Welcome back everyone. Good to see you all. Happy New Year. >> It's been a little bit since we've been together. Almost a month. I got to use my fifth grade teacher voice I guess. >> Welcome back everyone. Um we've got a
big agenda for today. Um I'm going to leave some space for thoughts this last meeting at the beginning. Just what's been on your mind or if you've had conversations with people. Um and then we're going to roll right into we did leave the survey open for that whole period of time. Um and uh the district did some additional advertising of it. So we've got um 565 responses now. So
we'll go through that. Um then we're going to do kind of a third a third a third. Um we're going to do some preparation for the inperson listening sessions that are tomorrow and Monday. Um we do have a recommended presentation we'll go through and then some um discussion prompts. We want to get your feedback. Um then we're going to do
Tyler and I are going to do a little bit about the condition of the district's buildings. We've been asked a few times like which ones are in better shape or not. So we're going to give you some context for that. Um, and then we're going to spend the like last third of the meeting um, giving you time to brainstorm what some initial ideas about what you think we should start studying.
Um, so we'll that's why we set up in small groups because that's how we're going to do that activity. Um, before I get we did get survey results emailed out I think this morning. Um, it was uh for questions six and seven the fill in the blank. I think we had about 300 responses each. So it is it is long. Um,
but we did do some summarization in the presentation here of kind of the the key themes. Uh before I get into that, does anybody have any questions or thoughts and thoughts? Meaning things they want to share, new news.
Did you have something pop? >> No, I was just going to clarify. So if you want the raw data from the survey, it's all in the email, but for printing purposes and not the added like 35 pages, >> so you should have the full set in here. >> Yes. Yep.
Okay. Well, we can always come back to that. It doesn't have to happen at the beginning of the meeting. Um, so I pulled we kind of pressed pause um yesterday. It's actually still open as of right now because at the end of the listening sessions, we're going to um continue to invite people to take the survey, but um kind of had to draw a line and do do um conclusions so far.
So, we've got um 565 results. So, these are straight out of the survey monkey. Um you can see here what the distribution of respondents was. Um, so you know about 50% actually the next slide's a little easier. Um, 50.62% were parents or family. Um, and then
32.2% were staff member or employee. If you remember last time we looked at this um, I think we had 127 and it was predominantly staff at that time. Um, and I think you all were like 25 of that 127. So it's got a better um, I think sample size now. Um and then we had 19
students take the survey and 78 people who identified as a community member or other. Um when it comes to do you have school age children and kind of where do they go to school? You can see the distribution here. So um yes attend Albert Lee area schools yes attend
another school district or no. Again the stats on that are um just under 60% said yes attend the district. Um that's 335. Um we had just under 7% say yes but attend another school district that's 39
respondents and then we had 30 almost 34% say no so 191 um when it cames to what buildings are you associated with um we removed the or familiar with based on the feedback at the last meeting. Um and so that the people were allowed to select multiple buildings, right? They might have
children in multiple buildings or have a child in one and work in another, what have you. Um so they total a lot more than um 565. You can see it actually totals a 103. Um but just so you get kind of the flavor of um what buildings they might be associated with. Obviously the high school makes sense that it's
the biggest at 49%. Um middle school second biggest at 27%. Um, and then Brookside and Lake View, well, there's a few of them in and around 20% there. Um, and eight and a half pe eight and a half% said they weren't associated with any buildings.
So, I assume those were community members. And I think we had 78 total community members. So, maybe 48 of them answered this. Um, so this is kind of the big question. Um, so this is, you know, people had to put things in rank order of importance.
Um, and the higher they are um over here, the um more people put them as a number one. Um, and actually this is very very similar in trend to what it looked like even when we had 127 results. It's the same three topics are the top three, right? Um, so high
quality and variety of educational programming is the top, safety and condition of school facilities is the second and class sizes is the third, student support services is the fourth. When you look at kind of the conglomerate results, um extracurriculars is fifth, followed pretty closely by technology and
infrastructure and maintaining um current taxes. Uh location and proximity of schools is second to last and convenience of transportation is last. Um and then if you want to see this is kind of a hard chart to read, but I included it anyway. You the way to read
this is you can see the number of people that put that topic in that slot, right? Um the graph just obviously visually easier. Um question five, we were kind of doing that dipstick test of what do people believe about the district's quantity of
space. Um so kind of a classic bell curve of you know just enough being the biggest um and kind of equal parts too much and not enough. Obviously there's a lot of people taking the survey that um either have no context or you know they only have limited context of their one building. Um, but you can see how that
distributed. And then when it came to Oh, sorry. I guess it's almost cutting off a little bit there. I don't think any of the words are. I think it's just the header. Um, question six, we got I think it was 302 responses. So, certainly feel free to read through them yourself, but these were kind of the main um main theme. So,
class size came up a lot. Um, and it seemed like a lot of people were correlating class sizes with overcrowding. So, they were making it a space issue. Um, like if you actually go through and see people who think you don't have enough space, many of them left a comment related to the topic of
class size. Um, and I understand that, but they don't necessarily have to go together. Um, that the people felt the high school feels crowded or busy. Um, there was a lot of people commenting on the 812 configuration and a lot of ideas thrown out about what where eighth grade
should be. um space is unevenly utilized recognizing that maybe some buildings feel underused while others don't. Um lots of ideas put out there for either boundary adjustment or grade band restructuring. Um an acknowledgement that those student support services need dedicated space
and the current arrangements don't work well. Um and that was kind of sped e intervention counseling testing you know kind of as an umbrella term for learning spaces that were not traditional classrooms. Um, safety and security came up as a big
um topic for people. Not a lot of specific um recommendations on what to do about it, but just that they want buildings to be safe. Uh, cleanliness, bathrooms, and a infrastructure came up. Um, traffic flow, parking, and ADA access came up. And, um, we'll actually talk
about some of those things when we talk about building condition. Um, and then events and gathering spaces feeling congested or busy for concerts or assemblies. and that athletics and practice space remains in demand. So, those were kind of the themes. Obviously, plenty of one-off comments.
Um, and then for question seven, um, I have two slides for this one. Um, so this was the kind of like anything else, a little bit of an umbrella or open-ended question. Um, the top priorities that came up the most um, frequently um, was safety and supervision. You'll see a lot of
repeating between these two questions. safety and supervision, class size and staffing, people feeling very um um strongly about um smaller class sizes, um behavior and discipline coming up. Obviously, not a facilities topic really, but um facilities and space use,
better utilization of existing space. Again, that kind of that things being underused versus feeling like they're overused. Um wanting more transparency and long-term planning. I mean, that's what we're up to here with this group, right? So, hopefully we can continue to work on that.
Um, grade configuration came up as a theme again in this kind of open-ended question. Um, the the summary is kind of high interest but mixed opinions, right? Not everybody has the same solution in mind, but they all kind of want to pick at that. Um, there was a near consensus
to move eighth grade out of the high school. Um, but people wanted to do a little bit different things with it. Um, and then there was this idea of kind of neighborhood schools versus grade level buildings, which obviously we've already started talking about. Um there was some support for protecting
early childhood as kind of that like recruitment retention piece. Um you know feeding the system and then acknowledgement that you need um adequate respectful space for those um special education programs. So I I can go back I might go back to
the graph just to have a something more interesting visually. Um we just wanted to get kind of people's thoughts reactions. I know there was some dissatisfaction with the quantity of responses we had last time. Um, so just want to know how people are feeling about that now and you know any anything
that surprises you or I don't know if anybody had a chance to look through anything this morning, but this is the highlights. It was interesting to me that this chart didn't change very much. Obviously, we had a lot more responses into it, but kind of all the same trends held true. So, I thought that was interesting.
Yeah. >> Just interesting that class sizes up there shows up third, but here that it was the most commonly commented on. >> Yeah, class size came up a lot in the like fill-in-theblank comment. Yep, absolutely.
