The study session of the Independent School District 535 School Board is called to order at 5:32 a.m. on Tuesday, May 13th, 2025 in room 137 of the Edison building. The board acknowledges this site and all RPS sites are situated on
the ancestral land of the Dakota people. And we honor the Dakota nations and the sacred land of all indigenous peoples. Present at this meeting are school board members, Superintendent Kent Pel, a non- voting exeicio member, and assistant schoolboard clerk, Miss Anne Kramer. Miss Kramer, will you
please call the role? here. Here at this time, we offer the opportunity to say the pledge of allegiance. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic
for it stands nationisible with liberty and justice for all. Item 2.1 is approval of the agenda. Are there any changes to the agenda? Approval. Second. It has been moved and seconded to approve the agenda. All
those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? The agenda has been approved. The agenda and documents for this meeting are available online at rochesterchools.orgsimly. Our focus topic tonight is enrollment projection and student demographics summary. Superintendent.
Thank you, Chair Nathan, board members. Good evening. Thanks everybody for being here. Um, this is our sole subject tonight and it's a meeting that we added for this subject and I think that's indicative of the importance of the issue that I know you as board members place on it, that I place on it, that everybody in our leadership team places
on it. Um, not only does enrollment reflect the uh number of students we have the privilege to educate, it also determines our budget in ways that uh I've recently had cause to understand not all of our stakeholders understand
at quite the level is that's going to be important to navigate the challenges we'll be talking about tonight. Um, I have heard frequently, why are some schools needing to make reductions for next year when the referendum passed? And I understand the cognitive
dissonance there. It is true that thanks to the referendum, we're not doing the three things that we said we will not need to do for at least the first five years of that 10-year referendum, which are raising class sizes set by our district-wide targets, closing schools,
or making major cuts to programs. But the referendum dollars, like the general fund dollars, like the compensatory dollars are all tied to enrollment. And so there is no check that comes in the mail divorced from the number of students we serve. And so that is why we
have recently updated our enrollment projection that I will be walking you through. Now, as you all know, I am not a demographer or a demographic expert in any respect. Uh this study that we have before you tonight was done by Dr. Hazel Reinhardt, who was the former and
longtime Minnesota state demographer, who happened to have had a particular focus on um K through2 enrollment projections during her tenure state demographer. Um she has done a very good piece of work uh for us here. She was unable to join us tonight. Should the board want to schedule a subsequent
session with Dr. Reinhardt, we certainly could do it. I will tell you having uh spent quite a bit of time not just with uh her report but with her in dialogue including from some uh questions that chair Nathan uh asked me uh to dialogue with her about and that we subsequently
integrated into the report. I don't believe that's necessary but if there are aspects of the methodology that you'd like to probe in person with her she would be glad to do that. Um but uh my level of expertise and then uh some of my colleagues John and Andy and
others who've been looking at this with me um only go so far. Um though I've learned an awful lot um since I came to Rochester about uh enrollment projections. Um it's important to also highlight before I jump into the overview and then we get to our
discussion that Dr. Reinhardt says in a single sentence in the report something that's quite important as a starting point which is that the methodology that a demographer uses for longer term budget pro uh enrollment projections are not the methodology you use to budget
for the next school year. That is because inherent in this projection as we'll talk about often tonight are assumptions and um formulas that have historical validity but that are not necessarily reflective of the students we serve at the present moment. And so
you'll note in her report, although it's one sentence in a long report, that she recommends we continue to use the methodology that we currently use to project the following year's budget, which is essentially looking at the kids we actually have and moving them up a
grade or projecting them to be retained in Rochester public schools. However, these long-term enrollment projections are very important as we get into a long-term strategy. Since I came to Rochester, uh we've been using a an enrollment projection that I'll touch on
in a moment that we did uh shortly after I arrived for our long-term modeling. And we will do the same with this projection when we bring you a longerterm financial strategy in June. But an important difference between the budget which we will also bring you in
June for the 2526 school year and the way you project kids forward one year and the way you project them two or more years um in the future. So with that as background I should say probably many of
us are are are uh experimenting with AI. I asked Chat GPT to draw something that looked like Rochester public schools on that graphic. So, that was a that was a pretty fast estimation of our school district. Um, which I thought was, you know, the more I use it, the more I'm
amazed. Um, this is not a uh graphic from uh Chat GPT. It's a graphic from the New York Times. It was a an opinion uh piece and an analytic piece that I thought had an important headline for our purposes here. Schools soon won't soon we won't have enough kids to fill
our schools. That's a problem. We are as a field uh embarking on the first sustained decline in student enrollment that we have seen in decades. We have had a decade long rise. This year's senior class, which we are very excited to uh graduate in a few weeks, is the
largest that we'll see for at least the next 20 years, barring some unforeseen large immigration movement into the United States. And so schools everywhere are beginning to grapple with um that reality including as the press post bulletin has reported uh some of the
smaller districts right around Rochester. So it's very important not to see this as a unique Rochester public schools phenomenon. Uh it's one that many communities with a few exceptions because of unique circumstances uh are going to be facing. Chair Nathan and I
were on a panel this morning at the uh Rochester Chamber of Commerce. Um and there is a striking tension though in our community between the optimism and the projections of growth in employment uh and in population and the disconnect
in families that have young children who are expected to live within the boundaries of Rochester public schools. And so that was present on all of our minds as we listened to our colleagues from the city talk about these exciting projections. Um, and a really extraordinary graph that shows how much
Mayo Clinic's investment in Bold, Forward, Unbound eclipses US Bank Stadium and almost everything else that's been done uh in any city in the United States in recent years and the reality that's included um in this report. But there are reasons that are
also described in this report. And as we will end our conversation today, there's a lot that we can do about this. Demography in some ways is destiny and in other ways it's not because there's a lot we can do as a school system. As I mentioned in um April of 2022, we shared
with you an enrollment projection that we put in place shortly after I arrived in Rochester and uh Cooperative Strategies was a very experienced uh firm that did the analysis for us. Um I will say in preparation for this study session, I reread the whole report and
it actually was also a very good piece of work. Um part of the challenge though was this report was done as you all remember well right while we were still in the waning days of the pandemic. In fact we were still uh wearing masks when
we actually contracted uh with this report. And so the demographers who worked for cooperative strategies were quite clear that this had thrown um uh a lot of uncertainty into their long-standing methodology of predicting
K12 enrollment. Um, among other things, many families held their kids back and didn't enroll them in kindergarten. And a lot of those kids were expected to just start a year later or two years later, uh, and all show up in those projections. Some of them have never shown up in, uh, school district
projections. And it's uncertain whether that's homeschooling or distance learning or, uh, other things that have just not been able to be captured in the data. So when we did that projection, the uncertainty was significant enough that as you'll recall, cooperative
strategies actually gave us four scenarios. And you can see them. I couldn't create a better graphic, but um they're certainly there. There's four scenarios, three of which were a downward trend and one of which was an upward trend. And they did have a recommended scenario, which was the one
that is next to the bottom. They thought that was most likely. That's the one we've adopted in our recent uh uh financial modeling and uh we have slightly beat it every year. We've done slightly better than that projection,
but it was a downward um projection that did put the district on that path, but they were uncertain as to where the district might be headed given all of the factors that were in play when we did that uh projection in late 2021,
early 2022. So, we decided this was the time to update our projection, especially as we move into thinking about a new strategic plan and some important facilities decisions that I'll be bringing you this summer. And so, that's where we got to Dr. Reinhardt's
projection. One thing that I uh pulled out of the cooperative strategy study um which you'll find is is in that study, I'd be glad to uh forward that to you if you're interested, is they did have these interesting almost heat maps that illustrate where our kids live relative to the boundaries of the school
district. And I thought it was interesting to include this one because it really shows something that is relevant tonight and it will also be relevant in June when we bring you some facilities recommendations which is that not all our buildings are housed uh adjacent to where our families live
today. They may have been in the right place 70 years ago in some instances, but today we have some challenges of proximity which are not solved by our public transit system in Rochester, which is mostly designed to move employees in and out of the middle of
the city as opposed to across neighborhoods uh through the city. So, this is just a quick uh glance a glimpse of where we were in 2021 2022. Dr. Reinhardt uh who works as a sole consultant didn't have uh graphics like
this in in her report but it certainly several years later largely reflects the same reality uh which is something that we'll be uh grappling with in the years ahead. So we decided to update that projection. Very important point here
that um uh we talked about quite a bit at the staff level in putting this together. Historically and in the cooperative strategies group projection we have included school readiness voluntary pre kindergarten early childhood special ed care and treatment
in our enrollment numbers. Dr. Reinhardt uh recommended only including the meat and potatoes K12 students because they are the central drivers of enrollment. They are the largest numbers. So she did that in her projection and I uh think
that we will continue to do that as we use this projection in our future long-term planning. But I want to be really clear that if there's a well or there is a a difference of few hundred kids um it's a function of this projection focusing only on our students who are actually enrolled in our K
through 12 schools. The big picture story is very much the same. Um one other point I'd make before we jump into this is that it's a related point. There is new information in this projection. There's new information
about our market share. there's new information about options outside Rochester public schools that kids are choosing. There's certainly new information on the birth rate and things. Um and so it is somewhat different than the previous projection
and then and some of the ways we've talked about um our future strategy in Rochester public schools. That's what happens when you get new knowledge, when you actually invest in things. There was never any uh none of this was information we were uh aware of. Nor is
it any kind of a cataclysmic shift or a smoking gun. But I just want to say that when you learn something new, you shift your perspective. And so there are a number of things uh in here that are a bit different than the way we've talked about our enrollment in the past, but
that's because we have better information now. We have a broader, more rigorous study um that's going forward. So for instance, some of the information we shared during the referendum campaign on Rochester public schools mark market share was several percentage points higher than what Dr. Reinhardt found.
