Seattle School Board Work Session - November 17, 2020

comments while SPS-TV takes us live after a brief pause I will call us to order.

All right.

This is Director DeWolf.

I am now calling the board special meeting to order at 3 30 p.m.

on Tuesday November 17th.

For the record I will begin calling roll beginning with Director Harris.

Thank you Director Hersey.

You.

Thank you Director Mack.

Hello.

Thank you Director Rankin.

Here.

Wonderful.

And Director Rivera-Smith.

Present.

Thank you.

And this is Director DeWolf.

The superintendent is also present as well as staff who will be presenting as we move through today's agenda.

This meeting is being held remotely consistent with the governor's proclamation prohibiting meetings such as this one from being held in person.

The public is being provided remote access today by phone and through SPS-TV by broadcast and streaming on YouTube.

To facilitate this remote meeting I will ask all participants to ensure you are muted when you are not speaking.

There will not be a public comment opportunity today and staff will be working to administer the meeting And may be muting participants to address feedback and ensure we can hear from all directors and staff.

And today's work session will be focused on the budget.

So for now I will hand it over to Chief Financial Officer Jillian Berge to begin the presentation.

And I think we'll want to pause after slide 6 for questions.

Thank you President DeWolf.

Good afternoon everyone.

So for today's budget work session we'll be updating you with final numbers for the 2021. We closed 19-20.

We have a little bit of a change for 2021 in a good way to report.

And then we will be providing some more information regarding our 21-22 projections and timeline.

We will provide an update on the participatory budgeting process and where we're at so far.

And then we'll be providing some initial information regarding areas of potential repurposing.

So the next two slides Linda Sebring Director of Budget can you take those away.

Yes.

Good afternoon.

This is Linda Sebring the Budget Director for the district.

This is a slide we've provided to the board before and just wanted to draw attention to the 19-20 column and towards the bottom it says unassigned $21,830,217.

And on the next slide this is the update where we made a change.

So the areas that are highlighted This slide reflects our anticipated revenue and expenditures for next school year.

And what we are pulling forward is a larger chunk of that 21 million.

Previously this number was 21 million even and we recognize that it has the 807,757 dollars available in it and a little bit more to reduce our gap to 48 million.

So it's.

a round number that we can all work towards at this time.

Thank you.

If we can go back to slide 3 for just a moment.

Director Hampson wanted me to make a clarification here just to provide some additional information.

So on this slide you see the transportation funding deficit of 11.6 million dollars.

So that deficit amount We project to happen under the following conditions.

So if we go back to school in a hybrid model where we're transporting a small number of students but not transporting all of the students we think this is when we would have that deficit.

So one of two things could change that number.

If we did not return to a hybrid model we would not be incurring a revenue loss for transportation in the same way.

Or if the state legislature changed the rules for transportation funding for the rest of the year and they allowed us to run the routes but gave us the full amount of funding for those routes versus just for the ridership that would be occurring in a hybrid model.

So I just wanted to provide clarification that right now we're estimating the 11.6 million dollars.

It was something we hadn't budgeted for the 20 this current school year that we're in the 2021. school year but that number could change depending on what else happens during the school year.

So now we'll move on to slide 5. So the purpose of this slide is just to give the board some ideas.

These are examples that are provided for discussion purposes only.

It's just.

We were provided four large buckets of where to solve the gap from.

So those four buckets are the Economic Stabilization or Rainy Day Fund which currently has 38.7 million dollars in it.

The second area was to reduce district programs.

The third area was to use capital funding.

The fourth area was to reduce school funding allocations or some component of the WSS or the staffing allocations to school buildings.

So what we've done is we've just provided some different scenarios and I'll walk through those with with the board.

This is really to try to start to generate ideas about where does the board want to go.

Which of these options are you most interested in exploring.

What other information can we provide to you.

That would help inform that decision.

So option A is no reduction to school allocation allocations and we would use all of the savings.

So all of these could have all the numbers change.

But again these are just for discussion purposes and to provide some examples.

So using all of the rainy day fund still needed to reduce both district programs and use some part of capital funding.

to get to a 48 million dollar number.

Option B is spreading out and having reductions in all areas.

So stabilization fund would have a have about half of it being reduced.

There would be a slightly higher number in this scenario of reduction to district programs.

Some more capital funding and would need to be used.

And then we would also have to.

include some reductions to school funding allocations under this scenario.

Option C would be no reduction to the Economic Stabilization or Rainy Day Fund.

So what would that really mean if we had to go other places and cover the entire 48 million dollars.

You can see that there would likely be much larger reductions to either district programs or to the school funding allocations.

And then option D is no reduction to the capital fund where we would not use any additional capital dollars.

And so again laid that out where we balance that really by increasing the reduction to district programs and we would have a school allocation school funding allocation reduction.

So I just want to say all of these numbers can be changed.

There could be another 10 options discussed by the board.

These are just some options to get started to have that discussion.

Next slide please.

This is the budget development calendar.

You'll see that we are on November 17th at the work session.

We do have another work session on December 9th for more discussion from the board.

You can see that on December 13th if there are any recommendations we would if they're on December 13th we would be bringing forward the board any recommendations from the WSS committee at that point in time for review and or approval or change.

And on January 6th we would be looking to review those recommendations and then make sure that we understand what the overall budget changes and agreement on the budget that where the board wants to kind of go.

We do have central budget development that does start in January.

So at the latest we really need some idea about what school funding allocations would be by the January 20th meeting from board directors.

And then you can see that we continue to have work sessions where as long as we have some ideas about other numbers as far as district programs and things like that.

We can work through some of those other numbers but we're really working towards what are those allocations going to be.

How much money are we going to spend.

Are we going to have any reductions to the WSS or the school funding allocations to get staffing out to the schools by February.

It's important to get staffing allocations out to schools in February so that they can work through their their budget at their individual school level.

And we're all working towards the timeline that is set in statute where we either have to give people contracts or we don't give them a contract for the for the next year.

So with that I'm happy to pause and take questions.

Okay.

Thank you Chief Berge.

We will begin alphabetic order with Director Harris.

I'm going to pass for now but please loop me in the end.

Thank you.

Will do.

Thank you.

Director Hersey.

Hey thanks.

Can we go back a couple of slides to the option slide please.

Yep.

Slide 5.

Yeah.

Okay.

So I have a couple of questions and about reduction to school funding allocations.

I could imagine if there's anybody from the community on the call they're very very nervous about these numbers.

But what I one question that I do have is concerning the amount of underspend that we have at our various buildings.

And I'm just trying to see where could you clarify for me when a school has underspend what part of our budgetary apparatus does that come from.

Does it come from the like general fund or is it just kind of like a mesh.

I'm just trying to understand kind of where put together a mental trail for myself of where that money comes from.

Sure.

So part of it would come from the school funding allocation line.

