39:16.180
Boardroom: A very brief summary of some property features is in the next section. So you get a sense of how large the property size is. Any unique features to that school.

664
01:39:16.629 --> 01:39:20.780
Boardroom: And you know some of the basic site features in the next row.

665
01:39:22.430 --> 01:39:24.581
Boardroom: and then, as part of the

666
01:39:25.090 --> 01:39:43.520
Boardroom: the Small Schools Task force, and we were asked to break down future renovation plans into 3 categories which we call mission critical mission important and those that might be deferable. So you can get a sense of the cost of those projects for each of the 3 schools.

667
01:39:47.870 --> 01:40:00.509
Boardroom: So that takes us to the top of page 22, section d. Georgetown University, in collaboration with other universities, has created what they call edunomics, is the Ed.

668
01:40:00.750 --> 01:40:17.229
Boardroom: Economics of educational organizations. And what they do is they draw data from the Oregon Department of education for our particular State to create some coefficients based on spending versus outcomes of schools.

669
01:40:17.280 --> 01:40:34.980
Boardroom: And this is some interesting data. You should note that all 3 of our small schools are performing above average in performance. But they did have varying, spending allocations. And so you can see, you know, a rank order of the cost per student for all the schools in the district.

670
01:40:35.170 --> 01:40:43.050
Boardroom: both primary, middle, and high, and how the small schools rate in terms of you know what we're currently spending.

671
01:40:45.400 --> 01:40:50.569
Boardroom: 2223 for. Thank you, Kathy for 22 for the for 2223 school year.

672
01:40:50.720 --> 01:40:54.820
Boardroom: because that's where we have the most accurate data from Oregon Department of Education.

673
01:40:58.105 --> 01:41:13.129
Boardroom: Part of your deliberations, we were sure, would also be geographical. So we did include at the top of page 23, a map of the district. These Westland schools, so you can see each school's boundary is color coded.

674
01:41:13.200 --> 01:41:27.099
Boardroom: Bolton is on the northeast side of the district, and they're the cream colored shading cedar oak is on the northeast side of the district. It's the green grass, green colored, and Stafford is north, centrally located.

675
01:41:27.150 --> 01:41:45.320
Boardroom: Stafford, as you know, includes its own zone. It also includes a choice zone, and so there are 2 zones that feed into Stafford. The choice zone also chosen to Beckman Creek. Students are able to choose which school that they would attend.

676
01:41:48.630 --> 01:41:55.800
Boardroom: moving on to page 23 below the map. We just wanted to remind you. And this was referenced earlier.

677
01:41:59.290 --> 01:42:00.590
Boardroom: Page 23.

678
01:42:02.480 --> 01:42:03.330
Boardroom: Thank you

679
01:42:05.110 --> 01:42:27.939
Boardroom: that it's important to note that there are both resident students attending school as well as nonresident students, and the non-resident students attend school based on approved interdistrict and interdistrict transfers. So should a school consolidate. This would mean that resident and non-resident students would shift to new schools.

680
01:42:28.130 --> 01:42:32.190
Boardroom: The non-resident students would either return to their resident school.

681
01:42:32.310 --> 01:42:37.070
Boardroom: or they could apply to transfer to the newly assigned school or another school.

682
01:42:37.790 --> 01:42:41.160
Boardroom: the resident students would be assigned to their new boundary school.

683
01:42:43.390 --> 01:42:51.990
Boardroom: So the next section starts to shift into some more graphs. And this is around enrollment and capacity available for each school.

684
01:42:52.570 --> 01:43:00.960
Boardroom: So the tables that we're about to show projects the enrollment at each school for the 2526 school year.

685
01:43:01.290 --> 01:43:08.769
Boardroom: based on flow analytics, middle projections. And they show you the building capacity for additional students.

686
01:43:12.160 --> 01:43:27.949
Boardroom: We should also note that the School Board's decision on December 6th to delay the opening of Frog pond until 2026 impacts capacity available at that location until it opens. So it will not be available in our capacity charts.

687
01:43:28.270 --> 01:43:31.729
Boardroom: So if we shift down to the 1st chart that you'll see coming up.

688
01:43:32.690 --> 01:43:37.099
Boardroom: What you'll see is 1st of all, for each school.

689
01:43:37.730 --> 01:43:44.899
Boardroom: You will see enrollment in the 1st column. If you could scroll. Bring that chart up into the middle of the screen, please. Thank you.

690
01:43:46.470 --> 01:43:55.490
Boardroom: And so, for example, on the 1st line, you'll see Beckman Creek enrollment for 2526, projected at 496 students.

691
01:43:55.920 --> 01:44:09.079
Boardroom: and then, if you move over for Beckman to the next column, you'll see, it has a capacity of 550 students minus the projected enrollment to give you a capacity of 54 students.

692
01:44:09.480 --> 01:44:15.319
Boardroom: So we've done that for each school to show you what the capacity is.

693
01:44:15.600 --> 01:44:27.780
Boardroom: And then the schools in Westland are the ones in yellow toward the bottom half of the chart you can see in that 3rd column, for example, for Bolton

694
01:44:27.910 --> 01:44:30.379
Boardroom: has 212 students enrolled.

695
01:44:30.690 --> 01:44:36.610
Boardroom: and then for capacity, you've got a capacity of 475, minus those, 2, 12

696
01:44:36.720 --> 01:44:42.449
Boardroom: for 263 students, that would be for 2526, school year.

697
01:44:42.630 --> 01:44:48.080
Boardroom: We also put in, based on the flow. Analytics. Middle projection.

698
01:44:48.230 --> 01:44:53.620
Boardroom: 2,033, 34. What the capacity would look like so that you can think

699
01:44:54.270 --> 01:44:58.549
Boardroom: down the road. As you're looking at the available capacity for each school building.

700
01:45:00.470 --> 01:45:18.830
Boardroom: So we took those numbers, and the next section is purely just mathematical opportunity for different options that the board may or may not consider, and the options are named kind of based on the description of the option.

701
01:45:19.090 --> 01:45:28.689
Boardroom: so option none that option would be to leave all 6 Westland primary schools open and no consolidations.

702
01:45:29.110 --> 01:45:39.250
Boardroom: and it is possible, as you can see from the capacity of their current schools for the district to leave all 6 primary schools in Westland as they are.

703
01:45:39.620 --> 01:45:45.109
Boardroom: and there will be ample capacity at each school building for enrollment growth over the next decade.

704
01:45:47.630 --> 01:45:50.280
Boardroom: Option one, and it's called one

705
01:45:50.911 --> 01:46:04.170
Boardroom: because it's meant to describe consolidating one school for 2,02526. So this is is simply is there space for for students to consolidate a school.

706
01:46:04.320 --> 01:46:05.190
Boardroom: So

707
01:46:06.180 --> 01:46:14.709
Boardroom: the top blue row shows the current enrollment or the the projected enrollment for next year for each school.

708
01:46:14.880 --> 01:46:21.779
Boardroom: So for Bolton it's 212, Seedro, 330, Stafford 319,

709
01:46:21.880 --> 01:46:29.980
Boardroom: and then it looks at just mathematically the available capacity in all the other schools that would students would reasonably go to.

710
01:46:30.480 --> 01:46:44.049
Boardroom: And so in the 1st column, you can see cedar Oak has a capacity of 1, 70. Sunset, 36, trillium, 85. Land at 1, 37. So there's a mathematical capacity of 428

711
01:46:44.430 --> 01:46:47.070
Boardroom: to place those 212 students.

712
01:46:47.220 --> 01:46:56.659
Boardroom: And so it's simply showing a comparison of number of students that would need to be relocated and capacity in schools where they might reasonably attend.

713
01:46:57.050 --> 01:46:59.270
Boardroom: We've done that for all 3 schools.

714
01:47:01.250 --> 01:47:09.340
Boardroom: So the conclusion of this math is that it is possible, in 2526 for the district to consolidate one primary school

715
01:47:09.740 --> 01:47:14.889
Boardroom: resident students from that school would attend the closest school as part of the new boundary.

716
01:47:19.040 --> 01:47:23.910
Boardroom: and that takes us to option, 2 on page 25,

717
01:47:27.000 --> 01:47:28.509
Boardroom: which is to

718
01:47:28.750 --> 01:47:35.910
Boardroom: consolidate 2 small schools, one in 2526, and the second in 2627.

719
01:47:36.160 --> 01:47:42.360
Boardroom: I would remind you again that in 2627, there would be capacity at Frog Pond. So that

720
01:47:44.390 --> 01:47:48.410
Boardroom: that has a impact on on this plan.

721
01:47:48.860 --> 01:48:03.509
Boardroom: So here's where we looked at all 3 different combinations, because with 3 small schools you can have 3 different combinations. If we were to consolidate 2 of them, and we look at the enrollment of all 3 of those combinations.

722
01:48:03.640 --> 01:48:16.960
Boardroom: So the 1st column is the enrollment needs. If Bolton and Cedar Road were schools that were not open, we would have 554 students that we needed to find homes for.

723
01:48:17.280 --> 01:48:21.789
Boardroom: and the next one is Bolton and Stafford will be 531 students

724
01:48:21.950 --> 01:48:26.800
Boardroom: and cedar oak Stafford, which would be 649 students.

725
01:48:27.220 --> 01:48:31.599
Boardroom: And then we looked at the capacity. So if you look at the 1st

726
01:48:32.130 --> 01:48:39.249
Boardroom: column you've got in the 1st row 500 542 students that we would need to find them

727
01:48:39.470 --> 01:48:52.240
Boardroom: placement for, and then the available capacity of the remaining schools. Stafford, Sunset Trillion, and Willamette is 464 students. So you've got a enrollment need which exceeds

728
01:48:52.340 --> 01:48:53.400
Boardroom: capacity.

729
01:48:54.770 --> 01:48:59.910
Boardroom: So you can see that comparison for all 3 scenarios.

730
01:49:02.310 --> 01:49:22.710
Boardroom: Frog Pond does become open in the fall of 2026. So if you look 2 years down the road, you do start to see a shift in capacity. So the conclusion of this one is that it is not possible for the district to consolidate 2 of the small schools in the same year.

731
01:49:22.880 --> 01:49:28.290
Boardroom: because in this all the scenarios the enrollment needs exceed the capacity.

732
01:49:29.180 --> 01:49:38.640
Boardroom: However, the district could consolidate one primary school in 2526, and a second primary school in 2627.

733
01:49:39.190 --> 01:49:50.499
Boardroom: If scenario B were the decision. Then Stafford Primary School would need to be the Consolidated School in 2627, so that Frog Pond Primary could help accommodate its students.

734
01:49:50.890 --> 01:50:01.740
Boardroom: The Consolidated Primary School in 2526 would either be Bolton or Cedar Oak. It is not possible for the 2 schools to be Bolton and Cedar Oak Park.

735
01:50:02.430 --> 01:50:09.249
Boardroom: Frog Pond, and Beckman Creek are needed in this scenario to provide available capacity, which is the most realistic for Stafford.

736
01:50:09.700 --> 01:50:14.970
Boardroom: So, again, a reminder, this is simply mathematical capacities that we're describing here.

737
01:50:20.350 --> 01:50:25.769
Boardroom: I should say option. 2. Option. B. Thank you. Option. 2. Option, 2.

738
01:50:26.230 --> 01:50:33.019
Boardroom: Option, 2. Yeah. I made a mistake. It's called to get a typo. We called this scenario B, but this is option 2. Thank you, Dr. Ludwig.

739
01:50:33.750 --> 01:50:35.010
Boardroom: Option 3

740
01:50:35.910 --> 01:50:53.490
Boardroom: is consolidating all 3 schools into neighboring schools in 2526. Again, we simply looked at the enrollment needs of all 3 schools in the 1st column for a total of 861, the available capacity, and all the remaining schools 3, 312.

741
01:50:53.600 --> 01:51:08.269
Boardroom: So the mathematical conclusion. It is not possible, in the short term for the next 10 years to close all 3 schools in Westland at the same time, there's not enough capacity in the remaining Westland schools that can create, for even with the opening of Frog Pond.

742
01:51:10.420 --> 01:51:12.709
Boardroom: therefore, option 3 is not an option.

743
01:51:15.530 --> 01:51:20.700
Boardroom: So, in conclusion, only options none, one

744
01:51:21.490 --> 01:51:26.199
Boardroom: and 2 are viable for the School Board to consider mathematically

745
01:51:26.330 --> 01:51:43.820
Boardroom: with options one and 2. Should either of these options be selected by the board, there would be an immediate process for boundary adjustment in order to provide critical information to families, staff, and district operations as soon as possible for planning toward 2526, school year

746
01:51:44.580 --> 01:51:50.210
Boardroom: in the next section. Pat Mcguff is going to take on to describe boundary adjustment process and impact.

747
01:51:52.670 --> 01:51:54.240
Boardroom: Thank you, Dr. Pryor.

748
01:51:55.000 --> 01:51:58.469
Boardroom: I'll try and move this up a little closer. There we go.

749
01:52:00.535 --> 01:52:01.350
Boardroom: So

750
01:52:02.330 --> 01:52:19.589
Boardroom: section F is boundary adjustments in the process and the impacts. District staff does respectfully request that any school consolidation or not for the fall of 2520, 25 be decided.

751
01:52:19.980 --> 01:52:21.900
Boardroom: January 27.th

752
01:52:22.070 --> 01:52:31.760
Boardroom: At the board meeting there's there are a series of planning and operational processes that we will need to perform.

753
01:52:31.930 --> 01:52:39.630
Boardroom: and they need to occur right away. So we can get the information out to parents before families leave for the summer.