>> I agree. >> Any other reflections to this? >> I appreciate having that many survey responses. feel like okay we reached out we tried to get some feedback and whatever the decision is at the end we attempted to get feedback and that's
how many people chose >> yeah and as of tomorrow the survey will have been live for about a month because I believe it went live on like this to the public no on the 5th I think so it's been live for a month because you all took it over like Thanksgiving break
yeah and it's again it's um I think the balance probably makes more sense and is more representative of being, you know, mostly parents, right? And families are the people who are really your core audience. It's good to talk. Um, all right. Well, we can certainly
come back to that. let it um sit in case anyone had a chance to look at it before right now. Um and like Paul said, you do have a copy of all survey responses in your um email. It's just a little overwhelming to read. Um all right. So, um we are going to
start talking about the listening sessions that are planned for tomorrow and Monday. Um tomorrow is over the lunch hour, right? From 12:00 to 1 and Monday is at 6. Um, so we're going to click into the um, here's the kind of the flyer the district used to advertise
it. Um, so it's, you know, led by the task force designed to provide community members with an understanding of district facilities and usage, how enrollment trends affect building use and capacity, enrollment impacts on planning and budgetary considerations, and that we're going to, you know, you
all are going to use their input um, in your recommendation. Um, and what we're going to show you the recommended presentation now. Um, but what I want you thinking about is, you know, really what do you want to get out of people who attend, you know, it's it's probably a third education, right? We need to
teach them about some things for to get meaningful feedback. Um, but to be a listening session, we have to listen. Um, so we're going to make sure that we get the right prompts. Um, so Darcy, do you mind switching over to that um other Google Slides presentation?
Nobody falls asleep. >> That's not bad. >> So, as soon as we get it over, I'll give you the click through here. I think she's got to switch files to let that There we go. >> Yeah. So, let's um So,
>> give us input on this. We got to know um if we are Here's the hard thing. I've got to do what in 20 minutes what you guys have done for the last month and a half, right? And give people at least enough information to understand what
we're talking about. Um, so we'll go over the overview, purpose, outcome, we'll talk about the task force timeline, then we'll hit the capacity study, the enrollment, the capacity and enrollment. And then we need we need input from all of you on the discussion and feedback well on the whole
presentation. we get to the discussion and uh feedback parts because we're trying what are we really trying to get from our community. Um we think we have it but um there might be other stuff that you all want to know too. Okay. So we'll talk about the overview
and the purpose and the expected outcome and if you're a staff member you saw that the other day same similar thing. Um, and then a little bit of the upfront information that we hired Wold and I'll probably go into. We were talking to W
in June before I was even um hired, well officially took over because um I could see it through the interview process. Um talk about how we do know we're projected to decline and that we have uh this is a broad community input. So, we
have the survey out and we're asking for for having these meetings. Um, so here's kind of what you what uh has been going on. September, we talked to the finance committee, the school board. Uh, we presented the facilities study W did to
the school board. October, um, they started the, uh, W came in and started to look at all the facilities. Uh, we began the task force application and invitations. Then in November uh um
we had ongoing evaluations of the facilities. Uh we designed the community survey. We had task for meeting one and two. December we looked at the initial survey. We didn't have enough. We had task force meeting number three. January
we're looking over the results. Now we have task force four and five. And this is kind of you're starting to formulate what you're going to tell administration and ultimately the school board right now. Um so uh we'll look over uh evaluate the concepts and stuff. Um
we're hoping that as a task force and this February and March could be blended or it could all come in February too. >> We might end up adding a meeting or something, >> right? Yeah. It just depends on what happens now and what we decide as a task force or what you tell me as a task force you need. um will eventually go to
the school board and present uh your findings and what your uh recommendations are. The school board will work through deliberations. I have a feeling the school board may say, "We're thinking of these things." Steve, maybe call the task force back together, talk to them individually.
Steve, I'm guessing I'm probably going to be sent to every single school and have a school related meeting. I mean, this is it's going to be a lot of work on me, but I anticipated that. Um, and then hopefully May to summer, we have a decision because whatever we do, it's
going to take a lot of planning. Um, and depending on what we do, there's probably going to be uh hearings or public things, things the school board legally has to do. So, here's our capacity analysis. Um, so again, I we're going to tell
everybody um this probably just a good review for everybody. Um, it attempts to get to that quote headcount or number of studies or belly buttons and seats or butts and seats, however you want to say it. Um, we can talk about how a change in space use can change the capacity
because we talk about special ed or other services. Um, they may take a whole classroom, but it may be just a few kids. Um, and then room assignments vary year to year. Therefore, the capacity adjusts a little bit in buildings year to year. Um, we'll talk
about how we have the the target um class sizes, you know, up to 22 up to 22. The cap should be at 25 for kindergarten. That's roughly what the district uses. Um, and that's kind of how it works through. And again, I'm going fast just so they know. Um, how in
the elementary uh you have your regular classroom. So, uh, filled in dot means that it's a full classroom use, but when they when an elementary classroom goes to music, um, nobody's in that elementary classroom. So, that's why
music doesn't get the dot colored in, right? So, it's just kind of it's how that works. But if you go to a high school, you can have an art class at the same time you have a language arts class at the same time, you have a music class. So they kind of all get filled in because those rooms typically get used
at least all but one period of a day. Okay. So we look at capacity at Halverson. So those are you can see how the classrooms are used. We have the target capacities and that's that number 22
22 24 26 24 and then we have the cap the caps. So you could get between 356 and 420 um at Halverson. Here's uh lower level and main level at
Hawthorne and then the upper level at Hawthorne. So again, you get your two target capacity. I'll go a little slower for the community. Good review though. Okay, Lake View. So here's main level and lower level at
Lake View. You can see filledin dots or open dots. There's your upper level. There's your capacities. Sibly elementary. Again, you got main level, lower level, building dots. Um,
rooms without Southwest Middle, lower level, main level. And then over at Lee High School, lower level. main level.
And then with Brookside, remember, we didn't do the dots because it's such a multi-use building, but we wanted to at least show how classrooms were used. So, you're on the main level when you come in and then when you get to the second level and then how almost everything is
all filled in somewhere. Okay, so here we talked about here's just how you can look at it. Target capacity, max capacity with total capacity in the district being at the bottom moment.
So I took the building counts that we did as administrators and I took Monday's building count. So this is as up to date as it can. I'm not going to change this though Thursday to the Monday. I'm not going to change it if the building counts change by one or
two. I'm just going to leave it just so everybody sees the same data. So, um, here you can see we do highlight when we're getting by those numbers. So, that that's how I track it in my office as to where we're at. So, I left those up so
people can see in real time. That's how I'm looking at numbers. So, teaching staff, if you're wondering, I'm actually looking at them every week. The whole district offices. So here we've got Halverson. So this is just current. So Halverson at 290 kids. Um Hawthorne at
332 kids. You can see there's three sections. So in kindergarten, Halverson's got two. Hawthorne's got three. So that's how we know that. Uh here you've got Lake View and Sibi. Um then that's all of them. So, as a
district put together in elementary, we've got 1,250 kids. Um, so that's what it looks like. And then that's how many sections. So, again, I look at it multiple ways. So, you're seeing what I do. So, that would be what they should
be if we were averaged out across. That makes sense. So, all right. Um, here's uh Southwest. We have our online um secondary online by grade and kids that are in it. Uh
student counts. There's the high school. There's your total. Um and then there's the ALC total. So you can kind of see different ways that we look at number of kids. Okay. Capacity versus enrollment. So
remember how we took the senior class and then we showed where each senior class is going and that's how we can kind of see the declining enrollment. So that's why we I left these in there so that you can see that. But you can see overall as a district um we're
slowly declining. Okay, I recreated this one. You'll have to understand that additional enrollment at Brookside for the ALC and early childhood is not in this number. So here, if you remember this chart before without the green on it, here's
the target capacity per building. Here's the max capacity per building. Here's the current enrollment at the buildings. So to give you an idea, a good chart to look at.
>> It's the best chart so far. Yeah. So, my plan is after the community meetings to have this online. So, if any of you want to look at it, I don't want to put it I kind of want to put it out there before, but I don't want to put it out there before cuz I don't want somebody to come in and start asking questions when I'm
trying to teach the rest of the people that don't. So, I'm still you can see I'm conflicted. If you all tell me to put it out there tomorrow, I put it on the website tomorrow. Um anyway, so there's that one. Um here is K5
capacity. So there's that max capacity, there's that target capacity, there's our actual these numbers could slightly because it was 1250 I think. So at it's whenever we pulled um these different numbers. >> Yeah, those are from the projection.