So part of the school funding allocations are for supplies.

So we give a base amount per for each student for supplies of about ninety three dollars or so.

And then we also give some equity funding We give about seven million dollars of that out every year and that is for free and reduced lunch students that you're serving.

So I believe in 19-20 Linda jump in and help me.

We had about two million dollars left out of those supply budgets in underspend.

If you go back two slides to slide three you can see what is in the ending fund balance of carry forward.

where it says school carry forward $10 million dollars.

So this is as Chief Berge said this is the non-staff money at the schools the equity dollars at the schools what is known as their self-help dollars.

It does not include any grant underspends that also occurred.

And are in terms of longitudinally is this a pretty common number of carry forward.

It's a little larger at the end of 19-20 as you see in 20-21 we're forecasting it to be around the nine million dollar mark.

So that that's closer to what we see.

There is also what we call an advanced carryover that schools sometimes do.

So this coming March when they're building their budget they may request to move money from this year into next school year.

And that would not show up here.

Okay.

Can we go back to the options slide for a moment please.

Thank you very much.

So to me what I'm looking at here is that especially over option B when we're talking about reductions across the board the bulk of which coming from the Economic Stabilization Fund it seems as though with an annual carry forward amount of about nine million dollars that we might not see as large of an impact from reductions to school funding allocations because we are already carrying an average of nine million dollars forward.

Would I be correct in assuming that or am I missing a part of that that calculus.

Well I guess I would offer these I would offer these comments.

That would be correct in math right.

But once you tell us we tell the schools which we should tell schools we're not going to be doing you know if you have any carryover you're going to lose the carryover.

It usually changes their how they behave right.

Their behavior changes once you know what your carryover limits are or aren't.

So I would say this.

I would think from my analysis over the last few years I think that we probably have about $2 million on average every year in supply budget underspend and that's in total.

So some schools spend all of their money and some schools don't spend don't spend it all right.

But on average there's probably about $2 million in the supply budget that we have been carrying over year after year after year that's not like a blip for COVID.

Yeah and I would imagine that.

Yeah I mean that makes sense and I would imagine even going into next year with the with our economy in the state that it's in that that money would become even more important for some of our families who are looking to provide supplies for their kids and are struggling to make ends meet.

That's all I have.

Can I provide another piece of context.

Yes please please please please please.

So just another way to maybe get to the school funding allocation just trying to generate ideas right.

We're trying we try to generate ideas and bring them and let you guys talk about them.

If we went to the contract limit for middle school and high school which would be an increase of one one student.

So I think we're at like 28 7 to 1 Linda right now we would go to 28 or 28 to 29. So it's a one-student move in both high school and middle school.

Middle school is worth about $5 million a year.

High school is worth about $5 million a year for that one-student class size increase.

The other thing that I would say on that line item is if the legislature were to give us K-3 relief and not have to meet the K-3 threshold We would be able to lift K-3 class size up a little bit and that would also provide another mechanism for a little bit more wiggle room.

You know right now we're we're getting all the dollars which is certificated to student ratio 17 to 1.

What's the given the landscape of what you know what do you think the likelihood of that is.

I think that we have better than a 50-50 shot at that.

It doesn't really cost the legislature anything because they've already planned for it.

And given COVID and the enrollment situation that's been caused by COVID districts are going to have to come out and be pretty conservative on enrollment because you just don't know how many of your kids are coming back.

And and so if there is a little bit of room to maneuver in the K-3 class size it really gives a lot of flexibility.

Okay.

Okay.

I guess the last question that I would have is you know given that these funding changes depending on whether we go with you know a higher amount of students per class or have to make some really serious cuts in various departments I am wondering where where is educator voice and opinion captured in these decisions.

Does that come through us as a board or are you is there any way that we could work in collaboration with SEA with some of these options.

It would just be really helpful for me in terms of making this decision because ultimately who this impacts is our teachers.

And I want to really I would love to see an opportunity to get some educator voice and opinion in this if at all possible.

So the WSS workgroup has both principals and then it has the president and executive director of SAA serving on it.

And their role in the past has been that they do provide input into what of these not great options would they prefer to see.

Yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

I'll stop there for now.

Thank you.

Thank you Director Hersey.

And just for the record Director Hampson joined this meeting at 346 p.m.

And with that I'm going to actually just turn it over to Director Hampson and Director Hampson we have begun questions.

Next is Director Mack and at the end Director Harris is asked to circle back to her.

Great.

Hi everyone.

Thank you.

Okay go ahead Director Mack.

Hi good afternoon.

I think two questions.

The well and likely a couple of comments I might ramble a bit.

Forgive me but.

And staying on this slide 5 here and looking at the options that are presented our WSS is already razor thin and increasing class size is actually very concerning to me.

Cutting the WSS any further it's I think that's that will deeply impact worse.

So if I look at these options my preference would be for option A.

But I have a question about the reductions to district programs and what what programs are we talking about.

What kind of reductions are we thinking of.

What is the potential there for that 4.3 in the option A.

I have no idea yet.

We'll talk about some areas for repurposing.

These are just numbers that we threw up into Just just a ballpark.

So I have no idea what those might be or how or what you know if those are great numbers to use or not.

So they're just starting points.

But can you contextualize what district programs means.

Yeah.

On this spreadsheet because the that can mean 5 million different things.

Does this mean we would you know reduce the number of central office staff that are focusing on certain initiatives.

Reduce special ed funding.

Reduce the I mean what what do we mean by district programs.

What is that universe that this line this line is talking about.

Okay.

So it's it's really central office budgets falls under the major component of that.

So a central office programming would fall under that.

Maybe reductions to maintenance budgets.

Reductions to other initiatives that we currently have going in central office.

It could mean reducing maybe what we do for our ELL program or our special ed program.

Now given those also have collective bargaining implications and so you know you have to work around those and a lot of that is kind of tied down that you'd have to go back to the table on.

So that's why you know reductions to district programs it could mean transportation at certain schools or transportation for certain grades.

Those would all fall under that line item.

Okay thank you.

I just would just kind of reiterate that what happens in the classroom and class size does matter and having sufficient staffing in our buildings to support our students is of critical importance for each and every one of our students.

And so I I think protecting the school funding allocations is is really important.

So that's my comment to that.

Director Mack can I give you one more document maybe to reference.

Sure.

So the flex view that we handed out that we've been attaching to this.

It's really any of the line items above the last section that says schools.

So any of the rest of that would really be considered.

So all of these areas would be considered district programming.

And so as you page through page through Leah if you can keep going.

So those are all areas.

And then you get to this last page that says schools.

That's really where the WSS lives right.

And so it would be anything above that line.

And and in this okay so I appreciate that because that's a really large universe.

And on page 25 you've got schools but it also incorporated that included in that is special education funding and ELL supports.

