herart I'm an assistant superintendent of secondary schools in the AIO Area School District and we're so pleased to have all of you here tonight to learn more about the attendance boundary proposed changes we have a lot of information to
share with you this first half hour of the evening even and some of the topics that we'll be going over include a little bit about who we are as a school district in AIO area schools what an attendance boundary is why attendance
boundaries need changing the change process timeline the parameters used to form the proposed scenarios the proposed scenarios and details surrounding them the transition plan and your opportunity
ities to share thoughts tonight this will include splitting into small groups to share your feedback and to ask questions at the end of our presentation as we share information in the next 30 minutes please make sure to make notes
of any comments or questions that you will want to share afterward in your small group before we get started I want to take a minute to talk about one thing that we're striving to do in oio Area
School the last couple of years we've been working towards becoming one Community for all where all voices are heard and valued and this means all of our stakeholders all our students our
staff our parents our caregivers and our community members played an important role in our district you should feel seen and appreciated as part of our oio area school's family always whether
that's today tomorrow or five weeks from now you are all important to us and the main way that we ensure all voices are heard and valued is through a concept called holding space holding
space means that we are willing to walk alongside another person in whatever Journey they're on without judging them making them feel inadequate trying to fix them or trying to impact the outcome
when we hold space for other people we open our hearts offer unconditional support and let go of judgment and control so tonight as we enter our space together please be respectful and
understand that each person has their own narrative and lived experience and please be inclusive of all such an environment will allow everyone to be their authentic self and to be valued
and heard this will help us build a collaborative Community as we venture through this attendance boundary change process thank you in advance for your help with this so let's take a quick quick look at
some facts surrounding our district AIO area schools encompasses all or parts of eight communities that ranges from Dayton Rogers and corkran in the far Northwest two parts of Plymouth to the
South and then Brooklyn Center to the east the two largest communities we serve are Brooklyn Park and Maple Grove with the city of AIO in the center about 160,000 community members live
within this entire area we are the fifth largest school district in the state serving approximately 21,000 students and more than 15,000 of our students choose to utilize the transportation services offered that
equates to nearly 36,000 bus routes we have a total of 31 school buildings in AIO area schools current currently there are 24 traditional elementary middle and high
schools and we have seven special program sites including an area Learning Center and early childhood centers soon we're going to have a 302 School building and thanks to our community support of building a better future in
2023 a new elementary school is being built in the very northwest corner of the district and it's set to open in the fall of 2026 our school buildings are between 24
and 100 years old the sizes of each building vary because of the different time periods in which they were built which has created capacity level differences amongst our district schools this is most notable at the elementary
level the older schools tend to be smaller and the newer schools are a little bit larger the school buildings were also placed where Community growth was being experienced during those different eras and because of space
being available in a general sense Brooklyn Park and Brooklyn Center tend to be more established neighborhoods and Maple Grove Dayton and Plymouth are more growing areas and one last fun fact all
of these school buildings are spread out on 703 acres of land it's important for us to know that our community members feel that we're doing a good job at achieving our mission and the great news for us is
that feedback continues to show that our community thinks highly of us and has strong support for what's being done in a recent survey 82% of survey respondents rated us as either
good or excellent on the quality of education at AIO area schools 87% indicated that they believe that all or most of our student needs are being met and
84% said they're proud of our schools and would recommend them to others so now let's dive into attendance boundaries some of the language we're using to share about this change may be
a bit confusing so we want to be sure it's clear and understandable as you interact with the information so what exactly is an attendance boundary an attendance boundary is the geographical
area from which students are eligible to attend a district school this means that your household address is assigned in elementary school School a middle school and a high school so in essence this
boundary process change may change the elementary Andor the middle school that your household is currently set to attend and a quick note as a result of attendance boundary changes students may
be moved between school buildings within our district but attendance boundary changes will not impact which students are assigned to attend oio area schools versus attending any of the surrounding
districts such as an Noah hanapin Yetta Robinsdale Etc you may be wondering why attendance boundary changes now most simply it has to do where our students are going and
what our schools can hold this can obvious viously change from year to year or from decade to decade the enrollment and capacity management advisory committee or EAC has been monitoring
enrollment shifts in conjunction in conjunction with our school building capacities for the last several years their most repeat uh recent reports have detailed that is significant enrollment imbalance exists and that it's to the
point that should be addressed specifically there is significant growth in Northwest portions of the district future Housing and Redevelopment are also expected in these same areas in
addition to this there are also some district schools that are under capacity eac's work helped to inform our 2023 building a better future referendum and building a better Futures oversight
task force agreed with eac's suggestions an additional facility space became a part of the 2023 referendum as a result of that work again thanks to our community support of building a better future in
2023 a new elementary school and additions to Maple Grove Senior High were approved to address space constraints during the 2023 building a better future referendum it was additionally noted
