##VIDEO ID:PeaNFCFL4K8## e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e thank you so much for coming out this evening I Dr K I'm a superintendent of this wonderful District here as school and I thank all of you for taking time to come out find the information we really need your voice on this this is just a starting point there no final decisions on anything has been made so I really appreciate you coming out and putting your voice in the room so I also want to welcome our school board chair uh Tanya Prince is here as well and we have several Administration team here cabinet members here I think that's the only board member okay so we'll go ahead and get started so today we're going to have a lot of information to share for you so you're going to come and you're going to leave and probably have more information that you have in p and you probably end up honestly having more questions as well so that's okay we have several ways that we be able to get more information and to continue to put your voice in ground so the main thing I just want to let you know is a superintendent once again no final decisions made we need all of your input to do what's best for I call babies just mind you sending us your precious people but our Scholars so we have a lot to cover this evening and you probably see up on the slid so once again we just want to share a little bit about our school district here what is an attendance boundary what is that actually in town why do we need to change attendance boundaries what is that process that timeline or when we that occur the parameters used to form that where did that come from we just pull them out of the sky having that come about uh the proposed scenario and details surrounding them what exactly is the transition plan for our young scholars and it is of course the opportunity for you to me together to give us your input and your thoughts on um the first round of potential scenarios so o schools this is my second year as o schools as a superintendent and one of my goals when I came in is that I wanted to ensure that we are a very large District but I wanted to assure that we are one Community for all our goal is not to just help one geographic area but it's to help all areas and it's also point to me personally and our goal of the district is to ensure all places have value in the earth so you hear that said quite a few quite a bit so all voices value and heard what exactly does that mean for o area schools it means that all of our stakeholders that means our students and our staff and our parents and caregivers and our community members all play an important part in this district and we acknowledge that so you should feel seen and appreciated as a part as part of a your school district whether it's today whether it's tomorrow or 5 weeks from now we want you to understand that you are important to us as a district so another foundational tool that we use here in a in uh schools is a concept called holding space and what holding space is another way that we go about seeing how everyone is valued and heard and I know you all know how to read but I'll just say it quickly so what is holding space so holding space means that we're willing to walk alongside another person in whatever Journey they're on without judging them making them feel that 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 we let go of judgments and judgment and control so we are very transparent with us through this attendance boundary process so tonight we're going to enter into holding space for each other there's no such thing as a wrong answer there's no such thing as a wrong question you are able to come into your authentic self we know that it's could be emotionally charged we do want respect to be in the room but please don't worry about your thoughts of how your thinking doesn't agree with someone else at the table we need to hear all voices I'm totally going off script came and I hope that's okay so thank you once again for coming this evening okay what is aier with schools we're huge we're the fifth largest school district in the state of Minnesota so we're just going to look at some real quick facts just for you to get kind of an idea who we are so a area school encompasses all parts of eight communities the ranges as far from dating to Rogers and Cochran in the far Northwest to parts of Plymouth to the South and gin Center to the east the two largest communities we serve at Brooklyn Park and Maple Grove um with the city of L seal in the center about 160,000 community members live within this entire area um we sered nearly about 21,000 students and more than 15,000 of our students choose to utilize our transportation that's offered so this equates to about 36,000 bus routes that are done daily and we appreciate our drivers and our um staff of works and transportation so we have a total of 31 school buildings So currently right now we have 24 traditional elementary middle and high schools we have seven what we call special program sites including area Learning Center and early childhood centers soon we have a 32nd School building thanks to our community support for building a better future there will be a new Elementary School that'll be built in the very northwest corner of the district and that is set at this time to open in the fall of 2026 so if you look at all of our school buildings they all are between 24 and 100 years old so the sizes of each building varies quite a bit from different uh from the different time periods of which they were built correct so so some were created with capacity level differences amongst the entire District we just have some are smaller some are larger so this is most noticeable at our elementary level so the more older schools tend to be smaller and the newer schools are a little larger so the school buildings were also place where Community growth was being experienced at that time during different eras and space available so in a general sense Brooklyn Park and Brooklyn Center to be more established neighborhoods right now and then we have maple gr de at plym our sites that are growing more so just one last fun fact because you really don't care but we'll say it all the school buildings spread out on 703 acres of land for osto area schools so next our goal is always we work for you uh there's an old under armored commercial