Okay so that doesn't that it doesn't actually belong in that line that we were talking because it's everything above that.

And you'll want to look at the first column that says flexible.

So remember that this is called the flex view.

Leah can you go back to the beginning of this document right there.

So it's really the first column under flexible that's able to be reduced right.

The rest of it's grant-funded or we get dollars to do the activity or it's required by a contract or it's mandated by law.

So I would just offer that perspective.

Okay.

My last question is about whether or not the budget overall is accounting for the potential that the reopening of the buildings may need additional work to open in the fall if we are opening again.

Has has this current budget projection allocated additional costs associated with you know essentially some of the COVID-related costs that may be necessary to for the next school year.

For the next school year.

No I don't have any costs for 21-22 in that in that specific way.

I we have PPE.

that we've been providing and we've kind of stocked up on some of that.

We have some dollars set aside to cover some of those items.

But I don't if we're talking about other components to that no we don't have funding identified for that specifically.

And I don't know exactly what else that might look like yet.

Okay thanks.

Thank you Director Mack.

Director Rankin.

Thanks.

I wanted to respond to or elaborate on something that Director Hersey said which is about the supply the supply funding.

I I guess to clarify or confirm the supply money is an allocation.

It doesn't necessarily mean that that's what schools spend it on.

There's no restriction once it goes to the building is that right.

So that could potentially actually mean staff.

It could mean typically it would mean hourly staff.

But yes it could.

Okay.

Depending on how the building chooses to use it.

So I I mean I would say generally this seems like the appropriate time to use a rainy day fund that's very rainy.

And can you talk a little bit about capital funding and what I mean what the impact.

So I feel like I understand the impact of what a reduction in school funding allocation would be on a on a broad level.

I know building to building it would depend but basically if we go with option B that's $95,000 a school.

about so that's like about a staff person.

The reduction statistic programs you have addressed so capital funding is I guess what's the mechanism that allows for that.

But also then what would be the impact.

How would that how would that come out of where what capital projects I guess.

Yeah.

Well if if you don't mind holding that question we're going to have a whole slide dedicated to that in just a little bit.

Sure.

Yep.

And we'll talk about the where and the what.

Okay.

Well then in that case I am good to pass to the next director for now.

Thank you.

Director Rivera-Smith.

Hi.

Thank you.

Good evening everybody.

Afternoon.

Sorry.

So yeah in looking at this and trying to reconcile places that of more appropriate to cut from.

I agree with previous board directors regarding things like the class size increase is I think problematic.

We already have a lot of teachers who are already taking on additional students and asking to go across the board that way to me is troublesome especially if that's going to also affect people's decision of whether or not to come back to us next year knowing there's going to be larger classes.

And at the same time Rainy Day Fund it would it's definitely raining.

So how about using that.

But I also acknowledge that you don't want to generally deplete your Rainy Day Fund because then the next rainstorm you don't have anything.

So again I'm so I'm looking at these I'm trying to like move numbers around think about maybe if we take option B but instead of 10,000 from school locations do 28 from Rainy Day.

So we're not drying it out but using more of it.

And I know you said that that's kind of stuff we can do.

These are just four of a number of options we can talk about.

You know I think we do definitely want to protect our classrooms and schools especially as we are looking towards somehow doing some changes to their ability to take parent organization money and use that for their needs so I think we need to protect definitely the school funding to the greatest possibility that we can.

I don't think I have anything else to add that other directors didn't already cover.

So thank you.

Okay and then back to Director Harris.

Thank you.

I want to make sure I understand that the student teacher ratios that were given to Director Hersey 17-1 for instance K-3 and the middle school and high school ratios I think it's 28-1.

That doesn't just encompass how many students are in a teacher's classroom but also encompasses all the PCP the ART and the PE and the certificated teachers.

And that arithmetic includes these extra folks correct.

Yes I believe what you said is accurate.

I just want to do a check with with Linda to make sure I didn't misunderstand anything.

Linda would you agree with what I mean.

The class size is the certificate of teachers And then on top of that is the planning time.

So an RPE would be on top of that because teachers get their preparatory period.

So this is not inclusive of that if that was the question.

But I guess my point is that in actuality the student to teacher ratio whether they sign in on Teams or whether we're in-person It's not 17 to 1. It's significantly higher because we backfilled for the certificated teachers and the PCP folks.

Is that correct.

So to achieve the 17 to 1 district-wide ratio those positions are included in that.

But when you talk about the secondary classes of 29 to 1 if the class would significantly higher than 29 to 1 which some of the programs that are for planning might be that way historically.

It would be because of a building-based decision of how you align student class needs.

So you may have a class that has 15 students in it and another class that has 35 in it.

Okay well I have to say that reductions with school funding allocations or the weighted staffing standard formulas are a complete non-starter for me.

Especially while we're delivering online education that we well know is difficult for everyone.

For families for the students for the teachers.

That is the last place I want to see us cutting.

And with respect to keeping A great deal of money in the Rainy Day Fund.

I I find it problematic because then when we go to Olympia and beg for dollars and ask for a spouse cushion they'll say yeah but you've got you know X number of millions of dollars in your Rainy Day Fund.

Why didn't you spend it.

You don't need our help.

That's counterintuitive to me.

And again it's not just raining it is pouring.

And how appropriate that we're in the middle of a rainstorm and a windstorm right now as we speak.

So hands off the school funding allocations and frankly the rolling it over every year to me is very problematic because I do believe in my heart that there are certain schools that game this system.

And I hope we have more transparency on that and we coach our principals large and in charge that that harms other schools.

And that's an equity issue.

And it's one we need to recognize and embrace.

Thank you.

Thanks Director Harris.

Okay.

I think did Director DeWolf did you ask any questions of your own or.

I didn't but I don't want to I don't want to spend too much time here because I know we've.

Yeah we need to get.

But the only thing the only thing I wanted to clarify was that I want to do as much possible that does not impact students directly.

So I'm actually more interested in looking at something like the economic stabilization as a way to to identify most of the dollars because I think in agreement with Director Rankin and Harris.

I would I would rather us use what we have now and to do whatever we can possible to not further harm or affect our students and teachers.

So thank you.

Okay we can go ahead Chief Berge.

Back to you.

Thank you.

Linda you have the next slide.

That matters to me.

Oh yeah I don't I mean sorry you can go back one more.

Sorry Leah.

I definitely I think ultimately I probably fall in in the most ideal scenario somewhere between option A and option B.

in terms of only because I if we were able to create some more efficiency in terms of how our special education funding is is allocated I think we would do a lot more with a lot less.

But I don't know that that will really be something that that is on the table for this next year.

So in that case I would be I would be looking to something more akin to to option A.

You know I think that there's potentially some some things some other things that that might be impacted but I agree that it's not it's not our focal point.