754
01:52:40.130 --> 01:53:02.400
Boardroom: The next chart that you see there is kind of a timeline on what is required both. If there are no consolidations of schools, that's a pretty normal year. I'll quickly go through that. We begin our our budget reductions, both phase one and phase 2. In February.

755
01:53:02.660 --> 01:53:10.490
Boardroom: In March we continue with the phase 2 budget reductions, and we begin to notify personnel

756
01:53:11.040 --> 01:53:37.150
Boardroom: April. We continue that process. May staff transitions. Their activities are planned and the District Budget Committee, of course, begins to receive proposals on the budget, and then in June, when at the end of the school year, empty classrooms are packed up, the budget is adopted, and we're closed for the summer.

757
01:53:37.530 --> 01:53:41.459
Boardroom: However, if there is a consolidation of a school.

758
01:53:42.503 --> 01:53:47.079
Boardroom: that whole timeline changes for district staff.

759
01:53:47.400 --> 01:53:55.910
Boardroom: we district and flow analytics begin to create boundary adjustment maps so we can get them out to families.

760
01:53:56.070 --> 01:54:00.110
Boardroom: First, st student works on their new bus routes.

761
01:54:00.490 --> 01:54:08.159
Boardroom: special closure and transition activities planned by the schools, by school staff and Pto for students.

762
01:54:08.470 --> 01:54:18.950
Boardroom: And we began those early budget reductions similarly to the No closure in March family and students

763
01:54:19.120 --> 01:54:21.720
Boardroom: would tour their new schools.

764
01:54:22.417 --> 01:54:31.340
Boardroom: Transfer requests are open. We begin to adjust staff based on their request for placement assignments.

765
01:54:31.700 --> 01:54:38.379
Boardroom: And of course we're all the time continuing the budget reductions in phase 2.

766
01:54:38.670 --> 01:54:49.490
Boardroom: In April, stat student transfers closed and staff assignments are finalized, and the budget, of course, continues.

767
01:54:49.930 --> 01:54:59.959
Boardroom: May the student and staff transition activities that are planned. Class placement input forms are generated

768
01:55:01.280 --> 01:55:15.989
Boardroom: and we're in the final stages of the budget document. And then in June, should we consolidate any schools, there will undoubtedly be special end of year, and school legacy celebrations.

769
01:55:16.390 --> 01:55:24.700
Boardroom: empty classrooms packed up, and teachers perhaps transferred. And of course the budget is adopted.

770
01:55:26.360 --> 01:55:36.060
Boardroom: there would be 2 different bound. There would be a different process for the boundary adjustments depending on which option is selected.

771
01:55:36.610 --> 01:55:41.700
Boardroom: So we've identified the boundary adjustment for option, 2.

772
01:55:41.920 --> 01:55:46.089
Boardroom: That is to close 2 schools, one in

773
01:55:46.610 --> 01:55:52.850
Boardroom: 2025, 2026, and the second one in 2627.

774
01:55:54.470 --> 01:56:06.240
Boardroom: If 2 schools are determined to be consolidated, then Bolton or Cedar Oak would be consolidated in 2025, 2026,

775
01:56:06.530 --> 01:56:17.269
Boardroom: the new boundaries would be determined and communicated right away, due to the remaining short timeline for reassignment of students, staff bus routes.

776
01:56:17.480 --> 01:56:20.128
Boardroom: school tours, etc.

777
01:56:20.960 --> 01:56:29.110
Boardroom: Non-resident students would return to their resident school. Unless they apply for a transfer to another school

778
01:56:29.790 --> 01:56:34.269
Boardroom: interdistrict transfer, students would apply for a new transfer.

779
01:56:34.710 --> 01:56:42.839
Boardroom: Resident students would be assigned to their new boundary. Any adjustment in the boundary would have to be amended in subsequent years.

780
01:56:44.490 --> 01:56:48.880
Boardroom: In the in the 2025, 2026,

781
01:56:49.030 --> 01:56:58.079
Boardroom: school year a boundary process could be put in place to prepare for consolidation of Stafford and the opening of Frog Pond

782
01:56:58.290 --> 01:57:02.459
Boardroom: for the following 2627, school year

783
01:57:02.660 --> 01:57:11.029
Boardroom: the choice zone would largely be eliminated and absorbed in assigned to Frog Pond.

784
01:57:11.620 --> 01:57:19.489
Boardroom: Non-resident students at Stafford would return to their resident school unless they applied for another transfer

785
01:57:19.960 --> 01:57:28.300
Boardroom: inter district transfer students would apply for a new transfer as well. Resident students would be assigned their new boundary.

786
01:57:30.040 --> 01:57:37.449
Boardroom: So the second option is a boundary adjustment for option, one only one school closing.

787
01:57:38.350 --> 01:57:43.950
Boardroom: If one school is determined to be consolidated in 2526,

788
01:57:44.090 --> 01:57:56.419
Boardroom: new boundaries would be determined and communicated right away, due to the remaining short timeline for reassignment of students, staff bus routes, school tours, etc.

789
01:57:57.190 --> 01:58:06.360
Boardroom: Nonresident students intra district would return to their resident school. Unless they applied for a transfer to another school.

790
01:58:06.860 --> 01:58:11.580
Boardroom: Interdistrict students, transfers would apply.

791
01:58:11.940 --> 01:58:17.550
Boardroom: would have to apply for a new transfer. Resident students would be assigned their new boundary.

792
01:58:19.190 --> 01:58:26.939
Boardroom: Choice zones will essentially go away the current district. Choice zones

793
01:58:27.060 --> 01:58:33.830
Boardroom: allow some families to choose between 2 schools and receive bus transportation.

794
01:58:34.550 --> 01:58:40.429
Boardroom: In the fall of 2025 the district will discontinue the choice zone boundary.

795
01:58:40.710 --> 01:58:47.340
Boardroom: Except for the bat Beckman, Stafford choice zone due to the delay of Frog Pond

796
01:58:49.590 --> 01:59:01.739
Boardroom: student, and the students residing in their primary school boundaries will be assigned middle schools and high schools unless they receive an approved in district transfer request.

797
01:59:01.900 --> 01:59:06.460
Boardroom: When Frog Pond opens in 26, in the fall of 26

798
01:59:06.650 --> 01:59:16.479
Boardroom: the Beckman and Staffman Stafford. Choice zones will dissolve, and that area will be designated primarily into the frog pound boundary

799
01:59:16.780 --> 01:59:21.589
Boardroom: during the boundary process. It'll be determined that some portions

800
01:59:21.800 --> 01:59:26.139
Boardroom: it may be determined that some portions will remain in the Pakman zone.

801
01:59:27.080 --> 01:59:34.970
Boardroom: So the next is a map of the current school boundaries and the Beckman

802
01:59:35.140 --> 01:59:41.499
Boardroom: Stafford. Choice zone is in the pink, almost in the center here.

803
01:59:42.790 --> 01:59:51.969
Boardroom: and the table that follows this map. If you'll scroll down shows where

804
01:59:52.250 --> 01:59:58.530
Boardroom: primary schools funnel into middle schools, that funnel into high schools.

805
01:59:58.740 --> 02:00:01.040
Boardroom: This is the current alignment

806
02:00:02.610 --> 02:00:10.159
Boardroom: Parents may request in district transfers to any other school outside of their primary boundary

807
02:00:10.350 --> 02:00:18.399
Boardroom: or secondary school assignment depending on the school capacity, but transfers are not included.

808
02:00:18.870 --> 02:00:28.289
Boardroom: Transportation is not included for transfers. Parents have to. If they apply for a transfer, they have to provide the transportation.

809
02:00:28.830 --> 02:00:37.319
Boardroom: River riverside. High School is an option high school, and is open to any Westland Wilsonville High School student.

810
02:00:38.990 --> 02:00:44.040
Boardroom: If the Board chooses to close one primary option one.

811
02:00:44.740 --> 02:00:52.830
Boardroom: then there would likely need to be a minor reassignment of primary schools to middle schools in Westland.

812
02:00:53.140 --> 02:00:58.589
Boardroom: A likely possibility would be if Stafford closes

813
02:00:58.840 --> 02:01:10.809
Boardroom: the Beckman Stafford choice zone would be dissolved in the spring of 2025, and students that in that area temporarily assigned one year

814
02:01:11.110 --> 02:01:15.869
Boardroom: to Beckman primary school until Broad pond opens in the fall.

815
02:01:16.630 --> 02:01:26.540
Boardroom: the Stafford boundary would be reassigned to schools closest in proximity, such as cedar, oak, Willamette, and Trillium, sunset

816
02:01:27.240 --> 02:01:32.049
Boardroom: primary school would move assignments to Athey Creek

817
02:01:32.260 --> 02:01:37.899
Boardroom: to keep the Middle school role enrollment as balanced as possible.

818
02:01:39.020 --> 02:01:45.439
Boardroom: If Bolton were to close, the boundary area would be reassigned to schools closest in proximity.

819
02:01:45.580 --> 02:01:56.870
Boardroom: mostly cedar, oak, trillium, and Willamette sunset primary School would again move as assignment to 80 Creek Middle School

820
02:01:57.400 --> 02:01:59.779
Boardroom: keep the middle schools balanced

821
02:02:00.740 --> 02:02:10.589
Boardroom: if cedar oak were to close, the boundary area would be reassigned to schools closest in proximity, mostly Bolton, Trillium and Stafford.

822
02:02:11.480 --> 02:02:23.970
Boardroom: The primary school assignments would stay the same with the anticipation that Stafford may lose choice zone students to Frog Pond, but gain students from cedar oak.

823
02:02:25.660 --> 02:02:36.780
Boardroom: If the board chooses to close 2 primary schools, then a more full evaluation of reassignments to primary schools will be necessary.

824
02:02:40.460 --> 02:02:46.830
Boardroom: Transportation changes will change with consolidation.

825
02:02:47.090 --> 02:02:56.620
Boardroom: Any school consolidated will be required to change to adjust transportation for students in their neighborhood schools.

826
02:02:56.750 --> 02:03:02.070
Boardroom: And I'll talk a little bit more about this as we get further into the presentation.

827
02:03:02.310 --> 02:03:07.770
Boardroom: If in communities where schools are very far apart, in such as

828
02:03:08.100 --> 02:03:14.939
Boardroom: rural or sub-suburban districts, it could mean a significant amount of travel time.

829
02:03:15.559 --> 02:03:23.200
Boardroom: In West Lynn the schools are relatively close together, and the new routes that can be created

830
02:03:23.960 --> 02:03:30.439
Boardroom: while staying within the district guidelines of 45 min or less as a maximum bus ride.

831
02:03:31.590 --> 02:03:37.820
Boardroom: Currently, Stafford is the only primary school that has no walking boundary.

832
02:03:38.180 --> 02:03:45.309
Boardroom: All students are transported by bus or car, but I might expand on that a little bit.

833
02:03:45.520 --> 02:03:51.160
Boardroom: All students are offered above. The choice. To travel by car is up to the parents.

834
02:03:51.480 --> 02:03:59.840
Boardroom: so all all students have the option to get a bus at Stafford. Not all choose that option.

835
02:04:01.050 --> 02:04:07.859
Boardroom: If Bolton, Cedar Ochre Consolidated, a vast majority of the students from the Consolidated School neighborhood

836
02:04:08.080 --> 02:04:11.830
Boardroom: would require transportation to their new school.

837
02:04:12.400 --> 02:04:24.569
Boardroom: and we did put together a little chart, just to show the distance of travel from one school to the other, for instance, from Bolton to Cedar Oak is 2 and a half miles.

838
02:04:24.780 --> 02:04:28.180
Boardroom: It's 5.9 miles to Stafford.

839
02:04:28.300 --> 02:04:31.980
Boardroom: and and you can see the whole chart there.

840
02:04:32.220 --> 02:04:36.850
Boardroom: So with that I'm going to turn this back over to Dr. Pryor.

841
02:04:38.140 --> 02:05:05.270
Boardroom: So in the event that a school is closed, we would immediately begin thinking around a transition plan for students, staff, and parents. We do have some experience doing this from former boundary processes where students are in, you know, a middle of a time at primary transition to a new school. Students are the 1st ones we think about. And we.

842
02:05:05.330 --> 02:05:28.029
Boardroom: this is a very brief summary. There would be more, but we would think around a transition plan that would 1st celebrate their traditions, spaces, and memories of their current school artwork, times, capsules, memory books and videos. It all capture feelings and and be tools to transfer that community and integrate it into a new school.

843
02:05:28.070 --> 02:05:39.979
Boardroom: And then we would begin thinking around, how do we quickly begin to integrate them into a school, and we would think about over the summer having opportunities for students to visit a school to tour the school.

844
02:05:40.530 --> 02:05:53.139
Boardroom: as you probably already know. When school opens right before school opens, we have events organized by Ptas where people can come meet new families. We offer tours of the schools. They can meet their teachers.

845
02:05:53.210 --> 02:06:12.259
Boardroom: And then the 1st few weeks of primary school is always a time. We focus on building classroom community because every classroom is brand new, you know, even in a mixed age classroom half the students are new, so students are meeting each other, forming new friendships, figuring out when recess is so that they can meet some of their old friends

846
02:06:12.270 --> 02:06:34.029
Boardroom: we offer. We still offer fall conferences early in the year. The Fall Conferences is a time for every family to have one on one time with the teacher, to share what they know about their child, and set set those goals together. So we would be taking what's in place and trying to elaborate on it specifically to take really good care of the students who are coming to a new school community.

847
02:06:34.530 --> 02:06:58.999
Boardroom: We would also be thinking about parent and our guardians our parents are. We're so fortunate to have such incredible parent assets in terms of how much they participate in schools. And 1st thing we would be thinking around is, how do we begin to merge some of our Pta leaders so they can take their traditions and integrate them into the new school, and using those Ptas to begin thinking around opportunities for meet and greets for families.