it's called we must respect this house this is your house this is your District we listen to you and we have strong community support that shows that so it's important for us to know that our community members feel that you like what we're doing and we going continue working towards that goal so 82% of survey respondents say good or excellent on how well the quality of our school district is 87% or all of our most our student needs are being met and 84% that they're proud of our schools and we recommend it to others that's not enough for us we will keep continuing and for you to understand we work for you that is that's why we're here so what is an attendance value let's get into it right that's why you came in on this evening so some of the lingual or the terms we're using to share about this change can be confusing so we want to make sure that everyone understands that we want to make sure it's clear understandable as you interact with this information so it's look at what exactly is an attendance boundary an attendance boundary is a geographical area which students are eligible to extend in a school distri this means your household address is a sent Elementary a middle and a high school so in essence this process may change the Elementary Middle School your household is currently set to attend so a quick note students may be moved between school buildings within the district but attendance boundary changes will not impact which students are assigned to attend AIO schools versus surrounding area schools like a Noah White where I was there so what that means because we touched so many cities if your address is currently in one of those addresses you will still attend those schools in another District so this only obtains to those ACA area schools that are have addressed within our Cal area schools so why do we need to change what's occurring why is this happening right now so the simplest way to be able to explain that is has to do where our students are going and what what our students can hold so this can obviously change from year to year and decade to decade so we have an enrollment capacity and management advisory committee or it's called EAC and this is not a lot of districts have this and this is a really Stellar committee that we have and we have had it for years so their goal is to monitor enrollment ships in conjunction with their school building capacities for the last several years their most recent reports that have detailed significant enrollment and balances that exist across our district specifically there is significant growth in our Northwest portions of the district and there's future Housing and Redevelopment are expected in those same areas so in addition to this there are also some districts schools that are under capacity so ecac worked uh helped to form a 2023 or builda better future referendum and there was a building a better future oversight task force as well that agreed with our at Max suggestions an additional facility space became a part of the 22 2023 referendum as a result so again we want to thank our community support for that building a better future I thought that was M okay building a better H John sounds like is it um so again we want to thanks everyone from about our hearts for supporting our building a better future as we will will end up having part of that a new Elementary School in addition to na grow Senior High School were approved to address those space constraints so next why attendance boundaries May changing all right so looking once again as we stated before looking at to 2023 building a better future referendum it was additionally noted that attendance boundary changes were needed no matter what that outcome of that last referendum was going to be with additional facility space been added with the Community referendum support attendance boundary changes thankfully will be limited to just elementary and middle schools and impact fewer families than promised so just to be clear it means there are no changes being made at the high school level no changes made at the high school level so we understand that uh communities of course we all do we all do make lots of decisions based on your household School assignment so this process is not something we want to do all often in fact the last time that hosary schools had to do a boundary change was 15 years ago since the last one was done so we come to a point where now it's needed to be done again so what's the timeline what we what are we working on for this this attendance value change actually kicked off this fall so at that time our community members had an opportunity to provide their thoughts on the parameters what how will we decide to go about and how what do we need to do for this attendance boundary change so also there was a coure team that was established to help us create proposed scenarios and you'll see four of those this evening so nearly 3,000 community members partic participated in giving us thoughts of what should be our parameters for setting up the tenance boundaries for this change and they're now called our community build parameters which will go through them momentarily so since mayate September this attendance boundary change Court tee has been utilizing those Community build parameters to develop the scenarios that you'll see today so tonight you'll be seeing those four but between now April and May we will be reviewing the community feedback and considering adjustment to those scenarios so once again I want to let you know what's there is not the end result your voice matters so uh we are looking forward to hearing from you so it's early this afternoon just under 300 community members have already shared additional thoughts on additional on uh uh the boundary changes so tonight it just be an additional opportunity to add on to that so the final attendance boundaries are expected to be announced by the end of the school year the new attendance boundaries however will not go into effect until fall of 2026 nothing is occurring but we just wanted to make sure we had enough lead way to uh have input from our parents be transparent again gather information adjust as we need to give you the opportunity again gather information and adjust and let parents and I don't want know by the end of the year without any movement into fall of 2026 so the new attendance