So yeah I think by and large we're on the same page.

Thank you.

Okay go ahead.

Director Hampson.

Yeah.

Sorry.

Was that you raising your hand.

Yes.

Do you mind.

No not at all.

I just couldn't see it says it's you're you're in the plus 20 category for me right now for some reason.

So yeah go ahead.

Director Mack.

You can hear me okay.

Now I can.

Sorry hold on a second.

I have got a feedback loop going on.

I'll mute.

I fixed it.

I apologize.

My question actually is about what you just mentioned around special ed funding.

Do we have a deep dive in this presentation around special ed costs including litigation etc. to talk about or will we have an opportunity to hear about that at some other time.

So we do have a slide about instructional assistance that we were specifically asked about and part of The work session really is what else what other information is the board interested in having at the next work session.

Okay great.

And I think that is actually one of my other questions around the deep dive and those costs.

I think it's it might be helpful to daylight some of that information if we want to talk about cutting.

Thanks.

That's all.

Happy to move on.

Okay thanks Director Mack.

Go ahead Chief Berge.

All right next slide.

Our participatory budgeting activities.

We've been moving forward on gathering agreement from the board about the three areas of focus which are highlighted green here the curriculum related to Ethnic Studies Black and American Indian Studies.

The School and Continuous Improvement Area for Restorative Justice and the Dual Language Programs.

So those were the finalists of what we're bringing forward to the community from the initial list.

Next slide.

So we had in the last budget work session identified five different groups of stakeholders and community groups that we believed and the board provided input on had significant input and connections with the community in those areas.

We sent out some notices earlier early last week looking for interest to participate in meetings that we were going to be setting up.

The participation that people have been sending in has been a little less than we originally anticipated.

So we originally scheduled to have 5 initial meetings with the same group 1 for each group and then 5 meetings of follow-up.

And we've collapsed that into we now have 2 meetings.

One the first meeting with the community group is tomorrow afternoon from 2 to 4 o'clock.

And then we have a second meeting next Monday the 23rd also from 2 to 4 p.m.

And each of the meetings has about 4 or 5 participants from the groups that were identified.

I believe today if it hasn't already been sent out was a survey a pre-questionnaire so that we can identify A little bit more about the people who are offering to come and have conversations with us.

So their backgrounds their levels of interest.

So it can help us if there's a desire to focus more intensely on one of the three areas that were brought forward than maybe on the other areas because we want to be respectful of the interests of the community.

So that that is going out.

Again that's a survey.

And we are also sending out one-page briefing papers that will help the community a level setting of what we currently are doing in those areas and some of what the district believes might be future opportunities.

Not wanting to prejudice the answers from the community but just trying to help people understand when there sometimes is not a complete understanding of what we're doing.

So that's the status of where we are.

right now on participatory budgeting.

Director Hampson.

Yes.

Could those documents be sent out to all board members please so that we can stay tightly looped.

Yes we were planning on sending out the one-page documents.

We can send out the questionnaire.

You can click on the link just don't submit your questionnaire.

Fair enough.

Thank you.

Okay.

So if anybody has a question here how about you just raise your hand as I want to make sure that we have enough time.

So I see one hand raised.

Go ahead.

I can't see who it is right now.

I think it's me Director Rivera-Smith.

Go ahead.

Hi.

Thank you.

Linda can you say what what What organizations or groups did you get responses for participation from.

We can send out a list of to everybody so that you can see.

I would encourage all board members if you know folks from I will say having talked to some organizations there there's a lot going on right now people are being tapped for a lot of different things both within the school district and and with other agencies and organizations.

And so I and I think it's in general it's a pretty tough time we're heading into.

So if if you're able to make a supporting call to say hey if you can send somebody it would be beneficial but we also need to understand where people are are right now.

But yeah I think we can send out that.

that list of orgs and their their contacts.

We Leah worked with both Directors Hersey and myself and also with James Bush to make sure we were connecting with the right the right folks.

And I was still making some calls today to get people to put their names in.

So hopefully as the meetings come up we'll we'll get more participation.

Anybody else on this particular section or should we go ahead and move on.

Okay Chief Berge.

All right.

Next slide please.

So on slide 11 you'll see these are the this is a list of areas for review that we were provided by board directors as wanting some more information on.

So for today's work session you can see that we've provided some high-level information.

to start the conversation.

What we expect is that there might be additional questions from board directors or it may answer some questions that you currently have.

So next slide please.

And the chiefs over each area I'll do the STRAP plan slide but then the chiefs over each area will actually go over their own slide and I'll facilitate that.

So the strategic plan overview for 2021 to give you an idea there is about 35.8 FTE's or about 50 percent of the money is in salaries and benefits for the strategic plan across all of the goals.

So this is across all goals.

And then we have PD in the second line which really covers workshops subs extra time.

Supplies are the third line.

And then contracts would be the 1.7 million dollars for 16 percent.

Next slide please.

This is the list of positions that we currently have funded under the STRAP plan.

Sorry I'm having a coughing fit.

Linda you're going to have to take it over until I stop.

Not a problem.

So this 38 35.8 FTE aligns with the previous slide.

This is just a.

more broken down version of it.

These are the positions and we have multiple fund sources that are running through the strategic plan right now.

So what you're seeing is the positions that are funded on the general fund the Learning Assistance Program Title 1 Title 4 and the African-American Male Academy Grant.

So I don't know if there's any specific specific questions about this.

or any of the positions.

Right.

I'm back.

So I'll just provide some other context.

Under the 9th grade goal and some of the secondary goals this first line the attendance intervention intervention success coordinators.

These are the case managers that we had talked about funding.

So that might not be intuitive.

We have to pick a job title and it doesn't necessarily always match up to the common title that we've referred to it as part of the strategic plan.

We have hired some more support for school and family partnerships and customer support and comms for Carrie's division Carrie Campbell's division.

Additional directors of schools.

We have some more family support workers.

These are the coaches the instructional coaches for the 3rd grade goal.

These are the managers that are in the African-American Male Achievement Department that was created then This position is the customer service helpline that we had in the strategic plan and these are some of those other supports to help warm and welcoming environment and and goal 1 I believe.

And I'm going to move on and then we can come back to this if you have additional questions.

So up next Chief Pedroza.

Thank you Chief Berge.

Hello everybody.

So I just wanted to just share an update regarding the spend expenditures for Highly Capable.

I just wanted to share some points that state law requires that Highly Capable revenue must be spent on Highly Capable activity.

A majority of the budget is allocated to staffing with close to 11 FTE.

The functions of the department are both compliance for identification purposes as well as instructional supports and coaching for schools specifically our pathway schools.

And then funds not allocated for staffing is needed to support focusing on our work for increasing the opportunities for students furthest from educational justice.

This includes identification coaching school teams on anti-bias practices.

training and neighborhood pilot development.