848
02:06:59.000 --> 02:07:17.479
Boardroom: And, as I mentioned, earlier families do have the opportunity to meet with teachers early in the year we would be thinking around ways over the summer for families to meet each other, to establish new connections so that they can start thinking of play dates, and share childcare, and all the things that parents think about when they go to school together.

849
02:07:19.620 --> 02:07:25.410
Boardroom: We also think around staff transitions. And here we're really guided by our

850
02:07:25.510 --> 02:07:42.490
Boardroom: our agreements with both the classified and the Certified association. And so when we go through processes like this, the 1st thing we want to know is if someone needs to go to a new building, where do they want to be? What's what's good for their commute, their childcare, their lifestyle. And so we collect that information early on.

851
02:07:42.500 --> 02:08:10.899
Boardroom: and then we by contract. We work through a seniority list, and so Staff, with the most seniority, have the 1st opportunity to shift into those roles, whether it be at a location or a specialty, you know. I want to teach 4th grade, or I want to teach. I'd rather teach at this school, and I don't care which grade. It is, we take that into account and work down our seniority list, both for classified and for certified staff. In assigning staff.

852
02:08:11.210 --> 02:08:18.000
Boardroom: The one thing to note which has been a wondering and a misconception might be if budget challenges

853
02:08:18.620 --> 02:08:21.349
Boardroom: put us in a position where we do have to reduce staff.

854
02:08:21.690 --> 02:08:43.150
Boardroom: Whether or not a school was consolidated, has no impact on that. Reductions across the district are based on seniority, and your seniority is not impacted. If you're in a school that gets consolidated. So while we would relocate staff into new buildings, a reduction in force would be a completely separate process which would not be impacted by someone

855
02:08:43.270 --> 02:08:45.669
Boardroom: if they were in a school that was Consolidated.

856
02:08:47.600 --> 02:08:51.360
Boardroom: Pat, I think you're back on. I'm back up. So

857
02:08:51.540 --> 02:09:04.110
Boardroom: the next section revolves around costs of consolidating a school. If a decision is made to to consolidate a school, there are still costs

858
02:09:04.220 --> 02:09:10.029
Boardroom: that are, albeit they're minimal that are associated with owning the building.

859
02:09:10.470 --> 02:09:18.129
Boardroom: They're basic minimum utilities and some minimum maintenance that is required.

860
02:09:20.110 --> 02:09:22.080
Boardroom: I. We titled the

861
02:09:22.740 --> 02:09:32.479
Boardroom: this section utilities, but it really is the cost of all things that are required for occupancy of a of a school

862
02:09:32.620 --> 02:09:42.140
Boardroom: that includes water and sewer, alarm services for fire, security, elevator, electricity, natural gas for heat

863
02:09:42.300 --> 02:09:47.320
Boardroom: and communication lines for telephones and and alarm lines.

864
02:09:47.580 --> 02:10:01.910
Boardroom: There are, again, those operating costs that are required for occupancy, such as Radon testing, water testing. There's mandatory inspections things that aren't

865
02:10:02.170 --> 02:10:13.640
Boardroom: very sexy. But go check the grease traps and the kitchen hood has to be inspected every year, and then those routine costs that

866
02:10:14.690 --> 02:10:30.219
Boardroom: always occur. Routine filter replacement for the Hvac equipment, janitorial supplies, kitchen supplies, all of those behind the scenes. Recurring costs that happen every year.

867
02:10:30.828 --> 02:10:49.100
Boardroom: We did supply the actual costs for all of those things, for each of the 3 schools, for the (232) 023-2024 school year, because that budget is final, and those are the actual costs you can see down to the penny.

868
02:10:49.990 --> 02:10:57.940
Boardroom: But if a building is closed, there are still recurring costs that we will incur.

869
02:10:58.100 --> 02:10:59.589
Boardroom: but they are minimal

870
02:11:00.234 --> 02:11:10.910
Boardroom: electrical costs will only be for the most basic use of heat and alarm systems that we will have to maintain in the building.

871
02:11:11.797 --> 02:11:19.319
Boardroom: It's estimated that the total electrical cost for any building will not exceed $6,000 a year.

872
02:11:20.090 --> 02:11:31.530
Boardroom: Natural gas will also be used, but it'll be greatly reduced. The building will only be set to 45 degrees, and that's only to keep pipes from freezing.

873
02:11:31.740 --> 02:11:36.279
Boardroom: so heat will only be needed during the coldest months of the year.

874
02:11:37.840 --> 02:11:48.289
Boardroom: And that again, it's to keep the pipes from freezing. It's estimated that the total cost for natural gas will not exceed $2,000 a year.

875
02:11:48.860 --> 02:11:54.340
Boardroom: Water and sewer charges will be virtually eliminated because there will be no usage.

876
02:11:54.760 --> 02:12:02.409
Boardroom: Minimum charge is required to keep the meter on, so there will be a cost at Bolton and cedar oak

877
02:12:03.019 --> 02:12:10.219
Boardroom: but that'll be essentially the only cost. It's estimated that those won't exceed a thousand dollars a year

878
02:12:10.810 --> 02:12:16.180
Boardroom: at Stafford. It's on a private well and with a septic system.

879
02:12:16.310 --> 02:12:23.936
Boardroom: So there, while there are no meter charges for that. There still are costs. We do have a

880
02:12:24.850 --> 02:12:28.609
Boardroom: water treatment system at the school that

881
02:12:30.160 --> 02:12:33.679
Boardroom: requires maintenance, and we have to keep it going.

882
02:12:33.910 --> 02:12:45.019
Boardroom: and we do have a septic sewer septic system inspections that have to happen regardless of occupancy. But those won't exceed $5,000 a year.

883
02:12:45.220 --> 02:12:47.529
Boardroom: or $500 a year. I'm sorry.

884
02:12:49.230 --> 02:13:04.299
Boardroom: So maintenance has been broken out with a 10 year average, and why it was averaged over 10 years is to not show these wild spikes that may happen. If, for instance, a

885
02:13:04.560 --> 02:13:16.589
Boardroom: large air handler goes out all of a sudden, there's $40,000 of maintenance in one year at a school. These have been averaged over the last 10 years.

886
02:13:16.710 --> 02:13:35.290
Boardroom: and so you can see the totals, Bolton. $21,000 on average cedar oak, $34,000 on average, Stafford 67. A lot of that also has to do with landscape maintenance. More time is spent because the bigger sites require more maintenance.

887
02:13:36.150 --> 02:13:46.490
Boardroom: but if a building is closed, the maintenance will only be reactive. We will only be responding to a system failure such as a fire alarm

888
02:13:46.650 --> 02:13:58.170
Boardroom: or a boiler alarm, or somebody sees water running out the front door. We will make periodic inspections on the building. Make sure, walk through it once a month.

889
02:13:58.300 --> 02:14:02.585
Boardroom: but those costs will be minimal and

890
02:14:03.590 --> 02:14:23.410
Boardroom: landscape maintenance will still be necessary at any of the buildings. Until a determination is made by the Board on what the disposition of the building will be. Are we going to lease it? Is it going to be sold? Are we going to repurpose it for another use.

891
02:14:23.690 --> 02:14:30.529
Boardroom: but the maintenance costs are estimated to only not exceed $3,000 a year.

892
02:14:32.920 --> 02:14:39.276
Boardroom: The Board may determine that a closed school can be leased to another organization or

893
02:14:39.800 --> 02:14:44.600
Boardroom: another public entity. In that case we will. Oh.

894
02:14:45.070 --> 02:14:54.080
Boardroom: you know, of course, turn all the utilities back on and negotiate the maintenance cost with the new Kevin.

895
02:14:54.700 --> 02:14:57.819
Boardroom: Well, that they'd be offset by the lease payments.

896
02:14:58.290 --> 02:15:03.740
Boardroom: The Board may determine that the school a closed school or a property be sold.

897
02:15:04.250 --> 02:15:11.560
Boardroom: In that case we we would 0 out the utilities on all of those whatever building was chosen.

898
02:15:12.980 --> 02:15:19.069
Boardroom: The other additional cost for closing a school will be new transportation costs.

899
02:15:19.570 --> 02:15:27.109
Boardroom: I wanna start by saying it is exceptionally difficult to

900
02:15:27.260 --> 02:15:35.459
Boardroom: know precisely what those will be until new boundaries are drawn and we can draw up new bus routes.

901
02:15:35.940 --> 02:15:46.060
Boardroom: What I'm about to describe is strictly mathematical. It's based on number of students. And here's what the bus cost.

902
02:15:48.120 --> 02:15:57.670
Boardroom: Currently, Bolton and Cedar oak have well, over 50% of the students already on a bus.

903
02:15:57.860 --> 02:16:01.909
Boardroom: Buses are or costs are determined by the route.

904
02:16:02.190 --> 02:16:16.539
Boardroom: and once they're on a bus, the destination doesn't matter whether they are delivered to Cedar Oak or to Bolton or to Willamette. It's the cost of the route. That is what we pay.

905
02:16:17.440 --> 02:16:31.909
Boardroom: So those students transportation costs will remain the same. The new additional costs will be incurred for those students that currently reside within the walking boundary for each student.

906
02:16:32.290 --> 02:16:44.790
Boardroom: And again, as Stafford has no walking boundary, all students are already offered buses, there will be no increased cost for Stafford, so the only increased cost will be

907
02:16:44.910 --> 02:16:47.999
Boardroom: potentially for Bolton or cedar oak.

908
02:16:48.930 --> 02:16:52.944
Boardroom: according to the records and the number of students assigned for

909
02:16:55.600 --> 02:16:58.749
Boardroom: for student transportation are there below.

910
02:16:59.129 --> 02:17:10.310
Boardroom: I want to note that they don't necessarily align with the enrollment the numbers that we have are for every student that resides in the boundary.

911
02:17:10.480 --> 02:17:16.849
Boardroom: They may be going to private school, they may be homeschooled, they may be in a virtual charter school.

912
02:17:17.160 --> 02:17:22.200
Boardroom: so, but we wanted to show every potential possible student

913
02:17:22.330 --> 02:17:26.609
Boardroom: that could ride a bus. In each of these areas.

914
02:17:27.750 --> 02:17:46.370
Boardroom: The chart has a legend beside it, and you'll see that N is, they are not inside the attendance boundary. So at Bolton there are 62 students that are not in the attendance boundary, and they are not eligible for bus, for transportation today.

915
02:17:48.034 --> 02:17:50.930
Boardroom: The B is for

916
02:17:51.150 --> 02:17:58.449
Boardroom: the students at Bolton that are currently eligible for a bus that is, 138

917
02:17:59.360 --> 02:18:08.090
Boardroom: H. Is a special hazard zone. Currently Bolton does not have one. I'll talk about that when we get to Cedar Oak.

918
02:18:08.650 --> 02:18:11.150
Boardroom: but W. Is the new

919
02:18:11.250 --> 02:18:25.219
Boardroom: busing that would be required inside of the walking boundary. There are 41 students that currently attend Bolton, and they would now, if Bolton were closed would be eligible for busing

920
02:18:25.840 --> 02:18:30.140
Boardroom: at Cedar Oak. Those numbers are 38 for the

921
02:18:31.610 --> 02:18:34.660
Boardroom: students that are not in the attendance boundary.

922
02:18:34.870 --> 02:18:41.549
Boardroom: There are 261 students that currently are eligible for a bus, and it's already provided.

923
02:18:42.000 --> 02:18:54.479
Boardroom: There are 7 in a special hazard zone, and there are some areas around cedar oak that there's that we do provide busing that are considered hazardous walking areas.

924
02:18:54.660 --> 02:18:58.259
Boardroom: So those 7 students are already provided. A bus

925
02:18:58.950 --> 02:19:05.650
Boardroom: and the new inside the walking boundary number would be 56 students.

926
02:19:06.555 --> 02:19:11.689
Boardroom: That would be new additional students to be bust

927
02:19:13.600 --> 02:19:22.860
Boardroom: calculating the cost is based on the number of students that will now be transported, but it can't be exact without redrawing the boundaries.

928
02:19:23.690 --> 02:19:33.979
Boardroom: Each bus route costs 84,000 $84,369. That's the yearly cost for a route for one bus.

929
02:19:35.209 --> 02:19:40.209
Boardroom: The district received 70% reimbursement from ode.

930
02:19:40.360 --> 02:19:46.920
Boardroom: So the district cost is $25,370 annually.

931
02:19:49.190 --> 02:20:05.419
Boardroom: New student transportation costs are incurred only for those students in the W category for Bolton. That's 41 for cedar oak, that is, 56 students. Again, this is a mathematical analysis only.

932
02:20:06.580 --> 02:20:13.389
Boardroom: while full buses, technically full size buses technically have a capacity of 84 students.

933
02:20:13.490 --> 02:20:20.089
Boardroom: The district has asked for student to only use 56 students

934
02:20:20.220 --> 02:20:24.569
Boardroom: in a bus. Technically, they can put 3 students per seat

935
02:20:25.200 --> 02:20:32.560
Boardroom: for student management, comfort of the ride. All of the reasons we have asked them to reduce that to 56.

936
02:20:33.060 --> 02:20:39.819
Boardroom: So essentially our full size buses are 56 students for primary school students.

937
02:20:40.960 --> 02:20:55.849
Boardroom: based on that number of the additional students that will require busing is estimated that one bus, one new bus, will be needed for Bolton, and one new bus will be needed for Cedar Oak Park.