>> So they're from the projection. So numbers don't always line, but that's currently where we're sitting and that's currently our capacities. Uh here's 76 max
target where we're currently sitting. Here's uh the high school max target. Here's where we're currently sitting. And then as a district max target, there's about where we're currently
sitting. So, okay. And before we move on, just real quick, since you all here are a little bit more closely in the know about enrollment and you've been hearing a lot about one of um we will be revising our budget in February and one of our benchmarks that we get every year is
coming up. That's our January we get an October one enrollment count officially published by N. We use that to update our projections. So in the next few months if you see different numbers, don't think that we're giving you the wrong info. It's just we'll update all of our projections. So if we're still in
this process, we'll certainly the updated projections when those are >> you think that'll be sometime in like February, March? >> Yeah, probably in February we >> Okay. So, I redid the if you remember there's the MDE guidelines for square
per pupil square footage. Here's the piece that wasn't on this before. So, there's our current enrollment. There's the square footage per student. At the lowest amount of square footage
per student, we should have 125 square feet per student. At the upper end of the guidelines, we should have 155 square feet per student. In reality, we have 209 square feet per student. Right?
So square footage in the last blue column should be between these two numbers. Correct? If the number is greater than the MD number, there is more room per student.
Make sense? If the number is less than the MDE numbers, then there's not enough room per student. So, you can see where we have more room. More room just about right. We're pretty
close. More room. More room. Does that take into consideration the space we need for studying three programs? >> Yes. >> Yes. It's it's a it's kind of the So if you if you're going to build a school, this is really this is what it comes
out. If you're going to build a school and you go to MDE and you say we're going to build a school that's 307 square feet per student and MDE says you need only need 190 at the max. They're
actually going to probably tell you to go back to the drawing board because they're going to say you're not like your community is not going to like that. >> And I will say I mean they're guidelines. They're not like Pascal rules but I would say you get a question back from the drawing that's saying >> explain it to me a little bit. like we need to understand this. So,
>> so that's it's just kind of rough, but I I just thought this was a good one because it it just kind of looks at generically square foot per square. Okay, so here's the discussion, the feedback. So, I give you this
presentation. It's 20 25 minutes in. Uh based off the data pre presented, what data point or information point stood out to you the most and why? So if we give people that have been there, we're trying to get them to think about the death.
If you had to choose one or two, which of the following should carry the most weight? Educational quality and programming, fiscal responsibility to the community, safety and facility condition, school location, close to home location, or flexibility for future
enrollment challenges. Given declining enrollment and rising facility costs, which statement best aligns with your thinking? Ma maintain current facility costs even if the costs increase. Reduce or consolidate facilities to remain uh financially
sustainable. A combination approach depending on the facility. Unsure I need more information or other. In other words, present me an idea. >> You don't mind just go back for a second. When Steve sent me these yesterday, just so I could think about
it before today, I'd actually love everyone in this room to answer this question somehow way shape tonight. It'd be interesting to know where you all are at, but um certainly would be good to get community member feedback. I hope we have a lot of people on tomorrow, Monday. I'm not sure if we will, but I hope we do. >> How are those questions being presented
to the community? >> Just like this. >> Just like this. Yeah, we're going to have paper and stuff for them to write on. We're going to try to get them kind of in groups to sit and talk. I'm not going to go fast with that. I'm going to say please take like the next five minutes to think about this. I'll just have to time it based on
>> Yeah, we're not sure we're have three people or 100 people. So, we have to stay a little flexible on formatting. But, >> well, they have access to the PowerPoint just with the amount of data to be able to go back. So, I'm going to make some copies. Um, it's really hard. It's
really hard to say I'm gonna make 200 copies and then I'm gonna give four away and throw a bunch away, right? Or it's it's just hard. So, I'm gonna make so many copies and then just >> there could be one per group or something. >> Yeah, something like that. So, we'll just kind of see. Could you do like a QR code or like even like a pair deck with
the question Tyler? I like that idea. I think maybe we should look at I would post it >> prior to the meeting and then we could just have a QR code or a link they could access it >> because when ideas are flowing along, >> right? The only thing I'm going to
caution is we're thinking that we're getting community members that do the educational stuff. I'm hoping we get the community members that don't necessarily they know the schools are here. They support the Tigers. They might go to a football game. They might show up at a
wrestling match, but reality, they may vote yes or no on a referendum. Uh they see the kids walking around the school systems here, but they own a business in town and they're busy, right? So we we may get people that don't
do that, too. So yeah, I got to kind of figure it out. Um so here might be an activity that we could use. So keep change, let go. What about our current facilities or approach would should be preserved? What clearly needs to be
different moving forward? What may no longer be realistic given enrollment budget realities. So that may take a little time. Hopefully we've got enough people have a lot of conversation there. Um, and then one closing question I thought is after
they hear all this, what's what's give one piece of advice to the school board as it considers future facility discussions? What would it be? They are a voting community member. So, what would they what would they want to tell our school board members? They have
one thing to say, what would that be? And then I'm going to end it with that survey and a QR code to get to that survey. um just in case they want to get there. And I'll double check that in the morning to make sure it's up.
>> No reason to not keep the survey live. We got another 100 200 responses. >> Blessing. >> Or maybe we'll get a thousand. >> Maybe we'll get a thousand. >> Right right up front here. Could you mention anything about the current costs
and that is why we are doing these things? Because it didn't start with enrollment. started with these bills are getting too expensive and we can't >> Did you mention this at all? So, I think that's important for them. >> Yeah, we can get a Paul and I were talking about that yesterday
>> because if they see the weight of the issue, they might be more willing to >> give and take a little bit. >> We'll see what financial information we >> staff members in the room. We we have five slides for all staff meeting on Monday. Was that enough information about finance in that setting to
understand enrollment tied to revenue or do they need more? >> That be enough? >> The gravity of the situation kind of yeah like we can't continue on this path. >> Well, we can we can put what
two years ago it was 1.3 million we cut and last year was 2 million. >> Yeah. And then this year. >> We'll get something. >> All the slide that mentioned if we just didn't do anything, we just continue
operating, >> we have two years and then we're out. Like I thought that was probably the most powerful message because people know we have >> a fund >> a fund balance. And so if you make it clear like if we do absolutely nothing in two years that is all gone. I think that's like telling someone you know if
you keep spending your bank account is empty in x number of months. like that's a more powerful statement than this is how much we're running. >> So those that um are not staff on Monday's staff meeting, we just shared some basics about task force and what we've been discussing and just gave some
really generic facts about the situation. I think those would be maybe something we could frontload. >> Yeah, I think maybe if we put it in the front load and we say this is why we're cutting all this year after year and then we go over capacity and all that, >> that'll probably put it back. >> That's where I'm thinking I would put
it. more at the beginning. That's all good. >> See, glad we did. >> As an outsider, just as a parent, you may not want to get too indepth with like the calculations with how many students we currently have and how the state calculates that. And it was pretty
basic >> like the revenue formulas. Yeah. Seems like that would be significant enough. >> Sure. >> Okay. So, the other thing I was curious about is seems like we're at a position where we need will start making
decisions about the future of the district. I've had a lot of people ask me, why is the timeline seem like it keeps getting pushed out, keeps pushed out, but we're supposed to be doing something about this? Why aren't we shortening that span out to start making
those hard decisions and hard asking hard questions and trying to move forward instead of like feeling two steps backwards again? Now, I mean, like those first few slides you. >> So the timeline was like, okay, so we're
another four months out, three months out, you know, just >> that was that was always the timeline presenter the board really wanted to be kind of an entire >> so I didn't explain that well enough. A lot of people didn't understand that was the initial timeline. >> Okay, >> they just see it as a financial thing
and they're like, okay, if it's a financial thing, why aren't we, you know, move up this timeline? Let's, you know, what's holding us back? Why has that always been the initial, you know, we're hurting,
you know, let's start making >> two things. I can give you an answer to it. Two things. >> I'd love an answer, but I also would love to be able to explain to people better why. >> And I'm not trying to blame or throw anybody under a bus, and I know because I live under a bus, so I live under that
bus, so I know what it's like to be under. Um, so two things happen. one took the board a little bit of time. The board made some choices. That's why I'm standing here today. So, that delayed out probably some of the direction that
needed to happen. Okay. The other piece is is even during my interview and coming in, I had talked about this a little bit like there is going to needed to be a district task force. There is some stuff that needs to happen.