So those are the pieces that we're developing right now through some of the recommendations.

And so that's where we're focusing any non-staffing expenditures.

And I have one error in this in the blue box.

When I included that that should say for 2021. That's our projected revenue for school year 2021. So next slide is Dr. Chief DeBacker.

Yes you don't need my camera.

Yes this is our our budget slide that shows everything that's going on.

It will look familiar to many of the board members because they were anything that's in the ongoing commitments.

Those were ones that were board-approved curriculum.

So in 2018 you approved 6-8 math.

And so you can see that that will run out in this coming year.

Our K-5 English Language Arts you commonly know that as CCC.

Again that was adopted.

We're in our third year of that.

So you can see that that will be running out soon.

Science was just last year.

A big portion of that money if you see some of the balance there keep in mind that much of or a lot of the cost of the K-8 or the K-12 science was around PD and with not being able to do PD in the traditional manner since we've been in remote learning we've had quite a bit of savings there.

The Since Time Immemorial budget is the same as it's it's it's been that is allocated from here.

There's also other funding that comes into Since Time Immemorial in terms of grants and other other revenue streams.

Ethnic Studies is is one that if you look it does have a $500,000 budget and it's had that budget for the past couple of years.

And so you can see what's happened there.

In the remote learning support you'll remember that we came to you asking to do to do an English language arts pilot in 6-8 because of the age of that curriculum we had Not as many people or not as many schools and teachers take us up on that.

So we won't be spending that entire $150,000 but we've reallocated that to other areas that remote learning has required.

We had a 6-8 math upgrade.

As you recall we had just done an adoption a few years ago but we did not buy the digital material so that's what that cost is for.

And then a new one that we have funded that we weren't anticipating it wasn't on our budget before remote learning is a program called Music First.

And this is allows our instrumental programs our band programs to be able to do music.

We are in the process we have purchased that but we haven't yet gotten that deployed to schools due to the rostering of students.

We're in the middle of working on that.

We do have a not committed amount there.

It's a significant amount of money that we're pleased to have especially knowing that if we have to stay in remote you know during all of this year that we may have more digital materials that we need to provide.

We you're we're done with world language and Spanish.

We did fund more of that out of some extra funding to get digital resources for that.

We have our arts programs.

Those are I think you heard somebody talk about art kits or we have we have deployed art kits to most schools.

And then of course you'll see some carry forward there in the math.

It has to do we our math program manager left last year at mid-year and so we had some underspin there and our carry forward in science as well.

So that's it for teaching and learning.

Thank you.

Chief Podesta.

Hello.

Good afternoon.

Briefly go through the Safety and Security Department budget.

As you can see it's virtually all the entire budget is virtually all for staffing.

There are two management positions that manager and assistant manager that manage the department which we need coverage given it's a 7 by 24 operation.

There is an operations scheduling type position in the central office which is a communications specialist.

And there's an emergency planning position which works with all schools on their emergency site plans and helps us with emergency and disaster response planning at in the central office across the district.

The remaining positions all work in the field or the alarm office.

Security specialists are assigned to secondary schools during school hours.

And the staffing in each school varies depending on the enrollment at the school.

Tactical specialists work in regions and respond either at elementary schools which don't have regular staffing or other sites as needed.

The response specialists patrol the whole district outside of school hours.

So weekends and evenings they cover rotating shifts to respond to access alarms or any other issues that happen at schools are the Safety and Security Office is posted at every school building and they get lots of after-hours calls for a variety of issues.

And I believe Chief Jessee has the next slide.

Good afternoon Wyatt Jesse Chief of Schools and Continuous Improvement.

So for this budget like what Chief Podesta was presenting it's almost all in staffing and benefits.

The I have there the oversight of the of schools all 104 so the Director of Schools as well as the support mechanisms across teaching and learning now with our director of schools instead of the highest ratio I'm sure within the Puget Sound area for supervision of principals when we're having up to 25 schools for a director.

Now we are down into the higher teens.

So that level of oversight plus the coordination of the cross-departmental teams of the learning support teams that we have out at sites that we align our work to the CSIPs.

that we hold them very well and important to getting outcomes for our students and families.

Then I do also operations.

We have an operations team that's coordinates a lot with Fred's team a director's student supports which supports and coordinates with both curriculum and instruction as well as student supports.

Everyone's work does eventually funnel down to the school so that's why we have those two important folks who can speak their language and translate it to ensure that things are getting carried through throughout the district.

I have a project manager for continuous improvement.

So as we look to utilizing data to see where we can make improvements in our processes and then rounding out for student support services having folks Do we have consultants who are part of LabDollars so those are coaches really it says consultants but they're they're they're coaches or TOSAs.

So they're SEA-represented teachers that go out to the school sites to work specifically for students identified under LabDollars across the district all 104 schools.

Two principal coaches that are within the PASS contract.

So those are those human resources consulting principals and then administration to support the whole team.

So we have 4 administrators who support that and all 104 schools when they have questions.

So that is on this particular budget.

I think believe going back to Concie or Chief Pedroza so I will put that over there.

Okay everyone hi.

I just want to just reiterate this is the special education information regarding instructional assistance.

And I know that's a big topic so I want to make sure that I give some clarity around how we utilize and have our expenditures for instructional assistance.

So if you'll notice on the slide in front of you that instructional assistance We have it divided up by allocations to schools the school funding model as well as how the central office staffing for instructional assistance.

And then the ones that are allocated to schools per the service model.

And of course I just also want to mention very closely the collective bargaining agreement also outlines how we staff IA's in specifically for some of our service pathway programs including the bridges and in tandem programs.

Additional instructional assistance are allocated through the IEP process utilizing a one-to-one support model and services and and I would we would love to collaborate.

I know the conversation came up in a previous session regarding how to think differently about utilizing instructional assistance and we would love to collaborate on supporting our goals around inclusionary practices.

specifically targeting our non-special education dollars.

How we could use that to be more flexible to support student learning.

And I just wanted to remind the school board that the opener for special education with our union partners is coming up this spring in 2021.

Thank you Concie.

Just to give some context again go back one slide yeah.

On your FlexView document you can see that the 61 million dollars that we're spending is about half of our special education budget or close to it in total.

Next slide please.

So a little bit more information about our reserves.

So our current balance is 38.7 million dollars.

We do have a board policy that says that we will have somewhere between 3 and 5 percent Unless the board decides otherwise which they can decide otherwise they just you have to come out and there needs to be a I think a board statement about that to go below it below the 3 percent.

So just for some context every 1 percent reduction is worth about approximately 9.7 million dollars.

If we choose to spend most of our fund balance part of what I just want to make you aware of not again not that it cannot be a choice that we make We would likely get some type of an audit finding about putting ourselves in a financial position of great risk.

So just to let you know the auditor's office does look at that every year as does OSPI.