938
02:20:56.480 --> 02:21:05.430
Boardroom: Those costs will be $25,370 per school again. The routes that

939
02:21:05.960 --> 02:21:07.980
Boardroom: students currently ride.

940
02:21:08.170 --> 02:21:14.330
Boardroom: Once they're on the bus, the destination does not matter as long as it's under a 45 min ride.

941
02:21:15.470 --> 02:21:20.280
Boardroom: So thank you. Pat

942
02:21:20.660 --> 02:21:30.246
Boardroom: questions have also come forward about Chinese dual language, which is situated at Bolton. So we wanted to provide a little information about that.

943
02:21:30.730 --> 02:21:46.140
Boardroom: We originally located Chinese dual language at Bolton. For a couple of reasons. One is, Bolton had a thriving World language program with lots of community support. They also had capacity. We knew they had classroom space. So that's why we oriented the program there.

944
02:21:46.250 --> 02:22:12.150
Boardroom: However, enrollment has not grown at the rate expected to sustain the program to the level that we would like to see. There are currently 44 children in the program, 11 at kindergarten, 19 at 1st grade and 14 at second grade and through incredibly creative planning by the principal Derek Porter, they're served by 2.7 teachers which meet their needs throughout the day.

945
02:22:12.881 --> 02:22:35.380
Boardroom: When we analyze what enrollment looks like for Spanish dual language in our 2 schools, Trillium and Lowry. What we find is about 1 3rd of those students in the program live in the boundary of the school where they attend, and about 2 thirds come from other boundaries in the district. So you can see that data here in the 1st 2 bullets

946
02:22:35.520 --> 02:22:39.660
Boardroom: the data looks differently for Chinese dual language in that

947
02:22:39.920 --> 02:22:47.440
Boardroom: roughly half of the students enrolled live in Bolton's attendance area just 22 students and about half

948
02:22:47.500 --> 02:23:17.400
Boardroom: live in boundaries of other schools in the district. That's also 22 students. So this leads us to have a wondering if perhaps the location might be contributing to enrollment. We are very not consistent, committed to developing a sustainable Chinese dual language program for the long term. And so we may consider program relocation as a strategy for increasing enrollment. So that program remains viable.

949
02:23:19.300 --> 02:23:30.439
Boardroom: The final section of this 3rd tab are district findings and comments contributed to by the entire District office leadership team.

950
02:23:30.720 --> 02:23:48.909
Boardroom: The analysis of the 3 schools, their enrollment building and property features, capacity, consolidation, scenarios, facility utilities cost educational program impact and community sentiment lead the district to several findings for the School Board.

951
02:23:49.790 --> 02:23:51.110
Boardroom: Finding number one

952
02:23:51.650 --> 02:24:05.410
Boardroom: community sentiment is very clear that all 3 small schools are valued are a reason for residing in the neighborhood and are impactful to students, staff, and families. No school community wants their school closed.

953
02:24:05.640 --> 02:24:19.100
Boardroom: The district agrees that each of these schools play a foundational role in the life of each student, staff, member, and family who attends the school, and that each school has outcomes of both academic and social emotional successes.

954
02:24:20.000 --> 02:24:24.110
Boardroom: Finding number 2 school size and educational impact.

955
02:24:24.660 --> 02:24:35.629
Boardroom: When a school gets too small, an educational impact does begin does often begin often with a sense of lost parity when staffing and resources are reduced.

956
02:24:35.880 --> 02:24:49.059
Boardroom: For example, this year at Bolton, Instructional Coordinator was removed from staff due to declined enrollment. Both staff and the school community expressed disappointment that the school did not have parity with the other schools.

957
02:24:49.540 --> 02:24:57.910
Boardroom: As the enrollment continues to decline. At these schools additional staffing reductions will occur, and the impact will be felt even more.

958
02:24:58.110 --> 02:25:07.119
Boardroom: In some districts where enrollment has fallen below 200 shared principal positions and alternating engineer custodial staff are often assigned

959
02:25:08.450 --> 02:25:11.130
Boardroom: finding 3 financial allocation.

960
02:25:11.510 --> 02:25:28.049
Boardroom: The district is committed to equity of educational programs and resources across all schools. This means that schools where there is greater student need, for example, academic disparity, impact of poverty, student mental health and special education

961
02:25:28.160 --> 02:25:33.009
Boardroom: should be receiving more resources to close opportunity and achievement. Gaps.

962
02:25:33.430 --> 02:25:35.020
Boardroom: Data from different

963
02:25:35.140 --> 02:25:46.219
Boardroom: district staffing ratios demonstrate that overall the 3 smaller primary schools in Westland have the lowest student staffing ratio than the other 6 schools in the district.

964
02:25:46.460 --> 02:25:53.759
Boardroom: and the chart is simply showing you enrollment the number of each type of staff member.

965
02:25:53.880 --> 02:26:06.999
Boardroom: and then you add up all the staff to create a ratio of how many students are there? To each staff member listed in the chart. And so the last blue column you can see the ratio of students to staff.

966
02:26:07.800 --> 02:26:09.120
Boardroom: Our staff dispute

967
02:26:10.390 --> 02:26:27.939
Boardroom: data from Edunomics which was presented earlier, gleaned from Ode, demonstrate that these 3 schools receive more funding per student, an average of $18,456 than the other 6 primary schools, averaging 16,907

968
02:26:28.250 --> 02:26:36.339
Boardroom: by $1,500 per student, including schools in lower socioeconomic conditions and higher academic disparity.

969
02:26:36.630 --> 02:26:46.319
Boardroom: In other words, more resources, staff and funds are currently being allocated to the smaller schools, who also have higher socioeconomic needs.

970
02:26:46.480 --> 02:26:59.659
Boardroom: For example, the district spends $3,000 more per student at Fulton, with only 15% free and reduced meal eligibility than per student at Boone's Ferry with 40% free and reduced meal eligibility.

971
02:27:00.920 --> 02:27:03.849
Boardroom: Finding 4 research on school closures.

972
02:27:04.130 --> 02:27:16.180
Boardroom: There is no conclusive research that shows when students from a high performing school transition to another high performing school, the academic performance suffers, or there are negative long term impacts.

973
02:27:16.290 --> 02:27:37.250
Boardroom: There is research that shows schools in high racial minority or lower socioeconomic conditions which close can have negative impacts on students and the community, particularly if the receiving schools are lower performing, or do not have the room or resources to accommodate the influx of students.

974
02:27:37.510 --> 02:27:45.040
Boardroom: there is also a qualitative expression of loss of a well-known and often beloved institution. When a school closes

975
02:27:45.790 --> 02:27:59.519
Boardroom: additionally neighboring Oregon school districts in Clackamas County, which have closed schools, particularly one with very similar demographic composition have not demonstrated any academic disparity due to closures

976
02:28:00.460 --> 02:28:03.489
Boardroom: finding 5 future facility needs

977
02:28:04.020 --> 02:28:13.720
Boardroom: below analytics. Ten-year projections predict very minimal growth for each of the 3 smaller schools by 2,033, 34. Compared to current enrollment

978
02:28:13.990 --> 02:28:21.200
Boardroom: over that period Bolton has an increase of 5 cedar oak increase of 13 Stafford an increase of 11 students.

979
02:28:21.590 --> 02:28:28.369
Boardroom: This means that the consolidation of of one of these schools can be sustained for at least the next decade.

980
02:28:28.970 --> 02:28:40.690
Boardroom: There's ample capacity at each of the other 3 Westland schools to accommodate the sustained closure of one school over the next 10 years, particularly if the closure is Bolton or Cedar Oak Park.

981
02:28:41.050 --> 02:28:57.440
Boardroom: When Frog Pond Primary School opens, the Beckman Stafford choice zone will be dissolved, and it is likely that the enrollment Stafford primary school were reduced even further than the flow analytics projections. There are currently about 60 students attending Stafford from the choice zone.

982
02:28:58.190 --> 02:29:05.059
Boardroom: however, as Frog Pond, East, and South develop. The second phase of its building construction will need to be completed.

983
02:29:05.160 --> 02:29:13.870
Boardroom: and a future capital bond and Stafford primary school, if not closed, may be needed for a boundary adjustment that includes the former choice step.

984
02:29:14.570 --> 02:29:25.709
Boardroom: The future of Stafford primary school as a facility is the most unknown. Given its proximity to the Frog Pond Development, and whether another primary school is eventually built in Wilsonville.

985
02:29:25.980 --> 02:29:33.309
Boardroom: Stafford. Primary School also currently encompasses the Norwood Urban reserve between 65th and Stafford road

986
02:29:33.470 --> 02:29:44.129
Boardroom: area, which is the urban in the urban growth boundary. But there are sections with no utilities, infrastructure, or planning, but are buildable acres 746.

987
02:29:44.240 --> 02:29:52.569
Boardroom: Stafford Primary School is also located near the Stafford Hamlet community, where the urban growth boundary could be expanded into the future

988
02:29:53.110 --> 02:30:02.870
Boardroom: in terms of property. Bolton has the least acreage, with 3.3 acres. Sea road Park has 11.2 2 acres, and Stafford has 13.5 6.

989
02:30:03.140 --> 02:30:07.460
Boardroom: Parking is also most limited at Bolton, and there are no playfields.

990
02:30:07.610 --> 02:30:15.420
Boardroom: Of the 3 schools Bolton is the most landlocked, with nowhere to expand. Should the district need the building or property for expansion.

991
02:30:16.130 --> 02:30:26.939
Boardroom: finding 6 consolidation options based on enrollment, available capacity, and the frog pond opening delay options for consolidation are limited to none.

992
02:30:27.140 --> 02:30:32.280
Boardroom: or one in 2,02526. Any of the 3 schools

993
02:30:32.490 --> 02:30:36.310
Boardroom: or 2, with one in 2526,

994
02:30:36.460 --> 02:30:41.669
Boardroom: Bolton, or cedar ove, and one in 2627, which would be Stafford only

995
02:30:43.470 --> 02:30:46.699
Boardroom: that we conclude with district executive leader comments

996
02:30:46.840 --> 02:31:00.290
Boardroom: based on the findings of the small schools task force, long range planning committee statement research on small school closures and an analysis of the 3 schools. The executive leaders, including the superintendent, had the following comments.

997
02:31:00.780 --> 02:31:11.300
Boardroom: if the School Board chooses to keep all 3 small schools open, the district will respect the decision and begin the timeline and process for the 2526 budget. Accordingly.

998
02:31:11.870 --> 02:31:19.589
Boardroom: if the School Board decides to consolidate one school, the district has concerns, should the Board select Cedar Oak Park Primary school

999
02:31:20.020 --> 02:31:30.400
Boardroom: in terms of enrollment. It is the largest of the 3 schools, and the only one that actually has more students enrolled in 2425 than the flow. Analytics projection

1000
02:31:30.620 --> 02:31:41.049
Boardroom: in terms of facility. Its location on the north end of the district and building capacity, allows it to absorb a neighboring consolidated school. Either Bolton or Stafford

1001
02:31:41.450 --> 02:31:55.569
Boardroom: in terms of property. Cedar Oak Park, 11.2 2 acres, has room to add more classrooms onto the building, or add other structures onto the property. Should the district need to expand the school or add other programs in the future.

1002
02:31:56.080 --> 02:32:07.320
Boardroom: If the School Board decides to consolidate one school, there may be more long term viability factors to consider with Bolton or Stafford Primary school in 26 and 27.

1003
02:32:15.310 --> 02:32:21.189
Boardroom: So that was section 3, which was an analysis of the 3 schools.

1004
02:32:21.490 --> 02:32:26.370
Boardroom: and in section 4, I'm only going to talk about one page of Section 4,

1005
02:32:26.850 --> 02:32:28.153
Boardroom: and then we'll be

1006
02:32:28.760 --> 02:32:36.979
Boardroom: wrapping up presentation. So in section 4, it talks about the budget impacts with or without consolidation.

1007
02:32:37.440 --> 02:32:42.690
Boardroom: Pages 38, 39, 40,

1008
02:32:42.900 --> 02:32:46.560
Boardroom: and 41 are primarily what I shared

1009
02:32:46.850 --> 02:32:53.360
Boardroom: in my superintendent report. So you have a repeat of some of those graphs and some of that information

1010
02:32:54.200 --> 02:32:58.480
Boardroom: I'd like you to. Now note that page 42

1011
02:32:58.620 --> 02:33:08.830
Boardroom: is similar to the information is similar to what I shared tonight. But we've also added, if one school were to consolidate for next year.

1012
02:33:10.020 --> 02:33:12.900
Boardroom: so you can see in the 3 columns

1013
02:33:14.230 --> 02:33:19.030
Boardroom: on the left hand side. It's just the title column.

1014
02:33:20.110 --> 02:33:24.720
Boardroom: The second column from the left is if we

1015
02:33:25.010 --> 02:33:31.260
Boardroom: don't consolidate any schools, keep things the same, but also make absolutely no reductions next year, which is

1016
02:33:31.450 --> 02:33:36.579
Boardroom: not allowable because we'd be having a negative in the ending fund balance. But I just wanted to show you

1017
02:33:36.860 --> 02:33:38.800
Boardroom: that's the start of where we are.

1018
02:33:39.160 --> 02:33:45.149
Boardroom: The 3rd from the left is no school consolidation, which is one of your options.

1019
02:33:45.350 --> 02:33:56.510
Boardroom: It shows the State School Fund biennium allocation, the beginning fund balance. So money that we would have at the end of this school year carried over again. These are estimates.