That was certainly not because we inflated the number. It's because she had a much more rigorous methodology in her ability to find kids who are not enrolled in RPS than we did not being PhD demographers. Um and so that's one example of something where we now have
uh learned some valuable things. So what did Dr. Reinhardt's projection share? Um the first part was a historical walk back looking at Rochester public schools over the last 10 years. As you all saw from reading the report, she found that
um over that period, our actual enrollment really went up and then uh went down. And so that the total enrollment is up 04 percentage points or 63 kids. Um there was a peak in 2019 uh 2020. Um and then we had a decline and
that COVID 19 as it did in all school districts exacerbated that decline especially in kindergarten as families either enrolled their kids later or found uh other educational options. when she looked at the causal
factors, the first one cannot be emphasized enough. The birth rate in the United States has declined by 20% since the great recession of 2008. I was over meeting with the school improvement team at um Gage Elementary and we were talking about this and two young
teachers um uh kind of raised their hands and and said, "Yep, we're not having kids and we don't know if we ever will." and they were making a very clear generational point um that was very different than when I was in my 20s as a
teacher. And so they were kind of like joking about the cost of you know having kids but they weren't they were raising a really profound generational point. So this is something that is going to be so important to keep front and center for our community. If if this enrollment
projection is discussed absent the decline in birth rate and only seen as a reflection of Rochester public schools, we are missing by far the biggest factor in this rate. But there is increased competition from homeschooling charter and private schools and uh Dr.
Reinhardt's projection gives us uh some new and at least in my experience better data on that. She found that that kindergarten decrease uh is a critical factor. that is where kids enter the system and especially because we have a
great educational program for kids once they enter um the vast majority of them stay but when we don't have those kids uh entering in kindergarten it has lasting effects for um the subsequent years and then we did find some interesting out migration at the elementary levels and then uh in
migration at the high school level that was reflected in the data in terms of kids coming into the school district. So those are some of the causal factors and she has uh more explanation in the report um that I pulled out briefly. Um
where have the kids gone who are uh living within the boundaries of Rochester public schools, all 218 square miles of us um who are not enrolled in our district. 2529 of them are enrolled um in other districts.
694 go to public charter schools um for a total of 3,223 kids that are in other public options. Dr. Reinhardt also finds that 2256 are enrolled in private schools and 634 are homeschooled. I grouped those
together as I think she did as a non-public option even though homeschool is actually very different than private school. So when you add that together, we see there are 6,133 students who live within the boundaries of our school district who do not attend Rochester public schools. And
the decisions that those families have made and the decisions those families will make in the future about the education of their kids, I would submit is should be a major major focus of our work um going forward. They are people who we should be reaching out to uh in
increasingly effective ways and whose needs we should be seeking to meet so that they will consider entrusting us uh with their children. And then you can see when we do that uh look back as I mentioned a moment ago uh our market share has declined. The market share uh
Dr. Reinhardt notes of every public school district in Minnesota has declined. This has been the decade of expansion of other options. I'll say personally, I think in many ways that's good as long as our core school districts remain viable and vibrant um both educationally and financially. It's
so important to note that we educate more than 72% of the kids in this community. And so the great majority of young people who will shape Rochester's future are being educated in Rochester public schools. So what's the projection?
Here's kind of the the kicker slide. um for the next five years and this is largely conversant I think it's important to say with the cooperative strategies projection um uh there is a projection of our district being from 15,281 kids to
15,321 kids um down 6% or 7.4% um and that would play out between now and 2030. That is to say the largest projected decline is the next five years. there is somewhat less decline in the subsequent years after that um
potentially heading down to 14,3882 uh or 14,697 students. So there's the core uh projection uh that's there. Um the projection breaks it down by grade level which I think is actually very important
because of course if you're teaching in an elementary school your focus is on the kids in elementary middle school you're focused on the early adolescent kids in high school uh the older teenagers. So uh when you look at the projection um over the next five years I
should have put that on this slide. This is the next five years projected decrease of 540 to 663 kids at elementary. projected decrease of 189 to 235 at middle and a projected decrease at high school of 230 to 358. Again,
that's not a linear decrease because we have some kids who leave while they're in elementary. We have some kids who come in at high school. Um there's the migration or to use a term that I don't think is the best term survival rate um because it brings kind of some dark dark
implications to mind. Um but we can see that differential impact. Now, uh, certainly at the, uh, Chamber of Commerce session that Chair Nathan and I were, I know Director Mclofflin was was there, I don't know if any of the others were there. Um, there was a ton of talk
about housing growth. And one thing that in our discussion uh, with Dr. Reinhardt about the report, uh, she said she rigorously stuck to known housing investments as opposed to planned housing investments. And so this is she
thinks a solid projection but a conservative one in so far as she was not out for instance talking with developers about the complexes they hope to build but was looking at new construction permits looking at data from the city and the county um in a
pretty rigorous way. And so what she found was that there's approximately 875 new units per year projected uh up through about 2030. Um, most of them though are going to be apartments or town homes. And when I've shared this with the city administrator, the county
administrator, they've said yes, that's true and we're working on it because we know more single family homes is an urgent need. One of the other things that's happening in Rochester is people are holding on to their single family homes longer than they historically did.
Presumably, in part because the cost of an alternative is higher than staying in your home with a paidoff mortgage. And so we're not turning over homes for young families in the way that the whole system really is uh intended to do. So
when we look at those apartments and town homes, uh Dr. Reinhardt has a ratio that predicts how many school age children they will yield. And I was talking with uh Dr. Matt Hillman who's the superintendent in Northfield where they are facing similar enrollment
projections. And he also had Dr. Dr. Reinhardt prepar projection but it was several years ago and he said her ratios for town homes apartments and single family homes are distressingly accurate um because they have a lot of the apartment town home phenomenon going in
in Northfield uh which just yields a different uh number of school age kids from the other um and so uh her conclusion was that housing growth is unlikely to significantly boost enrollment. Now that is again something it's actually an example of what I was
talking about before we have uh uh on the advice of our partners from the city the county mayo clinic um our own uh read of the previous enrollment study that did have one of the four scenarios leading to increased enrollment we have
operated on the assumption that uh if they build it they will come uh which is to say that Mayo Clinic's investment the destination medical uh center investment will lead to housing growth? Um, that is a great question that's before us. One of the terms I learned in you reading
Dr. Reinard's report was commuter shed, which is to say the space within which people can commute. And she said, "We have a very large commuter shed and it's possible to work in Rochester and live quite far outside Rochester, thereby not
enrolling your kids in our schools." And so that is another factor that we're going to need to um keep in mind as we go forward. So the bottom line, you all saw it, we face significant enrollment decline. Um it's driven first by demographic trends far more than
increased competition, but increased competition is certainly meaningful and that we need to uh think hard and develop a plan to respond to a smaller student population. And so I want to share now some of my own thoughts. These are not from Dr. Reinhardt or from other
staff. These are my thoughts about um a strategy which we have been um uh working on in the background candidly uh over the last year and that we've taken some steps but that I would suggest needs to go into very high gear um going forward as part of our next strategic
plan. When I initially put this slide together, it said developing a strategy to increase enrollment. And as I actually stepped back and looked at it, I said, "That's actually the wrong title." Because Dr. Reinhardt's analysis and really the the cooperative
strategies analysis before it would suggest that our opportunity is to reduce the decrease in enrollment, not to increase enrollment. Now, I believe reducing the decrease in enrollment is both achievable and positive, but it's
important not to have any um uh false hope that the decline in enrollment can happen be avoided entirely because the birth rate is the birth rate. Um, even if those 6,100 uh students who don't go to our school district were to
immediately enroll in our schools, it would not uh make up for um entirely the well, if all of them did, it would erase the birth rate decline, but that's not going to happen in any realistic scenario. So that uh decline driven by
the birth rate is something that we need to grapple with. So what are some ideas that we might think about? um uh board members have this PowerPoint. It's also posted on assembly. So um I'm just going to touch base on them and then uh turn us to that conversation. The first is
one that is the less hopeful aspirational but I believe it's fundamental that we go into this with crystal clarity and it's not just clarity at the school board and central office level but in our buildings and that is that we have got to reduce staffing and other expenses to reflect
the reality that enrollment entirely drives our budget. As board members are aware, uh, in the 12 years before I got to Rochester, our our student enrollment did go up 7%, but our staff number of staff went up 31%. It was a complete
mismatch in the growth of staff tight enrollment. For next year, I'll just give you a preview of the budget uh that you're going to get in June. We're flat. We're holding things flat. Um, that is certainly much better than staff increasing when student enrollment is going down. But we ultimately are going
to need to bend the curve of staff and expenses, not just staff, moving to reflect the fact that we're serving fewer kids. But as board members know, because you get the emails, kids neither move into or leave a school in groups of 30 at a time. And so the challenge of
adding a section is inexact and challenging, and so is removing a section. But we are going to have to uh be disciplined about the fact uh because there are school districts that do not do this um that our our total expenses
are going to need to reflect the fact that we're serving um fewer kids. Second, understand the types of educational programs and experiences that parents and caregivers want and increase those offerings. This is the exciting piece. as I'm having meetings across our district with staff and
parents and others the number of ideas about new models about new structures new opportunities um uh is continually energizing u for me and thinking about not just what we know will impact our student learning which is critical but
also what impacts their interests what impacts what families want is I think probably going to be one of the two or three big central ideas of the next strategic plan. How do we provide families uh with what they are looking for? Three, emphasize the benefits of
schools with fewer students but rich program offices of offerings such as close relationships and personalized teaching. I really do believe this is true. There is a lot of benefit to schools where kids can be better known and served personally as long as there
are not so few kids in the school that it's not financially viable. there is a situation in which there simply are not enough kids in a school to generate enough dollars to cover the cost of its programming. But um schools that have somewhat fewer kids have also got some
extraordinary opportunities um for um a lot of educational innovation and personal connections. So I think we can leverage that. I think we in some ways can be a district where you get both the benefits of big and the benefits of small um in our programming. Um fourth, we have to be obviously real. we don't