boundaries won't go into effect until then and the only exception to this is CH through Elementary these families will make their moves in a fall 2025 and we'll explain why our building better future plan Shar the elementary school will be repurposed and it's going to be repurposed to Ser serve uh prek grades en richment Community Based programs and we're contining to gather more input on that school so after much research and uh and consideration cresy Elementary School was the school chosen to do that so cres was kindergarten through grade five students and staff will be moving schools in the fall of 2024 and the start of 2526 school year so that's just the one school that was uh done differently that school will only need to move once those students will not need to move in a fall of 2026 because their adjustment will be happening because that building is being repurposed that those students and families will move into the new site fall of 2025 so you likely put these two pieces together but the 2026 timeline matches with opening of the new school in the Northwest Maple Grove so this this time I'm going turn this over to John Morad our Executive Director of Finance and operation to walk us through the parameters and propose scenar thank you Dr H okay so we're going to start by talking about the community parameters um that the core team worked on to create the proposed scenarios we're going to show you in just a minute so here you have the list I'll go over really quickly um first of all Center our core values honor integrity belonging inclusion Innovation Excellence transparency and intrinsic value ensure scenarios can function within 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 that were established by the school board consider the number of students impacted for each scenario and consider student demographics of each scenario a few more uh consider connecting more schools levelto level meaning elementary students move together to Middle Schools more frequently than we do today keeping neighborhoods intact as much as possible minimizing non-contiguous or non- adjoining areas if you're not sure what that means think of here's your boundary and then there's a chunk that's not connected to it that gets picked up and brought over it's it's trying to minimize or eliminate that uh maintain the 8/10 of a mile Elementary and one mile secondary walk zone for transportation service areas maintain safety standards in regard to bus routing avoiding major highways and so forth avoid leny lengthy travel time on buses and comply with state laws award policy and negotiated agreements so as you can see this is a pretty thorough list of parameters that was established and as we review the four proposed scenarios you may notice that some of the the parameters are adhered to um in more scenarios than others so so we we're doing our best but we also want to make sure there's differences in the scenarios to provide more room for feedback okay so just a reminder um in a few minutes we're going to go through the four specifics on the scenarios as Dr H mentioned you will have an opportunity to provide feedback and ask questions in the small group L of tonight's event which is after the presentation so in the meantime if you do have a question that comes up please just jot down your comments I know there's paper and stuff around at the tables and make sure that you have that and then we'll get to that in those small groups um quick overview of the proposed scenarios um bullet points two and three mentioned specific groups of students that would be impacted as noted in the community growth parameters this was looked at for all scenarios and this is just a snapshot so between 1,800 and 3,700 elementary and middle school students would move which is approximately 8 to 18% of our total student enrollment again Dr H mentioned high school students are not impacted in any of these scenarios as we promised we would not move those boundaries racial demographics of schools wouldn't change by more than 5% in the majority of cases poverty demographics also wouldn't change by more than 5% % in the majority of cases okay here's what you've been waiting for here is scenario number one and I want to start by um explaining each map to ground everybody so we're looking at it the same you're looking at a map that is a combination of middle school and Elementary Middle School is based on color so orange the orange area goes to oio middle the red area goes to Maple Grove Middle the green area to Northview Middle the Blue Area to Brooklyn midle well within each color group you will see the proposed attendance boundaries for the elementary schools that feed that particular middle school and you'll also see that some elementary schools in this case one has a purple hashtag color to it those schools are proposed to split to more than one Middle School one of the goals in the parameters was to reduce the number of elementary schools that split students to different middle schools to give you a reference today we have seven elementary schools that splits to multiple middle schools in this scenario we are at proposing one approximately 3,000 students um and the other piece of the map if you notice this the the hatched area there's a little breakout down to the bottom left of the map that shows you the specifics of that hatched area so in this scenario it's Edenbrook Elementary that would split to two different middle schools being North View Middle to the South and Brooklyn Middle to the north and so each of those sections as we go through the four will kind of show you where those breakouts are um approximately 3,000 Elementary Middle School students would be impacted in scenario number one some of the strengths of this scenario are its building use of effic and efficiency elimination of non adjoining Geographic areas and an improved feeder likee structure as students would move with classmates from elementary to Middle again in all but one building neighborhoods would remain mostly intact um as more natural boundaries like May roadways Parks creeks and lakes are utilized all but one school building Cedar island is within its own attendance boundary Cedar Island just across the street from where it's the it's predominant and boundary is this mean that students closest to each school would be able to walk