1020
02:33:56.700 --> 02:34:06.380
Boardroom: but this is what it's looking like, the projected revenue, the projected expenditure, and then you can see

1021
02:34:06.730 --> 02:34:14.000
Boardroom: in the white area, the proposal of a hundred of a 15 million dollars reduction

1022
02:34:14.240 --> 02:34:23.209
Boardroom: that 7.4 6 million from district level and non classroom. And then at the bottom. You can see what I'd shown on the chart before

1023
02:34:23.490 --> 02:34:26.060
Boardroom: the classroom reduction.

1024
02:34:27.590 --> 02:34:35.529
Boardroom: The column on the right is, if you did elect to consolidate a school, what would the difference be?

1025
02:34:36.130 --> 02:34:42.639
Boardroom: And where that difference would go is all the way down at the bottom it would go directly to primary school.

1026
02:34:44.970 --> 02:34:55.459
Boardroom: so would not go to reducing any of the reductions up at the district level or non classroom level. All of that savings of 1.4 5 million.

1027
02:34:56.270 --> 02:35:02.519
Boardroom: even though it's coming from a lot of places, would be allocated directly to primary

1028
02:35:02.730 --> 02:35:06.460
Boardroom: to bring down the reduction of the fte there.

1029
02:35:07.190 --> 02:35:12.490
Boardroom: which would reduce the class size, which I think is

1030
02:35:12.760 --> 02:35:28.319
Boardroom: what you would be considering is what's the impact to primary when you have more schools? And what's the impact of primary when you have fewer schools, even though the district is larger than that and has many more components.

1031
02:35:28.540 --> 02:35:37.799
Boardroom: That's the crux of that decision is, how would it directly go back to impacting primary. So that's that chart there.

1032
02:35:40.450 --> 02:36:07.349
Boardroom: The rest of the sections in the binder. Section 5, again, is the statement you got tonight. Long planning Committee. Section 6, which is a large portion. That's the small Schools Task Force's findings, their report, and all those tabulated sheets are charts and graphs that we provided for the Small Schools Task Force. They're available to the community. They're on the website. We've just made it convenient for you to have it in the binder in case you're doing some

1033
02:36:07.830 --> 02:36:29.210
Boardroom: mobile homework, or you want to go back and forth. And you don't want to be clicking and trying to find things on the website. Additionally, all of the comments from the community engagement forums. You can pull those out. You see, those are on 11 by 17 sheets, very small font. But we've also printed those out. They're also available clickable on the on the website.

1034
02:36:29.560 --> 02:36:44.519
Boardroom: And then some of the charts you'll recognize that were in the presentation, and then at the very end. We've also printed out some of the research and the articles that were referenced or were available for the small schools task force or community members.

1035
02:36:45.820 --> 02:36:52.370
Boardroom: So with that. And I know we're going to probably take a break before we go into public comment again. It's like.

1036
02:36:52.770 --> 02:37:19.500
Boardroom: We don't expect you to analyze this and do any deliberation on this tonight. You've just received it. You have 2 weeks to work through it. Contact the district, any of us, if you have questions around the chart or the graph, and we can provide clarity. Or if you think we're missing something that will help with your decision. So at this point I think we transition back to you. Vice chair, unless there's something specific you want answered right now. But I think you also want to leave time for public comment.

1037
02:37:21.040 --> 02:37:22.259
Boardroom: For this evening.

1038
02:37:23.780 --> 02:37:27.182
Boardroom: And just to provide some context for our audience.

1039
02:37:27.700 --> 02:37:41.043
Boardroom: the superintendent is referring to a process that we regularly follow during our budget. And that's where we receive a similarly large binder, a lot of information and overview. And then

1040
02:37:41.640 --> 02:38:11.089
Boardroom: the board along with the Citizen Budget Committee, has time to not only review the materials, but then get questions from the community as well. We submit them. And then those questions, and then the responses are compiled. So we all can learn collectively together. And so I'm just looking down at my fellow board members, thinking that that would be the process that we follow. If there are any procedural or just quick questions that anyone has

1041
02:38:11.347 --> 02:38:26.259
Boardroom: I'll look to you now to see if you have any. Otherwise I'm thinking that we'll take a short break before we head into public comment, and then we'll also use this time. If you haven't signed up yet, and you would like to make public comment this evening. Please sign up on the board in the back.

1042
02:38:26.280 --> 02:38:27.980
Boardroom: but otherwise.

1043
02:38:28.090 --> 02:38:32.980
Boardroom: seeing no questions. Chair, Taylor, did you have any questions that you'd like to ask at this point?

1044
02:38:36.460 --> 02:38:37.579
Louis Taylor: I do not.

1045
02:38:38.090 --> 02:38:38.950
Louis Taylor: I do not.

1046
02:38:38.950 --> 02:38:41.709
Boardroom: So we will take a 5 min break.

1047
02:38:41.880 --> 02:38:45.520
Boardroom: and then when we come back, we will open up the public comment. Thank you.

1048
02:39:21.230 --> 02:39:29.280
Boardroom: All right. We are going to call this meeting back to order, and I'm looking forward to this public comment portion of our evening.

1049
02:39:29.450 --> 02:39:48.640
Boardroom: I'm really pleased to see so many familiar faces. And so I'm not going to read the public comment, introduction, word for word. I'll just give you the quick summary overview. But, as you may know if we, if we have folks that don't follow some of these instructions.

1050
02:39:48.640 --> 02:40:06.589
Boardroom: we will suspend public comment for the evening, and the reason that we have some rules around. Public comment is to make sure that everyone has a chance this evening to have a chance to share their voice with the board and speak to us this evening.

1051
02:40:06.967 --> 02:40:32.980
Boardroom: So we want to thank you for for sharing your evening with us. You have signed up on this public comment sheet, and we will use this sheet to welcome you to the podium and microphone to make your comment. This is your time to for us to collect information from you, and not to engage in a dialogue. So please don't mistake our silence for lack of interest. We are listening carefully and probably taking notes.

1052
02:40:33.290 --> 02:40:41.600
Boardroom: If you're asking for us to respond or provide information, please provide your contact information so we may follow up with you.

1053
02:40:42.117 --> 02:40:51.019
Boardroom: This is not a forum for singling out employees or students for complaints. Please use the district complaint process available on our website.

1054
02:40:51.430 --> 02:41:11.640
Boardroom: and this time is for is to address the board and not the audience. All comments will be given, given their respect by the Board, and so we ask that you in return, be respectful of all speakers, and refrain from giving cheers, claps, or negative noises. When a member of the public is speaking, or has concluded speaking.

1055
02:41:12.040 --> 02:41:21.889
Boardroom: please keep your comments to 3 min, and if 3 min isn't enough, you're welcome to reach out to us via email or reach out to us at a later time.

1056
02:41:22.483 --> 02:41:32.760
Boardroom: So at this point. I'm gonna go down the list. Read your name, and you are welcome to the microphone. To give your comment, and we have a 3 min timer that we'll use for each speaker.

1057
02:41:32.920 --> 02:41:38.629
Boardroom: So with that, let's get started, and I welcome Zeal Vandenhovel to the mic.

1058
02:41:42.010 --> 02:41:46.040
Boardroom: Hello, good job, chair, Wyatt, you got my name?

1059
02:41:46.360 --> 02:41:48.990
Boardroom: Chair, Taylor? She got on the 1st try.

1060
02:41:49.708 --> 02:42:04.460
Boardroom: I'm here with 3 questions. Sorry love, love, all of you guys. But 3 3 questions that really came up from Dr. Ludwig's presentation tonight. 1st and foremost, thank you, Director Vidal and director sloop for

1061
02:42:04.630 --> 02:42:10.309
Boardroom: the incredible legislative advocacy work that you're doing. I think something that really stood out to me

1062
02:42:10.360 --> 02:42:26.329
Boardroom: was the fact that we're going to be at this battle year after year, biennium after biennium if we don't start solving at the State and possibly national level. So my ask for you is this, you asked us to attend in person at the 2 different sessions that you mentioned.

1063
02:42:26.330 --> 02:42:40.949
Boardroom: I would love to know if there are any organized efforts, either in our own school district or across school districts along with maybe Lake Oswego for organized outreach of parents to state legislators. So I'm talking about

1064
02:42:41.280 --> 02:42:50.860
Boardroom: templated emails that people can easily use templated phone scripts that people can easily use that. We see, you know, when we come up on national or local elections.

1065
02:42:51.862 --> 02:42:53.697
Boardroom: Secondly, you know,

1066
02:42:54.510 --> 02:42:59.900
Boardroom: Dr. Ludwig, you mentioned that paid leave in Oregon is 12 weeks. That's more than the private sector.

1067
02:43:00.090 --> 02:43:16.659
Boardroom: So I feel like there needs to be some further renegotiation of expectations of time off, and Pers contracts for teachers who are going to be new coming into this district to make it more sustainable in the long term. If we know that state budgets are going to continue to be stretched.

1068
02:43:17.140 --> 02:43:28.249
Boardroom: Second question, you mentioned that Westland lost more students than Lake Oswego. We kind of have a similar population in terms of our demographics. I'm curious to understand. If we know why.

1069
02:43:28.510 --> 02:43:33.699
Boardroom: Why is it that Lo didn't lose quite as many as we did? And is there anything we can do to bridge that gap?

1070
02:43:33.940 --> 02:43:42.290
Boardroom: And then, 3, rd you also mentioned that high school and middle school enrollment is going to be declining over the coming years which we saw also in the flow analytics, projections.

1071
02:43:42.570 --> 02:44:04.679
Boardroom: Where are the cuts to capital improvements and programs for middle schools and high schools like we need to start discussing those now, because the fact that we open the school year with 4 months to make a decision on primary schools is something we should learn from. If we'd had this presentation tonight 4 months ago, we could also had more productive community conversations over these 4 months. So thank you.

1072
02:44:08.210 --> 02:44:09.750
Boardroom: Rachel Beavers.

1073
02:44:14.600 --> 02:44:22.420
Boardroom: Hi! My name is Rachel Beavers. I'm a parent of 2 cedar Oak students, and I'm also a former member of the Small Schools task force.

1074
02:44:22.760 --> 02:44:34.700
Boardroom: I learned many things as an Sstf member. But what really stands out to me today, our first, st our community is aligned in its support of for small schools.

1075
02:44:34.810 --> 02:44:53.469
Boardroom: and I heard this message again and again during my work as an Sstf. Member. Second, our former task force Member Amy Friday studied research on small schools, and found that enrollment of 400, or under 400, appears to be the consensus for what is considered to be a small school.

1076
02:44:53.610 --> 02:45:00.490
Boardroom: 3, rd the 3 schools we are talking about have 3 of the 4 oldest school buildings

1077
02:45:00.680 --> 02:45:04.400
Boardroom: with 3 of the 4 smallest boundaries.

1078
02:45:04.530 --> 02:45:14.650
Boardroom: This decision feels like it is not being based on enrollment, but it is on the cost to support our buildings that have not received updates.

1079
02:45:15.110 --> 02:45:23.790
Boardroom: The current and disproportionate enrollment for each school is by design, and there is a choice to redesign and equalize enrollment.

1080
02:45:25.010 --> 02:45:29.490
Boardroom: The smaller primary schools, Safford and Bolton have, by design

1081
02:45:29.630 --> 02:45:50.470
Boardroom: of the current boundaries, fewer dwellings than the schools they border, and this can be remedied by shifting the bordering school boundaries with minimal disruption, allowing current students and current siblings or student siblings to be grandfathered in and given a choice to move with the boundary or to remain in their current school.

1082
02:45:50.510 --> 02:46:00.530
Boardroom: I ask that you consider that Stafford and Willamette are bordering schools and have equal learning space capacity, but Stafford has 34

1083
02:46:00.800 --> 02:46:03.530
Boardroom: percent. Fewer dwellings than Willamette.

1084
02:46:04.280 --> 02:46:08.739
Boardroom: Bolton has the fewest number of dwellings among all of our primary schools.

1085
02:46:11.131 --> 02:46:16.319
Boardroom: And it has a greater learning capacity than boarding school sunset.

1086
02:46:16.720 --> 02:46:22.420
Boardroom: But 34% fewer dwellings and 38%. Fewer students.

1087
02:46:23.300 --> 02:46:33.589
Boardroom: Trillium's dual language program, with 140 students enrolled could be moved to Bolton to help equalize Bolton's disproportionately small boundary

1088
02:46:33.800 --> 02:46:43.400
Boardroom: cedar oak actually has more students than it did before the pandemic. If you choose to continue to support smaller schools, Cedar Oak's boundary could remain as is

1089
02:46:43.610 --> 02:47:05.760
Boardroom: last. I would like to speak to the consolidation of Lake Oswego. Now I googled their schools and their number of schools, so I hope I get this right. But the average enrollment which I did actually find before this of their 7 primary schools is 380, which is very close to Westlands average of 356.

1090
02:47:06.200 --> 02:47:10.460
Boardroom: Thank you, Christy Lentz.

1091
02:47:45.300 --> 02:47:46.670
Boardroom: Oh, well.

1092
02:47:47.340 --> 02:47:52.816
Boardroom: I don't know who whose idea it was to have this at Riverside, but it's a pretty funny joke.

1093
02:47:54.150 --> 02:47:57.385
Boardroom: basically, I wanted to talk to you guys

1094
02:47:57.950 --> 02:48:13.760
Boardroom: about the fact that we could save 6.7 million dollars without cutting from classrooms. If we just have a look at central district administration which has increased by 71% since 2,018

1095
02:48:14.130 --> 02:48:42.230
Boardroom: and average salaries have gone up 55.3 2% in administration. But K through 5 expenditures are only increased by 16.2 3%. So what that means is that if you're making cuts from K through 5, you're cutting from the place. That is one of the smallest pieces of the pie. It's already taken a lot of cuts in the last few years.