just have a marketing issue where everything is perfect and if we just told our story better uh everything would shift. I think there's some truth to that but we also know we have issues that we need to grapple with. I think the new school improvement process that the board has approved gives us the
right vehicle to do that and so we can face our problems headon whether they're academic or uh about school culture enrollment, family engagement um whatever it might be. Um, but it's important to say that's a that's a piece in this puzzle as well. Um, number five
is adopt and live by a new mission, vision, values, and brand identity that will appeal to our parents and caregivers. I know some in our community were concerned with a a contract we did with a very skilled uh firm that is helping us develop new mission, vision, values, and brand identity. When you break the cost of that down, it's about
$2,500 per school and program. And I think any business that was facing the challenge that we're talking about right now would unquestionably say, should we stick with a 15-year-old brand and a 15-year-old mission and a 15-year-old set of values and hope that people see
us differently? They would not. And so, I think that is going to be a good investment for us. Um, instilling a relentless focus on customer service and every aspect of our work. Um, you all have probably experienced this. I have too. when I walk into one of our
schools, even as superintendent, the way I'm greeted varies dramatically. And I will tell you, I think of parents uh and kids and community members coming in in some school offices in Rochester, whether it's the office manager, the receptionist, the administrators, the
greeting is so warm and positive, I never want to leave. Um and it shapes everything you do as you walk through the building. That is not the case in all of our buildings. I don't think we've had a clear expectation that it needs to be the case going forward. But that's just one example. There are so
many when you are in a situation where enrollment is continually going up. Um it's human nature to be less uh concerned about uh the responsiveness that we have to every single person. We are in an environment where that is going to be uh critical for us going
forward. Number seven is achieve continuous improvement on the measures that you've approved for our new school improvement system. There are families that choose schools based on test scores. I know it's a shocker, but it's true. And anyone who suggests it's not true should go to greatschools.org or
any of the other sites or talk to a realtor and you will find that it does matter. I don't think they choose them only on test scores. I don't think they should, but those indicators also matter for these things. creating schools where students uh and families feel they belong. We have uh said often over the
last several years that that matters to our academic uh agenda and our students academic success. It also matters to our financial success that kids feel that I can be myself. Families feel that they are uh fully represented and connected in our schools. And then recruit and
retain strong staff. Um when we did the survey for the referendum a couple of years ago, statistically representative survey done by um it wasn't RAP Strategies was our our survey guru. What's that? Morris Leman. Morris Leman. They said what's the best thing about
Rochester public schools? Number one was the quality of the teachers. Um that was moving to me. It was it was promising to me. keeping uh and further increasing the degree to which this is where great teachers uh thrive I think is one of the best things that we can be doing going
forward um and I should say as I move through these these are not in order of um importance um and I know that there's a lot here so then what about outreach the way we do tell our story if the first category is really the way we do our work the second is how we tell our story um uh clearly creatively and
continuously conveying that this is a great place to have your kid educated if your goal is to prepare them for the future. That's true academically. It's true of our program offerings. I think it's also true of the diversity of our schools that if you want your young person to be ready to thrive in the
economy and society in which they're going to live their lives, no place is better than Rochester Public Schools. It's unparalleled if your goal really is future readiness. Continually enhance resources on the RPS website that help parents and caregivers learn about our schools. Um,
we've made some strides uh over the last couple years in that. Um, we can continue to do it because it is kind of a a first stopping dropping off point for learning about our system. Proactively reach out to families who live within our district's boundaries but don't send students to RPS. We had
one school this year who sent uh postcards to families in the neighborhood who don't send their kids to RPS and they even sent them across the school boundary to kids who lived in another school district. It was a small uh experiment, but one that I was quite
happy to approve because it came from the principal who said, "Can we do kind of an old school low tech form of outreach to let people know we have a good school here and they should uh take a look at?" I said, "Absolutely." And there's a lot we can do especially with digital um outreach um which I know
Mamsu Kudson our educations director is excited uh to begin to explore conduct early outreach to parents caregivers through hospitals and clinics early childhood programs daycare providers long before their children enter kindergarten. Um I will never forget lying on the floor of children's
hospital in St. call after my son Adam was died born and uh a uh um I was so tired it felt like a death but but uh I was lying on the floor and there was a knock on the door and I happened to work for St. Paul schools at the time and
there was a chipper young person for community ed coming in to give me the baby book and welcome me to St. Paul say we're happy to have Adam in St. Paul schools um in five years from now, which he was, I'm happy to say. Um so that was
the kind of outreach. Number five, inform our realtors, landlords, and others about their current offerings. I've met many realtors in Rochester who know that the caliber of schools is critically important to the families they serve. There are legal requirements for what they can and can't say, but
they also told me they have no regular way of staying updated on what actually is happening in our schools. Um, and of course it's not just realtors, but anybody who's interacting with someone who's new to our community. Um, in uh number six, create regular times for school tours and enhance the quality of
the experience and followup with families. Um, uh, I was walking into Franklin Elementary today. I'm not kidding. And there was a large group of families and little kids coming in for a tour as kindergarteners. And it was exactly what I wanted to see. which is a
nice antidote to the fact that last week I talked to a family that had a very problematic tour and the kid and the parents decided they didn't want to go to the school that they actually were visiting and they were they were really put off by some aspects of it. Fortunately, they've decided to enroll
their student in another one of our schools, but they actually reached out to me and said, "Here's what was problematic about the tour." And I understood, I kind of said, "I don't know if you should make the whole decision based on that tour." They liked the other school that they've chosen.
So, they feel good about it, but boy does that matter. That tour mattered, and it's uh it's something I plan on sharing with the principal uh because I know uh that principal will be concerned about it. Um, and having a regular time. I also know if you're a busy office
manager, principal, teacher, education support professional, dropping what you're doing to give a tour is also really problematic. And so could we have a time during the day when you can go to any Rochester school and get a tour and a time in the evening when you can go to any Rochester school and staff are ready
and they're and we communicate it out so that everybody knows that's a time when you can do it because people do want to get into the building and see where their uh student would be uh going and the students themselves want to do it. Um and then continuously monitor and as appropriate correct information about
RPS on school ranking websites and publications on social media and in the press. Now this is a tricky one because we all know that the era we're living in of of very very heated battles uh on social media and things. But it becomes
clear that when something is outright false, we probably need to lean in more than we have in the last few years to correct it because that can just take on its own um truth and we need to say no that actually is not true. We definitely
do that in certain instances but I think um we probably need to lean into that one a bit more. So operations this is kind of our last category. There's a lot of different ideas here. Um the first one is this has got to be somebody's job and in the near future I'll be
identifying uh leaders who will have ongoing responsibility for coordinating our enrollment efforts. It's no single person's job but um somebody needs to wake up every day and saying this is a key part of my job. Um because I think one of the reasons we haven't had uh a the kind of coherent strategy we've had
in other areas of our work is right now nobody owns this. Um and so we need to um fix that for uh obvious reasons. Number two, very important, we are working um John and his team very hard on some facilities recommendations for
you. Um they that there will be others beyond this June, but we'll be bringing some recommendations uh to you. And uh the critical priority will be using the space we've got as as efficiently as we can. um getting out of space that we're paying additional uh money for uh so
that we actually can move into space that is the most financially affordable and that also meets uh the needs of our students. Make it easier to enroll a student um in RPS through creation of a one-stop location. I know many of you have walked by our one table down the
hall with three chairs bolted, a wonderful staff, but not the most um uh engaging place to come and enroll a student. Um and it doesn't have a one-stop shop aspect to it with nutrition services, transportation,
things like that. um the creation of a physical appealing physical space where people who do come and we have many often whose first language is not English but not always um who come to enroll in person um having a space that is appealing um and welcoming for them
is something that uh comes to mind. Another biggie uh is that we really are going to need to make sure that we can uh enroll people on their phone. Um, the vast majority of families in RPS who interact with the school district
virtually do so on their phones, but you cannot enroll your kid on Rochester in our on the phone in Rochester public schools. Um, as we look to adopt a new student information system, having one that allows us to do that is a critical critical priority um because we got to
meet people um where they are. Number five is one that uh especially as board members have gotten emails I know in recent weeks about class size. Um I wanted to highlight because it's an indirect influence on the choices people make. We know class size uh matters to
teachers, it matters to kids, it matters to families, it matters to us. We also know that you can't uh raise or lower class size without the actual confirmation that the kids are leaving or the kids are coming. And so our class- size decisions right now, um,
Jackie and Carl and John and others watch it like a hawk. They add staff as soon as we're confident there are more kids. Where necessary, where there's too few kids, we reduce staff. Um, but it's a lagging indicator and ways that we could actually be more responsive. I
have principles now whose enrollment is projected to decline telling me, "But I know there's more kids coming next year. We have more tours. We have more calls. more questions. Well, I don't say, "Okay, there you can have two more teachers." Um, but we do need to really work on that so that people know we are
as responsive on class size as we um possibly can be. Number six, implementing a comprehensive language access strategy. We have been working on this over the past year. We'll be presenting it to you in the fall. And it really is about making sure that for our families whose first language is not
English, we can communicate with them in person, in writing, and virtually in ways that they can understand and access. The work that will has led with our and his team with our talking points app has been a quantum leap in that area um over the last and others have been
involved with that, but in particular, it's been uh something that will and Jennifer Spler, Craig, and others have worked on a lot. That's a glimpse of where we need to go in uh multiple different formats. And then number seven, um the work that you know Amy and Nate and the team did in expanding the
school age child care with blistering speed. Um I think is also indicative of the kind of customer service focus that we need. We know that was not simple. Um but we know people choose schools uh because it fits their lives. And so
continuing to build that out, especially for our families who are low-inccome um because they have those same kind of working need challenges. All right, home stretch number eight. Aggressively reach out to students and their parents and caregivers who've been chronically absent, especially those who've been
dropped due to missing 15 days or more, which is required by law. Um this is something that I think we can be much more intentional about. when we have conducted some early efforts to reach out to those 15-day drop students, we've been able to get a hold of quite a few of them and sometimes they've left the