that attendance boundary changes were needed no matter the outcome of the referendum vote with the additional facility space being added with the community's referendum support attendance boundary changes will be
limited to elementary and middle schools and impact act fewer families as promised so just to be clear there are no changes being made at the high school level we understand that many community
members make lots of decisions based on their households School assignments so this process is not something that we want to be doing often in fact it's been more than 15 years since we've last done
changes on this scale we've come to a point however where it's needed this attendance boundary change process kicked off this past fall and at that time community members had an
opportunity to provide their thoughts on the parameters the core team should be using in creating the proposed scenarios nearly 3,000 community members participated these are now called our
community built parameters which will go through momentarily since like last September the attendance boundary changes core team has been utilizing the community built parameters to develop proposed
scenarios in January four proposed scenarios resulted from this work and nearly 3500 community members shared their thoughts at that time on the the four proposed scenarios that feedback helped
to lower the number of scenarios and make adjustments to them and tonight you'll have an opportunity to provide feedback on these updates these events in March will likely wrap up districtwide feedback
opportunities so it's critically important to us that we hear your voice in April we'll once again review Community feedback and consider adjustments to the updated scenarios final attendance boundaries will then be
announced in May the new attendance boundaries however will not go into effect until the fall of 2026 the only exception to this timeline is Crest View Elementary Crest viw
families will make their move in the fall of 2025 our building a better future plan shared that an elementary school would be repurposed to serve pre kindergarten
grades and to provide enrichment and community-based programming needs after much much research and consideration pres View Elementary School was the school chosen to do this so press views
kindergarten through grade five students and their staff will be moving schools at the start of the 2025 26 school year which is next school year now you've likely put these two
pieces together but the 2026 timeline matches with the opening of The New School in Northwest Maple Grove and at this time I'm going to turn it over to John Morad oio area schools a Executive
Director of Finance and operations to walk us through the parameters and updated scenarios thank you Kelly okay these are the community built parameters the core team worked with to create the proposed scenarios starting with centering our
core values of honor and integrity belonging inclusion and Excellence transparency and intrinsic value ensure scenarios can function in our system including but not limited to Transportation building utilization and
capacity enrollment both current and future teaching and learning program offerings and financial costs ensure scenarios have longevity in our system follow the teacher student class targets established by the school board consider
the number of students impacted for each scenario and consider the student demographics of each scenario consider connecting more schools from level to level keep neighborhoods intact as much as possible
minimize non-contiguous non- adjoining areas maintain the 8/10 of a mile Elementry and on M secondary transportation service areas or walk zones maintain safety standards in regards to bus routing trying to avoid
major highways Etc avoid lengthy travel times on buses comply with state laws Schoolboard policy and negotiated agreements as you can see this is a pretty good list of parameters as we review the updated scenarios you may
notice that some of these parameters are adhered to more than others from Scenario to scenario the coure team did their best to utilize all the parameters as much as possible again with utilizing the size schools and current placement of school buildings that we have today and are soon
expecting in just a few minutes as we'll be going through the updated scenarios as Kelly mentioned you if you have the opportunity to provide feedback and ask questions in the small group portion of tonight's event please make sure to note your comments and questions and we'll get to those
soon this is an overview of the updated scenarios being shared tonight January scenarios number one and two are moved forward with some adjustments made to each scenario between 2,000 and 2600 elementary and middle school students
are proposed osed to move which is approximately 9 to 12% of the district's total enrollment bullet points three and four mention specific groups of students that would be impacted as noted in the community built parameters this was looked at for all the scenarios and this
is just a snapshot of that the racial demographics of the schools wouldn't change by more than 5% in the majority of cases and the poverty demographics also would not change by more than 5% in the majority of cases okay let's get down to the good stuff
um scenario number 1A this is the updated scenario been renamed this is not exactly the same as the Jan January scenario one a few tweaks have been made before we go through those again I'm going to orient you to the map here so the colors represent the attendance
boundaries for the middle schools orange being oio middle red for Maple Grove middle green for North View middle and blue for Brooklyn Middle within each color group you will see the proposed attendance boundaries for the elementary schools feed that particular Middle
School you'll also see an elementary school Edinbrook Elementary with a purple hashtag coloring one of the goals of the parameters is to reduce the number of elementary schools that split students to different middle schools for reference today we have
seven Elementary locations that split to multiple middle schools in scenario 1 a we have one approximately 2600 student elementary and middle school students would be impacted in this scenario this is about 400 fewer than the January
proposal some of the strengths of this scenario are its building use efficiency elimination of non- adjoining geographical areas and an improved feeder like structure as students would move with classmates from elementary to middle school this scenario would last
for the foreseeable future in the elementary school neighborhoods would maintain mostly um intact as more natural barriers major roadways Parks creeks and lakes are utilized as the boundaries in all but one school building be Oak
View would be within its own attendance boundary um which means the students closest to each school be able to attend and potentially walk there an oak View's um boundary actually still allows for students who live directly across the street would be part of a walk Zone to that school at the middle school the