attend attend that school and potentially even walk there Middle School non- adjoining Geographic areas that currently exist in North View Middle School would be eliminated all school buildings would be within their own attendance boundary so again students closest to each school would have the ability to attend their and potentially Lo moving to scenario number two so again color scheme the same um but we'll carry on on this particular scenario so this is built to provide a more minimal change while still meeting as many parameters as possible approximately 2100 elementary and middle students would be impacted in this scenario some of the strengths of this SC scenario are the low number of changes functionality within our system including efficiencies with building use and transportation services elimination of non- adjoining Geographic areas and an improved feeder likee structure as students would move with classmates from elementary to middle school this scenario I didn't mention this on the first one the first scenario this scenario um are would both last for the foreseeable future so we wouldn't anticipate boundary changes would be needed again for longer than many us will be around the elementary school neighborhoods would remain mostly intact as more natural borders again highways Parks creeks and lakes would be are utilized all school buildings would be within their own attendance boundary this means students closest again to each school would be able to attend there and potentially walk if they're inside the lock Zone only one Elementary School would split to multiple middle schools in the situation again Edinburgh Middle School non adjoining Geographic areas currently exist in North View would be eliminated all school buildings would be within their own attendance boundary and most um more students close to that school would be able to attend and potentially walk so we're going to move to scenario number three this is a little more aggressive scenario um and the one that moves the most number of students this proposal moves 3,700 students at the middle and elementary level some of the strengths of the scenario are building use efficiency and elimination of the non jooin geographical areas and again an improved feeder likee structure although here we're going to two schools that have a split um rather than one in the first two proposals again more classmates would be able to follow from elementary to middle school this scenario is also um excuse me would also last for the foreseeable future Elementary School neighborhoods would mostly be intact um again following the natural borders all but one school building um at the elementary level again being Ceder Island would be within its own attendance boundary this means again students closer to that school can walk a few more are eligible for within that that attendance boundary to either be able to walk to school or go to the closest school to them um I mentioned the two elementary schools that would split uh little different changes at the middle school capacity issues at the middle school are addressed non- adjoining geographical areas that currently exist near North View would be eliminated however three middle schools would be within the North View Middle School attendance boundary so right now that would remove the ability of stum students who live very close to a middle school to be able to attend their neighborhood Middle School moving to the last scenario this is scenario number four um this scenario moves the least number of students this moves approximately 1,800 students the strength of this scenario is the low number of its changes however because it moves the fewest number of students new Middle School attendance boundaries would need to be readdressed by the fall of 2028 so from an elementary standpoint it would last for the foreseeable future but from a middle school standpoint we're really just kicking the can 3 years or so um Elementary this is very similar it's the same scenario scenario 2 at the elementary level but the feeder like structure as students move from elementary to middle school is not as improved as you see here there are three elementaries that split between middle schools I'll explain why in just a minute this means students closest to each school will be able to attend and potentially walk there the three elementary schools that split are Edenbrook parkbrook and Fa Oaks um at the middle school level this is similar to scenario 2 the only difference here is that we would keep two two of the three non- adjoining non-contiguous areas that currently exist at North View Middle School all but one building Brookland middle Falls within its own attendance foundary and it's right across the street from it its line in this scenario that means students closest to each school will be able to attend and potentially walk there is another page and we'll show you we we have the four scenarios up at there there's a fifth board the fifth board is showing the middle school for scenario 4 only to show you where those non-contiguous areas are so you can better see and again following the same color scheme that we mentioned earlier um it's very similar to our current Middle School boundaries there are still sections within North View that would go to oio middle and maple Gro middle however as I mentioned this is a short-term solution and we would need to propose additional boundary changes at the middle level no later than the fall of [Music] 2028 okay so now that you've seen the four scenarios I'm sure you have a common question of starting with how does this affect me it's kind of hard to look on a map especially if you're in a bound pretty close to a boundary so we have a solution for that for you you can see the QRS up here um to help you with that please check out the boundary website or utilizing these QRS will um take you to an interactive map for each of the proposed scenarios where you can type in your address and then it will tell you specifically this is your Elementary School this is your middle school this is your high school it's going to ask you to verify so when you put your address in it's going to ask you to verify when your house pops on the map is this where the house belongs you say yes it'll tell you which three schools there there are four different ones because there are four of these