There are There's eight over 18,000 people in Hulbert Lake proper. So I would be willing to bet what are we about 24,000 total in the district we think that we represent people. I can't tell 24,000
people in two weeks we're going to do this then I'll be looking for even if that's the right thing I'll be looking for another job. So, we have to build capacity. Like all of you in this room without all of this education over the last couple of months, you're where
you're at now because you understand. I got 20 minutes to try to get people who maybe might show up to understand and then it's going to take me months to get everybody else that didn't show up to pay attention. Why? So, if I'm going to go on to limb and
say if this comes to closing a school, there's some legal ramifications the board has to do to do that. Have you ever did you watch Robinsdale or have you ever seen Minneapolis try to close a school? Do you see what an uproar that costs? So, that takes months to tell
everybody why. And I'm not advocating that that's the answer. You guys come up with an answer. >> Can I chime in on it? >> Yeah, go ahead. So I I just want to throw out there the district's in a healthy place financially, right? But we now can foresee with the projections we
have, if we continue responding to declining enrollment the way we have, we will end up in SOD or tough place financially, right? We can't just keep cutting or our students will suffer, right? Because we're going to keep having these inequities between buildings or challenges at our building
levels. So this process is educating the community, giving the community time to process. Neighborhood schools are one of the most sensitive things you can mess with, right? You start pulling schools out or closing schools or moving staff around, that's going to cause a lot of
harm, right? So we want to make sure we make the best informed decisions through this process. So the fact that we're saying we need to do it, we need to do it, but we've got time to make the decision. We're being intelligent about our process. We find it out so we have a full year to have
the discussions. We can make decisions for the next two, three, five, 10 years, right? So that's part of this. So we're ahead of it enough, Cody. I think what I'm hearing is that people are maybe a little bit elevated thinking we're in a really bad spot.
>> We are if we don't do anything, but that's why we're part of this. That's why we're doing this now. Nice kind of tell. >> And and the unfortunate thing is and and I said for those that weren't in the staff meeting, any cuts we make going into next year
will be noticeable and will be felt districtwide. So we're we're to where they we've cut so much fluff off now that now you're going to take a part of your finger once you start to cut or you're going to lose a tone. And that doesn't feel good. And people don't like it. And it may not
impact everybody equally, but it's going to impact the whole district, and that's not a good thing. And it's it's already impacting parts of our district, right? So, I just there's no administrator at the ALC. There's part-time people that go and do stuff. They call me up if
needed and stuff, but if you talk to the ALC, there's really not administrator walking around there to a vulnerable population of kids that really thrive on that connection um with an administrator. and somebody that can help them out. So, I mean, there are little pieces and parts of this district
that already feel it, but it's going to be much more noticeable next year. >> I think that's where all of us comment. >> Yeah. >> But if we're healthy, why are we making
cuts? That's the part. So biggest response to so to help answer that the biggest response the most traditional response when your enrollment fluctuates increases or decreases will add staff for new staff to try and match that revenue stream right um if we don't we
become irresponsible so we're either going to be understaffed or overstaffed if we don't make decision so traditionally we've had an appropriate number of buildings and as we we enrollment decrease. We're going to reduce staffing match, right? So,
traditionally, we make this enrollment decline. Now, we're getting to that point where maybe one building's got two sections of a grade, another has three. And so, now we're kind of getting those pain points. We're seeing inequities from building to building. We're seeing, you know, we can't cut more buildings
physically. >> Right. So now we're seeing our response to the enrollment change needs to be different. It can't just be cut. You probably have to do something more. There's a lot of options and I'm thinking that's part of this discussion today. We'll get to and we want feedback
from this group about what we're starting to think would be good options for us. And um I think that's we're ready for that. Um, >> is there any any of these that you're like, I don't
like that. Get rid of it. I think you should be asking this. Um, I want it rewarded or we need to add these other questions. We go to number two, Dr. Is there a way to take some of that
raw data with passages of different buildings just put in a simple percentage? So I think from an audience standpoint you don't have to do the math. You can say this building's being utilized. This one's
>> we can do that. I can >> just conceptually. >> Yeah. Otherwise you're going okay 407us 256US. Yeah. >> Yep. I'm sure we can get that. I wonder if you should switch even just the first and second question and start with more
of a multiple choice versus the open-ended if you want to get people talking more because starting with an open-ended I feel like is a little more intimidating for people in a discussion setting whereas if this we did that one first >> could get more of conversation piece started.
>> Yeah. And if you notice this question, I kind of looked at say somebody never took our survey, >> right? >> But they came to this and gave us this answer, >> right? >> This actually correlates back to the survey a little bit. So I'm trying to find another way if somebody said, "I'm
never getting online to take that survey, but they give us this answer because that's some of the information you want." >> Yeah. >> Yeah. That's the most important question. >> Right. I was going to say you start with a multiple choice. >> And I didn't go exactly, right? just flip the order of them just simply because sometimes an open-ended can be
intimidating for people that aren't >> planning on having a discussion with them. >> Yeah. It's funny how many people show up to something that's called like a listening session, then they don't expect to talk. >> Well, right. They're expecting well, they might be expecting to just sit and listen. And so then if you give them an open-ended right away, I feel like you're going to get a whole bunch of
silence. >> Yeah. >> Whereas you want people to respond, but you're probably not going to get as much out of that right away. And I think we'll probably have like maybe fiveish minutes per question. If you did 20 25 of a presentation, maybe answer a few open-ended questions, then
these five or six prompts, right? And then the hours up. >> We want to make sure we use that time wisely. People are giving up their precious time. >> Is there going to be somebody there? Who knows? >> Yep. >> Yeah. And I'm going to actually film it
so we can put it online. So if you want to see me do both presentation cuz you really want to go home and say, "Hey everybody, put some wood on the fireplace and watch me." >> um mean as far as if we we do get back together and really,
>> you know, somebody I don't remember if this was said, what was actually said kind of a thing. So we >> Yeah. >> Yeah. I'm going to try to when we get this I'm going to try to have everybody leave me their answers and then hope I mean if there's a thousand people take me forever but I'm going to try to get it so that we can at least get a summary
of what everybody's saying. >> Yeah. And I'm going to be there taking notes kind of if there's questions I can answer. >> Who um who from the task force is planning on coming tomorrow? >> Anyone able to come tomorrow from noon to 1? Couple people. Well, if we have a huge group of people, we might ask you to kind of help co- facilitate small
groups, right? If we need to break down. Um and then Monday is at 6. So kind of same thing. I saw a couple hands for that. So I hope we have a lot of people. That would be success, right? Yeah. >> Dr. H. I think I would I would recommend
that um you that an emphasis would be made that the purpose of this group is to examine how the facilities are used in the district
in not in terms of what it costs for use of facilities, but as Paul mentioned, just the what happens when enrollment declines and now you're dealing with inequities that arise. Not because, you know, you don't care about having good
numbers in sections is this school district over here, this elementary school has a low number of third graders. This one's got a high number. So, how are we going to balance these sections? It's really difficult when you're trying to make four elementary
buildings equitable because that is a big deal to people. I want to be treated equally and I think I don't think it's inaccurate to say that closing a building is not going to solve a future
fiscal deficit. It's not going to do it. So I don't I think you want to make sure people understand that that if if business was simply about balancing the budget, we'd have to close four buildings. Well, we're not going to close, but it isn't just about
>> You're saying closing one single building is not going to check the whole budget box. >> No, one be closed. Want to be closed. In fact, I think when you really sit down and do the numbers, it's going to actually cost >> I don't agree with that. I think it'll it'll it saves quite a bit.