country, sometimes they've left Rochester, um sometimes they're here and they need to be re-engaged. And so that's um obviously something that's beneficial educationally, but it also has a benefit for enrollment. review the level of transportation service that schools receive and
consider changes that better meet family needs while containing costs and keeping school starting and ending time stable. I spent quite a bit of time on that sentence even though I'm sure Dr. Marvin would say it's kind of a run-on because I wanted to be careful. Um, we know the
level of transportation service our schools receive influences where families can send them. And the reductions that we had to make to get to our new start times created challenges uh for families in schools. Um, I think as part of the next strategic plan,
taking a look at are we providing transportation service that is affordable, which is a non-negotiable, but that also meets our family needs to the greatest possible extent, is something that we really need to grapple with. Um, and that's not just as it
applies to the schools we've historically called our district-wide option schools. It applies to schools with attendance boundaries where they have made the case there's not enough kids in my attendance boundary for me to adequately recruit and fill my school because of the way you've drawn the
lines. Now, that is not suggesting I'm recommending changes in attendance boundaries right now. We all know this is highly complex, but I think it's important to say we need to take a look at our transportation uh service. And I'm really excited to say that Dustin Morrow, our new director of
transportation, in addition to having learned the nuts and bolts um of how to make sure kids get to school uh and back home safely, uh has also got a lot of uh I think emerging ideas on the system
itself. And so I'm pretty excited to work with him and with John and others on that. Number 10, evaluate the impact of self-transport option for elementary and middle schools and consider changes that may need be needed. We have had hundreds of families take advantage of
that this year. Um, as you remember, we made that available for elementary and middle schools as part of our attendance options redesign. In many ways, it's been very successful, but it has uh created some mini traffic jams that our schools have mostly handled. Uh, and
some questions of tardy. Uh and then we need to look at what it has meant for some of the demographics of our schools. So that's a complex one. A lot of families, more families have taken advantage of it, including to go from neighborhood school to neighborhood school. So it's been fascinating to see and we'll be putting that on the agenda
to come back to the board with some analysis of what has happened with that. We know that the board chose um not to act on my initial recommendation to expand self-transport to high schools. I understood that completely. Um, I do think given the fact that we are now
looking at the biggest high school class for at least the next couple of decades, we may want to take a look at that option for high schools because to not make that possible when you had high schools that were brimming with kids u may be different than where we'll be in
a few years from now where there is potentially significant uh space in our high schools. But I also understand that's a very complex issue. review the viability of providing students who live in communities outside the boundaries of RPS with transportation into our district. I've told the story before
that during my first week in RPS, I got letters from surrounding school districts informing us as state law requires that they're sending school buses in to pick up our kids. And I said, "Do we ever do that?" And the answer was then and remains a no. Um, now there are are logistical hurdles
with that because if we have long transportation routes, we're putting ourselves back in the problem that we were in when we had long transportation routes within the district. But um, it is something that almost every school district surrounding Rochester does uh, with moving kids in and out. And so why
we would not also make the really strong educational options we have available to those families is something that I think we should grapple with. So I want to end with a quote. um the legendary basketball coach John Wooden, you've all maybe heard this one. Um the more
concerned we become with the things we can't control, the less we do with the things we can control. In the case of enrollment, uh we can't control the birth rate. We have nothing to say uh nor would we want we want to about whether families have kids, but the
quality of the programming and the offerings that we make available are something that's very much within our control. So um that's where I hope we keep um our um focus as we go forward. Um so the three questions that I would
propose madame chair um but at your discretion that I know from the staff level would be valuable to hear board members questions and thoughts about um and also to invite members of the cabinet and Andy and others to jump in. What changes in the work of RPS should
be considered to adapt to the projection of declining enrollment that you've received? Which of the potential strategies to reduce enrollment decline that were included in this presentation do you see as the most promising? What other um issues or questions do you want
to highlight as we begin to develop this long-term strategy? So, thank you for tolerating a long uh overview. That's partly why we scheduled this single subject for the study session. Thank you, board members. Anybody want to start?
Dr. Marvin. Um, thank you. This is really good information and none of us are surprised by the main cause of declining enrollment being the decline in birth rate. And I'm particularly gratified, not surprised though, that there are some very specific questions
here is suggestions here about how we can um approach this challenge. So, it's not But there's some really good suggestions. Question I have is after students enroll in RPS and have been
here for a year or two or three years, do we know how many students leave to go to another kind of school within they stay in Rochester, but they choose a different school system.
We might be able to get to that data, but it's not something that we've regularly analyzed. So I think part of the problem is when students leave, we don't always know where they end up. Okay. But I I do think that's what Dr. Reinhardt refers to as the in migration
out migration. And so one of the things she's made clear is she's willing to run additional analysis for us. And so I think I'd like to understand a a little bit better, but is it essentially how many families uh leave a school in RPS
at X grade and go to an option outside us and where do they go? And and why? Well, and why? Yeah. What are they what are they not getting? Um because we one concern I have is that some families and some kids even those who
are in the system don't know about all the opportunities that are provided and if they're involved in in structure that doesn't quite seem to fit what they need. They may not know that there's an alternative. Lots of alternatives and lots of possibilities.
So yeah, thank you. We'll put that on the list of things to think about ways we can follow up on. Well, as I reflect uh specifically upon um either emails, which uh we as a board
have received their eye individually as well as um public comments, it seems like uh for some who either have threatened to leave or make the statement, well, this is why
students are leaving. uh it seems like policy backlash or reaction to a policy is uh certainly uh mentioned and so I um would perhaps
encourage us to be mindful of that uh to not u not that we've ever been dismissive of the concern sometimes tone colors how well we hear what is being communicated But I
would hope that uh we can perhaps learn from uh those uh times when people have told us upfront what they're going to do or what they are aware others are opting to do and especially as it may relate to
a a policy which has been considered or uh inactive. Okay, I'll jump in. Um, I think of the potential changes in programming. Um, when I when I think
about how much we've talked about our literacy initiatives and our skip programs, um, I think if someone's tuning in tonight because they heard about these enrollment numbers and their, uh, concern,
um, and they've missed all the conversations that we've been having about how hard our administration and staff is working to improve the academic offerings and academic outcomes. for our students, they're only getting half the story. So,
um I know that you've addressed it and some of these as potential changes in programming, but I think the point is we are already changing our programming and have done some significant work. Um we've already seen for example the graduation rates came up. We're seeing
some good results. So, let's not um think only about everything we're not doing and let's re-up in this communication and outreach all the things that we are doing. Um because I
think that's hard to follow. So, it's I think it's also a communication piece because um you would have to follow discussions at board meetings which we know are not the most exciting things to watch week after week. Um, but I I think it's something we've talked about before. We've struggled to talk about
how do we communicate the decisions we're making, how those decisions are implemented, the feedback that we get here at the board table to our wider community so that they can follow our story. Um, thank you manager. I want I also
just briefly to Dr. your point about thinking about the enrollment implications of policy decisions. I agree completely and just to give the most biggest example since I've been here in Rochester, the decisions that I believe we needed to make tied to the failure of the 2023 referendum and the
redesign of our transportation system to get to new start times did have a consequence along those lines. Now, do I believe we shouldn't have made them? Uh, knowing the alternative to the status quo, I think I still would have gone uh
forward, but um an enrollment projection like this really turns up the heat on the need to think about that. So, I just want to completely agree uh agree with you on that. I think uh to your point, Chair Nathan, that there is a tension in sharing this information so publicly
because it's not just that we're taking a an an evening of the board's time, which is a prec precious commodity. It we sent this out to all of our staff and families today. And the the reason we did that was not to be doom and gloom in any way, but because I think we aren't serving our community if we're not
honest about the challenge that's here. But I agree with you, Chair Nathan, that if you uh approach this with a glass half empty mentality, um the the perception actually could become self-fulfilling that you're just,
you know, people are heading for the exits. No, people are having fewer kids and people are making some different uh choices. And so, and of course, you and Vice Chair Workman and I talked about having this study session quite a bit. um we could have just conducted this
study, baked it into our long-term financial projections and not shared it quite as candidly as we are. And I I really do think that um doesn't set up the same kind of positive energy that
information like this can actually add to our academic agenda. I think that we have the right agenda. We are not getting this report and saying, "Oh my goodness, we have to hit the reset button." We're not investing in evidence-based strategies. We're not emphasizing belonging. We're not none of
that is true. But this does increase the sense of urgency uh around those things. Um I also think um as I was reading some of those emails that director Barlo pointed out, we have to help our community understand the connection
between enrollment and budget. Um it's it's not intuitive. I've I've had thoughtful thoughtful educators in RPS as I've been out having those meetings sometimes difficult because you know a section is being reduced because of changing enrollment and until I explain
no the referendum dollars rise or fall with enrollment too they aren't thinking along those lines and so we I think part of the re purpose of tonight is also just to say this is this is our our reality and um we don't we want to be
one of those uh school systems that um is like the proverbial like what is it a frog in the boiling pot where it gets hotter and hotter and they don't know it's getting hotter. Like we need to let people know this is a reality that uh we're facing and I think we have a lot we can do about it but we need to be
candid about it. Um, just to clarify on the referendum dollars, um, is that a fixed amount every year or is generally like the 19 whatever million or is it a fixed student amount so that when we have
fewer students, we have fewer referendum dollars or some kind of a combination. It it's absolutely tied to enrollment. And so it would be the 19.4 4 million that we used was projected based on the number of kids that we had in the correct in the district at the time of
enrollment. So were the enrollment to start growing that would actually increase and then unfortunately the converse is also true and and I think that's one thing that's that really needs that people really need to understand that rather than oh we've got this 19.4 million bucket and our
enrollment is going down and we can have smaller classes and hire more teachers because we're still working with the same amount of money. So, um, yeah, director. Okay, so I got a I got a couple questions. I've done a little thinking.
