##VIDEO ID:S2A51RaDAoU## Executive Director of Finance and operations Scot lless age and Dr Ray Queener from Teamworks who has served as the uh consultant that has worked for us with us uh throughout this process along with his team so the goal of uh this presentation is to take you through a number of PowerPoint slides and share some background information um in regard to the process um we'll walk through the specific component parts of the recommend ation um you should have some awareness of that obviously by now we've provided uh some materials that are on your electronic uh board packet uh that's been uh available to you and you'll see a lot of the uh component parts of the PowerPoint obviously aligning with the uh written uh uh packet that uh has been provided to you so I do we have a slide advancer here um so this is uh General overview of the agenda uh before I turn it over to um Dr Queener to take us through uh several of the first slides uh first of all a process update uh some themes from the round four of uh input so we had I think you're all aware four input team meetings uh that uh convened a group of about I think 80 individuals representation from the staff and parent communities from each one of our school sites and uh the development of concept 9 which is uh what's brought before you here uh this evening as uh the culminating package so to speak from uh those months of work uh several considerations that were given uh during the concept development so we'll share a little bit uh in regard to that the concept recommendation some benefits challenges next steps and then give you an opportunity to ask U questions uh if you have any following the presentation so with that I'm going to turn it over to Dr Queener and uh he'll take a number of the slides and and the three of us will uh be involved in uh sharing the information I might also just point out that we have Jen wel who's another member of our finance and operations team here this evening uh seated uh behind me and to my left and uh we may call on her a time or two for uh some uh responses as well so with that Ray if you would thank you good evening thanks for the opportunity to be with you again um what I thought we would first do is just uh bring you back up to speed from where we were a week ago a week and two days ago uh what's happened since then um again we we started this whole process with a guiding change document and the goal was to um move from the why to the desired outcomes and try to achieve them as best as possible and um so they were always in the Forefront of all the work that we were doing with the design team and the input team and again striving to to accomplish all of them and making progress while admittedly as we talked about several times it's hard to get 100% um there with with uh everything so uh since um oh sorry took your slides Scott no absolutely you members of the board uh just to talk about Dr Anderson hit on a little bit but this has been a collaborative and transparent process um as you know this is a challenging process which we pointed out um as it impacts students and families we approached this effort with a strong commitment to transparency and fairness um and listed here um and it's been mentioned at several of the board meetings as well but we had a design team of 28 District lead uh leaders that met over 13 times dedicated significant time even outside of those to work on this process we had an input team of nearly 80 members that included staff and parents um that engaged in three focused meetings uh that we received feedback from as well um the district partnered with a third party uh sitting to my left here Team Works uh Dr Queener to provide a structure to provide structure data and facilitation and then we had regular communication that was maintained with our community we had a dedicated website and feedback portal where we created that was created to share information and gather input and the process included multiple updates to the school board to ensure transparency we conducted several rounds of feedback on different concepts with both the public and the input team incorporating changes based on the feedback received I think I would just add that all feedback was considered but not every requested or suggested change could be implemented Dr Anderson kind of alluded to that but um it is kind of uh we can't have a perfect scenario that works out in every situation and we absolutely understand that this can be a very challenging Endeavor as it impacts students and families um as we've learned along the way it's a very complex process and we recognize it will result in someone moving um if no one was to Rel relocate to different schools we would not have tasked um tackled the task that we were set out to achieve so last week I was with you and we talked about um concept 8 B5 and um since that time that was posted on the website solicited uh for feedback um that ran for a couple of days and uh we did theme that that um feedback as well as provide the all the raw comments to the administration um they've reviewed that and through several um small group meetings have uh Incorporated what they were able to there was also additional feedback from the Middle School principles um the reason this is important is you'll remember that uh at one point in the process we shifted to just focusing on the elementaries first when we when we received the the strong feedback that the desire was to try to achieve a pure Elementary feeder system we needed to focus that first and then work with the the middle school so the final iterations um which impacted middle schools was um Dr Anderson and Scott met with them and talked with them to make sure that what was being put forth uh was in line with their expectations the input that we received last week um we had about 309 responses um it was one uh open response box and so we didn't we didn't follow the same pattern before strengths and concerns and refinements we just were asking for feedback on the one proposal um all of that information has been posted to the website the themes that were shared and again all the detailed comments were shared with the administration um so I know you've had a chance to review these as well well um there were 10 themes that we um utilized um artificial intelligence to help us categorize and you can see uh number one neighborhood Unity um that was um no change from what we've heard in the past on previous comments that try to keep neighborhoods together as best as possible um there was some comments around capacity issues making sure that we can try to um create a scenario that's going to last as long as possible I think Dr Anderson has mentioned that the goal was to try to um have a plan that's going to last 3 to 5 years and we always put an asterisk by that because what's really driving the variability is development and growth and as a growing District um it's just that's hard to predict but um that was always the target was trying to get to that three to five years um transportation efficiency so again um we were looking at this um all throughout the process of trying to make sure that we being as efficient as possible and as I mentioned last week there was progress made in improving that albeit with pocket boundaries um that are in the current model you have some inefficiencies but um significant Improvement was made in that area um as expected um I think parents are are and families are concerned about the social emotional well-being of their children and um we know as Educators at any transition is hard and so um I think parents are reflecting that in in these comments as well equity and fairness um comments made about um kind of how we got from 8 B-2 to 8 b-5 and so there was some questions as to why changes were being made as we continue to evolve this and so that that was uh several comments um again families looking for consistency consistency and stability and trying to strive for the same things that I think we were is trying try to have these boundaries as U set in place for as long as possible um planning and rational rational transparency I think every time we have a new concept or a new model there's changes and so those that are in areas that are in the final final changes um they express concern that you know they haven't had an opportunity throughout all the process to maybe weigh in as much as um others have and um it's it's typical in the process as you're making these changes and movements um to to have this point but there were comments made along that as well um impact of future developments so trying to um Express that uh stable developments are protected but the new developments um were uh would be prioritized for any kind of moves and and the team did look at this over time um and again trying to balance all the variables is what they were focused on and then minimizing disruption I think we did make great progress um from the very first model I think was 20% of students um projected and moving I think it's were down to 8% so we really did work to try to minimize disruption and as Scott just mentioned um without anybody moving we would not have achieved um some of the challenges that you're faced with today with current capacities and the proximity to schools uh again you know we we did move away from 8A which was the contiguous boundaries it moved more kids um that would have provided um more proximity but um in concept 9 you're going to see that there's still some pocket boundaries and you're going to see some um adjustments that um aren't necessarily as close to the schools as as we would have desired so and we we we got those comments from the public um and again I I shared this slide you know the the capacities really started the whole conversation trying to balance capacities across the the district uh when we reviewed the current reality report that we um looked at three times um we have made progress in in the uh the design team has made progress in this work trying to get to that 90% functional capacity it's again it's it's uh if we're talking about two years it's easy to make adjustments if you're talking about the next two to three years beyond that it's harder um because we don't know how development's really going to happen and how fast um but that was our Target goal um demographic awareness we were um cognizant of that throughout the process every model we looked at looked at the profile of current students if we applied a new model to it what it would look like in that school um trying to maintain neighborhood schools as much as possible working to keep developments in neighb neighborhoods together and again we've heard very strongly that the desire to have pure Elementary feeders in the middle schools was important um neighborhood proximity to schools I mentioned already um the the major roadways were a consideration um it was very helpful to have the transportation um person as part of the whole conver conversation so they could bring that perspective um consideration of Prior boundary adjustments again that was a constant theme that was talked about and uh again that the focus of trying to get to 3 to 5 years um as best as possible so I'll take you through a few slides that highlight what our recommendation is uh to you here tonight before I start that though I just will give a little bit of historical background so I'm in my 17th year of superintendent here in wetta when I started in 2008 we had 9,600 students in grades K through 12 and this year we have I believe about 12,800 and Rising a little bit um each day I believe but uh it's really grown quite a lot and I kind of remember back at that time hearing that uh there wasn't really a perspective that the community was going to be growing and that there would be a lot of construction well since that time we've built two new elementary schools a new early learning school we've added on a significant uh expansion to our high school we've built on classrooms at our elementary and also uh couple of our middle schools we've added some additional classroom spaces and we've also invested heavily into our buildings to uh upgrade and and refurbish uh replace uh all the mechanical systems lighting all of those types of HVAC all the things that uh you know we do in our homes as well because we have to maintain and and keep those in good order so we really have had a focus on um our facilities and getting our arms around this growth and within five years we opened two elementary schools mle Ridge in I think 2015 and uh Northwoods in in 2020 which I think was the same year or thereabouts that we opened up the early learning school so we have really been on an accelerated Pace to accommodate our our growth and with that comes the need to take a look at where are our students residing and where are they located within the community in proximity to our schools and then give consideration to what the projected enrollment uh growth is into the future So within the community uh most of our our well I don't know if I should say it quite that way but a number of our communities are filling out um Plymouth has some limited space yet the portion of Maple Grove that's in the WIS Zetta District still has some growth potential um but the other uh uh cities of our community to the east Southeast South maybe Southwest are um pretty well filled filled but corkran is filling quickly and Madina has a lot of of wide open space so I'd like to share in any group that I have an opportunity to that the school district does own property in Medina it's about 82 or 83 Acres that uh would be large enough at some point for an elementary school and a middle school um we've had a few questions along the way about why don't we just build another school and when will that happen how long does it take to do that so those are questions that I oftentimes get when I'm at PTA meetings or our district liaison meetings or other community meetings that I might be at and uh prior to being able to move forward and build new schools it's important for a school district to maximize existing resources and as we'd all know in the room communities evolve and grow and change over a period of time in somewhat unpredictable ways so we have some areas of our community that are growing very rapidly uh we have other areas of our community that uh have not yet Broken Ground on new development uh we have a number of houses that do not have schoolage children in them that we anticipate at some point possibly uh you know in the coming X number of years I don't know how how long that might be it's really hard to predict where some of those homes will become available to young families again more in the east Southeast part of the the school district so giving consideration to maintaining some space in those areas and and Pockets through this process was important as well and also recognizing that we can anticipate in the next decade or 15 years quite a lot of expansion in Medina and uh filling up in the corkran uh community and uh you know bringing more students to us so as I said before we have 12,800 K12 students in our district this year uh almost every year now is an all-time high and uh we can anticipate that we're going to be back into some type of a significant growth pattern uh for many years that was about 250 new K12 students a year and I think we're probably going to be heading back into something on on that type of a growth level so I just wanted to give a little bit of that background because that's the journey we've been on for 16 plus years now and uh it's been been pretty robust growth that's a little bit unique in Suburban areas not all Suburban communities are growing but uh we are so this is uh part of the process if we were a fully uh grown out uh School District if that's the right way to say it we probably would be hitting some type of equilibrium so the number of uh fifth graders that graduate so to speak um somewhat approximates the incoming freshman or kindergarten and uh you kind of get into that but we're a number of years away from that so again that that's what precipitates this type of a process I spent 15 years or 16 years in another District before I came here during that time we never once uh changed attendance areas and I think they had five elementary schools and two middle schools so um they were fully grown out and there just wasn't this Dynamic growth so I thought it would be important just to kind of share that context I think most of our board members are familiar uh with that historical perspective but perhaps not all of our guests here tonight have uh heard quite that type of overview so I think it it helps paint a picture about our community as to where we're at and and uh where I think we're headed so the map that's uh on the the screen here is uh what we've come to call Concept nine for obvious reasons we worked our way through eight uh different concepts and varieties of those Concepts and have presented this here so this is what would have been sent out to um our families and our staff uh with the concept nine packet that I went out a day or two ago I think and uh I wanted to take some time and and walk through some of the The Narrative or the component parts so we thought it would be important to just highlight the uh specific uh areas or neighborhoods that are impacted by the change there's quite a number of them so bear with me but I think it's important to have these uh up here and and to um uh make mention to them so the first one is an area north of Highway 55 between Pinto Drive and Madina entertainment center and they will be moving to Northwoods in this model and Central Middle School from Greenwood and West Middle School there's an area south of 394 and east of 494 and west of Plymouth Road I'm sure you can all envision that perfectly where that is there's a number of uh of neighborhoods that are included there they're relatively smaller than perhaps some of them that would be uh up on the the north uh West part of the community and those students uh with this proposal would move to Birchview in Central Middle School from Sunset Hill and East Middle School um I could probably well I just will read through that list so the the list is bird song briercliffe Crown Hill Dalmatian Ridge Emerald Ridge Ang housers Dale I hope I pronounced that correctly Emerald Woods Essex Hills Fairfield Acres Hammer Estates Hill Ridge Lawrence Woods Oakland Woods Oakland null Oakland Estates oakwoods platwood Prestonwood Stone Road Western White Birch Hills and Wood Haven and then the next neighborhood is the simron ponds which uh in this proposal would move to Birchview and Central Middle School from gleon Lake and what to from gleon Lake and West Middle School Cranberry Ridge moved to Kimberly Lane Central Middle School from Greenwood and West uh Middle