>> The the ability >> maybe long term, but not initially, >> not the abil the ability to balance sections, I think will pretty quickly have a pretty sign. I don't I'll let Paul speak to that, but >> No. Well, I'm not here to believe that at all. I think it's just I'm just
trying to make the >> the recommendation that just be, you know, for the public. This is not this it's not magic. >> That's not all there is to I think it's important for my lens that we have to look at this through multiple ways because yes, we make a building, but
there may be two or three other things that are necessary for us to meet those budget targets. I think that's I think that's a >> yeah from day one I've said it's this is whatever you come up with is probably a multi-step multi-year
that's why we're trying to look can we get a 10 years facil can we get a 10ear plan out of this and how how does that execute doesn't mean you can't adjust it five years down the road but you at least got to have a road and a pathway to go down so that as a district of
employees we all can look at each other and say okay we're following this plan and if there needs to be changes, we at least have a meeting with all the employees and say, "Here's what we're seeing. Here's what's happening. This is why." So, but yeah. Yeah. >> Um,
>> was there a rationale why there's nine rank choices on the survey? Question four, five here. >> I didn't want to make it the same question. So, I just kind of looked and summed it like kind of looked at it because I don't want people to say, "Why are you surveying this?" And I just gave
you that, right? So, because they're kind of seem so I just kind of went with a a generic and I could reword anything. I just didn't want to make it exactly the same. The >> only thing I noticed too if you're top ranking things in the survey part on
here, >> right, >> that you're forced they're forced the class size. >> The class size >> support services. >> Yeah, that's a broad >> I was trying to stay
true. >> If closing a building might be inevitable, do we want to include anything about like those neighboring districts? I think that was another eye opener for me like, oh wow, even schools bigger than us only have two or elementary schools
or >> I was trying to think what data can I get in 20 minutes for people to understand about our district. That was the only thing I was thinking >> because to me the group that's going to have the most impact for the district is the recommendations that you want.
So we're going to have the community, they're going to give us some input, they're going to have some ideas. Um, ultimately though, your recommendations are what we're going to take to the board. >> I think what Tyler was speaking about isn't a bad idea. I think that there's some community and knowing that it's not
just overly in this situation though, especially from like a community members standpoint, I think it feels comforting is maybe not the right word, but to know that like Farbo and Winona are like fellow schools are also going through the same thing. It feels a little less scary at least. We could talk about that
that you know you as a task force spent a lot of time studying other districts and you know some themes. Yeah. Maybe a way to do that fast without going through like all the peer data. Yeah. But >> okay. >> Okay.
>> Could even be just a verbal comment. We have >> we have a flyer. >> Well, yeah. We were going to look at your flyers back. >> We could. >> Yeah. That's where I was thinking we could also put the >> buildings at this capacity
50% 58% 70% could be on that flyer because that'll be a good takeh home to look at. All right. Anything >> these look okay? Any other feedback on those? I also don't want to take up too much.
>> They were good till 7. So I think We're okay. >> We can take a couple minute break. We good? >> Do we want like 3 minutes? 4 minutes break. >> Okay. Come back. >> Seven. We'll start at seven. >> In a second here.
>> We have a couple people in the hallway. >> They're coming back. And then there's All right, I think we'll go ahead and get started. We want to make sure that we have enough time at the end for you all to work together in some small groups and starting some ideas. So
um the next part of what we're going to talk about is um the facility condition assessment. So if you think about we we kind of had two two arms of what uh the district actually hired us to do which was take a look at building capacity and
then the other arm was to take a look at the condition of the buildings are in. Um and so we're going to talk a little bit about what the process is. I I think overall the big picture of why we're even talking about this is for you to layer this onto the thinking of all of the topics that we've talked about
enrollment all of that and you know a big picture idea of where your buildings are at. um you know, similar to your house, there's always going to be a backlog of of maintenance items that um that stack up, right? And um I want you
to keep that in mind as we that as we look at these numbers because um your buildings are actually maintained very well. If you walk through them, they're in very good condition. Uh they're clean um very well m maintained in the district. has done a lot of work
especially in mechanical HVAC air quality uh items that um has kept these buildings in great shape. So um I want to make sure that you have that um lens as we go through a lot of this uh information. Um so a little bit of
the process that we went through. Um so our team of architects and engineers walked every square inch of the of the district. Um, we went in as many rooms as we could. Um, and a lot of you probably saw us popping in and out of your classes. So, we appreciate your
flexibility as we did that. But, um, as well as we met with all of the administrators and talked through how the buildings are used. That way, we have that lens when we're walking through the spaces and to kind of gain a yeah, this this part of the building has some troubles with temp controls or things like that just to give us a
little bit of information um especially as you're transitioning through seasons and things like that. So, we did that um this fall kind of into the early winter. Um and then we gathered all of that information. We have a master database
in a big Excel file that has every line item for all of those observations that we made. Um and then we went through and prioritized those. And I'll talk a little bit about that moving forward. Uh but we included costs for all of those um and kind of inflated them out uh over
the next 10 years, right? We're kind of taking a a glimpse of what what should be done in the next 10 years. Um and then we broke it down into six categories and those are on the bottom here. Site conditions. Um that would be
um playgrounds. It would be your parking lots, sidewalks, things like that. the exterior envelope of the building. So, your windows, your roofing, um tuck pointing, sealants, things like that. Uh the interior of the building, that's going to be a lot of finishes. Um the
condition of tile of the bathrooms, how about any um upgrades like that that need to be uh taken care of just as a a life cycle thing that I'll talk a little bit more about as well. Um and then accessibility
or code items. So, um, in the ADA, you know, wheelchair access, um, you've got classrooms that don't have ramps down into them for students to get it, uh, get to them or stages that don't have accessible
um, access to them, even down to door hardware that doesn't quite meet code today, and we should get that up to date. And then the kind of the two self-explanatory ones, mechanical, electrical needs, that just come come with a lot of U boilers, air handling
units, um electrical panels, lighting. So those are some of the the categories that we sorted everything into. Um, so as I mentioned, uh, we kind of develop a tool that we can utilize and, uh, we're not going to go through all of those details because we could probably
send a meeting per building easily on each one of those line items, but um, we estimated it for construction in 2027 just to get a benchmark of where costs are at. Um, and then those costs that we present are our total project costs. So
that's um the the value of the material and the labor to do it, but also it includes any fees, permitting, um printing of drawings, things like that that all encompass a project. And then
one caveat is um these costs don't include any abatement or lead or asuses and things like that. We have as we walk through buildings, we kind of can tell by the the vintage of certain materials if it's probably um got some specus or things like that. But that would be
taken care of separately and that's that's a requirement that we have a separate entity to do that. Okay. Um so this is how we broke down the priorities of um items that were developed as as a result of our
walkthroughs and discussions. Um so pri priority one is something that's an immediate need. Um these include items that would be life safety um the accessibility things that I was talking about ADA or any health issues um indoor
air quality things like that that you would want to try to address right away. Um priority two would be something that um are have reached the end of their life. you know, the carpet is ripping up, the um the boiler has immediate
repairs that need to happen, things like that. They're um past their their end of useful lifespan. Uh priority three are things that are getting close to that time, right? So, they're they're not in immediate need right now. Um the repairs that the
district has done has kept things in good shape. It's just we can forecast based on a lifespan that those things are going to undo. And then the priority four is okay within the next 10 years we're going to need to do something right. Um
what you'll see is like a uh like at the high school that's your newest building. So some of the things that are are coming due on that building based on when it was built. You're going to see how that falls into these priorities based on that time frame or end of life.