Um, so being in Rochester for a little while, um, I think we just have some unique, um, there's some things that are very unique to Rochester. A lot of people refer to Rochester as almost a transplant type of community, right?
very very transient. We got a lot of people coming and going at any given time because of the college here. We have the Mayo School of Medicine. Um you know we used to have IBM here, that type of thing. So people kind of come here
with jobs and that time type of thing. Um I don't know what those numbers are, but I don't know what it looked like when IBM left. I'm sure we probably saw some declines at that time as well. I would assume um being a a kid that actually was transferred here with IBM.
Um so I know when they declined that I remember IBM put out a press release that you know they were people were moving. Um my my I bring this up because I I've noticed a few trends just on a very non uh official level, right? So
you know people buy homes here but people often rent them out, right? So, you don't see as many people um selling their homes because of the property value here. It's a good property value. It's good investment. People buy a home here and even if they know they're going to be here short term, this is a place
where people will buy a home and know they don't intend to stay here. So, I don't know what aspect of the projections that looks into because when you said people are not turning their homes over, it doesn't mean they're not renting their homes out. So the home ownership doesn't necessarily have
necessarily have to have changed, but that doesn't mean that that family is necessarily still living um in that home. So I don't know how that is accounted for in these, you know, grand um projections. So that's that's one question I have. Um and when you
mentioned the uh comment about the St. Paul situation and the birthing center, I also think that's something that Rochester is lacking is that that community connection. You don't do those things unless your school system is well connected uh with your community. Um and
there becomes a pride in your community. So there's not that you know they want to work with the school system. Um I think we have a little bit of work to do. I know that from the RPS standpoint, we're looking at what can RPS do. And I think one of the major things we're
going to have to do uh to kind of um ditto what um Director Barlo was saying is we really need to start really listening um to why our families are not staying, why people are choosing um to leave here, why, you know, why we have
the turnover rate we have with our, you know, um staff of color. Um, these are, you know, as they say in business, uh, uh, what do they say? One, one upset client is going to tell a h 100red people. One happy client is going to
tell five, right? And I think that's a little bit of what we're combating. We've had these minimal issues, but they spread fast, including our recent viral issue here in Rochester, right? We do a lot of good stuff here, but bad crap spreads really, really fast. And it's
hard to combat that, right? you know, we got one bad apple, but it shines upon our entire community. And we I think we need to do a better job um of aligning with our community when we talk about why students are not coming. As we talk
to these parents about why they're not enrolling their kids or are we just making assumptions as to why they're not enrolling their kids? Um, uh, are we really doing when people are doing these exit interviews, are we really looking into what this is? Are we addressing the
patterns? Are people saying the same thing and we're just, as you said, not really listening because it's not your personal experience or you can't directly relate, but if people are moving out of our city behind this, it may be something that should be um,
considered. Um, and my last comment to this at this time is being that we're so transient, I know we often compare ourselves to other cities, but maybe we should be looking at other transient communities and how they address these concerns. So, my thought process goes to
like other college towns and things like that, places where you constantly have um a turnover of people every four or five years. I think Rochester is still a little bit more in alignment with that. We're still I don't I don't think we're in a space where we have people stay,
you know, as long as we used to. And I mean, this just comes from me being in this community for over for almost 30 years. I've seen I can't name how many families have come here, done well, got their certifications, moved to Miami, moved to Boston, moved to, you know,
anywhere else. You know, it's a great place to get good certifications. We have great education there. we have the Mayo um school of medicine but we don't um I don't know what the answer is to that but I think part of it is as I have said in earlier conversations people
don't see Rochester as a place of pride or home right a lot of times even in conversations people refer to themselves as transplants in Rochester right everybody needs to make sure they mention they're not from Rochester but I live in Rochester but I'm originally from here right because we there's not a
a a self-ride in you and being born and raised in in Rochester. So, and I know that's not necessarily an RPS problem, but it's a community problem that's causing a problem for RPS. So, I really think the bigger part
of this is how do we better engage um with our community partners um and and and accept their feedback instead of just saying, well, you know, a kid your kid doesn't go here. I get that. But when we say that, that makes people not want to send their kids here because if we're, you know, we're only going to
say, well, we only care about the kids that are enrolled right now. I don't want to enroll my kid there because my kids's not enrolled right now, but they could potentially be enrolled. So, I feel that that mindset does not help us increase um our enrollment.
I would uh I made a note. Thank you, Dr. White. The point about exit interviews is a powerful one that should be on the list. Um we've done a lot this year to strengthen uh interviews um for staff who leave. Um but uh the next wave needs
to be about kids and families too. And I also want to thank you for the thoroughess of your thought of putting together all 957 steps that we need to um well I I wanted to I guess react to some of the
um some of the responses that you outlined or the um things that uh RPS ought to be doing in response to these projections. Um I I think that the projections make a lot of
sense to me. Um and so, you know, we have to live with the the facts as they are, not as we might prefer them to be. Um, in the changes in outreach, you talked about informing realators and others
involved in property management um to make sure that there's an awareness about the value um of RPS, which is sort of inherent to to some extent in a a real estate investment. I think the the other
um the other thing that would be really interesting that's kind of related to the the realer community is also our major employers, the largest employer in the state of Minnesota. um Mayo Clinic
uh is a huge driver of the growth in population that's forecast in Homestead County over the next 20 or so years of on the order of 50,000 or maybe it's over the next 40 years on the order of 50,000 people. Um great article from the Post Bulletin
last weekend or about um thereabouts noted that in that huge uh increase in population in Homestead County, a relatively small proportion of that is projected right
now to be uh families with kids. Um and that also uh probably makes a lot of sense in terms of what the workforce looks like right now. And um not saying that it's wrong uh for sure, but uh
because my my views are just informed by my life experience, I'm one of these people that went through very intentionally this process of relocating to Rochester um when my wife started her residency training at Mayo. And for families that
uh especially like ours that have kids, which isn't the majority, but there certainly are some um and if you're in the position to be considering residency training at Mayo, you're probably also considering residency training in the Bay Area and in Boston and in Baltimore and in
Cleveland, in Washington, um Seattle, I mean. And when those are your choices, Rochester stands out. Sure, Mayo Clinic is part of it, but it's a
dramatically different lifestyle that you're being offered, and that's both in terms of the time you're going to be spending commuting, the opportunities you're going to have to spend outdoors in parks, um, and the quality of
education that you want to be able to provide for your kids. And so I'm sure that at some level Mayo is aware that the people that are choosing to relocate to um be employed by Mayo Clinic and and
live in Rochester are looking at that set of choices. It's big city, big metropolis or small growing or you know midsize city with a high quality of life.
And that is a much bigger driver that decision space is a much bigger sorting mechanism than differences in in salary or something like that. And um and so I would think that there's a
real opportunity for RPS to engage with Mayo Clinic in a productive mutually beneficial way to lean into their enlightened self-interest of highlighting the educational opportunities that are available in Rochester public schools um
in a way that that benefits them and then perhaps us. And the reason I'm walking you through my personal journey is because my my um hypothesis might be that a relatively larger
fraction of families with children um would choose to relocate to Rochester if the information available um highlights that you know difference in life balance I guess.