But it is you know a rainy day fund is for when it's pouring and it's pouring.

Next slide.

I'm sorry Chief Berge can you repeat that please.

The pouring part is about the audit.

about the audit what you said I just missed the beginning part and then so the next part.

So if we if we go below 3 percent or so we so let's say we ended up at 1 percent or 0 percent of our rainy day fund being left we would likely get an audit finding from the state auditor's office.

It's something that they've been doing the last few years when districts get into a risky financial position in their opinion.

I see.

Thank you.

Yep.

Next slide please.

So the transfer from the capital fund.

So this is language where we specifically the legislature made changes to language.

Right now there's an RCW that outlines some maintenance that does qualify for capital funds to pay for.

And they basically broaden that to say anything that's maintenance at all.

Regular people who work in maintenance.

Any sort of work done by maintenance.

You can use a capital dollar to fund.

And through the 2021 school year.

So we would have to ask for and get this authority again.

We have gotten it once.

It's typically a little bit easier to get the second time.

But it's not you know a done deal.

So the dollars that are available in the capital fund there is some uncommitted fund balances from each of the previous BTA and BEX levies and those are all where the projects are all done and completed.

So those are additional dollars that were remaining.

And then we have the Capital Eligible Program or CEP that has about 3.6 million dollars available today currently.

And that does not include the community schools fund balance.

So there's an additional 16.7 million dollars from surplus property sales that are not included in the 7.2 million dollars.

Some other ways that we believe that this amount would increase is there's 9.8 million dollars in bond payments that are right now being set aside to be paid for but that has been slated to be included in BTA V. So paying for that last 9.8 million dollars if that's approved as part of the BTA V levy we would free up another 9.8 million dollars that's potentially available.

And then our major preventative maintenance dollars.

So we do have a large pot of money available that we use on major preventative maintenance and we do have a balance of about $37 million across BTA IV that has not all been spent and BEX V as well.

Next slide please.

Well actually slide 20 we'll go back.

So we're at the outcomes portion.

That concludes the prepared remarks and slides that we had.

So Director Hampson back to you for questions.

Thank you.

So let's try starting with Director Rivera-Smith to go ahead and cover your questions on each of those particular areas direct your questions to the specific chief that presented and and then hopefully as we go through the list some questions will naturally be that others have will naturally be answered.

So do you want us to start at the beginning slide Director Rivera-Smith.

for this section.

This one's fine.

Okay.

So I guess I'll ask first of all.

So I'm looking at this and I'm wondering if I could find out what Chief Podesta has if he has any comments about the capital funds possible transfers there.

Well certainly we we're have ample funding in the capital program.

Of course we have a surplus of needs as well.

So given the circumstances that we're in I think it's a viable option.

It will defer investments not remove them.

You know all these capital dollars and the expenses to our buildings don't get newer.

And so it'll come home to roost eventually but I think there's some flexibility we have now.

We are we're always going back to the voters for additional funds and our needs always outstrip those.

But I you know I believe we can phase our work in such a way that there are some viable options here for the board.

Thank you for that.

And I think that I was thinking about that along the same lines for academics the idea that this doesn't remove the need.

It's not like the one year goes away and we don't need it anymore.

These are just it kind of just puts off puts off things that do need to get eventually paid for and projects done.

So thank you for that comment sir.

I will go back to then I think it was Chief Bouncy.

When you were talking about Mary said there's an opener for special ed coming up in the spring.

Can you tell us more about that and what that what potential is there.

And I'll actually have Clover also available to respond if she's available but this spring.

So when we did the bargaining agreement I believe it was last year because I was on the bargaining team at SEAL it feels like a lifetime ago.

There was I left some openers that there were some things that we had to continue to refine.

Special education and some of the staffing and components were part of that re-opener.

So that's coming up this spring.

Clover might have the more accurate deadline timelines but but that is coming up.

So sometimes that happens when we do a bargain that there are some things that the team wants to collaborate and work on together.

That's part of the work that the Special Education Task Force started.

before COVID to come together with some interest-based agreements about what we want to see in the bargaining moving forward.

This is this is Clover Codd.

I just want to reiterate what Concie said.

She's absolutely right.

We do have a re-opener for special education this spring and there is a collaborative group SEASPS that have been working together actually for quite some time to kind of rethink how we might deliver SPED services that are in support of our students.

And so we will have bargaining this spring summer around special education.

Thank you.

And so how it affects budgeting is we're looking at probably additional costs in that or how how is that part of this budgeting conversation.

Having sat through bargaining in the past there was always data.

Usually typically Chief Berge Chief Codd and other members of the staff are part of that process.

So we'll be looking at budget numbers data numbers.

We'll be looking at suits students requiring IEP services in terms of enrollment.

All of those pieces.

That's all part of the equation.

And we also have to be mindful about We also don't bargain just an unlimited amount of money.

We also have to be within the budget.

So sometimes it might mean reprioritizing some things through the summer.

So if there's some things that we really feel is needed especially especially when we think about recovery or compulsory services or any of those pieces that'll also be coming to the table to discuss what is needed for the for the remaining the remainder of the bargaining agreement.

Thank you.

No more questions.

Okay.

Director Rankin.

And just to keep.

Sorry.

We have 20 minutes left in this session and 6 board members to get through.

So just do the math and be conscientious about your time use.

Thank you.

Can I please go to the teaching and learning slide.

Thank you.

So for Spanish catching up or let me make sure I'm caught up to where we're at.

I know that we made some some changes to to get some more resources for this year but is this inclusive of a longer-term plan to fund those different curriculum curricular supports into the future or just for this year.

Director Rankin this is Diane DeBacker and it was just for this year for for most of those resources that we got or we received for the digital resources for Spanish.

We we had the option of purchasing 1-year 2-year or 6-year and we chose to just go with 1-year.

So if we stay in remote you know you know for another year we would have to be looking at at spending more down the road.

The good thing about the Spanish adoption is that we had done it so recently the publisher was really worked with us to to work it out.

So I'm not saying that we would be able to have that same same graciousness from them but but but yes the bulk of that was a one-time expenditure for one year.

Okay so I'm actually concerned that we don't have any budget for that going forward because my understanding and talking to Spanish language educators was that those digital resources were something they preferred that curriculum when that curriculum adoption was done before my time on the board like right before the The educators really liked the one that was chosen partly because of the digital resources.

So I am just I guess want to state concern that we don't have budget ongoing because even if we were to return to fully in-person it's my understanding that those educators still felt strongly that that was a foundational piece of the curriculum that was chosen.

So just putting that out there that I'm being remote doesn't necessarily mean or going back in person doesn't mean that that need will not still be with us.

Hopefully that hopefully that made sense.

And then I am also wondering about I know you know K-5 math is not on here at all.