Um, I'm not going to go through this chart on the left here, but this is an example of some of the the average life cycles that the industry uses today. Um, I'll just pick on a couple. Like a boiler, for instance, lasts about 25 years. Similarly to an air conditioner
on your house or a furnace on your house, just because the industry says it's going to last you 20 years, you might be able to get 30 years out of it if you're doing the the correct annual maintenance and things like that. That Just like your car, it might might go
100,000, but if you're taking good care of it, it might go a lot longer than that. Again, like I mentioned, the district has done a really good job of maintaining those things. And so, um, this is just a kind of a an industry standard, like I said, that that we
utilize when we're looking at things. Um, keep going. Um what this um slide gets at is um we try to get a benchmark that we can utilize when we're looking at it. Um because it's a lot of
data and what can how can we boil this down to something that's a little bit easier to digest and one of those is something called a facility condition index. and what we what the intent is to be able to com compare the the backlog of of
um things that need to be addressed um with what it would take to replace that building. And it's cut off a little bit on the bottom there, but how you get that percentage or that number is you take the total cost of of repairs needed at a building divided by what it would
take to replace that building. So on the next slide you'll see how that breaks down per building in your district. Um so we've we've estimated um what it would take to rebuild a sibling, right? And we we've estimated that. And um then
we divide that by the total number of total number of repairs that will be required at that building to give you an idea of okay are our buildings are in good shape or are we dipping down into the critical um to where we need to have
some discussions about does it make sense to put a bunch of money into that building anymore? I might make just one comment here. Actually, if you were going to go to the um state and try to put money in a building that was over a 6 or 60% of the replacement cost, you actually have to go like above and beyond to justify why
that's fiscally responsible, right? Um so, anytime you're doing something that would be like more than 60% of the cost of a replacement, they want you to kind of explain that why. And districts get around it. Um you know, if there's no available land, for example, it's like, well, we have to invest in what else are we going to do, right? Um, the other
thing I was going to say is, um, Paul mentioned it, I think, at the first meeting, but it's probably a good time to remind you. The district does have a funding source to do maintenance called long-term facility maintenance or LTFM is how we talk about it. Um, it is a um, it is a blessing. It only became
available for all districts in I think 2017, right? >> 2015. >> 2015. Okay. >> And so, um, it is a wonderful thing. It is a for most districts it is a fixed funding source that is capped, right? Um
and it is difficult to keep up on research, right? Um roofs are millions of dollars, right? And so you might have to save up for a couple of years to replace a roof. Um so I I just before we get into the next side, I actually want to tell you that it's quite normal for school districts to not be in the good because you would need a lot more
funding to stay there, right? That would be constantly not having outstanding items and that's just not the reality of how schools are funded. Um and as Tyler said, the district done a ton of work in the last 10 to 15 years, especially in mechanical, which is usually the category that kind of gets them. So,
>> and just one other for context, >> we get about $1.3 million in LFN funding annually and about 300,000 of that goes towards payments towards the latest. So, we'll have between 900,000 and a
million dollar funds available annually. We have a 10year plan that's approved by the state that we will um kind of take we don't do it to this extent but we kind of do our own assessments. We analyze what's needed. We meet with administration. We
meet with our maintenance team. Um and we kind of assess what needs to be done next. Um this study here is is be really fun. We kind of cross check where we're at with our 10ear plan and it'll actually be very useful with district planning as we move forward. And again, the only reason we really wanted to bring it to you all is I think we're
going to naturally come to a conversation here soon of like what buildings are we talking about? We wanted you to have a context of which ones are in the best shape and which ones are in the worst shape. Right now, I would actually you can probably just go to the next side. I would actually say the good news is I would consider this all to be in good shape. I know
it's not good on the category. when we do these studies all the time when we're doing school buildings in critical regularly in the 0.3 point 4.5 um especially if you haven't redone your boiler haven't redone all your air handlers um so you know seeing that the
the um the district is between what a point a 6% and a 14% I actually think is the tightest range I've ever had a stud so that's the district's done a lot of investment and maintenance and upkeep so >> so just a reminder the way this works is
take Halverson for example the total amount of repairs in priority 1 through 4 all added up is 3.8 million and then to replace that building we've estimated that it would take $40 million to rebuild a brand new Albertson building.
So those are the two numbers. Then you divide that and that's what gets you that 009. So >> and we color coded them just like the chart, right? So if you had a green it would be green. Then we're in fair. Anything from a point, you know, a 6% to a 10%. Four is 11 and 30. And actually
if you go back, you have a couple that are at 11 or 12, right? So they're like just there into the into the >> spect. We would work with the district's abatement consultant to add on to if you were doing a project,
>> right? But if you're comparing your scale here, >> yeah, >> how is that a fair comparison if you're not including? >> What I would say is that the district's ticked off a lot of it as you do your mechanical projects. There's a little bit remaining in some finishes. You got some blue ceiling tiles. He does 9 by9 floor tiles that we're quite sure the
the glue or the mastic might have it. There'd be a small amount of money to be added to these, but it's not millions of dollars. And I would say those costs are associated in what we did because we saw the 9 by9 tile for example in Bgate that we know that's going to need to be replaced. So the replacement cost is in
there. >> The abatement part is to just have a company and take care of that. That part is for context. I think we had a 1.2 million mechanical project at Southwest. I think it was about 60 $70,000.
Yeah. >> And not to be flipped to about 10 thou, you know, $60,000, but but it wouldn't I would I don't think it would change the game. >> The way I understood it was they had no consideration on your grading system here. >> It didn't. You're right. Yep. A third
party has to do that. But we don't have the we don't have estimated cost. >> So I guess what I'm getting at is this grading system drastically changed if all that information. >> I don't feel it would drastically change. Maybe each one goes up a percent and two more. A payment is not a very
high cost when you're talking about a trans project maybe 50 $60,000 or bad building. >> I think the other this industry standard. So if we're looking at context compared to other districts and we'll
use the same same methods. >> Yeah. I was actually telling Tyler and for crow on our way down. I've been working on some buildings in um eastern Carver County for the last like five years. When this study got done for their district, they had five buildings in the between 40 and 60%. Right?
Because now they're taking them and doing huge huge you know 20 30 $40 million projects to get that caught up. So I would say by you know put it in context I would say that very well. The total on here if anyone's trying to do the math themselves is 50 million.
So again, that's a problem with the funding that you have, right? But that's a problem that I would say near every district in the state of Minnesota struggles with. There are 25 districts in the state that are technically allowed to to levy um not unlimited, but
quite a bit more than the rest of them, but still practically they don't. >> Yeah. All facilities. All facilities. >> Good question. >> I'm curious how like why would the replacement cost of Sibly being more than the replacement cost of Blake View
when the capacities are just we did the square footage times what I would what I would budget for a new building today. So it's it's kind of a simple calculation. They're pretty close because your elementary schools are on a pretty tight range, right? >> Um but yep, that's why.
>> And again, if you were going to rebuild an elementary, I don't know if you'd rebuild at the exact same size, right? But this is a context. Otherwise, if we just told you sibly 5 million of maintenance, you kind of wouldn't really know what to think about it, right? Just kind of sounds a lot >> and and while it is, that means that that building has had a ton of
investment. >> Yeah. >> Did I see another hand in the back? Yeah. >> I have to say I was just wondering what standard was used on the replacement value of building because I've seen some square footages. They're fairly similar, but then look what's at the age of
construction. you know, versus when they were built compared to now. And that's why I just saw a little I saw more differences up there than I in value than what I saw what I remembered back here in square footage. >> So, I was curious in what standard was
used to calculate the building replacement. >> Yep. We just did the square footage of the building today times a construction cost per square foot and we held that consistent. And then, not to bore everyone, but if you built a building today, we'd have to have a storm shelter in it. So, that's like an extra cost. So I added that and then just a project
cost factor but yeah it's all square footage driven. >> I can send you what's the what is the current range for new construction. >> So for con there's construction cost and that's project cost just to so construction cost would be like if you had a bid opening what a contractor
would get hired for. Then there's the permits the um design fees you know furniture technology all that. So we usually add another 25% on top of construction cost. Um so we also did this for 2027 bidding. So like in an
imaginary world if we were designing this year starting construction next year. Um it was $496 a square foot for every square foot. And then I had to add $100 a square foot for the storm shelter component. So the state passed a law in May of 2020
um that you have to have a part of the building that would withstand an F4 tornado. Um So you kind of have to do a calculation of how many people and so it's not the whole building that has to get hardened but we have to harden like about 6,000 square feet in an elementary school. >> So I asked you that knowing how crazy
construction costs are getting now. >> So just for >> and then we add 25% right. >> Yeah. >> And we're building schools all the time. I know the numbers seem crazy but that's that is the goal rate. >> So that doesn't include like land acquisition or things like that.
Other thoughts or questions? >> I had somebody ask me, I don't remember if it was at the first meeting or after the second meeting of just, you know, like which buildings should we keep was kind of the way the questions was phrased. And I think they were asking us like as architects, right? Like which
ones have you keep? And um so we just wanted to make sure that you understood, you know, how the buildings kind of stack up against each other. Now, I would actually say they're in a pretty tight range and there's not like a major outlier in my professional opinion. We wanted you to have that and make your own judgment call. Obviously, it's not
the only reason to to keep or not keep a building too, right? It's much more complicated than that. Site, you know, geographic distribution, attendance areas, even down to like emotion and like historic ties, right? Like all of these facets matter, but this facet
matters. Any other questions on this? So, the district has the whole study. Like Tyler said, we don't want to, you know, kind of bore and bog you down with every single line item, but um if anyone has specific questions like how did that get to that number, we can certainly talk offline about it.