non- adjoining Geographic areas that are currently exist at North View Middle School would be eliminated and again all but one school building being Brookland middle would be within its own attendance boundary it's again right across the street from where its attendance foundary begins this means students closest to each school would be
able to attend and potentially walk there moving to scenario number 2A again this is not exactly the same as scenario 2 from January approximately 2,000 elementary and middle school students would be impacted in this scenario which is about
100 fewer than the January proposal some of the strengths of the scenario are its low number of changes functionality in the system including efficiencies with building use and transportation services elimination of non adjoining Geographic areas and an improved feather-like
structure as students move with classmates between elementary and middle the scenario would last for the foreseeable future elementary schools neighborhoods would maintain mostly in be mostly intact as more natural barriers again are followed all but one School Oak viw
would be within their attendance boundary again students closest to each school would be able to attend and potentially walk there middle schools the non- adjoining Geographic areas currently in North View would be eliminated and again um all but one building being Brooklyn Middle would be within its own intendance boundary but
again right across the street in this scenario you'll notice Edenbrook is again the only school that splits to two middle schools and the boundary is a little bit different than it was in scenario 1 a versus 2A but it's still splitting to just two schools now that you've seen updated scenarios a
common question is going to be how does this specifically affect you to help ensure and help you with that we want to please have you check the boundaries website for interactive maps for each of the proposed scenarios in which you can type your address in and find out the specific impacts the website is
district279.org boundaries Chromebooks are available tonight if you'd like to take a look while you're here um we're going to look at a few FAQ questions and go through some of the common ones uh more questions can of course be asked within your small groups and are also available
online one of the most common questions is if I want to go to a different School than my boundary school can I the answer is yes and no um so in short here's the best way I'm going to explain all of this if in the past you have taken
action to select your school to select a school for your child that is different than the one you are assigned to you have the right to choose to stay at that school um applications do not need to be refilled up for that so that would apply to current in District transfer students
and current open enrolled students have the right to stay at the location they at as shared in January students attending their home school will be required to attend the school that they're assigned to through the change process one adjustment that has been
made to this however is that the 2026 2027 fifth grade and e grade classes can choose to remain at their current school if they would like we received a lot of feedback about this through the first process we
listened we heard you we wanted to change that option so if you would move for one year for the last year of middle school or the last year of high school you will have the opportunity to remain at your current school this whole harmless option for
Fifth and eighth graders is new and it's purely being offered because it was was a consistent request to the feedback that was received in January and February more information will be coming out on how to make this selection the currently restricted IND District transfer and open enrolled
schools will remain in place until a review has been completed which will happen no later than January 15th of 2027 which will be in time for any new IND District transfer requests for the 2728 school year Fernbrook is a great example of this the building has been
tight for quite some time and we need to see how new changes are supported um with the boundary adjustments for that first year busting information that usually goes along with these changes will be shared in its normal timeline in the regular back to school season so for the fall of 26 implementation expect to
see a communication regarding transportation in August of 2026 a lot more answers to frequently asked questions have been added to the boundary website feel free to check them out at again district279.org boundaries at this time I'm going to turn it back to assistance
superintendent parpart to talk about the transition and feedback opportunities first our district greatly appreciates your flexibility with these changes please know that our entire oio area schools team is here for you to
help make this transition go as smoothly as possible all our schools as always will be very welcoming mean to students and their families as this change is made make sure to reach out and connect if your school is reassigned also if you
have any questions please don't hesitate to reach out to our hotlines at better future at district279.org or by calling 763 391
8990 at any time it is now time for the feedback portion of the night likely what you've all been patiently waiting for as I've shared Community voice is very important to us and there are two ways that you can choose to provide
feedback this evening option one is to go to your assigned small group your name tag color matches the small group that you're assigned to and in a minute the facilitator of each small group will hold up the color for their group so you
can easily find where you need to go if you haven't been assigned a group please report to the check-in table at the entrance and we'll get you all set up the second way you can provide feedback is to utilize the QR code on the screen
and fill out the Google form via the website link all of your feedback whether that's via the small group or through the feedback form will be reviewed by the core team team in the coming weeks again this month will
likely wrap up districtwide feedback opportunities final attendance boundaries are expected to be approved in May before we close out the presentation portion of this evening I want to
introduce School Board member director director Erica Foster and I want to thank you for being here with us tonight Erica and once again a reminder to all of you that there are multiple ways for you to stay
informed refer to district279.org boundaries for the latest information parents and caregivers you can stay tuned to regular updates via email and text and all of our community members
can also connect with these hotlines better future at two at District 27 99.org or by calling 763 391 899 thank you again so much for joining
us tonight and taking time out of your busy schedules we really appreciate all of your help with making these needed changes to be the best that they can be so thank you very much and at this time could the the groups hold up their uh
facilitators hold up the colors and if you want want to match your name