School School Elm Creek Highlands would move from Kimberly Lane uh in Central Middle School to Kimberly Lane Central Middle School from Greenwood and West Middle School Marsh Point all students will now go to Greenwood and West Middle School it was a split neighborhood at gleon Lake and uh West Middle School along with Greenwood and West Middle School so we've over the years had uh a strategy that has actually worked pretty well for us as we uh continue to grow and a neighborhood uh that are located within a specific School attendance area open up new sections of a development or an entirely new development perhaps might open up um we've had a practice of identifying those new developments it's possible some folks here in the room might have been in one of those developments and we uh use Transportation Systems to bring those students to our buildings further south that have capacity and uh as we uh continue to bring students to those schools in that fashion um and as time has evolved and we Built Metal Ridge then we built Northwoods we take a look at that and then try to uh reconfigure those neighborhoods or areas around those schools I could Envision that that type of a practice would be put in place again at such time if we were to move forward and build Elementary number 10 as all the board members know we have not yet taken any formal action on that it's very early in preliminary uh strategizing and going through this process that we're talking about tonight with uh enrollment projections and uh making determinations for establishing School attendance areas we've had some questions too about why only three to five years I can understand why uh community members might feel that that's a very short timeline or short being shortsighted um when you get out beond Beyond five years with enrollment proje in K K12 schools it's really difficult because we have no idea how quickly uh developments are going to open other than what city governments might tell us or what uh Builders might tell us and it's also somewhat at the mercy of the economy um interest rates um any other number of variables or factors that can have an impact on um the the the rate of building uh new single family homes or uh homes within the the Community uh the next neighborhood and and I I want to share that a little bit about those pocket neighborhoods because it's been a really effective strategy for us I that's the best name for it I think that's kind of what we started calling them but it it kind of makes sense and it has worked pretty well for us but I wanted to share that because these were the first set of schools that were uh indicating that they were split between those two uh packages of elementary and middle schools I wanted to explain that to the group uh Madina Clydesdale Town Homes uh moved to Northwood C Central Middle School from Greenwood and West Middle School rinia all students will now go to Northwood Central Middle School it was a one of those split neighborhoods pocket neighborhoods so to speak at Oakwood and Northwoods and Central Middle School and West Middle School Reserve at Madina uh the uh this proposal would have them moving to Northwoods and Central Middle School from Greenwood and West Middle School TOA all students will now go to Kimberly Lane under this model and Central Middle School this again was one of those split neighborhoods that utilized an Oakwood West Middle School package and a Northwoods Central Middle School package Villas at Medina moved to Northwoods and Central Middle School from Greenwood and West Middle School walai Glenn all students will now go to Northwoods and Central Middle School this again was a split neighborhood at Oakwood and West and Northwoods and Central Weston Ridge moved to meal Ridge and Central Middle School from Northwoods and Central Middle School so keeping the same middle school there with uh that move Weston Woods all students would now go to Greenwood and West Middle School uh that was a split neighborhood where students went to gleon Lake and West and Greenwood and West Woods of Madina all students would uh go to Northwoods and Central Middle School this again was a split neighborhood uh Gleason Lake and West Middle School with Greenwood and and West Middle School and finally two other uh neighborhoods hoods that are in the the southeast part of of our community our school Community is uh Zanzibar would move to Birchfield Central Middle School from gleon Lake and West Middle School and I'm not quite sure how to pronounce that Z zel I believe would move to birg viiew Central Middle School from Gleason Lake and West Middle School so that's kind of a long list and uh at some point when we get to the uh action uh item I'll probably read through those again uh just to uh be sure uh we cover for completeness but you can see we have a lot of neighborhoods that are impacted they vary in size from relatively smaller to pretty significant sized developments uh this was also referenced by Ry earlier in his introductory comments but there was a real clear uh communic set of communications coming to us from the community about we really like the feeder school program so we've had split elementary schools before to uh two different middle schools Oakwood I know when I came actually was split between Central Middle School and uh and West Middle School um I can't recall this one but I've heard that uh Plymouth Creek Andor Kimberly Lane had been split to uh two different middle schools I think that must be before my time here but it's possible that that actually was in place and I've lost track of that after building all those new buildings that I mentioned before but uh anyway it's a a model that our community has really liked so we have found a way to uh go back to that feeder uh School model with this which I think will be and has been well received by the community three feeder schools to West which is what their current model is gleon Lake Greenwood and Oakwood four schools to Central Middle School Birchview Kimberly Lane Metal Ridge and Northwoods and then back to two schools at East Middle School um Plymouth Creek and Sunset Hill so we had uh for a number of years what I call a 252 model two elementaries went to West five went to Central and two went to um East Middle School uh this year uh we felt that we would have the capacity and maybe the creativity to do a 333 model where we'd have three elementaries go to each one of our three middle schools um that works from a capacity perspective very well at Central because they have more space there it's former high school so that makes sense um but it was really tightening up at West but it's more manageable there than at East and East really is a tight building uh schools that were constructed uh some time ago were uh designed differently uh back in the day when uh classrooms were more configured or arranged with you know what I experienced as well uh you know more rows of students you don't need as much interactive collaborative space so the design of middle schools have really changed so uh the model that we're proposing is to go to I guess what we could call a 342 model where there would be three feeder schools to uh West uh which would include those that are listed four feeder schools to Central Middle School and then two uh to East Middle School and some have asked what will we do at West because if it's already kind of tight what what are the plans to kind of help accommodate that number of students because it could grow to 900 to a th000 students um currently I think they have around 800 there 750 to 800 but we have the ability to expand classroom space there there's I think about 13,000 square feet of underutilized Andor unused um old locker room space that we believe we can convert into uh classrooms and we're making plans to do that it'll be the fall of 2026 before those classrooms would be available but we think that that's a really good investment for the Long Haul for the district because the additional capacity is on the west side of town which is where um we anticipate the growth is going to be and that along with uh any any possible future Middle School um building in that space that I spoke about before the property that we own in Medina um would I don't know knock on wood I don't know if this is wood or not I don't think it is but um the the new middle school and um this additional space at West hopefully would accommodate what we might anticipate for Middle School age uh student growth uh before we hit that equilibrium point I don't know we'll we'll have to see how all that evolves in the next 15 or 20 years but anyway I want to explain a little bit about why we feel we can make this work at West Middle School because I know some of you have had that question um Ryan Carlson the principal there is very confident that this could work he's excited about the possibility of those new classrooms being constructed and uh looks forward to uh uh having full feeder schools which I know our other two middle schools do too um the next slide um and you'll notice the header on this is just modifications to the concept 8 B5 we put this one in here because there was an error I think the numbers were calculating correctly but the map didn't indicate uh that these two neighborhoods which are kind of on 101 north of of Oakwood and adjacent not too far from Greenwood they go to gleon Lake and they'll continue to be assigned to Gleason lake so I just wanted to point that out in the presentation as well um I wanted to share a little bit about some I don't know this could have a lot of different headers but administrative and procedural considerations so there's always a lot of uh operational things that we do in order to make things work uh well within each one of our our buildings um I wanted to just mention open enrollment um we currently uh have uh open enrollment at all of our elementary and secondary buildings uh that are in accordance with Schoolboard policy and and in alignment with state laws it's probably important for those in attendance tonight to know we don't have that many open enrollment students anymore when I came we had I don't know the exact percentage but I'm pretty sure it would have been 15 to 20% of students that were open enrolled at the time they have all um I don't know for lack of better term aged out graduated most of our open enrollment students uh uh at least to that level of of uh of numbers is not the case anymore by state law Minnesota Law requires that you must uh make an equivalent number of seats to 1% at each grade level open to open enrollment so for us that's about 10 kids a class so we and and we meet that I think all of our uh grade levels across the district probably have at least 10 students as you recall we did uh bring in a few ninth and tth graders last year as part of our uh Cost Containment process but um they will be here three or four years and and not be in that pipeline where our schools are growing so I just want to emphasize that open enrollment students within our district um is not creating a serious uh space crunch for us because we don't have that many open enrollment students here and we meet the statutory requirements for uh what um we need to make available to uh parties outside of the district um when possible we'll continue with the practice of same building placement of an open enrolled kindergart G students in other words if a child has a third grade brother or sister at uh an elementary school and they're entering kindergarten we would do our best to uh make a priority to keep them at that building if we can't keep them together at that building and that's important to the parent we would look for a building with some space where we would at least offer that opportunity for them to have both children in the same space um students enrolled in 2425 under approved open enrollment agreements will continue attending the same schools as their current C ly enrolled in because there are so few um we don't really see that there's much of a need to create a protocol for that because each school um again if you have 10 students per grade level that's across nine elementaries that's about one child per Elementary um per grade level U so you know maybe six kids I guess in each one of the the buildings at the max um open enrolled students moving into sixth grade will attend the middle school at their Elementary School uh We've utilize Birchview as um our kind of centralized site for open enrollment students who don't necessarily have connections directly within the other buildings and that has helped their uh student enrollment uh that's in one of the uh neighborhoods where I referenced before that there could be a significant turnover of Homes at some point with uh young families moving in there's already been some of that and we would anticipate that uh those areas in the Southeast would uh begin to grow as well I might just add just to build off of what Dr Anderson said roughly um our K through five we have about 70 open enrolled students just to give the breakdown of that for the impact across the district um 38 of those open enrollment students are at Birchview to Dr Anderson's point 10 are at Sunset Hill there's eight each at Oakwood and Plymouth Creek there's two at Meadow Ridge um one each at Northwoods and Kimberly Lane and zero at Greenwood just to add perspective to open enrollment just to show so it really isn't a big number thanks Scot I appreciate that so then there's another term sometimes these two terms get intermixed open enrollment and intradistrict transfer so open enrollment is a student that comes into our district from another school district intradistrict transfer is a student who moves from building a to Building B and there's a process for that there's a form on our website that parents can fill out if they have a request to make that they wish for their child to attend a different School within the district um we do consider those um it's not they are not always approved it somewhat is contingent upon the class sizes in the building they wish to go to sometimes they want to move from a building that may have smaller class sizes to one that has larger ones that probably would not be too likely but there are occasions or times when uh they may be moving from a building that would be somewhat larger to a building that would have more capacity or space so that's what an intradistrict transfer is and uh we've indicated here a few key points um we'll continue to utilize our current uh protocol for that which is really the bullet point number one number two in District transfer students may or may not be allowed to remain at their 2425 school year that's nothing new with this proposal that's an annually reviewed uh protocol where each year uh students need to sign up I think generally most students are probably in the same building for the duration but um we do uh give ourselves the opportunity to annually review that in case enrollment Chang significantly in a given building for some reason and then uh inter District transfers for other elementary students will be limited due to space logistical and cost constraints but those will be considered and for families that fill one of those out and submit it uh we will uh review those and give consideration to um you know which one of those that we might be able to uh uh honor um continued enrollment options um for sixth grade students of the 2425 school year attending East Middle School you'll recall that we made that shift last year to move Kimberly Lane to East Middle School Oakwood West Middle School and now East our uh Kimberly Lane will be going back to Central Middle School and we wanted to create an opportunity for those uh students who started sixth grade at East to be able to continue their seventh and eighth grade year at uh East Middle School the district would provide transportation for those students like they are this year if they wish uh to remain there and we anticipate probably a good number of them will choose to do that um middle school students at East Central and West will be allowed to remain at their current School of attendance through their eth grade year so this one's kind of a a little bit of a different situation because that's more of a student choice on this to uh remain there whereas with the Kimberly Lane to East Middle School it was more of a district decision and we want to continue to provide that transportation for those students that committed and and probably want to stay there in fin their their middle school years the great thing about the wetta district there are some uh challenges associated with having a single large high school but there are lots of benefits as well so all of our kids regardless of their Elementary Andor middle schools all end up at wetta high school which provides such a a great experience and opportunity there uh both of my own kids graduated from there and uh we're very proud of uh both of them and and uh pleased with the education that they received there so with uh East Central and West we will allow those uh students who may have been impacted by relocation to a different Middle School by allowing them to finish um the transportation is a little tricky with that um probably the bottom line is is that we will not transport students to those middle schools however if they happen to be adjacent to or somewhat low close to a bus stop that picks up children for that middle school that they wish to stay at if a child or student student can walk to a bus stop and or get dropped off by a parent at a bus stop they can hit your R all the way over to the the school so but we do have kids that do that and open enrollment kids are allowed to do that too but again we don't have a large number associated with our open enrollment program um continuing on with that younger Elementary School siblings and middle school students will not have continued enrollment um unless they're approved for an interdistrict transfer process I spoke at length about that prior to um they would need to attend the the newly assigned middle school students except for those referenced in the B points above will be expected to attend their assigned school for 25 26 school year and due to space limitations uh some of the logistical and cost constraints that current fourth grade students we've had a few questions about you know would they be allowed to remain at the elementary school for that final fifth grade year um we're U starting at the point of indicating here that due to you know a few unknown constraints yet and what the space might be um we're we're starting at those will not be allowed um I spoke before about the in District transfer process that's open to anybody so uh for those who may have an interest in us considering and reviewing that um that would be an opp you know