>> Okay. Should we get to one? >> Yeah. >> Not that that wasn't fun. >> Okay. So, what time is it? Forgot my wedge today. 7:22. >> Okay. Um, so I we we felt it at the last
meeting. There's already kind of pent up um energy around the idea of like let's start solving this thing, right? Like let's stop admiring the problem. Let's start solving it. Um so we wanted to give you about 25 minutes to just start getting some of those ideas out, right? Um so that's why we set up in small group tables today. Um so for 25
minutes, it's just kind of what are your ideas that you think we should start studying. Um you might call them options. Um, I'm fine if it just being like a, you know, a fiveword thing of like granded bay grade levels, right? And then and then we could go back and
interpret in a lot of ways. But if you have like really specific ideas, feel free to work on those, too. And then for about the last 10 minutes, we'll just kind of go group by group on like, you know, what options did you guys come up with and what do you come up with? You don't have to have it all worked out. That's kind of our job with the administration, right? You kind of give
us the idea and then we'll go do whatever test fit or, you know, cost costsaving scenario, things like that. And um if there's some scenarios that people all come up with that are the same, that's fine. Um but I'm hoping to uncover some interesting ideas, right? So I'm hoping you've been thinking about
it. Um and we'll get to do this more at the next meeting, too. But um so we'll do that um at 7:23 right now. Um at like 7 7:45, I'll give you a 5minute warning. At 7:50, I'll just go up to the whiteboard and say, "What'd you guys come up with? What' you guys come up
with?" Right. And we'll circulate to help. Yeah, please. Before we get started, >> yeah, >> I've been thinking about this for a while and just trying to conceptualize how the group moves forward. Give us some advice about how to prioritize or figure out the different
ideas of saving money through some facility restructuring of some sort. We don't know what it is. And also since all this came to us, I'm hearing a lot about the grade level. Does one have to happen before the other?
How do you you have to make a decision? We are going to move all these and then go look at the facilities or you make that facility decision first. I think you'd probably do it in tandem because I think you'd want to be able to tell the community, you know, what things are
going to look like in the future and why it's going to be better. Not just because it save money, but maybe all the equity benefits from it, right? So, um I I I see them as a little bit more blended maybe than like this versus that. Um >> strategy wise as well, if we just uplift
all of our students and shuffle them to different buildings right now without a facility change, that's a lot of a lot of people might just wise be a physical change, right? Where we now are one less building. >> There's a lot more rationale for moving people, right? So I think the strategy
there might be a combination of the two. It could be more natural movement at that point. Um I think no matter what when we move people or we're changing something there's going to be disruption and it's going to be frustrating but more we can be intelligent about it the
better it'll go. >> Yeah. So again, this is just to try to let you have some some time to start getting ideas on paper, but you know, not our last discussion about it. Great. >> Do you mind maybe joining? I mean, unless you want to be a man.
>> Um, why have you as like group one, two, three, four? Any group feel passionate about going first? The best idea of course. It's okay if your idea is kind of half big. It can help. Ours is pretty
bold and half big. All right. We're going to close. >> Okay. We're gonna put the district office at >> along with the A.
Okay. Um then is going to have P1's going to have two K1 is going to have four. >> Okay. Any chance to high school? Yeah. Well, anything else that's in Brookside? >> We're going to go to the high school
locker bay. We're just going to eat it off. >> Free tiger be trying to find home other >> figure out. You could expand the daycare. You could expand all the
other. >> Okay. Um, does the group have any questions for them? Because what we're going to do with these is we'll try to kind of like, you know, make them full-fledged ideas and we can do like test fits and%. >> We did we did we ran the numbers for the
elementary home early. Um 23 >> because of the size >> because of the number. >> Okay. >> I was just thinking of the body sizes. >> Where is the preschool? Is that going to be at Hawk?
>> Yeah. Sounds like there's no change to Southwestern High School in that far. That's fine. We started with simply being a setting fork on its own. >> That's how we got here. >> We did say it was good.
GROUP WILL GET THEIR day at the >> school. I didn't think of it to go next. >> Yeah, we were conflicted. >> You have multiple ideas.
really get to like an end. >> That's okay. How about just consciousness? >> I feel like we probably have more square footings. >> Yep. >> But it was really it was complicated. You know, you're comparing to other districts that have fewer buildings, but in terms of overall square footage, they
have fewer buildings. Buildings were bigger terms of the total square footage. It's a little misleading terrible less build, but in terms of overall square footage compared to what we have right now. So, >> yeah. Operational efficiency does come from being under a roof though, right? So,
>> sure. >> Even if it's a big, >> right? Right. Yeah. Our biggest issue is we got a lot of little buildings. >> Yeah. >> And we didn't have a solution. you know, we didn't try to go down, but what would make sense, you know, should we do the, you know, age grouping and should, you
know, just lots of we're getting away from the task, which was we recommend that we have we should reduce this. That's >> You didn't pick on anyone in particular yet? >> No. Well, you talked about the grade
level bands and I we just see a lot of like families that that stick together and you and you send these K12 kids hold hands on their own at the end of the day because they got to walk home and you hope there's adults home. Like there's
just a lot going on with families. And then we were thinking, okay, well now they're all at different buildings and then how are they going to get home? how are they gonna because like they only have each other and like I just see that a lot with my families and and I know once they get to Southwest it's you know
different or they transition but they're older at least but when they're so little and they take care of everybody and a lot of the fifth graders take care of all the siblings the family and they go gather everyone and >> I don't know I worry about that >> lock zones would be very different in
that regard too right transportation but yeah I hear Were there any like even if you didn't take were there any like bands you thought must be together or anything like that? Did your conversation get there? >> Kind of sounds like your group is to get eighth grade out of the >> I think we were talked about like being
apartments. We just talked about like if you actually revenue that's yeah we ultimately felt like you because it has the most prime real estate a part of the apartment I'll be
a comment >> just amenities many different changes that you had in there. I like the thoughts there, but what's traumatic for young kids
change? How many times we going to want them changing buildings regardless, you know, at some point the fifth graders are in sixth grade and they can't take care of the second and third graders. I love that as an idea. And then as you mentioned with the real estate, Lake
View has got more prime real estate. Let's have it sold before we close it for that reason only because otherwise it's going to be a building with a lot of prime real estate. >> Yes, school buildings don't often
fetch a ton when it comes to resale value. >> Another thing school districts elementary schools anywhere between 20 and $100,000. Now the land might have you know just enough sheer value in and of itself that
particular building but sorry >> another thing that Tyler kind of spoke to is when students are in a building for only two years um we do a lot of uh interventions with our students and just we have a data warehouse that we're able to like see those interventions as they go through but a student could be at an intervention for four years and if
they're not picked up at every building that they move like that could be something that's >> yeah I would say the trend the benefits from being together on maybe more consistency and things like that. Yeah, there's drawbacks or like staffing too
like >> what did your Yeah, we have one more. We have one more. We talked about pivoting to Brookside and utilizing it for prek and just because it's such a big space. We felt like you could get a lot in there.
The idea of having pre and did you have a plan for what happens from Brookside or that we were all over? >> Yeah. But we liked the idea of prek and kindergarten together. It just felt like that was kindergarten readiness.
>> We also met Austin got rid center because they weren't ready going to school. >> It wasn't. because they had >> okay >> now we know the reality what I expected you to say
>> all right where were your heads at on things I saw you doing a lot of numbers >> yeah just >> oh that's okay >> all district office high school 912 at high school
>> district office 912 >> maybe community >> at high school community maybe okay >> and then southwest 176 other schools doesn't matter as much but
>> and what would be what were your bands >> threek at >> and so you you would end up with two ele >> three elementaryaries that's kind of like an upper elementary intermediate situation but you didn't pick which two buildings here
>> uh I didn't we didn't >> okay yeah that' be the Okay. Any questions from the group on that? It's interesting. Two two groups now thinking about group. >> So just piggy back why I mean the eighth grade out of the high school. Um and
then for licensing parts, seventh and eighth grade license teachers, there's a little bit more freedom to teachers around. Currently we issue with sixth grade elementary license, right? >> And then you can still keep specialists.