1096
02:48:42.390 --> 02:48:59.773
Boardroom: One thing that's really good, though, is our surplus of 10 million dollars. If you see that on the next page. In the past we've almost never had this kind of money as a surplus in our budget. We usually have somewhere more like

1097
02:49:00.360 --> 02:49:05.819
Boardroom: 4 or 5% further back. It was only like 1% contingency.

1098
02:49:07.450 --> 02:49:22.040
Boardroom: the assistant superintendents. Positions have increased from 5 to 7 since 2018. That seems like a lot of administrators, and could directors do the same job for less pay?

1099
02:49:22.150 --> 02:49:28.269
Boardroom: We have improvement of instruction services which has increased by 129%.

1100
02:49:28.460 --> 02:49:34.019
Boardroom: We also have special services director. It's increased by 130%,

1101
02:49:34.120 --> 02:49:54.230
Boardroom: an executive administration expenses increased by 38%. I can go on with all of that. But there are 6 million dollars that you could cut from the budget without touching classrooms if you just wanted to follow cost of living adjustments and inflation from 2,018.

1102
02:49:54.370 --> 02:49:59.210
Boardroom: So I think we should have a hard look at administrative spending.

1103
02:50:02.300 --> 02:50:04.500
Boardroom: That we also, I've noticed

1104
02:50:04.690 --> 02:50:14.439
Boardroom: we're still hosting for new jobs, even though we're thinking about closing schools. I wonder why we're doing that. I think maybe we should maybe put on a hiring freeze that would make a lot of sense.

1105
02:50:14.570 --> 02:50:22.321
Boardroom: I'd like, you guys, just kinda look over what I have because I went through. And I did all the numbers on this excel sheet. So

1106
02:50:23.570 --> 02:50:36.830
Boardroom: I would also like to say that it doesn't seem like you guys got a whole lot of real numbers from the district. It looks like it was a lot of averages and wishy washy stuff like we'll find out when it's time to transfer

1107
02:50:39.120 --> 02:50:44.380
Boardroom: I would want to know a little bit more information than what we just received today. It doesn't seem like you got a whole lot

1108
02:50:44.970 --> 02:50:53.060
Boardroom: so. And it doesn't look like you're gonna save a whole lot of money, either. Thanks, Amanda Brookshire.

1109
02:51:08.620 --> 02:51:09.400
Boardroom: Hi.

1110
02:51:10.080 --> 02:51:38.219
Boardroom: I wasn't really planning on talking tonight. So sorry if I'm a little bit scattered, and I threw in some questions and stuff. But I just hope we can go all agree. It's insane to be talking about opening a new school, while simultaneously closing a school. Yes, that's like crazy and just echoing boundary adjustments have always seemed like the obvious thing. Since day one we've been saying this. Hence our beginning arguments about transparency, and you know the whole like.

1111
02:51:39.190 --> 02:51:41.570
Boardroom: why, we're not really buying

1112
02:51:42.180 --> 02:51:56.640
Boardroom: the argument of oh, we're closing this, or we're just looking at closing the 3 small schools as we sit here in this beautiful school that is not projected to hit what 300 students within the next 10 years and listening to this very concise argument about

1113
02:51:56.740 --> 02:51:59.989
Boardroom: why Bolton's not really cost effective

1114
02:52:02.580 --> 02:52:10.155
Boardroom: we should be focusing on kids and walkability and putting Kit, not putting kids through the ringer. That should be our priority.

1115
02:52:11.120 --> 02:52:15.889
Boardroom: something I haven't heard is, oh, we have to talk about busing and stuff, which, of course.

1116
02:52:16.770 --> 02:52:21.639
Boardroom: what's that going to do to our traffic? It's not just going to be kids on the bus. It's going to really affect the traffic in the neighborhood.

1117
02:52:21.750 --> 02:52:29.010
Boardroom: We can't really talk about Chinese language program not doing well if no one really knows about it. It's not advertised.

1118
02:52:33.030 --> 02:52:34.941
Boardroom: Like, I said, I'm kind of a mess.

1119
02:52:36.340 --> 02:52:44.343
Boardroom: and I just want to highlight one thing. I just keep hearing, which is this this idea of equity, and I've heard over and over.

1120
02:52:45.020 --> 02:53:12.080
Boardroom: Oh, it's not fair that these older schools don't have all these new features, or or the flip side of that which is. Oh, it's not fair that Bolton has all this like really good quality education, because our numbers are really high and the other schools don't. But equity isn't like everything has to be equal. I would suggest it's more doing our best for everyone. But equity wouldn't be. I don't think equity would be closing a school, especially a school like Bolton.

1121
02:53:17.680 --> 02:53:29.060
Boardroom: And if we close Bolton, we're going to cram all those kids into the other schools and the numbers that you were talking about looking at lower numbers. If we close the school, the numbers are going to be higher. That was just kind of interesting tonight. I wasn't quite sure about that.

1122
02:53:29.990 --> 02:53:30.640
Boardroom: But,

1123
02:53:31.780 --> 02:53:45.730
Boardroom: Lastly, I just want to say, if if you keep Bolton open, we're going to help you in Salem. We obviously we need more money in the district. We all know that. So we're going to help you in Salem. But if I'm just really worried if you close, Bolton.

1124
02:53:46.093 --> 02:54:03.859
Boardroom: To save money. I just on a realistic note. Yeah, we'll carry on. But our hearts are going to be so broken. I'm not sure you're going to get a lot of support down in Salem helping. But we're here to do. You know whatever we need to do and thank you guys for you know, obviously for all your time and everything you do

1125
02:54:03.960 --> 02:54:04.619
Boardroom: and

1126
02:54:05.540 --> 02:54:14.229
Boardroom: just please don't think closing Bolton or any schools the solution to the problem, and let us know we can do to help. Do we need to paint? Do we need to do more gardening? What do we need to do?

1127
02:54:14.570 --> 02:54:18.400
Boardroom: Thank you, John Mccabe.

1128
02:54:33.578 --> 02:54:38.740
Boardroom: John Mccabe, Westland, Oregon. One of the areas is Stafford School. There is a

1129
02:54:40.370 --> 02:54:45.320
Boardroom: storage site there that is an accessory building to the school.

1130
02:54:45.480 --> 02:54:56.440
Boardroom: This was a decision made by Primo Douglas. Mr. Mcgowan was there at the meeting because he was asked, Is an accessory building, or is it a separate building, he said. It's accessory building.

1131
02:54:56.820 --> 02:54:59.489
Boardroom: All the public records were changed.

1132
02:54:59.930 --> 02:55:00.840
Boardroom: Got it?

1133
02:55:01.230 --> 02:55:04.469
Boardroom: Building is part of the Stafford School.

1134
02:55:05.000 --> 02:55:13.510
Boardroom: It is an Rrff. 5 area. You close the school, you close the warehouse. The school district will tell you. We'll just go out and get a change.

1135
02:55:14.330 --> 02:55:19.300
Boardroom: There's already been a judgment on it additional uses. The school has to be open.

1136
02:55:19.510 --> 02:55:22.790
Boardroom: or it goes. It would not have been allowed to be put there

1137
02:55:22.980 --> 02:55:26.480
Boardroom: under the conditional use permit in Rrff. 5,

1138
02:55:26.580 --> 02:55:30.640
Boardroom: unless it was an accessory building, the Stafford Primary.

1139
02:55:31.740 --> 02:55:35.210
Boardroom: Then there's the issue of attendance enrollments.

1140
02:55:38.200 --> 02:55:42.090
Boardroom: We've been told that they don't exist. I already have them. I've had them since November.

1141
02:55:42.840 --> 02:55:45.409
Boardroom: I thought I had sent it out to you people.

1142
02:55:45.710 --> 02:55:52.149
Boardroom: When you look at it. Every single school in Wilsonville is below 500 students, the primaries are.

1143
02:55:52.940 --> 02:55:55.329
Boardroom: And and then, if you also look at the budget

1144
02:55:55.990 --> 02:56:02.849
Boardroom: we talk, Dave. We've been talk. It's been spoken to us about the 10 million dollars, 2 issues

1145
02:56:03.410 --> 02:56:07.840
Boardroom: one. The opening of the school is a high school. We added teachers.

1146
02:56:08.620 --> 02:56:12.520
Boardroom: millions of dollars more in expenses that were not there. Prior.

1147
02:56:12.910 --> 02:56:13.940
Boardroom: Second

1148
02:56:15.050 --> 02:56:21.900
Boardroom: account 1220, and 1250 has increased by over 5 million dollars, just for the 2324 year.

1149
02:56:22.660 --> 02:56:24.419
Boardroom: There's your problem with the budget.

1150
02:56:25.150 --> 02:56:28.670
Boardroom: It needs to be addressed. It has its own issues.

1151
02:56:28.810 --> 02:56:37.630
Boardroom: The Sia Grant should have been used for that, said General. Funds were used, and that's how we look. The there was a reduction in the general fund.

1152
02:56:37.930 --> 02:56:42.030
Boardroom: like, I said, of 5 million dollars then on the Geo bond.

1153
02:56:42.140 --> 02:56:45.460
Boardroom: what you have not been told is there's been 10 point

1154
02:56:45.810 --> 02:56:50.099
Boardroom: okay, $10,370,000 of earned interest

1155
02:56:50.430 --> 02:56:52.829
Boardroom: since 2,015 on that

1156
02:56:53.050 --> 02:56:59.450
Boardroom: Geo bond that shows in up in no long range planning committee report

1157
02:56:59.600 --> 02:57:02.279
Boardroom: of how much more revenue they've received.

1158
02:57:02.510 --> 02:57:07.490
Boardroom: What is it equivalent to doing all numerous throughout the whole school district.

1159
02:57:07.710 --> 02:57:12.090
Boardroom: So we talk about the bond summits. They're like, got 10 million dollars.

1160
02:57:12.430 --> 02:57:16.830
Boardroom: and I know the audit has been released. But I got that, too.

1161
02:57:17.070 --> 02:57:22.139
Boardroom: because they are public records. They are supposed to be released by the school district.

1162
02:57:22.450 --> 02:57:27.709
Boardroom: I never get any public records from the school district. I have to go to ode to get anything.

1163
02:57:27.830 --> 02:57:36.480
Boardroom: and I hope, as a School Board, you instruct the Administration. If people ask for public record, it is a public record, and should be released immediately.

1164
02:57:36.850 --> 02:57:41.140
Boardroom: Thank you, Zareth Irwin.

1165
02:57:55.750 --> 02:57:57.170
Boardroom: Hi, thank you.

1166
02:57:58.421 --> 02:58:06.149
Boardroom: I just want to start with. I've spoken to a couple of the school board meetings, and my thing is, I think, always is, coming from a place of assumed good intent.

1167
02:58:06.370 --> 02:58:13.809
Boardroom: And this has been a very emotional process for lots of people. And I've not been one of those people that's been negative to anybody or any of that stuff.

1168
02:58:13.940 --> 02:58:17.790
Boardroom: even though there's a lot of that in the background, as I'm sure you all know.

1169
02:58:18.630 --> 02:58:40.619
Boardroom: I would say. 1st of all, I think this is great, and we're an awesome spot with that presentation. Now we can start to talk about. What's the problem, what to do? That seems like the beginning not to finish this whole time. We could not figure out exactly, what are we trying to fix? What are we gonna do? It seems like, now we know the problem, and we know the background on it. We should start a conversation about what to do

1170
02:58:40.940 --> 02:58:51.899
Boardroom: in the beginning. It was a big problem, said, we need to know soon. This is a rush, and I stood up at School Board meeting and said, I don't know what efficiencies you have in this business, but I'm on boards and finance committees and other business.

1171
02:58:52.040 --> 02:58:55.830
Boardroom: and I could never get this done that quickly. This is a big thing to do.

1172
02:58:55.980 --> 02:59:04.280
Boardroom: and it's a rush, and I don't see, any way looking back, that anybody can look good and say, we rushed into this process that turned out to be pretty flawed

1173
02:59:04.450 --> 02:59:15.409
Boardroom: because we created this small sales cash force that got shut down. I'm not sure what plan B was, but I haven't seen a plan. B. If we thought it was valuable. Then we say, Okay, that was valuable. Now, what do we do?

1174
02:59:15.760 --> 02:59:31.229
Boardroom: I think it's also human nature and important to recognize human nature. I bet everybody in this room has a bias has an opinion I do. I'm a father of 2 children at Bolton. Want to do a language immersion if somebody said to me, Do you have any bias with. Well, how can I deny it? Of course I do.

1175
02:59:31.450 --> 02:59:34.829
Boardroom: We walk to school? That's where my kids go. We love bowl.

1176
02:59:35.140 --> 02:59:38.620
Boardroom: I'm not at the other schools. So I just want to acknowledge this is human nature.

1177
02:59:38.780 --> 03:00:01.560
Boardroom: So we all have that. I also think the long range planning committee is clearly making a recommendation. They're just not willing to endorse it. And I can say that, okay, we don't want to put our name on it. But this presentation tonight it does seem like some of the negativity stuff I've heard is, is there already? Decision made? It feels that way. We said, there's 3 schools on the block. Well, maybe 2, because we heard tonight why, you can't close one of them.

1178
03:00:02.140 --> 03:00:14.809
Boardroom: and it just seems to me like that's not all adding up, and it's a rush, got us into this problem, and rushing through the problem and say, Well, we had a plan, but it didn't work out, but we got to make a huge decision right now. There's no way for that to look good

1179
03:00:15.390 --> 03:00:21.100
Boardroom: ever we look back and say, Well, that's what we did. We had to do it right away, and it impacted the lives of many people.