a way for that to be considered um I think anytime you make changes like this you continue to assess and give consideration to some of these operational things and uh I think there would be some opportunities for us just to continue monitoring as we see what our student enrollment is doing and and uh get students uh repositioned um for the 25 26 school year and then we'll be in a better position to uh try to uh you know make some some decisions about reviewing these administrative protocols so I just wanted to mention that um as well couple other things or three things that I just wanted to reference as well as part of this uh uh when students move to a new Elementary I know the principles are great at trying to collocate uh or have uh students coming from that former School into a new one trying to Cluster some kids from that same school into their classrooms uh when and where possible so that'll be a an operational thing that uh our principes and staff the buildings will work on parents are Al also very interested in what about Wisa kids enrollment so that that transfers to a new building so if you're uh on the list and you're you know into the program I think once you're in you're in um that does not change you don't lose that um that uh registration or that connection to why is that a kids program if you move to another school and then uh our principles are great at uh planning transition activities our principles have been through this before they they're they're well trained and experienced uh as I said before we've grown uh over 3,000 students now in the last 16 years and we have had to do this a few times they the the changes we made have ranged from some minor uh administrative tweaks or changes uh to um attendance areas and uh all the way to you know more comprehensive reviews like like this one and when we opened up the two elementary schools obviously you have to populate those schools so you go through a major change uh during those times as well or you have an empty school and and everyone wonders why you built it so there will be some wonderful uh School transition activities uh for new students whether it's to Elementary or middle school and uh our principles again have a script with that they work with our PTA and PTO by Script I just mean a game plan it's not literally a script but they uh they know how to put the welcome at out and really make sure that students uh land on their feet in a very positive way um some of the benefits and challenges um you can't go through a process like this where you know there should be some benefits otherwise why' you do it um because there were some challenges that we were facing as a district that we knew we needed to uh address now and it's hard to hit on all of those original guiding principles to the highest degree possible so that's where some of the challenges um uh evolve or or happen um in in protocols or processes like this so some of the the things that this this package would accomplish IT addresses schools that are at or overc capacity um we did work toward uh minimizing the number of students and and families impacted I'll take this opportunity just to U acknowledge and and state how much I know it is challenging to make change and to um you know move from school aid to school be and again uh my own family has done that we've worked with uh in our school district Community to um uh populate new buildings uh right siiz buildings with enrollment so I do want to acknowledge that I know that that um anxiety about uncertainty and transition and all of the wha ifs um they're real and and I I get that and we've experienced that with our own family so I know what that feels like um I think there can also be some great learning in in that as well not to make an effort to sell any concept or or package of any type but um change and uh um you know new circumstances or and working with and and managing those things that's those are life skills and our young people um have opportunities along the way to uh learn in settings um and plant the seeds for those changes that are going to happen for a lifetime and I know uh with our own kids I think uh some of those transitions really helped equip them with some things that they might not have had given all that um that I get it I know that it's really hard and um I just I just want to acknowledge it and I don't want to drone on longer about it I probably made my point but um we believe that we've achieved some improved Transportation efficiencies um I think we're positioned to handle future growth for that three to five years I think I kind of mentioned that before that some have asked well why such a short timeline um realistically in a district like ours that's you know probably what we can get a a pretty good feel for uh you may have noticed in those graphs I'm sure you did the years six through 10 they're kind of shaded and that was to suggest um these numbers probably become a little less reliable because you're getting quite a ways out there and a lot of change happens in communities like ours and uh there's going to be impacts that we can't fully predict at this point um but we will go through this again we did you know of those things that we continue to give consideration to we tried to think in intuitively what might this look like in three to five years and let's say we have a new Elementary School in five years and we have to populate that school what kind of makes sense when we look at that that's crystal ball work that's pretty hard to fully Envision but at the same token um we we did we remained cognizant of that so that we didn't lose sight of that because we know we've built schools before I think we're going to do it again um I don't know exactly when but um we're we're on the front end of some serious and significant planning for that I think and and we will have to go through this again um at some point so we try to think in terms intuitively what sort of makes sense that uh if we're going to move some neighborhoods does it intuitively make sense that they might be aligned or collocated or nearby where this property is at and um again you can't bat a thousand with that and hit on uh all cylinders perfectly but we did at least try to keep that on our radar um we also tried to consider or we did consider prior boundary changes some of our neighborhoods have been through this uh probably each and every one of those times that I have since I've been here and uh we did keep that in mind so for neighborhoods that perhaps have not moved before um you know we were aware of that and for those that have moved multiple times we were also cognized of that and and uh you know those aren't necessarily any one of those criteria or or things that we looked at aren't necessarily deal makers or Breakers but they're things that we just stay aware of and try to really look at the full package of things that that we should be paying attention to um the school demographics stay pretty constant or consistent across all of buildings um no major changes I think as uh Dr Queener has mentioned a few times is that we try to work toward District averages and not um achieve District averages in in all of our buildings but um I think we we're focused on that along with many other things uh through this process uh some progress was made toward neighborhood schools um I don't have the shape of our school district but you might kind of remember sort of an oblong Northwest to Southeast shaped uh uh School District it's about 33 square miles it's bisected by Highway 55 494 Highway 12 uh Vicksburg and 101 and and it really has a lot of major roads that kind of go through it and uh that can create some Transportation logistical challenges sometimes those are some things that we have to keep uh an eye on when we work on uh these types of projects as well but um we we think that there has been some press with the the transportation efficiencies um positioning us to handle student growth again they can pop in any given neighborhood and all of a sudden you have houses coming up right and left and they happen to be in the same School attendance Zone and uh you know we can then go into that creative mode again of how do we accommodate manage um this number of students um we talked about the pure Elementary feeder to Middle Schools I feel really good about that I really like the feeder School concept cept and I'm glad we were able to find a way to do that we could not have done that if we would not have had that real estate uh underutilized real estate at West Middle School that was the deal maker and Central can manage Four elementary schools very well um five is a challenge but four works and three is a challenge at East two and a third might work which we played around with a little bit but we just realize that maybe um that third of of Kimberly Lane and um you know the challenges and and other Associated things to keep in mind with that um we kept working on finding a different way to do that I'm glad that we did uh a lot of feedback from the input team I appreciate the work that they did all the the parents and and uh staff members that were part of that input team um that that benefited us as well some of the challenges and sorry I've drwn down so much about this but I think some of this context is helpful and I hope it's a good historical background and kind of paints a bigger picture of of the challenges with this type of work um we've going to have to continue with some of those pocket boundaries uh we like the idea of a fully contiguous map where the colors are all look really nice on the map and there aren't some of those Pockets but I don't think this school Community footprint is there yet um until we get more grown out in the western parts of the school district I think it's going to be really hard to settle into um those real clean cut con uous boundaries but um you know we'll we'll continue to strive for that over the the coming years but we aren't there yet and that's why we uh uh continue to find some comfort in in uh some areas that maybe stand out a little bit that are um going to schools that aren't necessarily collocated but it works for us and we're able to to manage the transportation piece but um we try to uh perhaps minimize the amount of time that some in any individual students or neighborhoods might be making those longer commutes and and transportation routes but um yeah we've used another strategy of signing homes based on purchase agreements so there are times where a single development might literally have two Elementary attendant zones because one school has kind of filled up and then we know there's a new Wing or a new part of a development that's opening up and we designate that for one of our schools that has capacity so uh we utilize often times a purchase agreement date for example any purchase agreement signed after July 1 2025 will attend this school and that actually has worked pretty well early on there's kind of a small number of students but it doesn't take long and some of these quickly developing uh neighborhoods to increase the student enrollment um so if new schools are built obviously some neighborhoods could be moved in the future uh it's very likely again we have to move students into a new building because they aren't there aren't any assigned there yet there are a few Transportation inefficiencies yet but I don't think you can ever get to 100% efficiency with your Transportation schedules we have about 85 school buses that run every day um they uh do three routes there's route one two or tier one two and three and then I think we have another I can't remember how many special education buses we have but quite a number our buses drive a distance equivalent to uh a I think two trips around the equator weekly uh so it's a lot of mileage that they put on so a little bit of a trivia question about our our transportation system so that brings us to um next steps and uh we're here tonight we've uh made the presentation on and provided some anecdotal feedback in regard to the process or larger Community um it's December 18th that came up uh really quickly seems It's hard to believe we're at this point in school year already um if approved uh implementation plans will begin immediately uh to include some of these things listed here and I put the caveat on there others is determined but uh updating our student Information Systems that's a big deal um in order to make sure that we have students positioned in uh their correct schools uh any special information about those students that uh needs to be a part of that information system uh it's quite a lot of of manual input to accomplish that um developing and implementing transition plans uh again our principles have good game plans for that they're excellent at it and uh all the teachers and staff in those buildings are as well communication to the uh impacted families uh as a result of attendance area changes and then all other things that evolve and and uh uh present themselves to us we you know we'll do our very best to ensure that we uh create really good transition plans so after that I think that brings us to comments questions or insights uh Ry and Scott I feel like I did a lot of talking there uh in that fly over of information but was there anything that I left out or that you wanted to share or highlight or emphasize further no I think you touched on all of it and I think Dr Anderson really highlighted the complexities of the process and all the variables that were um inside of that and it wasn't just looking at at one single area it was looking at the district overall and I also appreciated explaining the 3 to five years in a growing District that's a huge challenge as we've talked about at length at a number of board meetings even recently um the district has up over 400 kids from last year we've done two def two demographic studies in the last two and a half years and the demographic study that was done and presented the board in the late fall early winter of 2022 we're already 2 and a half years ahead of that projection so I think it absolutely challenges um creates challenges uh it also creates opportunities and I've mentioned that before from a budgetary perspective it's allowed us to come out of Cost Containment we're in hopefully our last year of that it's allowed us to come out of that considerably I think districts across the state uh generally speaking are seeing stagnated or declining enrollment um this is a positive thing especially for the fact that we're a pupil driven Revenue system uh without that growth getting 2% from the state um on our state uh Aid poses a huge challenge because as we know our expenditures are far outpacing those revenues that we receive so this growth also gives us an opportunity to offer the programs we have um the buildings that we have and the continued expansion and growth I think the only thing I would add is that and I mentioned this um last week as well is that I know we're looking at concept 9 and there was way more than nine Concepts that were considered even throughout the iteration of the design team meetings there were hundreds of what if questions asked and um not all of those make it to a concept um but literally I think we've talked about just about every neighborhood in the district the design team and um so I just what from the naming convention it may not demonstrate the volume of scenarios that were looked at and considered in the moment and uh maybe dismissed because it wasn't delivering on a a um outcome that was hoped for so that was the only other thing I would add I might just add one more thing to based on what Scott shared about the number of students of growth for each year so we're we're reestablishing our trend line um you might recall that uh with the 2021 school year we started the year with 200 fewer students than uh we had the year prior during the covid year and then we stagnated for a year and then we started building um upward again so we're trying to uh again get our arms around what's this new established trend line I mentioned before we were kind of on that 250 to 300 line for a number of years and then um we had the break in that line but I we're getting back there I don't think the 400 that we have this year is the new trend line I don't think that'll be every year but there might have been some uh builtup uh movement or moving so to speak maybe some uh employment growth in the west part of the metro area or something that brought more people here but anyway we're still repositioning that trend line but it's up it's not down we are not one of the districts that is declining and or closing buildings and that's a good thing our frustrations and and challenges are different but they're the better kind to uh be challenged by then um closing buildings and re assigning boundaries when uh we're shutting down a school and there are districts that are doing that multiples perhaps so anyway that's enough anecdotal I'm sure for one night for you but again hopefully it was helpful and and again somewhat Paints the the bigger picture Beyond just this attendance area adjustment which is a big deal um I don't mean to under uh underestimate that at all it it is a big process and a big change anytime we go through this um there are a lot of moving Parts in the district that we're trying to accommodate and a lot of our uh staff all of our staff really work really hard to uh provide and create a really wonderful learning experience for all of our kids that's first and foremost what we want to be spending our time on and not all of the logistical and operational things but anyway it's all a package right so I'll hang up and listen and turn it back over to you thank you so much Dr Anderson thank you Scott thank you Dr Queener for for the thorough explanation I think it's really important that we have that board colleagues um this is the time now to ask your questions I know that we've all had an opportunity within our committee meetings and through the past months to engage with administrators and ask all of our questions but please bring forth all of your questions at this point Sheila I just um yeah I've asked a lot of questions and you answered them um tonight so thank you for that um I wanted to comment that I appreciate that uh we are having feeder schools for the middle schools um and thank you for clarifying how we were able to evolve the plans um chase you mentioned at West converting locker rooms into classroom so I know the plans evolved and hopefully you've set anyone's mind at ease who is worried about capacity issues at the at the middle schools um and thank you for again for keeping the feeder schools um I I have a question about the um in District um transfers I'm sure a lot of community members ears perked up um when you talked about that and um