So that would be kind of a um an addition that I would suggest um in general. So I shared this report with leaders at Mayo Clinic today at the same time it went live on assembly. So I yeah but but
you're right it's not highlighted as a strategy here. So I really appreciate that. director. One of the things that I sort of expected when I was starting to read this um report is the idea of online school
either um and reminding that I just escaped me that Minkync online I knew it was it was M something Minskync Minskync and it seemed like when we were maybe it's the last time I really thought about enrollment is when we were talking about Minskync and what to do with that and it
seemed like it was maybe pilot for some of these ideas of bringing students in. So, I'm interested in thoughts on that. But also, are there still other online schools around the state where we might have RPS or people who are in Rochester attending online schools wherever they
are located? Can you talk I was surprised that that wasn't included in here in any way that is MSYNC included in the data here? And then can you speak about those other options and how that fits into this picture? Um uh thank you Director Mcoffin. it is included in the
data but um it's it's complex because of course the it's still a fairly new school and we have some students who spend relatively little time at MSYNYNC it's almost uh a transition school and then we have others who are educated there the full time enrollment is doing
pretty well at the middle school and high school level we continue to enroll a a measurable number of kids who are not Rochester students who are from other districts I think we can and should work to grow that the elementary school has struggled more. Um that was
what existed when I got here and then we built the middle and high school. Um most families seem to want their little kids in brick and mortar buildings. Uh I would agree. I think the online option is something absolutely to be considered. It's one reason why u I created and the board approved a new
position last year for Brandon Brandon McCraic as director of student centered learning. So he has responsible for the online school PEK and CEK. So that there's and and and one of you know obviously in his first year he's had a lot of core things to do but part of what I know Brandon is excited about and
back to my point about if if if something's nobody's job it just doesn't happen. Part of his charge in that position is to grow um enrollment and offerings at Minsk. Um, one of the interesting things for us is that we are very proud of the fact that learning at
Minsk almost without exception right now is online synchronous which is to say the kids on a computer but there's a real human across the to the extent that I've seen the research and then certainly as I've talked to kids that is
the best version of online learning but the alternative that is exploding is asynchronous. where the student is never interacting directly in live real time with an adult. What level of grade is that? Well, it's exploding at the um
post-secondary level, but it's also increasing for some online providers at high school because we we do get notice when a Rochester kid enrolls at like Minnesota Virtual Academy. So, like we know when they're enrolling in another online school that they report back to
their uh home school district, at least they're supposed to. and we get a bunch of those um understanding the offerings that those students are uh engaging in um I think needs to be one of of the other factors that we're doing here. Um
we are for the first time in RPS at Minsc developing our first asynchronous courses which means a student can do that at any time of day um without the teacher needing to be live. Now, there's still significant teacher interaction in
our design, but it means you don't need to schedule it at 9:00 a.m. on Tuesday like you do a regular class, but we're going into that with some trepidation because we also think that the online synchronous is kind of our our bread and
butter in Minsk. Um, it's much more scalable if you're doing asynchronous because anybody can you take it anywhere. Um, so we have teachers creating the first um, asynchronous classes at Minskync. Um, so that's
potentially another key piece, but you're you're right. These are really great uh, new ideas that weren't in my initial uh, list and the online option. The other thing we're seeing is um, kids who actually want to be hybrid. I want to go to Mayo High School or Century or
JM for part of it and then I want to take other classes maybe in the evening that are virtual. That again is something that we're in the early stages of of thinking about. Are we are we losing students out to those other
online options? We do some I don't know what the Dr. Dr. Reinhardt didn't look at what the net migration for other online schools is out, but um I don't it's not a it's not like private schools or charter schools or something, but yeah, there's definitely some um and you
had asked about numbers. our Minsk programming with over 400 kids in it. But there's also opportunities like um for kids to take the synchronous classes
um if they need like some advanced learning if they're so they're able to join and just stay at their building. Some of I'm sorry. I was just going to say some of Brandon's hard work has actually paid off. We just did uh enter
an agreement with another school district, Barnesville. I'm not sure how many students that will I've never heard of it, but I love them. That's wonderful. Yeah. Thank you, Barnesville. Who will be um enrolling some of their students in our online program. Again, I don't know the numbers. We do currently
have Winona an agreement with Winona and they have um I don't know around 30 I believe or so mostly in the secondary level that that um are enrolled with us. Now they stay as enrolled students in their district. We build we build back a
an amount. So they don't show up on our numbers our enrollment numbers. Good job. So I just wanted to touch real quick on that online en enrollment piece. um which I know this is a sensitive topic from our last board meeting, but some of
that is around mental health and I will I can speak directly as a parent who has had to enroll their child into an online um programming and this is not pointing blame but there and it's a bigger issue but there is a lack of support for
mental health um and as a parent who has had children uh children a child with autism a child that that uh suffered with um grief and depression um due to you know factors not in her control and had to be pulled out of school. Uh there
was a lot of most of the factors around us having to unenroll was around mental health support. Um one we could not find mental health support outside of school hours. That was a huge issue. um there was very few providers that had you know
again bigger issue time after school hours in order to meet with your child. So you know parents are put in this position of what do I do? You know when you have a child that has a mental health need or a medical need and these
appointments are hard to get to. Right? So, I do know I'm not the only parent who has had to make the difficult decision of not necessarily not wanting their child to be in the traditional public school setting, but having to do that in, for lack of better ter
terminology, because I had to make a decision between my child's mental well-being um and them still receiving um an education. Um, and I'm I am certain that I'm not the only parent that um had to begrudgingly pull their
child from school because I needed to assure that I had a child that was mentally well. Um, and I know that, like I said, a sensitive topic because I know we had um some funding removed, but again, this goes down to having, you know, these conversations with these
families. um you know and and I don't I know that RPS is not the end all beall of all the solutions but um because of my experience I know that several of the kids that my daughter was in all these online programs with were having similar
struggles as she was. So, you know, they were doing the online classes so that they would be able to, you know, meet with therapists during the day when there was more availability. Um, or because of missed time out of school due to mental health, they started to develop pretty much social anxieties
that made it very very hard for them to um function in the classroom. And I know it's a bigger issue, but it if we're talking about our our declining um you know our kids declining in enrollment and you know going elsewhere or homeschooling, I know that that just in
parents and the circles that I've spoken, mental health has been one of the bigger factors of why um people parents are are I don't want to say fearful, but I guess that's the right word in this case maybe of you know having to make that decision between
where my child goes goes to school and if I'm able to get them the appropriate level of of mental health and and and well aware that it's not the school's job to provide all of that but we are as you said I think earlier t times are changing where people live is changing
how children respond to things are changing you know everyone here I think might have been around in the 80s so you know we things were different you know and I think it's important that we shift our lens when we're looking at how to respond on to these new children. Um,
you know, I have a child that's 36 years old. Nothing in comparison to the to this little teeny box I have now. I have no idea what's going on. So, you know, there there have been some just drastic changes in even how the the the the school and the student um interaction
especially postco. So, I just think that those are uh factors that I think you mentioned in your report, but I do think that that that that will be an ongoing um issue. But again, maybe we talk to parents and see what we can do and maybe
better uh again community involvement with some of those agencies. I um this is an important conversation and Mr. Cook, I I really liked your talking about reaching out to the business community and ensuring that they know
what we have to offer. I mean, do they know about the SAC programs, about advanced learning programs, about uh that type of thing, about online programs, about the work that we're trying to do? And and I think um it's about educating the community. And I
also like the idea of having regular regularly scheduled tours in our schools. It's been my experience with a lot of high school kids. That's how they choose the college they want to go to. They go to the school and they have a really good tour guide. I'm looking at
you, Miss Nathan. Show them the building and talk to them about the opportunities there. And you have to do it well, but I think that's a a really good idea. Invite people in and then show them um
potential. Dr. Uh I just want to be sure that those students who are enrolled on or in online programs u are part of the student count. Okay. And then secondly
um under the um potential changes in outreach uh I'm going to bring will roughen the second into this piece of conversation. And we were at a track meet at Sentry this past week and
um you know Will knew the parent. I did and I introduced myself. He says, "Oh yeah, I know. I watched all the schoolboard meetings." Just to say that you know maybe in terms of our change in outreach, we need to maybe instead of well for those handful of people that
are viewing or if anyone's out there to actually view our uh you know uh presentation as a opportunity to to re-engage to be more deliberate. I think uh with the communication effort
clearly, creatively, continuously conveyed through all communication channels uh we maybe need to rethink how we approach our board meetings and and is there a better way, a more effective way to to uh excite the community behind
what we're doing instead of just, you know, doing what we do. Uh, not to say we're doing anything bad, but if there are people who are saying and acknowledging, I watch all the board meetings and I think those were his words. Correct me if I'm wrong. I was
surprised. But shame on me, you know, shame on me for thinking that we have a disengaged public and and maybe if we rethink that, we can potentially come up with better ways to
uh expand the viewership. Yes, whenever you click on the uh schoolboard meeting from, you know, you see how many people have viewed it, but but we can I think that's something within our purview to to control and to address. Just wanted to to put that out there.
To directly respond to what you just said, Director Barlo, have you encouraged your friend, for example, to maybe come to a schoolboard academy when Chair Nathan and I run it next fall? I think we're going to do one next fall and one the preceding year to encourage
him to maybe consider running for the school board. Well, I just met him. I can't claim I was a friend just yet. Yeah. Um, so the the other uh the other thing in the um the comments uh superintendent
that you mentioned was the example of a principal who was doing some um gorilla marketing strategies and sending out postcards to the addresses in the local neighborhood. I think that's an excellent idea. Um, and I just would
really endorse that. Before I moved to Rochester, actually, now more about me. Um, before I moved to Rochester, my experience of, uh, deciding on my oldest first school involved touring a lot of schools, private schools, public
schools. Um, and the ones that were by far the most effective and tended to be at the private schools were always led by the school principal. That relationship I think is indispensable. And um for most of our community, certainly those that have kids in
elementary school, um the the district RPS is not the superintendent, certainly not the board. It is the school principal at the school that their kids go to. That is the relationship that is of most value to them. And um and I
think it sends a really strong message when you walk in and you get I I love the emphasis on on uh customer service. I think that's any organization can always improve there. It's that's a a great point to highlight. But feeling like there's a uh strong rapport with
the school principal um I I think is just critically important whether that's in the tour or there's some other mechanism. But um I think that's a big part to make sure we're doing that the best we can.
So I heard in a few comments um some examples about the flexibility that we undertake in this district to address student needs. I heard about using our MSYNYNC to address some of our advanced
learners and the online um the availability of an online school for students who may need to take some time away from a brickandmortar school to address mental
health needs. I see as as a flexibility and I I hear about those accommodations being made for our students and our districts all the time, but I think that's one of those things we need to put on the list of somehow letting parents know at least who to ask. If if
what the the general structure we have built for their school or their grade or their program isn't working, the first action shouldn't be on leaving the district. We really I mean we have we've we've struggled with that chain of communication that's in our student
handbook and on our website you know if you have an issue first talk to the teacher etc. Um and I don't know how many people actually reference that before they decide who to call especially given the amount of emails we get first before they contact anybody else. But um I think we have to empower
our parents with the information to know we don't just see your child as fitting into this box and we're never going to adjust the boundaries of the box or the shape of the box to meet their needs because I hear it happening every day in
how we're structuring our district plans. We see it in the skips but then I see it in in that which is happening in the schools every day. So to think about how to communicate that. The other piece and it builds on what Director Whitehorn and Director Cook said.