interactive tools one for each scenario so you could see hey this is how scenario one affects me this is how scenario two affects me if there's a difference again the website for the district is district279.org boundaries we do have Chromebooks available over on the table to my left tonight if you would like to take a look or utilize that option those are set up for you I want to take a few minutes to go through some very common frequently asked questions U more questions can of course be asked in your small groups and there is a more extensive list of frequently asked questions available on the website um as new attendant boundaries will be determined more than a year ahead of their implementation um be kind of hold harmless so where students within their School District boundaries can stay at their current assigned school um will not be an option some I should clarify that so so within today if you're in school a as your boundary school and your boundary changes but you didn't move you're going to be assigned to a new school um there are some scenarios that come up and I'll go through that here so some FAQs on IND District transfer and open enrollment just start with a quick reminder there's a difference between those two things so IND District transfer provides our current Community residents people who live within our outer District boundary the ability to transfer between some of our schools open enrollment allows students from outside our outer boundary to attend our schools open enrollment is a Statewide offering and thus has specific requirement processes current in District transfer or open enrollment students can remain at their chosen sites if they desire applications do not need to be refilled out for this school board procedure prohibits the district from offering IND District transfer to impact in schools during attendance boundary transition years this means new IND District transfer requests will not be allowed at District elementary or middle schools until the completion of the 2728 school year doing this enables our district to see the most accurate representation of the changes that were proposed and helps us to better evaluate the select success and long-term efficiency of the boundary changes you more frequently asked questions so current restricted IND District transfer and open enrollment schools thank you um will remain in place so so current restrictions will remain in place until a review has been completed which will happen no later then today in 2027 January 15th of 2027 um which will be in time for any new industry transfer requests for the 2728 school year Fernbrook is a great example of this that building has been tight for quite some time and we need to see how the new changes are going to be supported there um through a full school year busing information that goes along with these changes will be shared as it usually is in the regular back to school session season so for fall of 26 implementation expect to see communication in August of 2026 likely it will be searchable online prior to this lots more answers to frequently asked questions have been added to the boundary website and please feel free to check them out the same district279.org boundaries and at this time I'm going to turn it back to Dr Kile to talk about transition and feedback opportunities all right thank you we're almost to the point where we're going to let you get busy and start to gather input so once again I just greatly appreciate your flexibility and working with these changes so please know our entire a school district team is ready here to make this transition as smoothly as possible so we're all partners for our babies and our Scholars and make it uh smooth as as we can so all of our schools of course will be very welcoming uh to all of our students in the fallowing 2026 and for anything that any questions that you have reach out to your schools reach out to the district you there's no point where you can't reach out and give us your voice so we want to make sure you understand that also if you have questions don't hesitate to reach to our hotlines as well if then build a better future better future at district279.org or at the phone number 76 3391 899 and you can reach out to that at any time okay so what we're waiting for let's get busy right for that feedback portion of the evening so that shared Community voice is very important to us there are two ways that you can provide feedback so option one is to go to your assigned small group there's a color on your name tag that matches the small group you're assigned to to and a minute each facilitator of a small group will hold up the color for that group so you can go to that assigned group feel free to go to our checking table at the entrance entrance if they they'll get you set up for that if you don't have it the second way of course that you can provide feedback this to utilize the QR code on the screen that fill out the Google form via the website we want to do it where you feel most comfortable in sharing your voice so all of your feedback whether VI your group that you're in or the form form that is filled out will be reviewed by our coure team in the next coming weeks adjustments will be made as a result of your feedback so new proposed scenarios are expected to be shared in March and at that time once again you'll have the opportunity to provide feedback so please make sure you stay tuned for those next uh future steps so again here are multiple ways uh to still informed during the process refer to district279.org boundaries for the L parent and caregivers can stay tuned to regular updates via email and text all our community members can also connect with these following hotlines so thank you again for coming tonight and we'll help uh and your help with making these needy changes the best as we can we do have one more uh uh two school board members that have come so we have uh director Kelsey Dawson who is here as the school board meeting and director uh as well Erica Foster that's here who will be hey and director Keith tapate this here as well so uh we have several people here for you so you go to your table we will try our best to give you the answers that you need if you don't have it we'll make sure we get that answer to you so next steps are we're going to have people hold up cards kid go ahead okay