when you know if this goes into effect immediately essentially I anticipate people will start submitting requests for that and do you do you have kind of ideas about what that's going to look like for example if you have you know you might have a situation where fam is from two different schools kind of want to swap and you know maybe they're not communicating with each other but will you be taking that into consideration to say well we will have room if we transfer this family and that kind of thing that's a good question um I think that that would be a practice that we'd continue to monitor as we move forward run a bit of a crisp timeline because I think I heard some Elementary principles talking today about kindergarten open house houses at their their schools in late January so that's why there's some urgency to land this because we have to do all of the uh uh re-entry of data for students that are going to be relocating so that's a pretty big task um I I want to be cautious to not overpromise and then end up underd delivering so I'm going to be real hesitant to get real deep in the weeds here with this but um I did emphasize the in District transfer process it is there um in past years we've taken a look at maybe uh a focus on that that final year in a school so in other words be fair to say people should submit those sooner rather than later if they're I think they certainly can if they're impacted by the move um those forms are available online and people can submit those um again I don't want to overpromise and under deliver because we have to know that there is room in the buildings for remaining fifth graders or um well eighth grade we're going to do that we can manage that at our middle schools elementaries are a little bit different but um anyway that's why I emphasize the interdistrict transfer process and um I think you have something you want to add yeah I think I would just add as it relates to the elementaries of course we talked about the feeders and how um we were able to keep that feeder concept but that would be just one of the admitted uh admittedly challenging situations of an interdistrict transfer if it was from a school that was currently going to Central um that wanted to go to West or an elementary that would then feed to West that would pose a challenge long term for West Middle School Because as Dr Anderson talked about we are um looking at potential opportunities to be able to handle that space and capacity at West but obviously there's limits on that so that would just be another complex variable that would be into the equation and what intradistrict transfers at the elementary level um they would be they would have to provide their own transportation would they also be able to you know if they're close to a bus stop be able to take advantage of that kind of like you described for the middle schoolers I think so I'd feel more comfortable answering that if our transportation director was here and I'd let him answer it but um I think that concept would probably work and I don't know how often it would be utilize a lot of families just would choose to drive them to the school probably if they're able to do that but um if it works with transportation that would all have to be coordinated with them thank you I'll let others ask their questions should we ask all questions at once or you want to take time let's let's do one or two so um so I'll start with two data clarifications so on slide 27 it said fourth grade students will not be able to remain at their current schools because of the adjustments do we know how much the volume is because again it's one year before they go to middle school is that smaller percentage like do we have that data handy or yeah we have actually uh pulled that data I think Scott just pulled it up here on his packet uh yes uh pars to answer your question right now the um kids that we believe are impacted this is roughly at 54 students and that's current fourth graders okay and is it across different Elementary or a particular Elementary school is impacted um I might turn to Jen wel as well to answer um but it would be kind of spread throughout so okay um yes there's a concentration uh of about 13 that will be moving to Birchview and Central Middle School that were at Sunset Hill and East um East Middle School and then the next comment and I'll turn it over to somebody else before I ask my other question so um just based on and maybe Dr quinner you can answer this question so one of the parameters was we have to keep next three to five years in mind and again the complexity of process and the whole demographics I mean you talked about it so again it is extremely complex process and we know we're not going to hit on all cylinders agreed but just knowing maybe based on your experience as a parent if I have to set expectations for myself would I be saying that hey if I get moved to a different school now and in next 3 to 5 years if we were to make another boundary adjustment should I set set that expectation that hey I might get moved or I will not because now I already moved this year or next year yeah maybe I'll start with that one it might depend on individual families and maybe the types of conversations that parents might have with their their children in regard to um I don't know the maturity level their ability to think in terms of three to five years out and what might that mean am I try yeah where no actually my question was again once we make the boundary adjustment and now let's say next three four three to five years we have to make another boundary adjustment do we think the same neighborhood that moved to a different School let's say next year they can potentially have to move somewhere else or we think they most likely won't get impacted because they already they they will get impacted next year you know what I mean yep I think I yeah sorry I went the wrong route on the question but I think it's possible um but when we um I referenced earlier how we tried to project what will three three to five years look like and intuitively with what we know now um with where the available possible new home construction areas would be what might that look like in three to five years but again that's there aren't definites to that I mean we have some general ideas about uh and I think and and maybe Ray can speak to this a little bit better but I know that when they did their enrollment projections out into the future they knew what the future developments were um if they were established can you maybe just share a little bit more about what we know with the city uh cities that are still growing yeah so the the key assumption that we made was all known developments that are permitted and plotted and are in progress we assumed will be built out 100% in 5 years so that that's um just a a based on um experience um as we looked at the district um that CH that could change quickly um that's really a a huge driving Factor um I think you asked about experience and you know the the ideal number of years that a district would like to have boundaries our tenant area is fix is six years in a district like wisett because a kindergarten student starting next year would matriculate through the system now that still could have an impact on a family right if they have siblings um three to five years gets you depending on what year the student is um but um there's a lot of variables that um could impact that and given this process and the commitment to paying attention into um areas that have been moved I would speculate from my experience that that would still be at the Forefront um and um and that would be a consideration in future endeavors I because I our experiences no one wants to have to move if they don't have to from The District's perspective they don't want to have to move kids if they don't have to but it's it's an answer that says there's no guarantees but very cognizant of that um future concern okay thank you I think I would just add to that Paris is um to kind of answer your question and obviously building off of what Dr Anderson and Dr Queener said is that um we we don't have a crystal ball we can't project growth obviously we saw you know um overestimated growth this year over projected rather um but when we look into that and I can tell you it was one of the guiding principles it was one of the things we've talked about several times tonight when the design team was going about their work that was absolutely a consideration so um we factored in had they moved prior how many times have they been moved prior have they not been moved okay if we did move them is it highly likely that they'll remain at the building that we move them to now that was part of the thought process in a lot of this and then also like we've talked about um I believe at our last board work session where we discussed this is just due to the um potential growth in the district the district will grow out in the west and the north by default we're going to pull back to the Eastern schools why is that because we're not seeing that population growth there and we have to keep build capacity you know as was per the goal of this so um also as part of that when we looked at that um it will have to pull so when you might look and go well this school this neighborhood you know that's close to um you know in the northern part of the district or Northwoods or met Bridge they might go to a new school or um odds are they would shift more to the east so to answer your question that was kind of a long um Circle but um it was definitely something we absolutely considered in the process so can't Define uh definitively answer that but it yes it absolutely was something we considered and I'll add one more thing on the um so districts that that continue with our product um we're monitoring this on a quarterly basis and so for wetta public schools the system will monitor every quarter the developments and we'll adjust accordingly and what we found is that we we typically do a complete analysis every 6 months um depending on what the district's needs so if that goes into the future the district's not going to wait three years and then look at it again we'll be monitoring it okay along the way um so it's not it shouldn't be a surprise at whatever point we have to make adjustments okay thank you Dan do you have a question yes thank you um so much for being here it really means a lot um it's really been a joy to you know be a part of this process and hear your reports and um just demonstrating all your hard work and collaboration with the community so my question um pertains to you know just um you know Community commentary or feedback that we've received along the lines of you know the specific percentages with facility utilization 90% 94% I was wondering if you could kind of speak to you know the the flexibility that exists in those numbers is there kind of an ideal uh facility utilization rate if not kind of where does that flexib ility come in I'll start with that one since no one else was talking um I think it kind of depends again on the style of the building I think some buildings probably have greater Flex space and uh opportunities for uh creative utilization other buildings um again I spoke about uh uh East Middle School and perhaps uh the the type of classroom instruction that was occurring not that you know New Wave constructions or instruction is not happening there but it's just different uh based on when the building might have been constructed and I think those utilization factors um really are um you know they're kind of fluid i' I've always tried to think in terms of of um two different terminologies for that what I call a maximum capacity and the other one would be a functional capacity so if you take the number of boxes in a school and figure out how many students you might want to put in each one um that gives you a maximum capacity but is that functional where every room is tied up every period in a a you know school day um probably not so in a Middle School uh there's a lot more collaborative uh type of work teams that are established um uh interdisciplinary um instruction between teachers or teams of teachers and larger uh Flex spaces are probably needed if you're creating CTE classrooms for uh career teched uh type programming you need kind of an oversized room uh literally some of the construction in our future may actually be taking three classrooms and converting them into two at uh some of our middle schools in order to create labs and some of the CTE and science lab uh type work that we would want to be able to accomplish and Implement there once you start doing that it's going to impact your capacity for middle schools so that might help I mean it might establish um that that need or drive toward a fourth middle school because we may have less uh capacity for that type of educational programming that our teaching and learning Department our principles want to develop and Implement um our current facilities would have some limiting factors for that not ones that would uh exclude us from being able to do that but we're going to have to do some some type of work so that functional and maximum capacities I think can vary building to building based on the construction style and you want a little bit of flexibility and fluidity in order to navigate the building and to be able to let teachers and principles be creative and I think generally the idea was that we try to design to 90% that was the target um and there is a variability that can be allowed some schools are able to operate at 95% with no concerns there are some schools that could run it 100% for a short term not a long-term solution but addition to everything that Dr Anderson mentioned um it's also important to pay attention to your core facilities your cafeteria Media Center your restrooms um because even if you have classrooms you still have to be able to accommodate those other spaces as well so all of that kind of gets factored into um you know you it's you don't have to lock in right at 90% you could go over if you've got core facilities to meet the needs if you've got some short-term Solutions within the the four walls and that's dependent upon the style of the building and um the year it was built and those types of things okay thank you Sarah thank you um that was a great one for me to follow thank you for a reminder that a lot of the reasons why we do this work is so that we can achieve our commitment to Excellence and education and that there's always a teaching and learning component to that and so thinking about our spaces so that we can continue to move that forward is is really important um I have uh two things that I'm hopeful about I'm I'm hopeful that um the statement about looking at fourth graders and you know and inner District transfers I know it's not always possible um but I'm hopeful that that will remain um something that we look to do um for our students who are facing those those transitional times um I'm also hopeful uh building on pars of statement that that we looked at this process that we maybe started with um a desire to be really comprehensive and and maybe reach a Finish Line into where so that we don't have to do this every three to five years and we learned that we are still growing and we're not at that point yet as much as we want to and so I'm hopeful that we've been really strategic which it sounds like we have and said we're going to make adjustments we're going to be thinking about it so that when we do this again right um that that we have set ourselves up and and we're starting in a spot that's a better spot or that's ahead of of where we were so those are my hopefuls and and now I'm going to get to my question and it reminds everyone that I'm the old lady on the board um because I remember when we opened Metal Ridge and uh we opened we asked families to move and we opened this new SCH school and we disrupted all of these things and then they had class in a hallway because we didn't build the school to the size that we needed to build it with our robust growth um and that was because we hadn't made because we made our case we told the state that we were going to do that but there is a long list of boxes that we had to check and requirements that we had to do and they didn't trust us that we actually needed the whole space and so we did what we could do we opened Metal Ridge we had some glasses in a class and families removed and disrupted for not the ideal um luckily the state learned and they trusted us and so when we built North you know and so construction started on Metal Ridge and when we built Northwoods they believed us and we got to be bigger um and that has served us well so my question is is is some of what we are doing right now and looking at maximum capacity in each of our buildings and making these decisions is that integrating some of the learning that we had in the last couple rounds of moving that really helps us to make the case to the people that will give us the authorization um if we determine that our district is continuing to grow and we need new spaces that we've done all the due diligence that we can do in the utmost professional way to make it so that we don't have to build a school and then add on to a school or do other things but that we can make our case great question um I would say yes we have certainly learned from the past decade plus about the growth in our community um when we've worked with uh consultants in the past several years we're identified as somewhat of an anomaly uh within the metro area because of the rate that we have been growing and um it's not that there aren't other communities that are but it's certainly a reality for us as we all know it's part of why we're here tonight um but I maybe it'd be an opportunity for Ry to share just a little bit about the longer term enrollment growth that you saw in your metrics and models that you put together and kind of what that looks like based on what you can see at this point so I think one of the things that a Nuance um not to get too tentacle in the projection modeling is that we start off with what we call a cohort survival which is basically how many third graders are fourth graders the next year and that ratio will include growth as long as it's a straight line growth um for Yetta the challenge is that the developments are accelerating at a faster Pace than what your trend line shows in the cohort which when you look at the graphs you're seeing the two lines the cohort survival and the development so that introduces that um unknown variable um when a district is truly operating either up or down off of the cohort survival rate it's a it's a lot easier to plan and and see what's happening but I do think the system that's been put into place the monitoring system over the long term