So like teachers, your technology teachers with that model across street. We did ultimately want seventh grade at the high school just because it does provide them with a lot more opportunities, but based off community
feedback there, >> they probably wouldn't want seventh grade there. >> Okay. I mean, I can write that down. There's I mean maybe there's something that we could do a littleation that so that would be a seven and 12 at the high school >> almost like we could somehow
eighth grade are which I know from the community aspect I feel like the eighth grade there sometimes when we're doing processes like that it is important that we study things even if we don't think they're going to be winner ideas because then you can tell the community no we studied
that and XYZ right so I don't mind doing a version that's you know seven high school. So does that change your desire to have deal with ALC there? Right. Those would have to some other plan >> and and there's obviously the learning environment either way you're going to have some
questions on the environment. ALC student has had struggles in our high school traditionally asking them to just stay in that same building and change their model. Is that enough to get them where they need to be successful? I mean I I don't know. We
see that >> and ancient >> but I I mean the one thing Tyler and I were just briefly chatting about when he started was he's like well ALC at the high school and and we know that there are places that try that but we also
know that that's a student that for a variety of factors our high school is not working and to say we're just moving you to the F-wing and now all your problems are solved is a >> carefully. >> Yeah. So, I mean back and forth.
>> Again, it's not that it's it's not that it's impossible. There's obviously places that made it work. >> It's just one of those things where community obviously raises a concern. Eighth grade feels like a learning environment mismatch for the high school. >> Yeah. >> Seventh grade. Would that be the same issue? Who knows? But you you could
argue either side. Both sides are going to say like there's a there's a mismatch there. So, which one do you feel like you can solve more of the the learning environment? >> Every option is going to have pros and cons. We can document them, right? >> I see a hand back there before I move on. >> Just because you're talking about winner
ideas and nonwinner ideas, but just out there all of them. What does it look like to move back to Riverland? You know, if it really is about space efficiency, I don't know how much it costs obviously, but that was what was done in the past. It could be an option again. Okay. I don't totally understand all the reasons
we did that. So, we'll have to report back on that. Okay. >> I just also for optimism, I think Rich has the best plan, which is we're going to build some more houses. We're going to get some people to move to town. >> I like I like the best. I vote for that one. >> Um I want to be respectful of time.
Group two, where we at? >> Okay. Um so, we heard the community. We're gonna move eighth grade to the middle school. Sorry, Tyler. You're getting six, seven, and eight. Um, closing sibly. Um, and then banded schools at the other
three. We put Hawthorne with K1 link 23 and 45, but that could be changed. Our concerns are staggering start times and what busing costs would do
and if we close sibly is that really going to be efficient because sibly is the smallest. >> Yeah. What were the some of the factors that made you pick sibly >> because it is the smallest capacity wise. So, >> like there was an example of
>> five and six at Sibly and I don't think it's big enough to hold. >> You were having a hard time getting it to fit in that I got >> but it doesn't have its own boiler. It runs off >> or kitchen, >> right? So, I don't I get it, but I don't
think that's >> you'd have to decouple it from the southwest, right? Because they were built as >> a buy it. Although after I've been hearing some of these other ideas, I don't feel like um or I do feel like that um potentially
you could keep sibly and you could do like ALC and preK there and put district office maybe in the high school because they might not be able to put district office and ALC and whatever all the things at Sibly. You could keep sibly open potentially and close. It was ALC
and what at >> you could maybe like ALC prek at sibly because they're already together anyway. You could do one on each floor. >> I'll do a little dag. It's kind of like a little >> prek and has you know morning afternoon
classes. So meals maybe be easier when they don't have I don't know. You know what I mean? Yeah, I hear you. And then I don't know what the ALC is, but if they do meals and all that, you know, if they don't have their own kitchen there, it could be enough.
>> So, we do serve meals at at Sibly currently. the the kitchen and suppress prepare those and we have a truck that >> it is a talk about inefficiencies having this large diesel pick truck to move two carts of meals down twice a day back and
forth and bring all the dishes up to Southwest does not make a lot of sense. >> Yeah, it's got real fuel cost. It's got people cost. >> Yeah. >> Awesome. Anything else from group two? All right, group one, where are we at?
>> Um, well, we um we agree grade bands is probably the better way to go, especially looking at the current data um and seeing that um location of school wasn't uh as high of a priority as I was
kind of surprised to see that. I thought as 50% of the respondents are parents. >> Yeah. >> And they're not super concerned. I have um two kids uh kindergarten or first grade. So I'm thinking in my head, okay, what's this gonna look like? You know, how's it gonna >> work out? So it's really interesting
that that was low and maybe that's not, you know, if there's u quality programming and things like that that families would be more happy than >> Yeah. expected with moving away from neighborhood.
So, we talked about the grade bands and that we have to close a building, but we kind of went back and forth on which one. Um, so >> Do you have a couple ideas? >> Um, we talked about Brookside. >> Okay. >> Um, but just that'd be a huge
displacement. There's a lot. I mean, it seems like it's there's not a lot there, but it's there's a lot of different programs um and of the eclectic. So that would be a struggle. And um we talked about
>> seventh grade. >> Oh yeah, we did talk about um seventh grade like if you spent seventh and eighth grade to the high school and made it a true junior high, what that would look like. >> But the question we had was like if we're gonna we're gonna get rid of a
building. um like is there is there someone that's interested um in renting the space? So maybe it's not valuable to sell sell. But like a good example is when we moved out of Riverland um immediately Riverland was
able to fill that space. There's a business that was like, "Yep, we want to do training here. We can use these rooms for that." Um is moved out where maybe the city is kind of compacted downtown where they need no more room and that there's some sort of
benefit to which building is closed based off of you know interest there could be school buildings are hard to know they don't easily adapt to you know unless it's another kind of school and training function right yeah um but I think I understand your point is that
you think that decision should be made with some of those factors in mind yeah okay >> we also thought I mean there's kind of a consensus we have too many buildings so probably one's going to go or get leased out or whatever and banning the grades and then from that it should go to
people who have the knowledge and the buy in and I can shout out ideas but there has to be some really deep discussion as to what that looks like. >> Absolutely. We we wanted you to have the time out. We're going to go study with the administration, right? You know,
what makes sense about this one? What doesn't? You know, you know, >> through the conversation wasn't um just a little recent history. So, we were re we were leasing out space at Brookside to Head Start. They vacated our space.
That's when we decided to vacate bring back. So, just in recent years that >> kind of feel your own space. >> So, yeah. So when we talk about the dominoes at mall like that's kind of what happened there in that situation. >> Anything else your group would want
documented. >> Was there any um with seventh grade going to the high school? Did you figure out what would happen at Southwest or not quite yet? >> Well, there's lots of opportunities since you have those two buildings right next to each other and saw the potential to share administration if that is something. I didn't realize they didn't
have a kitchen. That's wild. >> Yeah. Sibly doesn't have a kitchen. That might be a better place to be kind of a combo we're building with sibly or >> other. >> Okay. Um >> can I prime the pump a little bit just
as we think about um just for the group here? We're hearing a lot about like what we would maybe see on a spreadsheet and how the numbers might work. But I think as we had conversations leading up to today, there's a lot of conversation about the impact of students and families, right?
So I think that's where I would like to kind of get that's when we do pros and cons of each option. >> We're going to get pros and cons, emotional pros and cons, financial pros and cons, right? And then even the educational benefits of grade banding and the other decisions that you're looking at those are where I'd be
curious from a group where you see with those >> y I can I can tell you that in the early 90s the banning proposal was presented to the public
did not go over well at all. You would have an insurrection. >> It was bad. >> Well, there are a lot of arguments in favor of it. Educationally, it's very sound. You know, as far as flexibility, it's a great idea, but the public will
hate it. >> The way we pitch it up, they're against us. >> A lot of peer groups we studied are using. One of the things that our group talked about with banding is currently if you're at an elementary school and you
have three sections and you can't find a sub for one that day, you're splitting your classroom. But if you're in an elementary school and you have eight sections or nine sections, you can take out one classroom, split them up and you can save >> your your point. Those things can be the
most logical thing in the world. It can make sense financially. It can make sense transportation wise, right? But emotions still matter. People vote with their heart. >> If we come up with a resolution that is going to save us tons of money and causes 80 people to lose at le
uh that could >> Yeah. And we might work, you know, if there's maybe a couple other ideas or variations on this, we could we could round this out. So, I appreciate you only had 25 minutes, right? And I know we're over time. I'm sorry about that. Probably should have left even more time for this activity. Um, our next meeting
is on two weeks from now on the 21st. Um, we will pick this exercise back up and again we're going to have you do pros and cons and stuff and then we'll debrief from the listening sessions. I mean, like I said, I kind of hope we have a ton of people and there's lots to talk about. Again, if you have questions or ideas in
between, feel free to send them to the district and, you know, if you wake up in the middle of the night with one like got to figure it out, shoot it our way. >> Thank you.