1180
03:00:21.320 --> 03:00:40.159
Boardroom: I also don't see that it's mentioned 12% of the people at Bolton. Those children are transfers in far higher than other people. Sure, it's a smaller N sample size. I get that. But it's also people are saying we want to go there from other places that didn't come up at all. That seems important, that this place that people are desiring to be.

1181
03:00:41.510 --> 03:00:42.470
Boardroom: I think

1182
03:00:43.090 --> 03:00:51.420
Boardroom: I just don't get how we would say, we've made this decision. Now, we gotta rush into this thing. We have a committee. It didn't work out, so we just got to go through with it.

1183
03:00:52.540 --> 03:00:56.169
Boardroom: How that could ever come out to people say, Hey, we think that was the right thing to do.

1184
03:00:59.150 --> 03:01:04.209
Boardroom: Sorry you can tell them how to sort, because I wrote something down, and I never do that. So, anyway. Thank you.

1185
03:01:06.530 --> 03:01:07.960
Boardroom: Courtney Boudres.

1186
03:01:19.020 --> 03:01:25.669
Boardroom: Hi, good evening. I have a couple of questions. In a previous meeting that I attended.

1187
03:01:25.890 --> 03:01:29.299
Boardroom: I if memory serves. It was David Prior that explained that.

1188
03:01:29.917 --> 03:01:40.909
Boardroom: If a school were to close, it wouldn't only be that community that would be impacted, that boundary lines would be redrawn, and it would essentially affect

1189
03:01:41.110 --> 03:01:55.660
Boardroom: the population of primary students which makes sense that the map would shift some kids from sunset per se would maybe go to Willamette, etc. My impression tonight was that we're a school to close.

1190
03:01:55.840 --> 03:01:58.950
Boardroom: Those kids would get split up.

1191
03:01:59.180 --> 03:02:09.709
Boardroom: Not only is their school closing, but then their community is being divided amongst up to 3 schools. Can you clarify? I'm I'm not sure which is actually correct.

1192
03:02:11.230 --> 03:02:38.719
Boardroom: a reminder that during our public comment period we don't respond to questions. It's not a back and forth or a town hall. But we have recorded that, and we'll make sure that in our follow up meetings we can respond. Or if you'd like to email us for a response. We can also do that as well. I didn't feel like it was a question for the board per se. So much. As for the district, so I was hoping maybe they would be able to clarify the document that they had published tonight.

1193
03:02:39.360 --> 03:02:52.169
Boardroom: I'm not going to answer the question Board, but you could remind parents that will linger after this meeting if anyone has to ask questions. But this is public comment for you. Great. Yes, thank you. Thank you. And then also, tonight it was

1194
03:02:52.390 --> 03:02:59.849
Boardroom: fascinating to get so much information that I agree. One of the other commenters said it would have been very nice to have information like this

1195
03:03:00.540 --> 03:03:06.860
Boardroom: be at the beginning of this process. But given that.

1196
03:03:07.140 --> 03:03:14.759
Boardroom: Oh, no, I've totally blanked my the time pressure. Sorry! Give me a moment.

1197
03:03:18.140 --> 03:03:18.830
Boardroom: Oh.

1198
03:03:22.300 --> 03:03:27.809
Boardroom: I'm not good under pressure. Can you tell? I hate speaking, in front of people, this is so out of my element.

1199
03:03:32.380 --> 03:03:35.049
Boardroom: maybe I'll remember it. And I'll email it.

1200
03:03:35.900 --> 03:03:36.570
Boardroom: Thank you.

1201
03:03:38.490 --> 03:03:40.080
Boardroom: Athena Contreras.

1202
03:03:46.920 --> 03:03:54.430
Boardroom: So today, I'm just going to go ahead and and highlight a few things in the document that I sent you guys an email. I'm sure, you guys.

1203
03:03:55.150 --> 03:03:58.549
Boardroom: it's a 40 page document. So I thought I'd highlight a few things.

1204
03:03:59.074 --> 03:04:18.080
Boardroom: This is from the Oregon School Siting Handbook, and it's about kind of how to figure out where and how to do locate schools. And there's a lot of things in it that, I think are relevant. If we were making a decision today, including how to

1205
03:04:18.080 --> 03:04:29.089
Boardroom: keep things in the city center, which is actually quite hard to do as a city develops. But let me start with this. Schools unite neighborhoods. The role of the school as a neighborhood focal point is not new.

1206
03:04:29.160 --> 03:04:53.130
Boardroom: As long ago as the 19 twenties, Clarence Stein, architect and city planner, advocated for towns in which the school was the physical center of the neighborhood neighborhood, reflecting its prominent role in the community. He believed that a centrally located school reinforces community life and spirit because it is easily accessible and can serve as a community crossroad. In Stein's view, the majority of the students should live within a quarter mile of the school

1207
03:04:53.500 --> 03:04:59.849
Boardroom: school's role as community focal point is still seen today parents meet each other while taking their children to school.

1208
03:05:00.010 --> 03:05:07.399
Boardroom: Neighbors bump into each other while walking their dogs on the school grounds. Grandparents attend the school, play and recognize a friend. From long ago.

1209
03:05:07.540 --> 03:05:15.720
Boardroom: Through these informal interactions, social networks are formed that help people help people provide a stronger support system for children and feel more connected to the community.

1210
03:05:16.060 --> 03:05:34.470
Boardroom: Transportation costs are increasing. The cost of transporting students to and from school has risen significantly, as school sites have become less community centered and located farther from the neighborhoods that they serve. Recent fuel prices increases, are straining the budgets of parents and local school districts, both of which often provide student transportation.

1211
03:05:35.070 --> 03:05:57.789
Boardroom: childhood obesity is rising. If children live within a mile and a half of school, there's a significantly better chance that they will walk to school in 1969 close to 90% of students who lived within a mile of school walked or biked to school by 2,000. This number decreased only 10%. The Institute of Medicine cites the decrease in walking and biking to school as one of the major contributors to childhood obesity.

1212
03:05:57.790 --> 03:06:06.720
Boardroom: Among 6 to 11 year olds. Obesity has tripled over the last 3 decades, and I believe that for mental health or not mental health, but you know, just like

1213
03:06:07.020 --> 03:06:17.330
Boardroom: behavior. You get endorphins. When you're walking, you get camaraderie and a lot of other benefits. From that, too.

1214
03:06:17.560 --> 03:06:29.799
Boardroom: The location of schools is one of the most important decisions a community will make. And it goes on throughout this to cite the importance of neighborhoods. Walkability being a primary focus on any school.

1215
03:06:31.590 --> 03:06:37.449
Boardroom: So I only have 16 seconds left. I'm not sure I can do a whole lot more.

1216
03:06:37.790 --> 03:06:38.803
Boardroom: Thank you.

1217
03:06:41.130 --> 03:06:42.900
Boardroom: Tricia Guarisco.

1218
03:06:50.180 --> 03:06:52.430
Boardroom: Hi! Thanks for being here tonight.

1219
03:06:53.519 --> 03:07:00.939
Boardroom: I wasn't planning on speaking, so my thoughts are. It was just more of in a response to what I saw this evening presented.

1220
03:07:01.687 --> 03:07:04.322
Boardroom: So just bear with me.

1221
03:07:06.120 --> 03:07:11.119
Boardroom: just to remember that our district is based on a small school model.

1222
03:07:11.320 --> 03:07:15.300
Boardroom: But we do have variety with larger schools as the anomaly

1223
03:07:15.510 --> 03:07:26.520
Boardroom: at the primary level. We mostly have small schools with a handful of big ones or bigger ones. Our high schools. We have 2 large ones with an option for a small high school.

1224
03:07:27.351 --> 03:07:29.760
Boardroom: Which is where we are now.

1225
03:07:29.960 --> 03:07:38.510
Boardroom: So what do we want as a district? It seems like we like to have options, as all schools are well supported, even though they're different.

1226
03:07:43.190 --> 03:07:44.540
Boardroom: So

1227
03:07:45.170 --> 03:07:53.250
Boardroom: someone mentioned the flow analytics, high school and middle school number projections they didn't account for in migration. Please keep that in mind.

1228
03:07:53.350 --> 03:08:02.360
Boardroom: They did not account for people who move in at first, st second, 3, rd all the way through 12th grade. That report did not account for that in migration

1229
03:08:02.990 --> 03:08:05.460
Boardroom: as far as no child left behind.

1230
03:08:05.790 --> 03:08:25.899
Boardroom: If we were to follow that guidance, then we would be sending all of our students to. I think it's Bolton. I think they might be the highest scoring school. I don't know. I don't have kids at any of the primary schools at this point. But if we really were trying to follow that guidance, then we would be sending our kids to the highest performing schools.

1231
03:08:27.410 --> 03:08:29.410
Boardroom: So it sounds like

1232
03:08:30.160 --> 03:08:36.989
Boardroom: what has been proposed tonight is possibly a larger school model. Is that what we want?

1233
03:08:38.640 --> 03:08:54.940
Boardroom: We're having this meeting tonight at a small school. If every school is jam packed. There is no flexibility for events just like this tonight. I imagine we didn't have it at Westland High School tonight, because they have a lot of activities going on. It's nice to have resources, and it's nice to have them spread out.

1234
03:08:55.310 --> 03:09:01.609
Boardroom: I'll repeat, enrollment is always fluctuating to repeat what was said earlier this evening by administration.

1235
03:09:01.790 --> 03:09:27.889
Boardroom: If this is about comparisons of small schools, let's compare all of them, including this one, including Frog Pond. Let's look at. If we're going to rearrange the furniture, let's look at all of the furniture. If this is about primary schools, let's compare all of them. Have you considered closing down trillium, and it's centrally located and reassigning those students to the various adjacent schools.

1236
03:09:28.240 --> 03:09:41.440
Boardroom: Has that been considered? It would be one disruption, and maybe it's too big. Maybe trillium is too big. Instead of saying, What's what's wrong with our small schools? Well, maybe our larger schools need to be smaller.

1237
03:09:41.980 --> 03:09:45.809
Boardroom: Let's look at everything. Let's think critically. Let's not rush through this.

1238
03:09:48.190 --> 03:09:50.359
Boardroom: Let's look at minimal disruptions.

1239
03:09:50.470 --> 03:09:57.500
Boardroom: And oh, buses No. 45 min bus ride for these little kids. It's too long for them. Okay, thank you.

1240
03:09:58.660 --> 03:10:03.050
Boardroom: And we have one zoom comment. Amy Friday.

1241
03:10:15.780 --> 03:10:17.350
Amy Friday: Hello! Can you hear me?

1242
03:10:18.960 --> 03:10:20.310
Boardroom: Yep, we can hear you.

1243
03:10:20.310 --> 03:10:21.380
Amy Friday: Oh, excellent!

1244
03:10:21.460 --> 03:10:41.969
Amy Friday: I'm sorry to everyone that I'm not there in person tonight, I was told. I have pneumonia today, so I apologize for the croakiness I'll get started. Thank you so much for having this. My name is Amy Friday. I'm the mother of 2 awesome Westland Wilsonville Primary School Kiddos, former member of the Sstf. And a neuropsychologist.

1245
03:10:42.020 --> 03:11:05.309
Amy Friday: and I already spoke earlier in the process about the wealth of data supporting the benefits of small schools. I'll emphasize then, and I'll say it again, that the data is clear. Despite what Dr. Pryor was saying about there not being actual data on small schools, there is data on what most researchers conclude is the optimal size of small schools, which is 300 to 400 students. And this is reflected across data

1246
03:11:05.310 --> 03:11:17.720
Amy Friday: that represents academics, community bonds, student engagement, social emotional development and so on. And it's been echoed by parents, teachers, and stakeholders throughout the process. It's in the wealth of data that we provided to you in our report.

1247
03:11:17.730 --> 03:11:21.619
Amy Friday: And it would be really useful if we can think about

1248
03:11:21.930 --> 03:11:46.649
Amy Friday: what the national data says for schools rather than saying, Well, it can be challenging, and I agree with Dr. Pryor. It can be challenging if you don't have a lot of classrooms to balance classrooms and balance teachers, and so on. But the striking finding is that every year we do it, and we do it well, and the teachers are not complaining and saying, Let's close our schools because this is too stressful for us, or it's not working for the students. The outcomes show that it does work for the students.

1249
03:11:46.720 --> 03:12:10.699
Amy Friday: So the Small Schools Task force was constructed to ask, what happens when schools get too small. And that's an important question. But it's not the issue here. Our schools haven't gotten too small. Their size is aligned with national research, indicating that they're operating effectively, producing great benefits across multiple domains. So it's an asset, not a liability for the one small school that is below the 300 student. Mark.

1250
03:12:10.760 --> 03:12:40.170
Amy Friday: my colleague, Rachel Beavers, who already spoke, educates us this on how this is by design, with our boundary plan and by changing boundary lines, it could be addressed with minimal disruption to families. So if the real issue, then, isn't the viability of small schools, but it's the broader challenge of addressing the district's budget deficit and how they decide to allocate future funds is going to have lasting impacts, not only on the educational experience of our children, but on the overall strength and sustainability of our entire school system.

1251
03:12:40.550 --> 03:12:54.739
Amy Friday: So we've acknowledged there's no single solution to the deficit. Consolidating or closing small schools won't solve it. And, in fact, acting hastily in this direction could create unintended financial problems in the future.

1252
03:12:54.740 --> 03:13:19.139
Amy Friday: So what I'm calling for now is a strategic and comprehensive approach, and I am strongly requesting that the Board consult with an external budget analyst, they would give fresh eyes to identify the most effective and equitable measures to reconcile the budget while ensuring that small schools and all of our schools continue to deliver high quality education that our community both

1253
03:13:19.140 --> 03:13:35.860
Amy Friday: expects and deserves. So overall. The data supporting small schools is clear it's critical to ensure that we have all the facts and a comprehensive understanding of the financial and educational implications and hiring a budget. Analyst is the most rational. Next step

1254
03:13:36.060 --> 03:13:40.230
Amy Friday: in order to do this we have to continue to support all of our schools.