will be able to give you that historical perspective uh in terms of raw numbers submitting information to the state to demonstrate here's where we've been here's what we've been monitoring here's the trend we're seeing and it'll give you valuable information when you get to that point in time of um designing a size of a school and and what you see is coming it'll it'll give you that information Val uh before I ask the question I need clarification um I see that there are going to be 5001 students disrupted from K to five correct I mean in in the paperwork it's it's St so are we did we include Middle School uh students there or not I mean based on if it is from K till five and it's on page seven that is just K through five so middle schools obviously with doing the feeder system and the continuous um uh process allowed us to handle those impacted oh so some middle schoolers are going to be disrupted too am I right um as Dr Anderson outlined that's where we had the opportunity for those students to continue at the school um with or without transportation depending on the situation thank you for clarification uh question I have is um I had Sim I mean exact the same question about four graders uh but on top of that I wanted to add uh you said where 54 students would be affected um to be honest I've seen in uh looking at data for some reason uh that fourth graders I think that it was uh this is the age which was hit by covid first time so when we were learning to read we wear in masks and try to learn to read when you cannot see adult uh showing how to read so I'm I'm hoping that we'll put I mean I'm not only hoping I would like it to see that we will give I mean these student suffered enough I feel like looking at the data that we will give them opportunity fourth graders to stay in V school if a if a parents can help them out um at least uh because as I said again um they already had some disruption um they experience from the beginning and um being able to stay within familiar place and hopefully after read act and all um they will take advantage of that and that will uh give them good opportunity to start Middle School will we be able to do that will will be able to um give an opportunity to stay for the fourth graders yes yeah we spoke I mean I really appreciate your comments and the reminder about you know the journey that the current fourth grade kids have had is a good reminder for all of us I think too um I shared a bit about that earlier just in that we will those that'll be one of the uh uh administrative protocols that we'll we'll take a good close look at because I've heard I've heard that theme from a number of folks here uh tonight board members and um again I I don't want to overpromise and underd deliver I want to make sure that before we make commitments like that that we know that we can accommodate it um because it's a relatively smaller number what was it 50 54% um again I'll come up just short of saying um it's it's probably a workable number but we have to explore it a little bit more and and make sure that we can accommodate that but I think the points here tonight are well taken and and I appreciate that you're sharing those perspectives and um second one if I can ask there was some comments from sorry should I I can read sorry um uh we heard um comments from parents that there are some neighborhoods um who literally uh if you swap them I mean there are some neighborhoods who would like still to stay and other neighborhoods would like to stay with uh Within their boundaries and if you swap them it it still um I mean you will still um reach what you want to uh capacity is it possible um I'm not sure specifically what neighborhoods you're talking about but I can speak kind of generally it would be dependent obviously if it was an equal swap it would be absolutely something we would have considered in the process but more than likely it was someone or it was an a situation where uh one would go back to you know where they originally were the same in both but then there'd be a third party impact and then depending on the variables and impacts that both of those would have it would have a overall arching impact on a third area so without knowing specifics um kind of hard to answer that one I me just add there's almost invariably a domino effect of you make a change and then it impacts this and it might now the middle school doesn't work with that pipeline of feeders heading off to um that same middle school so those are some of the things that we' Ved out along the way that you think hey this would be a great idea let's do this and then you run into that roadblock because it just doesn't work for the long term and um sometimes the the two different schools might have different middle schools that they're they go to and if you return to the home elementary school or keep that that group there and for example moving all of Oakwood into West Middle School to maintain the feeder concept it might disrupt that where now it'll knock that out where you can't take the full school because an elementary got larger or a a group of students that would continue on to just using that example West Middle School again so it's it's really all interconnected and to change one thing can really have a ripple effect and and uh those are the types of things that that we really worked hard to to try to V out and we did look at lots and lots of of Concepts and a lot of different ways of of trying to put the the big puzzle together but there has to be you know pretty good alignment and those are some of the complications or challenges that we have but we did a lot of that actually and uh tried to figure out you know this work or you know what else could we do along with that and I think we did find some good Solutions and a lot of good ways forward but you'll probably remember those that list of criteria that we utilized as we made decisions and in The Guiding change document you always establish all these ideals that you want to accomplish but as you work through the process you kind of have to gauge what are the tradeoffs and what what can't we do uh and you know how do we maximize achieving as many of those goals goals and objectives as we can yet at the same time realizing that we probably can't do all of them but that was a long answer I apologize but I found I have to admit that this one looks like a big puzzle you just get comfortable with one version and then you look at another one and then it's start I mean you get mixed up over all the ideas I'm not sure how you are holding all the information through that's complicated yeah there's no doubt thank you thank you Paris go ahead yeah so clearly we are copying each other's notes so um so I'm going to try and position my two questions but a little bit of context and I think it was reserved at midina that had recommended hey we have 154 houses can you trade us with another similar size neighborhood so that's one example we also heard from some of the community members from Weston Ridge that they weren't on the list but they were in the last revision and they didn't get enough time to review they were thinking they were all good and then last revision changed now again completely understand it's complicated process and again when you move one parameter something else gets impacted um Simon ponds I think there was another one where there are five families and eight kids that are now moved from one school equ to another so again with that and again I know there are more but those are the three that sort of coming to my mind now so with that are we 100% confident that we are done like there are no stones unturn or should we take maybe two three weeks more and look at some of the outliers now I'm not suggesting that the numbers should change and we should go back and start impacting other neighborhoods and maybe 3 weeks later we come back and this is it this is the proposal but I just wanted to understand like have we given enough time with all the iterations and I understand Dr Anderson you talked about how that impacts the the kindergarten onboarding and the the whole process and system that needs to be set up so completely understand there are dependencies but my question is again are we at a point where we just know that there is not not going to be any other model other than what we have or would it make sense for us to take maybe two three weeks more take a look at it maybe come back with the same recommendation but take some time to at least go through another iteration if you will and like I said we may come back with exact same recommendation but again just wanted to get your guys' view it's fair question I'll start that one off my two colleagues here may have some additional things to to share at as well um keep keep in mind we've been at this for three or four months um I think we had 13 design team meetings is that the right number I've lost track of about 30 people that were on that included number of principals other District staff um three of us and and uh several others and we vetted everything that we possibly could so I think we have really uh looked at it comprehensively um we've I don't know nearly exhausted the possibilities um anything we change now it's it's going to have that domino effect and it's going to impact something else and once you once you start doing that it's just I think it's going to have that continuous um impact of then causing some new solution which then that solution will create a complication so I I can speak confidently that I think we have really worked hard in this three to four months with a lot of of uh internal staff and community members who uh served on the input team and and provided their perspectives um I don't think we would be able to come back in three or four weeks with something transformational and magical that would land it perfectly where we had 100% satisfaction and uh every body was content with what the final plan was so that's my response to your question and um I'm I'm confident in the the process that we've used and how thoroughly we have looked at U um the neighborhoods and and the concepts and the opportunities and options so it would be my hope that we can move forward and and know how to move forward with our implementation plan three to four weeks sounds maybe to some like a relatively shorter time period but it's pretty critical because four weeks gets us to January what is the date January 18th so we'd be in week three already of January um I believe we have kindergarten um open houses the end of January um that last week of January so to delay that um I don't see how we could turn around and preparing for that and then that would bump back a next major um event in the district of Staffing so we start our staffing process a look at our executive director of Human Resources in February January when do we start that Stacy February so then we would be a a couple weeks away from that so it's it's part of why we established this timeline that really we're sort of at the critical point of ensuring that all these other systems can can get launched and I don't know that that we're going to land on a more satisfactory solution um for the larger organization um maybe for individual neighborhoods that would be more satisfied if something were to evolve where they didn't move it would move another it would end up resulting in moving another neighborhood that then similar or the same types of complications um would evolve and again we we took into account location what seems to make sense proximity to school um we do have some neighborhoods that are probably you know kind of equidistant to two different schools maybe even three around the community so there might multiple right answers for that which are always your most uh difficult solutions to find um and we tried to use that best degree of intuitiveness that we might have in regard to what might we expect to happen in three to five years so I think we've exercised that really well not perfectly but I think really well I don't know that there's a long list of uh additional transformational Creative Solutions to to put something together I think is really a solid plan um in how we've repositioned the middle schools how in most cases not all those trend lines for each of our elementary schools approximate a space between those two lines of the the cohort group and the the new Construction Group um did I call those the right thing so um and that really was kind of the goal was to hit that you know 90% capacity going back to an earlier question so again that was a a long answer but I think you kind of needed a long long answer because that again demonstrates the of it and I don't know that we would land on anything that would feel fundamentally different than what we landed other than to perhaps individuals and individual neighborhoods within the community I mean the the as I said before the really hard part of this is eventually there's there has to be and there's going to be some impact somewhere or we end up right back where we started um the beauty of it we have nine elementary schools that are phenomenal and we have comparable hiring protocols to hire teachers fact the principls generally work together and they interview groups of teachers and then they determine what's the best placement so they're really uh uh locked in together on how they approach the Staffing and hiring process the curriculums are the same um so you know it's any landing spot of our elementary schools or middle schools are phenomenal and they all work their way toward that uh one fantastic High School within our school district that all of us are so proud of and that provides so many wonderful opportunities for our students so that's kind of a larger Global um perspective on it but I don't know may or may not be helpful but thanks for listening thank you I think I would just add um Paris that uh just to build off what Dr Anderson said I think we've looked at every angle um and many different possibilities throughout the process I think as Dr Anderson alluded to we had some general um generalities about the criteria that we looked at that we went through earlier in the slides show um that were factored um and we knew at some point there was going to have to be some tradeoffs right so um just kind of building off of that some of those neighborhoods that you had mentioned um there was absolutely consideration that was taken into that so um it kind of alluded to the fact of have they moved before if they have um obviously we tried to U be mindful of that if we had if they hadn't and we were going to move them was the the thought process was was it highly likely that they would remain in the school that we were moving them to in 3 to 5 years to answer your earlier question so those were both kind of um thought processes we also looked at just the peer location of it um in both of the neighborhoods that you mentioned um and I should clarify seven ponds of the presentation that was corrected that was uh an error um that was corrected so seven pounds was corrected um but getting back to um the ones that you mentioned um they literally do touch areas that go to the schools that they're now going to um when you look at the map there was uh especially in the first one that you had mentioned the design team and I think it's important to remember and build off of what Dr Anderson said this work has been going on for three to four months we've had 28 to 30 administrators and leaders throughout the district that care deeply about students um and are trying to um plan mindfully we also had an input team of 80 plus people and so um and then the countless hours spent outside of that working and considering all these different variables but those were some of the variables that were in it um when we looked at uh The Reserve at Madina that you mentioned they do physically touch that area um as I just mentioned those large groups that were looking at it and every concept that came out from the design team they were in they were going to Northwoods um when we look out that would be where I talked about the district pulling Eastwood Eastward to Eastward schools um to keep population up um that would be one that we would consider staying at Northwoods obviously um because just like when we open Northwoods that school opened with I think roughly 500 students within a year it was at 700 students pandemic and now it's almost at 800 students so we wouldn't open up a brand new 10th elementary school if we um if we had that opportunity and that was a direction we went we wouldn't open it at full capacity so um those were some of the variables um and like I said we factored in um distance as well so that would be one that add a much closer distance to North Woods than it would be to Greenwood um so just some variables on that obviously like I mentioned there's a lot of complexities in that um and also there were seven neighborhoods that were moved out of um Greenwood so it wasn't just one area specifically um some of the areas that were talked about moving um I think some of them mentioned were uh Meadow View and Weston Woods um just to kind of clarify meal View and Fields of Medina are kind of one big area and it was confusing and I understand that because in the map it essentially said gleas and Lake well that was to build off of what Dr Anderson talked about earlier with the purchase agreement dates we had um such growth that you would have neighborhoods literally where um depending on a purchase date they would go to a different school because capacity would hit one um but I think it it was a little complex and what I'm getting at is that both of those areas um meow View and um Weston Woods the majority of those students already go to Greenwoods so there wouldn't be une equable flop right if that makes sense so um and also if we were to move them to Northwoods they're literally located one is located literally across Highway 55 from where the 10th Elementary School would be um and the new middle school if we were to do that and the other one is just up the road from it too and they're in the west obviously so um they would naturally be pulling East towards that new school so those were some of the other variables with that um as it relates to um Weston Ridge that was another area um I believe there's about 60 61 students in there um and you're correct that did come late um in consideration but all of these variables just what came to the board were the ones that came out there was I think um Dr Queener would tell you and Dr Anderson Anderson would tell you we would split into multiple groups and there would be tons of different examples so what they listed about the different um the different concepts there were probably how many 15 times 20 times that so um that wasn't kind of the first