If there's been any analysis done or how we would look at budgetary impacts of a full adoption per K-5 versus the very high number of curriculum waivers that buildings where buildings are paying out of their own building budget.

If there is a analysis around the overall cost and budgetary implications there.

If if there is actually any kind of cost savings overall by having a full adoption as opposed to the piecemeal waivers.

That's just another question that doesn't have to be answered right this second.

And then in the special edu — can we go to the special education slide and then I'll and then I'll be done.

Thank you.

I just again and I know this came up before so I just want to clarify for for folks that Right now the the the way that we provide special education in Seattle Public Schools is very expensive and very staff-driven instead of student-driven.

So I don't want I know that people see this and are alarmed because it it looks like the proposal is a reduction of services.

What actually what at least I really would like us to consider is is how our Current model is actually by design exclusionary.

It removes students from a general education setting and it's adult-driven.

And I would like us to for many reasons but one of which I believe is a cost savings but mostly because it's what's better for students to shift see how we can shift towards being student need-driven in our staffing and our expenses.

As opposed to right now staff we kind of start with staffing and then fill in the students.

So I'm just wanting to kind of summarize that really quickly for my for my fellow board directors what this is and what the discussion is.

And I think that's it for me for now.

Director Mack.

Hi can you hear me okay.

Yes we can.

Okay good.

Apologies I just I've had some tech difficulties today.

Okay.

Appreciate having this special ed slide up and the conversation there about whether or not the dollars are actually being used in service of students and whether or not the model needs to change.

I I have some big concerns about making sweeping changes to the model without doing a deeper dive and investigation into historically what has happened and that to include the number of incidences where we have students that end up having to take the case to mitigation and then all the costliness of the legal battle with the family and then where the district actually loses and is required to provide an additional above and beyond something outside of our district as opposed to having provided the service in our district.

I think that in order to evaluate our model we need to take a good look at matching student needs to whether or not they're being served appropriately and whether or not the staffing actually matches that.

Because I hear the the reverse is what Director Rankin I think is trying to say is that that's we kind of have a reverse thought process.

And I would agree with that assessment that I have concerns that kind of systemically when we look at special education we are not starting first with what in fact are the students needs and how do we ensure that they get those services.

But it's a it's a reverse process of you know identifying staffing and then trying to plug the students into that.

So I do think that that dive needs to be taken in a more comprehensive manner and I would appreciate from a budgeting standpoint that we daylight the information about how much we're spending on litigating and how much we're having to spend on outside services because we're not providing them internally.

And that should be part of the conversation if we're going to talk about trying to to change the model or reduce the dollars because I don't think we have the full picture here.

So that's my request for that part of this conversation on special education.

Can we flip over to I think it might be the last slide about the capital dollars.

Thank you.

First I'll say that To the extent that there are dollars available in the capital funds that haven't been allocated from the previous levies et cetera that in our current situation if we can use some of those towards service of students in maintenance of our buildings et cetera the things that are actually really critical to be done I support that and I think there's probably opportunity to do that if we can get the legislator legislature to agree to that again.

However I have a detailed question that has me a little confused and that's the second bullet saying that CEP balance with the community schools balance is $16.7 million.

And my most recent operations committee report on the fund balances by program has That line item is 3.6.

So I'm wondering where there's is that a typo or is the community schools fund not been updated monthly in our capital budget updates.

Director Mack that the 3.6 is listed right above the 7.2 million in the list.

So that is those are the dollars without the community schools fund balance in it.

So there's 3.6 million dollars.

And then in addition in the CEP bucket there's this 16.7 million dollars from surplus property sales that is earmarked for community schools.

So it's 3.6 plus 16.7.

I understand but then there's a glitch in the reporting to Ops because that line item on our And I'm looking at it right here because I got a little confused and I went that doesn't make sense to me.

It says CEP slash CS.

It's supposed to include those dollars.

So these dollars are brand new to me.

So I'm kind of I'm and I've been on the board and I've been chairing Ops for three years now.

So hearing that there's 16 million dollars from surplus property sales that I haven't seen reported For a long time I'm kind of I'm really confused so maybe just be helpful to follow up on where that's been reported before or why that's not been.

Because that that I was not aware of 16.7 million dollars.

Okay I'll ask Melissa to report out and clarify that.

And I just want to.

And the total program the total program from the last report out is 7 7.2 of from BTA all the BTA BEX's that have closed out is 7.2.

Yep that's the top numbers.

Yep.

I just want to say too that we have the ability to make this move in this school year while we have the authority.

So the authority has been granted for the 2021 school year.

So we would make that shift this year and it would free up resources to carry forward to help in 21-22.

That would be an option for us.

So it's not we don't need to get more legislative authority.

We can use what we currently have now and set us up to really have additional money to be used for 21-22 to fill that gap.

Okay.

So — that have been existing in our capital fund but they're sitting there doing nothing and we do have a need in our general fund.

So I do I I am in support of that strategy with the kind of limitations that we're not intentionally selling off property in order to.

close the capital budget or close the general fund budget.

Thanks.

Okay Director Mack I need to move on.

Thank you to Director Harris.

Would it be Director Hersey.

I thought it was Director Hersey.

I'm sorry Director Hersey.

It's all good.

No worries.

Can we go back to the curriculum.

Yeah mine is going to be super quick since I took a lot of time earlier.

If we could just move back to that curriculum side real quick that would be much appreciated.

Thank you.

So the only thing that I wanted to echo was the K-5 piece for math that Director Rankin brought up.

I do also just really quickly have a question and forgive me if I didn't hear this in the presentation.

I'm looking at two million three hundred dollars for the 6A English Language Arts pilot.

I'm wondering is that a.

amount that we would spend on a curriculum adoption of that scale.

Yes this is Diane DeBacker Director Hersey and it's the the title is a little misleading there.

The 2.3 million was set aside for the 6 through 8 English language arts adoption.

And when we didn't do that so so that wouldn't be for pilot that would be for an adoption.

And that is a pretty typical amount for that grade level.

And so I'm thinking back to Director Rankin's thoughts and your mention of the K-5.

When we had looked at trying to get trying to do a pilot for K-5 with a digital this year for the remote we were looking at about 1.5 million.

So.

Mm hmm.

Mm hmm.

Okay.

That's all I've got for right now.

Thank you for that clarification.

Welcome.

Okay.

Thank you Director Harris.

Okay.

First question up is and I've got several.

Director of School I guess this would be to Wyeth Jessee and JoLynn Berge.

On slide 13 under scrap plan we've got directors of school for 617 And on slide 17 we have directors of schools for 1.37 million dollars.

Are we double counting here.

What's the distinction and difference please.

Yeah.

Hi Director Harris.

So there's it's kind of like a transition here.

For total we have 8 directors of schools.

The one thing that's off a little bit in that is that we did eliminate a position to help fund the directors of schools.