1255
03:13:40.230 --> 03:13:44.289
Boardroom: Thank you, Amy. I think you've reached your 3 min, mark. I don't know if you could hear that that alarm.

1256
03:13:44.290 --> 03:13:51.389
Amy Friday: I will finish my sentence as long as we think about the Bond Summit process for all of our schools. Thank you so much for all of your work.

1257
03:13:52.690 --> 03:13:57.819
Boardroom: Thank you. And that concludes our public comment for this evening. So thank you. To everyone who signed up and spoke

1258
03:14:00.050 --> 03:14:15.530
Boardroom: at this point we have reached the end of our meeting, and our last item is to review the important dates in front of us, and I'd like to name for the School Board that we currently have. Our meeting on January 27th listed as a work session.

1259
03:14:15.530 --> 03:14:30.530
Boardroom: and I know, as we've heard tonight from Staff, and then, as we've talked about in our community meetings, that we may want to consider having that as a deliberative or decision making meeting, do I have a motion from the board.

1260
03:14:30.850 --> 03:14:39.659
Boardroom: I moved to make the January 27, th 2025, work session, a special board meeting.

1261
03:14:40.080 --> 03:14:41.220
Boardroom: I'll second.

1262
03:14:41.670 --> 03:14:47.099
Boardroom: Is there any discussion from the board director. Shoemaker.

1263
03:14:47.450 --> 03:14:56.519
Boardroom: Yeah, I just want to talk a little bit about what that means. Change changing the the, how we designate that meeting, what what that means for our for us.

1264
03:15:00.031 --> 03:15:01.988
Boardroom: So my my understanding is

1265
03:15:04.850 --> 03:15:08.810
Boardroom: As you indicated that we we could reach a decision.

1266
03:15:08.930 --> 03:15:10.170
Boardroom: Who wouldn't be

1267
03:15:11.350 --> 03:15:18.959
Boardroom: we wouldn't have to make a decision, but this would allow us to make a decision if we felt we were ready to make a decision on that night. Is that correct?

1268
03:15:20.000 --> 03:15:27.739
Boardroom: Yes, currently, it's listed as a work session. And this would be, it would be noticed as a special board meeting.

1269
03:15:29.530 --> 03:15:36.999
Boardroom: Yeah, in your descriptions of work sessions. They're typically scheduled to be where you learn something, and there isn't really

1270
03:15:37.400 --> 03:15:42.109
Boardroom: decision making or voting going on work of the district

1271
03:15:42.410 --> 03:15:52.869
Boardroom: so that could be confusing to the community if we continue to call it a work session. And now it's changed to where you're actually deliberating about work of the district and possibly making a decision.

1272
03:15:57.670 --> 03:16:04.070
Boardroom: Seeing no further questions from the board. Please call the vote chair, Taylor.

1273
03:16:04.730 --> 03:16:05.450
Louis Taylor: Bye.

1274
03:16:05.690 --> 03:16:06.650
Boardroom: Oh, oh.

1275
03:16:07.430 --> 03:16:14.190
Boardroom: sorry! 1 min! One more question from Director Shoemaker. Well, I guess I'd just like to hear more from any anybody who wants to make a comment about

1276
03:16:14.400 --> 03:16:16.010
Boardroom: whether or not we.

1277
03:16:18.030 --> 03:16:22.430
Boardroom: We want to do it that way any any thoughts.

1278
03:16:23.390 --> 03:16:25.500
Boardroom: I think that's the nature of the motion

1279
03:16:27.070 --> 03:16:28.869
Boardroom: to have it as a special meeting.

1280
03:16:33.470 --> 03:16:35.819
Boardroom: Would there be public comments allowed

1281
03:16:40.690 --> 03:16:46.952
Boardroom: so that would be up to you as a board? Typically you, you reserve public comment in your

1282
03:16:47.660 --> 03:16:56.799
Boardroom: in your guidelines for regular meetings. You don't have them for work sessions. And when you've called a special meeting you've typically not had

1283
03:16:57.366 --> 03:17:04.940
Boardroom: public comments. Often in those cases it's because there's a quick turnaround and so.

1284
03:17:05.170 --> 03:17:15.089
Boardroom: as a special meeting, you don't have to again. It's also decision by the board. Remember, public law. Public meeting laws requires that people can observe a meeting.

1285
03:17:15.710 --> 03:17:18.840
Boardroom: You don't have to have an oral public

1286
03:17:19.240 --> 03:17:29.879
Boardroom: comment section, but that is completely up to you as a board. If you'd like to organize it that way for another public comment. So can we make? Can we make that decision tonight. Then, at the same time that we

1287
03:17:30.800 --> 03:17:32.449
Boardroom: would vote to make it a

1288
03:17:32.570 --> 03:17:36.719
Boardroom: a special board meeting is that the is that the expression Special board meeting

1289
03:17:36.750 --> 03:17:48.999
Boardroom: it. It seems like the the motion was made for it to be a special meeting. And so, if folks would like it to include a public comment period. Perhaps we act on that motion.

1290
03:17:49.000 --> 03:17:59.730
Boardroom: and then, if folks would like it to include public comment, vote no on this motion, and then a new motion could be made for it to be a regular meeting for it to include public comment.

1291
03:17:59.730 --> 03:18:22.860
Boardroom: Because I think what I'm hearing is our typical rules. So if someone were to come brand new to this and see regular meeting versus special meeting, and I think the reason to do a special meeting would be if we wanted to devote the entirety of that meeting to board, to Staff Q. And a. And then board discussion versus having public comment

1292
03:18:22.930 --> 03:18:38.240
Boardroom: as a portion of that meeting. So and then, perhaps during this time, right now, if there are any reflections from this board about how you would like to best structure your time on the 27.th I, personally.

1293
03:18:38.240 --> 03:18:57.000
Boardroom: and I'll start that discussion. I am very interested in having a list of questions that I've been generating, answered publicly by staff as well as having a discussion with my fellow Board members. I do not feel as much of a need to have public comment.

1294
03:18:57.000 --> 03:19:21.430
Boardroom: because I feel as though in the past week, as well as at prior board meetings. I've had a chance to hear from so many community members, and I also feel if we are going to deliberate to a decision having that time dedicated to that Q. And a. And discussion is most helpful for me, but I welcome others. Thoughts.

1295
03:19:22.937 --> 03:19:42.639
Boardroom: I'm happy to give my thoughts. I also feel that time would be best spent at a special board meeting, asking administration questions, deliberating amongst the Board. Because we have had the opportunity

1296
03:19:43.171 --> 03:19:57.000
Boardroom: to hear from the public via the events we've attended. And through email, I personally would suggest to the public that if they have further

1297
03:19:57.868 --> 03:20:19.720
Boardroom: comments they would like me to consider as a board member to please email the board. And we can. We can review them that way. But I really feel that we need to deliberate amongst ourselves as a board and discuss these very difficult questions and make a decision

1298
03:20:24.230 --> 03:20:33.080
Boardroom: chair, Taylor, any thoughts that you'd like to share, and then I will. Can. I'll look to director, sloop, and director, shoemaker for any thoughts before we call the question.

1299
03:20:34.652 --> 03:20:36.769
Louis Taylor: Nope, I don't have anything to share.

1300
03:20:49.960 --> 03:20:59.829
Boardroom: I I don't love the idea of making a decision on a night when we don't allow the public to make any comments. I just. I'm just saying now in.

1301
03:21:00.560 --> 03:21:06.515
Boardroom: hey? Can you just hang on a second, Jared? But I

1302
03:21:07.100 --> 03:21:16.580
Boardroom: I want to be most efficient with our time. So if we can. You know we can spend all night that night deliberating, and I suppose if we're ready to make a decision.

1303
03:21:16.840 --> 03:21:20.799
Boardroom: then we need to have set up the meeting so that we could make a decision.

1304
03:21:21.090 --> 03:21:21.910
Louis Taylor: But.

1305
03:21:22.934 --> 03:21:30.330
Boardroom: I'm just gonna say, right now, I I would vote for us if if we make it a special meeting that we say that we would also allow

1306
03:21:30.720 --> 03:21:36.150
Boardroom: public comment, even though I think that makes for a longer night if public wants to make comment. But I that's just

1307
03:21:36.460 --> 03:21:37.400
Boardroom: what I think.

1308
03:21:38.210 --> 03:21:39.499
Louis Taylor: You can make a motion.

1309
03:21:39.500 --> 03:21:40.230
Boardroom: Alright, sir!

1310
03:21:40.530 --> 03:21:41.580
Louis Taylor: To ask that.

1311
03:21:41.580 --> 03:21:58.299
Boardroom: I know. Okay, hang on a second. You have a seat. Thanks. You could set a time constraint and just say, you know, we're going to hold public comment, for.

1312
03:21:58.820 --> 03:22:04.119
Boardroom: you know, 1 h, and then we need to devote the next 2 or 3 h for deliberation.

1313
03:22:04.240 --> 03:22:07.090
Boardroom: And there's I think

1314
03:22:07.270 --> 03:22:13.408
Boardroom: there's no wrong answer. I think you just need to decide one way or the other, and

1315
03:22:14.540 --> 03:22:15.730
Boardroom: I'm ready for that.

1316
03:22:17.820 --> 03:22:19.059
Louis Taylor: But we need a motion.

1317
03:22:20.360 --> 03:22:22.600
Boardroom: Well, we've had a motion, and a second.

1318
03:22:23.610 --> 03:22:30.950
Louis Taylor: So we need to re, we either need to vote on that motion or rescind that motion and make a new motion. If we're going to have public comment.

1319
03:22:31.170 --> 03:22:32.050
Boardroom: So

1320
03:22:32.470 --> 03:22:44.949
Boardroom: if there's an interest in rescinding the motion and then making a new motion with to specify having a special meeting with a limited amount of public comment. Is that an option that anyone is interested in at this time?

1321
03:22:45.230 --> 03:22:49.779
Boardroom: I'm happy to rescind my motion. All right, motion rescinded

1322
03:22:50.030 --> 03:22:57.120
Boardroom: for note taking is there a motion? To set a meeting for January 27? th

1323
03:23:00.000 --> 03:23:06.839
Boardroom: Yeah, I would move that we designate January 7, 27th as a special board meeting, and that we

1324
03:23:07.460 --> 03:23:11.050
Boardroom: designate a set amount of time for public comment.

1325
03:23:12.160 --> 03:23:16.820
Boardroom: Is there a second second?

1326
03:23:17.960 --> 03:23:19.330
Boardroom: Any discussion?

1327
03:23:19.560 --> 03:23:22.100
Boardroom: I have a question for Director Shoemaker.

1328
03:23:22.685 --> 03:23:33.249
Boardroom: Given that. We're now thinking about it being a board meeting with public comment. Do you want to just make it a regular like this would be like a regular board meeting which would include public comment.

1329
03:23:34.130 --> 03:23:41.730
Boardroom: so that you can preserve the description of special board meeting, as those that often happen unexpectedly

1330
03:23:42.080 --> 03:23:47.789
Boardroom: don't usually contain public comment. You're gonna have me resend another.

1331
03:23:49.800 --> 03:23:59.600
Boardroom: Just change it from a work session to a regular meeting which would include opportunity for the Board to deliberate, take action if they're ready to do so, and public comment.

1332
03:24:00.930 --> 03:24:03.680
Boardroom: which is which would be the definition of a regular meeting.

1333
03:24:09.070 --> 03:24:26.889
Boardroom: And, by the way, you've always had in regular meetings the opportunity to restrict the amount of time. I just think this year you've waived that because of the nature of the topics. And so you've just let everyone speak and go. But I think there's something in there about an hour, and then you vote whether you want to extend that so

1334
03:24:30.550 --> 03:24:31.540
Boardroom: attributing.

1335
03:24:32.240 --> 03:24:42.799
Boardroom: I think, Dan, having made the motion, if you'd like to resend it. Yes, I'll resend my previous motion, all right, and I'll move that on the 27th we have a regular board meeting.

1336
03:24:44.030 --> 03:24:46.340
Boardroom: Thank you. Is there a second with

1337
03:24:48.520 --> 03:24:53.860
Boardroom: with with possible action and opportunity for public comment.

1338
03:24:54.690 --> 03:25:04.160
Boardroom: Correct? Yeah. I mean, yeah, I mean, that's that's the purpose of a regular board meeting. Is that is that? Yeah, that's why that's why we're not calling the work session, because then we would be limited to not having

1339
03:25:05.380 --> 03:25:07.620
Boardroom: reaching a decision. Okay.

1340
03:25:08.240 --> 03:25:14.289
Boardroom: so a regular work, a regular board meeting on the 27.th That would include a limit to public comment

1341
03:25:14.700 --> 03:25:18.760
Boardroom: like, we'll make it 1 HA second.

1342
03:25:19.660 --> 03:25:21.570
Boardroom: All right. Any discussion.

1343
03:25:22.440 --> 03:25:25.629
Boardroom: Please call the vote chair, Taylor.

1344
03:25:27.610 --> 03:25:28.430
Louis Taylor: Aye.

1345
03:25:29.430 --> 03:25:39.460
Boardroom: Vice chair. Wyatt. Aye, director, shoemaker, aye, director, sloop. Aye, Director Vidal. Aye, thank you.

1346
03:25:41.850 --> 03:25:49.629
Boardroom: all right. With that this meeting is adjourned, and our next meeting is on January 27, th at West Lynn High School.