consideration that was the first time it came out that way so but that was another example of um if you look in the current boundary map there was already a jut out that came into Northwoods a little bit it basically pulled a little bit West to pull that East um the the area right next to them already goes to Metal Ridge um we believe in the 3 to 5 year um projection just that I've talked about with theast Eastward movement that that neighborhood would um end up going to Meadow Ridge so we're looking at at least disruption um some of the neighborhoods that were talked about um that should have you know the boner was mentioned T was mentioned Ravinia was mentioned a lot of those have been moved prior and so that was some of the criteria as well so um I don't want to dig too deep into it because I don't want to focus on just two areas because I want to be respectable because there was multiple areas that were moved and there's a lot of kids that were impacted but I just wanted to highlight that because there is a lot of complexity to this and there's a lot of variables that have to be considered um and I understand and absolutely empathize it is it it's a complex and challenging situation and um you know we looked at all the variables we could to try to make the best decisions possible Scott one one last question so and I know in the presentation um there was a mention of hey this was split neighborhood before and now it all goes to one so where we've heard concerns right all of those neighborhoods are going to one school or do we still have a situation in any of those neighborhoods where we have split schools if you will um that's a great question my recollection is that we I think we've solved most of those if not all of them at this point and then I say and um to build off of what Dr Anderson said we are a growing district and so it will not be long that we will go back to purchase agreement dates excuse me which is why if you look at the top of the district there is kind of I call it the stove pipe but up kind of in the Tara range there about a third of that is developed roughly and that was sent to Kimberly Lane so if you look in the packet from Teamworks you would go why did they move them to Kimberly Lane Kimberly Lane's going to be over capacity well Kimberly Lane would be over capacity if we let that happen so talking to what Dr Anderson mentioned that would be an area that we would utilize the pocket boundaries if if you will based on purchase agreement dates and so we wouldn't let Kimberly Lane get to that um level at that point that's where we would pocket to um send those new developments into schools that have capacity similar what to the practice that the district has done but even in that example Paris um that was a split area up there and they are all now as that neighborhood the kids that are there right now we'll all go to Kimberly Lane together okay thank you and and I'll just add um so first and just to put in context my comments so our role is not to advocate for or recommend a solution we we support the district and provide data and facilitate process so I'm describing um kind of what happens at the design team per your comments on um if we were to look at another move and what typically happens at this point if there is a consideration to make a change it literally starts uh either clockwise or counterclockwise process where you're you're pushing in one side and it's got to come out the other side and you literally go around the district um as one of the examples that you mentioned um to make that change then um West no longer can handle the enrollment and so then we've got to move something out of West so that we make space and you you go around the district um and and I know that we looked at several of those ideas and what happens uh what was happen happening is that we were losing the elementary feeder system because you have you have capacities at East and West Middle that really control that and so if we want to keep the feeder system Integrity then it's hard to to make all those moves so again not advocating for but just explaining kind of how the process worked because we did go around the district many times in the design meeting if we did this how does this impact this this area and lastly the more you do those the more impact impacted families and students you would have thank you board colleagues any other questions go ahead Valentina uh based on uh what I heard from Paris I would like to um uh ask clarification so thank you I heard the clarification about uh Kimberly Lane that it it shows that it's going to overgrow the capacity and then you're not going to allow because it says capacity concerns will be addressed with pocket boundaries as new development uh evolves why not to do the same uh things for Northwood uh [Music] school um when we looked at that Northwoods if you see that does still have um uh pretty significant growth factored in and it goes back to um mixture of variables obviously there's still growth that's happening in that area um if you recall from the last rendition there was even some pockets in there and so that's where um I believe it was rivinia that we um Consolidated those neighborhoods to keep those kids all together because that was a split area prior um and then to build off of what Dr Queener said it has other impacts um depending on where that is so um I think when you look at it let me pull it up here um depending on You' think I would be able to page through these faster after a few months when you look at Northwoods that you're explaining um we're showing next year at about 822 um so if you're saying to um uh drop students in there even if it's 60 students were now over 100% capacity and the one thing that um might be kind of hard to conceptualize is that by putting those in it also increases that future line out which then you just keep growing over Capac capacity if that makes sense so if we drop them in now um they would be over 100% capacity very okay and then pocket boundary those those are the kids that we know about um it it would create complications um because we already know that there's those 61 kids so if we're putting those in there and you're putting it on top of the 822 um which is very highly likely because that is a growth area you're going to be over capacity and then if we're off at all that building will be overflowing very fast and one more M uh one more clarification is um I'm not an economist but based on what seen how long some housing had been on Market I'm not sure how quickly economy will uh change and um how quickly new buildings new housing will be um developing especially considering interest rates um so when you given the priority whom are you going to be given uh given choice to um households which which are already existing or to the households which are might be coming in future when you were um looking making plans obviously you're looking at for growth uh how what was more prioritized uh people who already I mean students who already in existing housing house housing or uh students who we might get because we have uh housing developments as still in consideration I'll start with that one I think existing students clearly got the priority if you look at the trend lines they're all you know pretty much pushing the capacity we have a couple schools um and we're still trying to figure out the Dynamics with us but Plymouth Creek and um Sunset Hill that drop off a little bit so we have to figure out the you know the source of that but those are examples of neighborhoods that probably don't have a lot of new home growth um in them currently like our our more Western uh ones do but I think uh based on if you look at all those trend lines for all of our schools I would say that we prioritize those who are currently here with us when you build a new school that's probably when you have to leave some capacity if you know there's another 400 houses coming up in the next four years um like we did at Northwoods I think we started with upper 400s or 500 students and so it's grown by 300 I don't know it's kind of ebbed and flowed a little bit I think over the years but um that's probably where you would try to preserve a little bit of space because you don't want to open a school and then have it be full uh the next you know when you're when you're out now you have the same challenges you had before so hopefully that helps yeah thank you wel okay well I'll close us out then um I would like to lift up something that Scott you said this is a good problem to have I know that this is tough area changes and and Boundary changes are always incredibly tough but we are a growing district and that has positive impacts for every single one of our students and so we have to keep that in the back of our mind as we are going forward with this um I do have to say I really appreciate that we are keeping the feeder program I think that's a really important thing at a really transitional time for students in their adolescence I think that's incredible I'm also hopeful like my other board colleagues about the fourth graders um and I have a question because really this you know as a Schoolboard member you have to think about the entire organization and you have to think about the entire district and we are one district and as a parent I also really empathize with the each and every and I think it's incredibly important and so as these transitions happen Dr Anderson you are an incredible force of educational knowledge and we want to make sure that each one of our students has the best experience no matter what waves and ripples might come along just like we did during covid just like you know there there are many things that happen so if I am a parent who has a lot of concerns about this transition what would what advice would you give and and how should that parent approach their principles and and moving forward to making sure that their child has the best transition yeah that's that's a wonderful question and there would be a potential really long answer I'll try to be concise but um I would say that every one of our buildings is of extremely high quality I spoke earlier about the quality of our teachers um I can remember in my uh days as a principal at Edina High School and Val Middle School in Edina meeting with PTA groups and sharing with them that uh the most important thing a principal does is hire outstanding teachers and if you don't get that right nothing else you do matters and I'm extremely confident in the work that our principles do and hiring teachers I shared that they oftentimes work together and review a large pool of teachers and then determine who goes where and where the the best fit or matches based on their experiences and their talent so I think regardless of where a parent or a child ends up they're going to have outstanding teachers they're going to have wonderful curriculum same curriculum every all nine schools and uh I think we're really becoming even increasingly aligned in our instructional delivery models our principles collaborate and work really closely together with that so um I would say that and I would also say having been through these a few times um invariably what I hear is you know once the kids got to their new building settled in they um you know were were off and running so to speak and and they felt good about it that doesn't mean that there won't be some transition and you know some challenge that kind of goes with it I think moving from second grade to third grade can be some of that too I mean you have the familiarity of the building and all of those things for sure but um you know like is sort of a a daily set of challenges and another thing that I hear consistently and regularly typically from parents of freshman in college is hearing back from their kids how well prepared their their kids were when they got to college and um we heard that with our own two kids it was amazing that they they found that they were so well prepared that starts in our elementary schools it continues through our middle schools and all the way through high school with um the the out standing opportunities that they have so I appreciate your comments about the larger system it really is a you know it's it's uh one large system of nine units of Elementary but they're kind of one but because we don't want 5,800 elementary kids in one school we have nine sites where we distribute them and you know we we have to fit within the footprint of the building and that's a big part of what this is about is trying to do that and um a lot of the kids will reassemble back at their middle school they go from 9 to three maybe 10 to 4 sometimes 10 elementaries to four middle schools someday and currently nine into three um so in the adult world we call that networking and we expand uh those that we uh come to know and there are opportunities for some of that when new experiences come the way uh to our students so when they get back to middle school they have the potential to know yet even more students when they collocate there so again I'm not trying to oversell anything but there are uh you know ways to look at things that are opportunities and um it's important to do everything we can to help package those and I just know the the depth of the welcome map that our principles roll out and that our teachers roll out to welcome new students to the building and for those that might be leaving and going to a different building you know help them to make that transition as well so um we've done this before um maybe I should say that I wish we weren't so good at it and so experienced at it because it's hard work and you know it's uh it's a lot of energy out um to try to land it and and make it work and I just incredibly proud of how hard people have worked to get to this point um but I also understand the frustrations and you know the anxiety about the uncertainty you know that's that's real but I also know what's on the other side with our principles and our staff and how they'll ensure that they welcome everybody in thank you well thank you for this portion of the agenda I think we'll be able to move on to the next portion which is the audience opportunity to address the board okay thank you again okay so this is the audience opportunity to address the board portion of the agenda um it provides an opportunity for members of the audience to address the school board speakers will be allotted approximately 3 minutes please note that this time is provided for citizens to address the board this is not an appropriate venue for discussion or debate if the speaker would like uh follow-up contact from the board they may leave their contact information with the administrative team which is Amy um as always we appreciate the respectful nature of comments and input and if you could also consider um using this time as an opportunity to offer the district ways to make any transitions easier I think that would be this would be a good time for that um we'll go in order of the sheets being presented I don't see any students St in the audience um so I will call name Adam McBride thank you uh Adam McBride I am a parent of two students currently at Northwoods I live in the western Ridge Neighborhood I'm sure you've all seen my name pop up through your email and I appreciate the response so thank you very much um my proposal is is relative simple not that you're looking for proposals but I'm going to offer one anyways in concept nine looking at the variance between the projected enrollment and capacity of that school um is negative throughout the next 10 years now albe it after five years they're become less accurate but there's still an opportunity that remains negative um the 60 years so students that reside in Western Ridge Neighborhood are being moved to Metal Ridge leaving them at Northwoods would still keep us under capacity and leave our students in place and we've heard a lot about Domino effects and this would have no domino effect I'm not asking other families to be pulled out I'm not asking for other families to be moved I'm not asking for different Transportation we're literally on the border of meow Ridge and Northwoods um and I just want us to stay and remain intact where we are um the other point that I have is that this wouldn't create any pocket zoning it's simply moving the Border two blocks to the east I heard a lot tonight about pulling students from the west east as that continues to develop uh the problem that I have with that statement is that we are being pulled East while students from the Eastern side are being shipped West around us now I know that's largely because of Prior movements that had happen and they're respecting that um but it just doesn't make a lot of sense to me to move us East and then ship people around us um lastly one of the driving principles is to min minimize disruption there's capacity at the school we want to stay there this would minimize even less of our students um so I'm just urging you to consider leaving us where we're at and moving that border to the east thank you thank you Rebecca leaderman hi first I want to say thank you for all of the transparency and all of the work that you guys have put into this I've heard it many times tonight and I know it's not easy it's also not easy for the families that are impacted and I know during Schoolboard elections I spoke with several different members of the board about their plans and what we want to do and back then we talked about the need to impr increase capacity by building new schools how we had this land back in like 2020 it would take a couple years to get the referendum and then a couple more years after that to to build but here we are almost 5 years later and I heard tonight that there has been zero effort to do any of that and looking at the capacity charts we know we're growing I heard tonight that we are growing faster than the trend lines have predicted and we're not making any efforts through any of these proposals to address any of that Dr Anderson I heard that you talked about that a little bit earlier too and I really appreciate the insight there my concern is that we are looking at a three to fiveyear Horizon I have a current kindergartener if we really redistrict or re bone every three years she could face this two more times during her Elementary School and Middle School career that is a lot it feels like all of these changes are retroactively looking at the known we're looking at the birth rate of the Z 0 to five is looking at who's born right now we're looking at the known with the communities that have already been established and we projecting them being growth but we're not actually looking at where new community is going to continue to grow where we're zoned for more resid itial and where that's going to happen and I really