Um I was a marketing parent for the school that my child that my children went to. I think that's a little summary. Um more about me. Um but I but as I did that I always emphasized the quality of the other schools because I
was dealing with a lot of incoming kindergarten parents. So, we talked a lot about the district. I know that there are parents across this district who are extremely passionate about the experiences their kids are having in schools. That that 70, you know, the majority of that 72%
if we were to call people up and say, "Can you give us a testimonial?" They would. But they give us a testimonial about what they know, which is their own child's experience, their own experience. If we could somehow bottle that
enthusiasm they have for their school and give them a little bit more education about and the district so that when they they might be in a position to be in a business and they're doing the recruiting of somebody new and all they know is their school. They really can't
speak to you know well if you come live in my neighborhood or if you choose to self-transport right you can have the same experience I'm having. want that might not be the right experience for their student. So maybe there are parents out there who could help us be
those ambassadors in sharing the message and um and I think it also goes to the the feedback piece that director said, right? The more we ask parents for their feedback, maybe those are the people we find who would be our best people to help share the message about not only
their own experience, but how they decided to go to the school they went to, but then to know here and here's all the information about the options in RPS director. So, I've been thinking about um realtors a lot as I've been sitting here and I'm wondering if we
could have some kind of a session that realtors are invited to learn about Rochester public schools and they're each of them is given the same information that they can then hand over to their buyers without so it's very
factual without them having to give their opinion which is can be really risky um in terms of trying to maybe guide parents to certain places and then the other thing is to find out from them what's the information they would like
to have to be able to to their buyers. So, it's a two-way communication. I have no idea how many realtors we have in Rochester or how many will even be interested, but I think it's worth a shot. Director, I'm going to pick up on that two-way communication. I think there's
some value in having that communication with Mayo as well that you know reflecting on what director Cook was saying that you know his family chose this and for these various reasons with uh spouse who's in the residency program when Mayo is growing is it all going to
be residents at that income level or are there going to be mid-level people in that mix that I would be curious to know what Mayo knows about that breakdown as to what their positions are because that kind of ties into the discussion this morning at the chamber event about and what you talked about earlier the
commute the commute word commutershed commutershed that if there's a certain level of people at a certain income level that are going to come here new to work at Mayo they might not be living in our district they might be living in Byron or Kassen because of the affordability of the housing um that I think that it's important for us to
learn their potential demographics as well so that we can be prepared for that. Um, the other thing I want to reflect on from that chamber event this morning is the county's discussion about that really small development that was a pilot for them. I'd be really interested because those were single family homes.
I'd be really interested in the demographics of that really small neighborhood because if they're going to start replicating that if they can, that's what we want to replicate if those are single family homes and if they have children or if they're single family homes of some other demographic
um that we're unaware of. I'd be really interested in the study of that particular population and what we can learn about them if it's going to be replicated in other areas in the county or in the city. Holding on to your idea about highlighting the positives that are going on in our district and I just
wonder um pairing that with the conversation about getting real estate agents involved. Can we highlight the the positives and beauties of all of our schools so that if I'm a real estate
agent and I'm talking to a potential client and they're wondering what school that child may uh enroll in, I can just click right here and say, "This is Vmber Valley. Check out the video." And we could do something like that in real time. So, how how can we connect
something like that to our website where people can have ready information about our schools? And then also as a district as a whole, I don't know if we advertise ourselves enough and blast ourselves all over the social media in a positive
light to combat some of those negative stories that are out there. People get say, "I don't know if that's true because I just saw this." So, that was just an idea. Well, without wanting to get into the weeds too much, um, we know from
experience that when kids are on video and they're talking about their schools, they're incredible salespeople. I mean, that wouldn't that be great for kids from each school to talk about this is who we are, this is what it looks like, this is what we do. Um and for the
district to be able to use that as you said here's each school and then also have and as a district you know these are what we value the mission vision all that and um all the kinds of potential there is for
being flexible for the needs of your child but having that ready to go on on a video or videos. Love that. Have we also uh in in this planning of things, have we also given thought to the fact that our our culture
demographics are changing rapidly in Rochester as well? Uh we have a couple schools within the next two years. They will be going from majority white schools to we'll be seeing a a a flip where they will no longer be uh majority white schools. Uh we'll will be um it'll
be in the reverse here in the next couple years is some of the projections they've seen. So my I guess I have a question. How how do you see that playing into our plan? Right. Because if we if we're aware that we're going to be looking at these cultural shifts as we
have a higher number of kids of color um people of color, young kids of color that'll be coming into our system and a lower number of our uh white students in our system. How do you think that that will also impact the parent also as
um that's something we struggled with as a school as a community right we we'll have more you know well with with more culture coming in how do we intend to keep the culture here right I mean how do we intend not
to cause them to want to leave right because they're coming into a system that priorly was majority white which had some consideration But when we're flipping and we're talking about that drastic of a change, is RPS ready? Are we ready to uh combat
those challenges of having uh more students of color, more families of color as opposed to uh more, you know, what our community has traditionally been um where we have been a traditionally community of mostly white Americans. Um and that that shift coming
in they're saying within the next two years how does that impact this strategy? Um yeah thank you Director Whitehorn. The a lot of the strategies that are here were informed by districts that have done successfully reached out to uh
communities of color and communities whose first language is not English. And there's uh a couple of organizations that have have begun to provide good technical expertise in how you do some of those things. We've used a lot of that work in the language access strategy. So that would be in the space
of people whose first language is not um English. So I think uh it's there. We also know that we are navigating challenging times in the degree to which schools are able to explicitly focus on race and other factors because of
national trends. So it's one reason why that's not called out explicitly in my PowerPoint, but it's certainly something I think about all the time. I think priority. The one strategy that's not here that is being used even not far
away from us in the Twin Cities is culturally specific or focused school program. So a long-standing friend and colleague of mine is now the principal of an East African magnet in St. Paul
schools. Um and St. Paul and Minneapolis have uh invested in culturally specific schools uh significantly in recent years. And before they did that, there were charter schools in their community that were
growing a lot that did that. And in Minneapolis, you know, our market share in this most recent data is a little more than 72%. In Minneapolis, it's now 50%. And many of those kids go to public charter schools, many of which are are culturally focused.
So that's the one piece that has demonstrated success in increasing enrollment that's not here. Now could we have a discussion about something like that in RPS? We we certainly could. I think that there are some deep issues
that need to be considered as a public school district embraces something like that. But absent that, I think everything else that I've seen is reflected here. And I welcome the conversation.
Thank you for your answer, Dr. Cook. So, I I've really enjoyed this conversation because I think so many of us are passionate about the offerings in Rochester public schools and the ways to share the message and increase the opportunities of people to take
advantage of it both through migration and marketing. But the um the other I think takeaway big theme takeaway from uh from the study here and I'm sure it's it's
not lost on anyone is that um the very likely scenario is that five years from now our K through five enrollment will be roughly less by a full elementary school size. Um,
and I guess I I I recognize that that's one of the things that you've identified as a an area that our response to this reality needs to be focused on is being very mindful about our facilities and um
attentive to our staffing ratios and and and so forth. But um I think my question is to the extent that at some point here
um seriously considering um less schools than we have right now um what do you foresee as a potential timeline for decisions like that? Um I don't think it's anytime in the next
couple of years. But if things trend this way, some point along the next five years, I think we need to be pretty serious about weighing that option. How do you see that?
Uh it was not at all an accident that I said that if the referendum passed in 2024, I believed we would not need to close schools for at least the first five years of that referendum. That was a very deliberate time frame. I think
some of the tensions around enrollment will still be felt in those five years. But I think there are creative and efficient uses of space in that time period that we can do that are economically uh uh prudent and and that actually enhance the educational
experience of our kids. Meaning we use the space we have creatively um and efficiently for that five-year period. Beyond that time, if we do not see trends shifting in the way that this conversation would suggest, we hope and
believe they might be able to shift, I think you're right. We would need to have that conversation. The mistake that happens in school districts, including in this state, where they refuse to face that reality, is you end up with a lot of schools that have too few kids to
fund the educational program they're offering. And then you end up reallocating dollars from schools with adequate enrollment to prop up schools with inadequate enrollment, and the whole system is poorer for it in the long run. I do not believe we're at that
point here. I think there are tremendous uh resources, some of which we've talked about tonight, that we can utilize o over the years ahead, but it's that fiveyear time frame that um was very much in my mind uh as we made that
commitment during the referendum. I don't want to make that seem like a foregone conclusion or an ominous thing. The other thing, Director Cook, and I appreciate you asking the question because I think like we ought to just be totally straight. were we to need to take that
approach, meaning closing some schools, just to use the term, we would start that conversation and deliberation well in advance of that 5-year time frame. Um, we had to have the discussion last year about closing schools because the referendum failed at a time when our
financial situation was dire and our community stepped up with the referendum and the legislature gave us gave this board the authority to renew a referendum and we made $21 million in cuts. So, a lot of things happened to get us to this point of re relative
stability, not expansion but relative stability. Um, but if we if we needed to make that decision about school closing, we would want it to be a much more transparent and
deliberate process than we were able to have last year after the referendum failed. So, we would start that discussion in advance of the five-year time frame that I'm telling you I think we might need to make that decision.
Year one being the 2526 school year of that fiveyear time frame. So I'm not real excited about declining enrollment per se because of all the reasons that you mentioned, but I see it as a real opportunity to be in school
differently. I mean, we're still stuck in this model of we're still stuck in this model that's been going on for a century, you know, and how can we how can we change that up? And I think two groups of people would be really essential in
contributing that to that conversation. One would be the students who are here and number two is the teachers support staff or can we can we really just look outside the box? Um, I mean, I have some ideas that I'm not going to go into here
looking at you, Dr. Marvin. Um, but I think it's something that we could all think about is how can we remake school to reflect what is happening in 2025 and what students need really successful and is the model that
we have right now the best model for them? Maybe it is, maybe it's not. But I think I could see this as kind of an exciting thing. I I I think maybe if I might, Madam
Chair, comparing Director Cook's comment and yours just because since since we venture since you've called the issue, which I I think I think is a good thing, um you can evaluate whether a school should remain open at a time of
declining enrollment on many different criteria. The one that I just referred to as a baseline is its financial viability that we actually have the sufficient dollars to run a high quality educational program without needing to reallocate dollars year after year after
year from outside the school. But if you have that level of viability, you could use the space very creatively within that school to your point um to have community providers serving not just the kids in the school but kids in the neighborhood. Um, uh, Rochester Public
Libraries has talked about not building another library down, uh, another physical library, but having pop-up libraries in spaces, you know, around the city. Just to cite one, uh, example and just got a, uh, email from the head librarian about the next phases in their process. Uh, in the true community
schools model, and we have wonderful community schools models, but we don't have much of this. you are coll-locating uh service agencies, dental clinics, you know, housing uh counseling in the community school and it's not just serving the kids and families in the
community school, it's serving people in surrounding community. That's very common in a place like New York. Um all of that might be on the table as long as we're sure that the school is viable with its core uh of course first educational mission and then it's the
finances. So, I think to both of your points, there are a lot of, you know, creative possibilities that could be there. It also is um a school that has some extra space, and this is something that I know Jackie sees all the time as
we look at these issues. Schools spread out in the space they've got in very constructive ways and um they make great uses of these these things. Now, we sometimes have to come in and say, "Yeah, I know that's a really wonderful
like resource room you've created. It's going to have to become a classroom because of these things." But um they don't waste the space. They invariably find uh educationally useful um uh resources that they do with their space.
And so I would agree with you that there's potentially a lot of creativity as long as we're not kidding ourselves and that we're willing to director Cook's point to make the hard decisions if and when it's necessary to do that. So I just want to say there's a lot of
things on the list that as um to chair Nathan's response that we are doing or we are currently putting in practice. Um I I we didn't touch much on it. We we did talk about it briefly, but that customer service um piece um even you
mentioned um Dr. El that you know coming into some buildings you feel like you don't you know this is a great building and and not to speak poorly of any of our staff but there is something to that um that customer service and my thought on that when I was reading through the
list again um is it seems like it would be really good with our rebranding mission right like if I think if we wanted to do something really high intensity like you said kind of streamline it and again this is just a thought that I'm putting into the atmosphere um that we could when we're
thinking of that rebranding of our mission and our values, maybe we add that some some of these pieces that customer service piece, maybe some of that central office um feeling piece can be part of that rebranding structure,
right? So, when we're thinking about it, I think just for all of us that we're thinking beyond just the words, but you know, how do the words actually um manifest? you know, ho how do we how do we take that mission, that value
statement, and make it a part of, as you said, our streamlined experience, right? Like you go into a a Hilton, you expect a certain level of experience, right? It doesn't matter if you're in a Hilton in Minnesota or California, you have an
expectation based on their branding. So, I'm hoping that we're thinking of this, you know, along the lines um of that expectation that we're we're rebranding for that so we don't have that where people go, I love this school, but not
that school so much. You know, we want RPS to have that. And again, I'm not putting in a sale line for any particular place, but I mean, but that that's what I'm thinking of a little bit when we're thinking about that.
um what's the word I'm looking for connect you know that constant you know when people have that same experience whether they're in Edison building at one of our spaces and I don't know if that's part of our um mission with the rebranding but I'm hoping that creating
that kind of streamline customer service would would be under that um it seems like the time that my family spent in RPS the buildings were always kind of bursting at the seams. If that's no longer the case, would there be consideration of perhaps piloting
uh prek program that you know we look at K8 is an option? Could there be an option to go the other direction and maybe have some of the school I think that might be something attractive to families if they have multiple kids. They can drop their youngest off at the same school that their others are going
to. It does. um that you know and and I think that I think back to Governor Dayton and you know he was such a proponent of that and when I got to RP I'm like we don't do that because we don't have space if we have the space could we consider that as an option? I I think Director Mcoffin there's um it's a
fantastic point. There's two things two really important areas of education that we have largely centralized in RPS meaning putting them in the limited number of same sites. One is um early
childhood to your point. The second is many of our career and tech off offerings which are over on the RCTC campus. Now there are benefits to that but there are real benefits to having not just your early childhood program is in your elementary school but
your high-end uh CAD class or welding class or auto class is in your high school. You don't have to have a different schedule and get on a bus and go across town. thereby meaning it's not that I can't be on the team, I can't take, you know, poetry
from the English teacher I want to take it from. Um, so I think that's it's just not efficient. I mean, I I went through that with, you know, that if you're having to go somewhere else, you're missing something else. Yeah. Um I think it's a very important discussion and the we know in addition to meeting a family
need the educational impact I think to director Whitehorn's point about our families from more marginalized communities the educational benefit for those kids of early childhood is off the charts as we know from a lot of research practical experience. So opening early
childhood education to uh those kids to all kids uh uh but in particular to kids who need to start earlier uh could be extraordinarily uh well it seems it kind of solves at least potentially solves the transportation issue that if kids can't get to the Pinewood or wherever
they're going but they can get to their neighborhood school that's where they should go. I'm told, Jackie, that we used to have more, maybe Amy knows this as much as Jackie, I sort of like we had more uh like prek and early childhood in our buildings and then we moved to a more centralized approach, right? Every
building used to have well, I shouldn't say every, but just about every building used to have eight. Yeah, I enjoyed it as a building principal. It was sort of fun to have the little littles. Um, but yeah, then they were centralized. Yeah, that's a very important space really was
the issue. I kept getting pushed out to Would that require a lot of like um facility little toilets, right? I've learned that steps stools. Oh, I've had passionate these discussions with people
disagreeing with step stools. But you've been an elementary principal. I was high school, so I don't know what I'm talking about. We did have small toilets, though, so I didn't have to argue. That's a good point, too, though. I think if we if we if we did something votech that would get rid of all these issues because it's declining and it's
so needed. I don't I don't care what field you talk to a plumber electric I don't care where you go there. We just don't have young people getting into these fields. I mean, even if we had an offering, you know, in a small offering, I mean, I'm sure we would see I mean, a
lot of a lot of families would be very interested in their kids being able to graduate with an employable trade. Um, we and we just I think there's what two left. Am I I don't know if anybody knows the number. I think there's only two left in the in the state. uh from New
Jersey where I'm I I grew up, I think my high school is like one of the last surviving VOTEK high schools and their enrollment is up because people there's nobody's offering it anymore. Um and it and it is well well needed. They have to turn kids
away. So that is a good point to how do we use that space wisely. I also think about um what the superintendent said about realizing that in our community people didn't understand the connection between
enrollment and our um revenue our budget and um I think also in when we were doing the balanced budget model discussion uh the feedback that we got from buildings where their funding was
changing and then you explicitly pulled out the reasons funding was changing related to enrollment, related to other things. And I'm and what I appreciate about the structure of this conversation tonight is, you know, the data showed us the enrollment impact and we're hearing
what the plan is. And I'm wondering if going forward we can look at those reports to the board or decisions the board makes where we should explicitly say this is the enrollment change impact
that is driving this decision or driving this recommendation versus this is changes in for example what our funders uh are deciding to do. you know that when we talk about the budget every year we talk about the state made this decision and this is how you know our
our revenues are changing or the federal revenues are changing maybe be more explicit to say and it's also changing because our enrollment I mean we do the we do the calculation but let's let's explicitly
put it out there so people can see the yeartoyear changes I I I think it's a it's a Well taken point. Um, in some cases, of course, that's explaining a cut and why it's happening tied to enrollment. It also is explaining an increase. Our middle
schools generally did pretty well under the balanced budget model in part because they are decent sized, which creates some challenges they all work on, and also because this board approved expanding our title one funding for the low-income kids that they were all
serving before. And so that was a case in which we might have been highlighting some of the really exciting things that our middle schools are now planning for next year should have also been highlighted as the result of enrollment um you know enrollment related funding.
So it's a good point in both directions. Um and just frankly to call out the perception that exists in every single school district including ours. those people down at the district office are just making these decisions for whatever reason they want
to make these decisions as opposed to this is a formula that we have to continually evaluate to make sure it's adequate and appropriate but it's a formula that's driven by the number of kids not who's uh who's a favorite uh
downtown um it's something that I think that that kind of emphasis you're suggesting might help us also address it's a good idea Anything else board members? This was a lot. Okay, then we'll move on. Thank
you. Thank you. Um item 4.1 is other business. Our annual next one. There we go. Um our annual board calendar draft update. Uh the current version of the ABCD for the year is
available in this agenda item. Um but upcoming agenda items are displayed on the slide and they include um for the May 20th meeting. Our focus topic is the deeper learning pilot project wrap-up. Our monitoring is a presentation from the project search
program. We have four action items. The 202627 school calendar proposal. um two items related to sale and issuance of bonds and certificates of participation and approval of the mindsets, behaviors, and experiences for student
success. And then the June 3rd meeting is a regular board meeting. We'll hear an update on the cell phone procedure. Uh we'll get an update from cradle to career and we will have our first presentation on the 2025 2026 budget
proposal. Are there any items board members would like to raise for consideration for a future agenda? Hearing none, um you heard about our next two board meeting dates on the 20th and June 3rd. Those are regular meetings. A study session on June 10th
and a regular meeting on June 17th. And hearing no other business, this meeting is adjourned at 7:31 p.m. The next meeting