would like to understand what we're doing to be more proactive with these bounding that we can get more to the standard for a district like WIA which I heard tonight was six years rather than less than 50% of that where we could be looking at doing this again in three years I know that to do that you have to make a lot of assumptions and you have to make guesses about what's going to happen in the unknown my career is in demand planning I lead the demand planning or for one of the bigger companies located in Minneapolis so I 100% understand the difficulty and how hard it is to make those assumptions but I just want to understand how we're going to do that and keep our students in mind rather than just shifting them around retroactively and not planning for the future thank you thank you Rebecca Aron manani uh hey what before I kick off I think I really admire the work you have done I did follow some of the prior plans as well and today listening to you and rest of the group um really really appreciate the efforts what you guys put through uh I'm actually raising one concern around um the Tava Community I know couple of points have been already touched I think they answer some of the questions as well um current what I see is the we has been mapped to Kimberly Lane which is bit farther than meow Ridge and Northwood um I looked at a couple of other plans what a couple of other board members asked as well um I do see that it's a proximity to school is far and then I do see that it impacts School activity and engagements because of the distance and a couple of other points which were touched um because the Vera is not continuous pocket for Kimberly Lane do you see um in the next rezoning or remapping this is the first schol to be or First Community to be remapped if that is the case should we even um plan for something like this now again you also touched upon purchase agreement based decisions if that is the case should we even consider that now rather than thinking about future growth and then mapping the entire Community which is not developed um I think this communties developed less than 50% and if you're looking at full 100% And then planning because of that we are moving into Kim should we even consider this to be mapped back to North again this is just a train thoughts but I really appreciate and admire and also understand the complexities around this but then yeah just this primarily the concern is around three to five year planning because we I I'm a father of toddler who is going to join class next year so yeah I'm just thinking if it is fiveyear plan if they could accommodate her in a single School rather than multiple schools but I really appreciate your efforts thank you good night thank you Ben Steinbach thank you uh thank you for the thoughtful answers I just start with that um the board members for asking questions that I had on my list so my time is much shorter so thank you for that um I'm one of the parents of the 54 fourth graders that's impacted uh and that's something me my wife have struggled with uh throughout this um I understand there's macro decisions to be made I'm here just to share as a parent the micro impacts those have um my son has dealt with anxiety especially separation anxiety in second grade we had to have him ripped out of our car to go into school and what I love most about our school district is that we have great support systems to help him we've had counselors in school helping him um the teachers are great he gives every one of them a hug every morning so agree you guys have awesome teachers um and he's worked super hard to get where he's at um I've seen it he he fights and he pushes and I know he can fight through more I don't want is his father though to have to ask him to do that again because he has fought and he's done so much work so um not asking to look at the whole District thing it's hard it's like I don't want other people to be impacted either I'm just asking for some and I I heard from the board members extra considerations for those fourth and fifth grad so they don't have so many transitions right in a row so thank you for listening thank you kha said lassic I'm sorry correct me please SLE thank you good evening members of the board my name is Kesha sedle I'm a parent of two kids at Northwoods and I'm a resident of the Weston Ridge Neighborhood um I'm not going to repeat everything that was already said with regards to all the comments um and I just want to Second Adam's proposal as far as what we should do I was going to go into capacity issues and the ability for Northwoods to absorb our community but Adams addressed that so instead I have two other points I would like to make the first being um you know I've been hearing about the new elementary and middle school U that are coming in the near future um the neighbors were actually told that we're being considered for a move anyway during that process which was confirmed again tonight that most likely in 3 to 5 years we will be moved over anyway um so I just in the interest of transparency would expect that any of those considerations that you all are looking at are actually verbalized and made public the last point I have here is while there has been a commitment to providing transition support for families impacted through a guide with tips and resources and now activities the school district needs to do better and provide resources at new schools for students who have been moved um my child also suffers from severe anxiety and having recently moved into your school district I can tell you firsthand the resources are limited through the school as well as the privately available ones in this area so you're you're going to need to provide additional staff dedicated to ensuring these tools are given to the students who need additional resources when dealing with a transition and I'm I'm sorry calling this a networking exercise to make my student more prepared for college really just is quite Insight is an insult to me this is it impacts our students much greater than that um so I hope that you do provide additional resources thank you thank you Derek shobrick hi I'm uh Derek schob I'm one of the many Western Ridge residents here um and so I don't need to maybe belabor a lot of the points that others are going to make as well but um I appreciate all the work obviously you put into the proposal um I just can't help but feel like you know the results kind of speak for themselves I think I found out even later than many of the other residents here from Weston Ridge like I found out a week ago that this was happening that's just like not a very transparent process and I've heard multiple times that was a goal and so that kind of in combination with some of the hard data that was laid out by others of just I would really like to hear specifically why Weston Ridge was moved like I emailed all of you and I haven't heard back yet and so I'd just be really interested to know what some of those factors were because it does kind of feel like we were that last Domino that tipped over that's so I'd like to know why um and similarly as well I have a kindergartner and so staring down potentially two more moves yet is just really hard to stomach um I'm I'm actually a was at a high school grad myself and had to live through several changes and it was tough like you could tell the kids that had to move versus those that didn't um so I just ask that you really uh consider all the Western rid people that are here tonight so thank you thank you so much Muhammad Khan hi thank you so much for listening and thank you for so much for the presentation as well I am one of the parent of uh from the comma community and my kid goes to uh Northwoods our question and was around first initially for all the eight Concepts which were there the the school which was signed for to OFA was northwards and all of a sudden we have moved to Kim SCH Kim Lane now the point which I want to make is with with this particular transition the kids are a little bit more hesitant towards it second thing is it increases the times like right now the timings are very early for the bus and now with this particular shift we will be I'm guessing it will be more earlier as as compared to what we have right now even for the Pence drop off where it will take 10 15 minutes it will take probably 20 25 minutes 30 minutes probably so one to make up the point and even and wanted to understand one more thing in terms of when Tava is on the pocket in the Border there are two more schools here northwards and medage what compels us to move TOA directly from northwards and uh and Med to directly to Kimberly Lane which is too far as well so yeah please consider these points as well thank you thank you Peter Kim uh thank you for taking my comments so I'm going to start out that I work in machine learning and data science so I'm pretty comfortable with numbers so I look at the numbers of what's being proposed um Chase Anderson and Scott has said Northwoods have to be protected we can't bring in Western Ridge or we can't bring in any school it's going to be over we have 400 homes that have gone up in the last year and a half but then they cite facts like well the ones that are going to be growing building out is going to take 5 years what neighborhood in the last 5 years has take five years to grow in Plymouth they pop up in two years there's more Farmland being sold so we have to protect Northwoods well we can't put West Ridge in Northwoods because it's going to be too full so what we're going to do is just remove one neighborhood to protect Northwoods that's it how is it that we have to protect Northwoods by not letting anything in because it's grown Leaps and Bounds with all the farmland but not move more kids to the east it doesn't make sense I'm not here because I'm anti- mooved move Bonair move Western Ridge move more neighborhoods East because guess what Greenwood and Northwoods in two years are going to be over inundated we're going to be right back to where we are right now think about that we're moving one neighborhood of 54 kids out of Northwoods and that's going to solve Northwood capacity problem for the next 3 to 5 years that makes no sense also I am all about data I love good data so I did some research on Teamworks they're made of 12 superintendent and one person on geospatial analysis one he has his own internal tool that he built out and uses a thirdparty data set so has anyone asked how accurate that is has the projections that for the next three to five years in other school districts been validated because the numbers they're saying 400 people growing so quickly we got to protect Northwoods we got to protect Greenwoods then they remove one or two neighborhoods that's it that doesn't make any sense we're going to be over inundated next is it's better to move a lot of students at once not small because kids at Northwoods there's going to be some grades where there's three kids moving to metal Rich they're not going to know anyone they're going to go to class and it's going to be foreign to them it's better to move chunks of neighborhoods East Bonair Western Ridge rinia than at least these kids have familiar faces they feel comfortable it might be different building but they have their friends so when you single out these small neighborhoods they those kids are the sacrificial lamps thank you Adam web good evening Schoolboard members my name is Adam Webb I'm a father of four in the district and I'm here tonight to implore you to vote no on concept 9 I understand this process is necessary to facilitate uh the process of getting funding and approval for new schools but the whole district is at real risk of being perceived as an unstable place to live and send your kids to school you have the opportunity to be the board that actually listens to feedback and stops the unnecessary magnitude of student disruption proposed in concept 9 concept 9 proposes to move 88.6% of elementary students I know some people believe this is an improvement from the 20% plus of students who would have been disrupted in previous Concepts but Teamworks openly stated at past board meetings that those Concepts were were never implementable plans so those can't be the bar to which concept 9 is compared to I disagree with something the earlier presenters said if the concepts have continually improved over time why would a few more weeks of time not make them even better for example Scot Las Sage recently provided me with detailed data breakdown of my neighborhood and surrounding neighborhoods which I appreciated by making a slight modification to concept 9 the percentage of disrupted students can be reduced from 88.6% to 7.9% and that's just looking at the area around my neighborhood I know further student disruption reductions are possible which will still arrive at the same facility utilization numbers as concept 9 the core tenant for being able to do this is to not move fully developed neighborhoods which should be a goal anyways so I asked this were certain principles such as not moving fully developed neighborhoods except when opening a new school fully fully explored by Teamworks in the design team did you receive a detailed explanation on why that's not feasible if not you don't have enough data to vote Yes and you should vote no on concept 9 now I want to spend a minute I only have about a minute left talk about the frankly embarrassing map that's concept 9 how is no one brought up there's a literal Island around the wealthiest neighborhood in the district am I taking crazy pills does anyone else see this the wealthiest neighborhood in the district was obviously given preferential treatment as part of this process because it's the only Island boundary on the whole map and to be clear I'm actually for what the design team did for Hollydale but I'm adamantly against not giving the same consideration to fully developed neighborhoods such as mine so I asked you have you as board members received legal advice that this map can hold up to a legal challenge under the equal protection clause which ensures equal protection for all citizens and prohibits preferential treatment in government Affairs if not I recommend you vote no I want you to I want I know you want to put this process behind you you but this is the most important vote you will ever take as a school board member I guarantee it and I know for a fact we can do better than concept 9 give it a few more weeks send it back to the design team tell them tell them you know the number needs to be 7% That's dozens and dozens of kids that will not be disrupted I know for a fact it can be done I've spent a lot of time with the maps thank you for hearing me vote no tonight thank you nantha manam Perry yeah so my name is nant Maneri and I'm also representing the Western Rich community and I'm not going to get into the numbers Adam and you know Kim presented those but I wanted to actually point up a couple of things the first one is actually uh we were not aware of this change at the very last minute so this is a very last minute change and I think this was taken to f facilitate some of the other neighborhoods which were already moved I think I received an email from Dr Anderson before coming to this meeting and he mentioned that you know preference was given to like the neighborhoods who have already moved and and those neighborhoods are actually also growing and especially if you think about Ravinia it's growing like even today like they're building new houses and our neighborhood is like already established and those neighborhoods should be given priority I'm not discriminating anything or like that but ours was already established and we should be given like we were assigned to Northwoods and we should be kept in that and the other thing is that as Valentina board member mentioned that there are neighborhoods in the community that who wants to swap like for an example uh Reserve at Madina right they want they don't want to go to Northwoods we wanted to go to Northwoods so why don't you do that Swap and also I'm really concerned that this concept 9 is not should not be final because when Valentina asked about whether did you consider like the mentality of those Co students like you know who went to fourth grade and they already lost their trust they already lost you know connections with the community and the and the students and the answer Dr Anderson and the other two denalan gave like they didn't have an answer for those 48 students and he will think about it I think that's a very concerning point because you need we are grown-ups we can manage to the change but you need to really think about how you incorporate these students will manage yes they need to they they definitely need to know how to incorporate the change into their life but this is not the time you should do that so I think that should be really given the consideration and also um uh I know if you even don't make that change at the very last minute um um you know there was like a consideration that the parents can request the same neighborhoods can be you know kept in the same classroom or something like that but even at that time you should not be thinking about your easiness you should be thinking about from the students point of view and parents should have to have some kind of a procedure or a paperwork for to submit to the uh um uh the school we have to have a say our students need to be grouped together into one classroom so don't think about your easiness think about the students and the parents as well and I think I really appreciate valentina's like really good points about the covid students and this uh spping thing thank you very much thank you um Heidi Spore hi I'm Heidi spy um I am a parent of a um fourth grader current fourth grader and a current eighth grader we are Greenwood and West kids um I really appreciated um just pointing out that yes my fourth grader extremely introverted introverted fourth grader was a CO kid he had to go through that the thought that he has to spend his fifth grade year in a brand new school at Northwood which these people are fighting to stay at so why are we having to move out of Greenwood that these kids know our small little neighborhood that they know why do we have to go to Northwoods which I know is a fabulous school and just keep us at Greenwood and west where we know we are we are small it is a very very tiny neighborhood established 125 home homes um I'm just asking that I don't understand why it is so set that we have to go to Northwoods I realize that wild Meadows goes to Northwoods and they're right in front of us um but if this is going to be in three to five years we're actually very close to where the potential new M Middle School would be I'm asking that we please vote no for this I just I feel like maybe this is something that really does need to be looked at more instead of rushed and then okay this looks fine when yes a small number of people are being affected but these are human beings that this is what they know and I just I just ask that we just please say no and maybe just look at it in the future thank you thank you that concludes the portion of the agenda for public comment I thank you all for coming tonight okay so the next item on the agenda is Administrative reports and recommendations the item is the attendance area adjustments effective for 2025 2026 school year and Dr Anderson if you could present thank you madam Vice chair members of the board thanks members of the community for coming tonight to share uh your inputs and insights as we indicated on the agenda and uh in our preliminary comments uh to the board meeting um this is the segment where a recommendation is made to the board and where they'll take a vote on uh the proposed recommendation so I'm going to share a little bit here I'm wondering Madam Vice chair if I may have your permission to not read all of the neighborhood names again since I read them in the presentation are you okay with that yes okay they are in the packet and included uh in the narrative during the past several months wetta public schools has been engaged in the process of reviewing current attendance areas for elementary and middle schools and creating concepts for possible modifications effective with the start of the 25 26 school year progress updates have been provided to the school board through presentations each month at the Schoolboard meeting starting in September of 2024 feedback has been received from parents and staff during this process and has been considered in the refinement of the evolving Concepts this feedback has come in the form of online input as well as from the input team comprised of parents and staff representatives from every school the design team made up of 29 District administrators and employees has convened numerous times to discuss Poss and refine the concepts listed on this document are the neighborhoods affected by the recommended boundary changes and those are the ones I alluded to earlier that I had mentioned in the presentation um we also uh referenced in that presentation the feeder elementary schools to each one of our three middle schools um I shared in that presentation as well uh the protocols for open enrollment and in District transfer continued enrollment options grouping students together who have moved to a new school wi ettic kids enrollment and school transition activities again Madame Vice chair would you like for me to read through each of those again which I'm happy to do if that would be helpful in the recommendation um I think yes okay I'll just read them so for open enrollment open enrollment at all elementary and secondary buildings will be in accordance with school board adopted protocols and in alignment with state laws as I indicated uh prior it's important to note that the district's current open enrollment practices are in alignment with the minimum requirements consistent with Minnesota statutes when possible continue with the practice of same building placement of an open enrolled kindergarten student with an older sibling attending wi Isetta Public Schools if a kindergarten sibling is accepted through open enrollment and placed in a building other than the school where the older sibling attends the parent may choose to keep the older child enrolled at their currently assigned elementary school or the parent May request that both children be allowed to attend the same school where spaces available students enrolled in 2420 in the 2024 25 school year under approved open enrollment agreements will continue attending the same schools as currently enrolled open enrolled students students moving into sixth grade will attend the middle school that their Elementary School is assigned to Birchview will be the 2025 26 placement for incoming kindergarten students who do not have an older sibling attending wetta Public Schools intradistrict transfer an interdistrict transfer student is defined as a resident student attending a school outside of their District assign attendance area school the district will continue to manage in District transfer requests under the current procedure which requires annual review and approval intradistrict transfer students may or may not be allowed to remain at their 20 24 25 School of attendance depending on the individual building capacity status in the 2025 26 school year continued enrollment options sixth grade students of the 24 25 school year attending East Middle School and who also attended Kimberly Lane Elementary School will be allowed to remain at East Middle School through their eighth grade year transportation to East Middle School will be provided for these students middle school students at East Central and West will be allowed to remain at their current School of attendance through their eth grade year Transportation will not be provided for students who are assigned to a different Middle School through this process if they choose to remain at their current Middle School of attendance a middle school student who was assigned to a different Middle School for the 2025 26 school year and who wishes to remain at their current Middle School may be able to receive transportation to and from that school from a nearby bus stop for that school such an ARR arangement needs to be coordinated through the transportation department further communication will be forthcoming to ensure that each Middle School is aware of who will be staying at their current school and who wishes to attend their newly assigned Middle School younger Elementary School siblings of middle school students will not have a choice for continued uh enrollment they will need to attend the newly assigned middle school students accept for those referenced in the bullet points above will be expected to attend their assigned school for the 20 year due to space logistical and cost constraints current fourth grade students will not be able to remain at their current schools under these adjustments intradistrict transfers for other elementary scho students will also not be available due to space logistical and cost constraints um although not part of the proposal I'll just reference there was discussion about uh allowing fourth graders to remain at their Elementary School and we'll have some continued conversation about that grouping students together who have moved to a new school to the degree possible principles will consider grouping students into the same classroom who have moved to a new school together for the 2025 26 school year Wisa kids enrollment registration for Wisa kids is based on District participation therefore fam's priority status will not be impacted by moving to a different Elementary School school transition activities School principles and staff working in cooperation with the PTA PT and PTO Andor PTO will plan and communicate transition activities to help ensure students and families feel welcome and comfortable when they arrive at their new school new Housing Development attendance area assignments for 2025 and 26 and Beyond there are several new housing developments evolving in our district as these housing developments open and new residents move in the district will evaluate the capacity of the currently assigned schools and determine whether a change to a different school is necessary if school is experiencing capacity concerns students from newly constructed homes May be assigned to another Elementary Middle School with greater capacity available through an administrative reassignment based on a predetermined signed purchase agreement date this assignment will remain in place until such time when impacted students can join their neighborhood peers at the same school the recommended action is to approve the outlin School attendance area changes effective for the 2025 26 school year and I'll turn it back over to you thank you Dr Henderson board colleagues the recommended action is to approve the outlined School attendance area changes effective for the 2526 school year as read by Dr Anderson would the clerk please take a I'm sorry is there a motion I so move is there a second I second would the uh is there any discussion when we cast our votes if you will are we allowed to make comments or just yes or this is the time now okay so again just hearing everything uh my request would be to again allow at least two to three weeks not asking for any significant changes nothing might change we may literally land exactly on Model 9 but just hearing some of the concerns hearing folks have recently learned about some of the changes my ask would be to at least stay couple of weeks um and again I don't know the procedures but we don't have to wait till 13th of Jan if we have a way to schedule another special meeting if that's an option in two weeks I think I would highly recommend that and again I'm not setting any expectations that decisions will change or I'm not asking to you know change the whole game plan but at least take a look at it one last time and we may literally land on the same model but my ask would be to at least consider a couple more weeks just to look at are there any other opportunities to bring that percentage further down so Paris are you asking director are you asking for us to hold the vote is that what you're asking my my recommendation would be to have design team take couple of weeks we hold the vote we come back early next year it not be 13 it could be much sooner than that as a special meeting and then we vote at that time and again not setting up any expectations that things will change we may literally land to exact same model but I think it's it's critical that we take time and not rush to the Judgment today okay so board colleagues um is there a motion no there there's a current sorry Vice chair there's a current motion on the table so if there is a request to amend in a mo amend a motion that also needs to be first and seconded otherwise you can only vote on the motion that's on the table thank you for that clarification is there any more discussion good go ahead Dan thank you um well I really just do want to take um a moment to commend um you know the community for reaching out for their you know effort uh effortful engagement our team at Team Works and our district partners for really making this process I think in my opinion um very strong we were able to hear and communicate with folks and you know hear their needs and what their observations were I think this was a data driven process um I'm really grateful to the you know team for being able to make our future school program work um I was able to you know transition pretty seamlessly from Kimberly Lane to Central Middle School fifth to sixth grade it was great I'm glad we were able to keep that intact I'm hopeful that the district will be able to take time to you know for these um you know soon to be rising fifth graders to stay at their given building um they maybe consideration for that so um I want to accept and understand that there is a lot um that goes into this while also recognizing that you know there are a lot of uh emotions feelings around this and that um ultimately you know this this does have to do with people's children so um you know recognizing that I'm proud of our process um and I will be voting yes Sarah yeah I uh I I will acknowledge that um I also wondered can we can we slow down this process and um and do we need to to think about this more and um I came to the conclusion that that that does not seem like the right answer we are an incredibly large organization that does a lot of things and there's a lot of pieces in in motion um from getting ready to make it welcome each one of our communities children into an after school program to enrolling our kindergarteners to hiring our staff and filling our buildings and making sure that we have the right people um and so we started this process in September there has been a lot of data and um no process is perfect but I have a high level of confidence that we have put the effort into this process that that we need to put in moreover um this is when the real work begins because we're a student centered organization and it's our job to create Community it's our job to educate students it's our job to support our staff our PTO and ptas send out incredible invitations and create Community our principles are the best leaders and ambassadors of their building our students are exceptional classmates and neighbors and peers and so we're human driven and and when we dra the lines of our buildings because we're not Builders when we draw the lines of our building then that's when I will say to the administration that the board implores you to get to work and get to work to really make sure that each one of our students feel the um exceptional welcome and being part of the wisett community that we all know and love so I as well um know that that boundary changes and area adjustments are are really really hard and every board remember considered the individual families um and as well those that we know and those that we don't know as well as neighborhoods as well as our schools um and ultimately uh no matter how many thoughtful compassionate and dedicated leaders give how many nights and days and weekends and conversations and graphs and and input sessions um we're not going to find a perfect solution and that's disappointing and I hope someday we will but right now we have a solution and we need to get to work in educ ating our students um I want to thank our administrations I want to thank the design team and the input team I want to thank every parent those of you that have been here for three hours tonight and every single parent that put input in the online and um in conversation with their with a number of people is our process is stronger and our district is better because of you my vote tonight um which will also be in support of this reflects my belief in our community and my commitment as a leader to ensure the long-term prosperity for our district any further discussion Valentina um I can see that there is qu I mean there is no argument there is quite a bit of work had been done here um and as I commented that uh through so many processes I'm uh surprised that you remember details but at the same time I um uh especially hearing that um uh particular neighborhood uh were considered so late and being I feel rushed right now and yes uh we are big District we need to make decision we um um Administration Teamworks uh organization um and leaders knew about it to begin with uh so I first of all um I feel I I agree with Paris and I feel like we're being rushed if it would be nice to take a couple more weeks and look through if uh what else can be done and second I would not feel comfortable unless the language about fourth graders is being changed then I will uh feel confident at least that uh these kiddos had been taking I would vote no Sheila um I think we should vote on this tonight um so I would like to keep the original motion um this you know proposal has been deliberated over a for months um it is not perfect but no no proposal will meet everybody's expectations um and somebody will have to be affected no matter what um I think we would be here forever we could always say let's extend it maybe there's some other solution it would go on and you it would go on a long time um so I I will be supporting the recommended action tonight um I think this proposal balances many many competing um considerations and we have a responsibility to do something about our capacity issues before the start of the next school year so so I it is pretty urgent that we do this sooner rather than later I would like to say though that to to anyone affected I do want to say that I'm sorry um and I hope things end up being not as bad as you're expecting uh as a child I personally moved three times between kindergarten and high school um and I did have high anxiety um and I I don't want to minimize the effects and I don't want to say my experience is going to be everyone else's um but I can say you know in hindsight that the um that you know having to adapt to each new school has had a positive impact on who I am today um I will also say that my own children had to move two of them had to move in elementary school so I I know what you're going through um and again I just hope that the experience you know with the teachers and the principls helping that that your children 's transition will be easy not easy well easier and and that things won't be as bad as you're expecting um and finally I just I know maybe I we had a commenter say that um you know think of it as networking and I don't want to say that but it's possible that um you know unexpectedly that the the transitions in elementary school will help with transitions later on because your student will know more people in middle school they will know more people in high school and again that's not to minimize the actual effects and the actual personal experiences of all the families who are affected um so I I appreciate everybody who reached out to us and sent us emails and spoke tonight and I appreciate all the work and hours that people put in um and I will be supporting this thank you board colleagues um I am also going to be voting in support of this um recommended action and I I Echo everything that my board colleagues have said um the input team the design team the administrators the principls the teachers the staff the students so many inputs have gone into this in consideration of coming up with the best possible solution in an imperfect situation um again I I want to thank everyone for their inputs thank you for reaching out thank you for continuing to engage with our district as we continue to try to make things better for each and every student and again like as as Sheila mentioned we do hope and I do hope that your experience is better than what is anticipated so again um we have a motion on the table to approve the outline School attendance changes effective for 2526 um we have a motion and a second would the clerk please take a roll call vote Sarah Johansson yes Dan janra yes Paris bende no Sheila prior yes Milan Sone is absent Valentina SS no Heidi Kar yes it passes oh sorry wait you're not on the list Sarah I'm so sorry no she's I was first on the list okay the total vote is oh the total vote is um 1 two three four yes two no we have not had a split vote like that before I apologize the motion passes that concludes our meeting for tonight thank you all for joining us is there a we we need a motion to adjourn the meeting is there a motion to adjourn I so move second there a second thank you two