Director Bur — I mean Chief Berge do you want to add anything.

That's clear as mud to me Chief Jessee.

Could you explain further how many positions et cetera et cetera.

So there are 8 total funded Directors of Schools.

Previously it was five and then part of the funding mechanism for these came from a elimination of a position literally this fiscal year to help fund the positions.

So we started with five and then were able to add the three new positions for us this this this year.

A position doesn't help me.

Which position and why are they listed in two different budget categories.

I'm confused obviously.

Director Harris they're just listed by.

So part of them part of the increase the two and a half were funded as part of the strategic plan dollars and the strategy for needing more directors of schools to support those activities.

And the other 5.5 are just funded out of baseline.

and are considered part of that budget.

So in totality there's eight.

Two and a half are funded out of the STRAP plan dollars.

Five and a half are funded out of baseline in Wyeth's budget.

And he used one position and he repurposed one position this year to fund part of that increase in this slide.

And I don't remember what the position was Wyeth do you.

Yeah it's it's related to principal professional development.

Okay I'm I'm concerned that this is not transparent and that it's in two different budgets.

And when I see scrap plan I think 3rd grade reading 9th grade math not directors of schools in order to and I believe me I am in favor of lessening the ratios for directors supervising principals in a huge way and for the multidisciplinary team.

But this is not.

transparent to me.

Next question would be to Dr. DeBacker.

Have we sent out Dr. Kinoshita's curriculum adoption page that has all the different colors and shows us which curriculum adoptions are 30 years behind 25 years behind 15 years behind so that we actually have the foundation of history and knowledge in which to compare slide 15 to.

Yeah.

Thank you Director Harris.

I don't believe we've sent it out lately.

We can certainly send it out again.

I certainly would appreciate that because you know what they say about history and condemnation to to repeat it.

And again Curriculum has been the first to be cut historically in this district and that's how we got to 25 and 30 years behind.

Ethnic Studies concerns me greatly.

Again we're 30 we're three years behind on a board number one priority.

As far as I know we haven't listed the three instructional assistants and we still have the manager position open.

Is that correct.

That is correct.

I can answer for this and I don't know if Dr. Scarlett is available to answer but the $500,000 that you see there for the budget is for curriculum development for professional development to assist with developing curriculum units to hold institutes and other events.

That does not include staffing.

But staffing is available for a program manager and two supporting staff.

And have we listed the manager position and the two supporting staff positions.

Yes.

The manager position program manager for Ethnic Studies we concluded about as much engagement with NAACP and some other groups the Ethnic Studies Advisory Group members.

And so that position has been posted today it should post this evening for the program manager.

We have not posted the curriculum positions yet.

We're still working with our community partners in order to work on the job descriptions but those will be posted shortly thereafter.

Thank you for that and welcome Dr. Scarlett.

I hate to sound like a broken record but we are so far behind on fixing this.

I am troubled.

Next question would be to Chief Podesta.

On slide 16 with respect to security I see nothing in there with respect to professional development and the lack thereof has cost us greatly.

Is there a line item for professional development.

We capture those I believe in in contracts and supplies and services.

Can you break that down and send that out in a Friday memo because I know it's a great deal of concern to my colleagues and myself.

Certainly.

Thank you.

And if we could put that in the minutes I'd be grateful.

My next question is to Chief Narver.

Is he on the phone.

I am yes.

Super.

To follow up and and enhance Director Mack's concerns do we have litigation costs and compensatory services broken out for where we have not met the mark for special education.

And if not can — I'm sorry.

Yes I've been I was taking notes as Director Mack was speaking that that's information we can I don't have it offhand tonight but it's information we can break out and make available.

And is there a way we can figure out via risk management and having more realistic budgets for special ed until we can fix some of these problems and set aside money for that.

Let me begin by getting the dollar figures to you and see what we can talk about then.

Okay my last point would be to Chief Berge and Chief Podesta.

I I understand that we have balances from BEX and BTA but the concept of switching capital funds into general funds I think could deal us a serious trust blow when we go out for more levy funding.

Why should we give you all this money if in 4 or 5 years you're just going to switch it over to the capital fund.

And and I have concerns about that transparency from those issues.

And it's not like we don't have a great many capital needs to spend those funds on.

Including I might add Memorial Stadium that that we spoke about last evening in our 3 by 2. So how do we address this transparency or the shell game or bait and switch complaints we hear from our constituents.

So Director Harris I would just say that the legislature makes changes to definitions at times and maintenance is allowed now.

Major preventative maintenance dollars maintenance dollars are allowed as a line item out of the capital fund now.

So that definition currently exists and we set aside dollars for that.

This expands that somewhat.

And I will pause there and see if Fred has anything to add.

I think also you know as we've we prioritize places with levies that have been completed and we've delivered to the voters everything that was promised as part of the levy as as a place to start and that we focus any reprogrammed dollars on things that still preserve capital assets like major maintenance and things like that.

You know I think we will have kept our trust with our stakeholders.

But wouldn't it make sense to keep going down the extraordinary list of capital needs as opposed to switching it to the capital fund.

the general fund excuse me.

I mean there's certainly an argument for that.

These all these and you know it's a matter of priorities and balancing a lot of needs that the that the district has and being thoughtful about are there places where we can defer something.

As I said before there's no escaping these eventually.

It's just if we're in a crisis in a short-term crisis can we be flexible.

Thank you.

I'll pass to the next director.

Thank you.

Director Hampson back to you.

I'm sorry.

Talking on mute.

Director DeWolf President DeWolf you're up.

Thank you.

This has been a thorough thorough conversation so I don't have any more.

Many more questions than have already been asked and elevated but my one curiosity is around strategic plan.

And my curiosity is just around given we are in a global pandemic nothing to me seems more strategic than making sure that we are doing the most basic functions of what we're supposed to provide as a district.

And so I'm just curious about You know is it is it unprecedented to pause a strategic plan kind of in times of crisis like this.

Did you want Chief Berge to respond to that or Superintendent or.

I this is super dense you know.

I mean I guess you know the work that we're doing even in a remote setting in a pandemic it all I mean the decisions and the conversations that we're having I think are still centered on the strategic plan and making sure that we are centering African-American Black boys and teens in all that we do.

That we are focused on third grade reading.

I mean I just think that we are still doing the work of the strategic plan even in the middle of this and in fact probably even more important than if we were in brick and mortar at this point in time.

I don't have any more questions Director Hampson.

Thank you.

Okay.

Well I'll actually kind of follow up on that because I well I would say my my belief would be that no we can't pause their strategic plan.

My feeling and thank you to Chief Berge and Director Sebring for for bringing forward all this good information allowing us to have this conversation.

It's it's been a good one and I get the the general sense from this rather than going into specifics.

of mind that that we have a tendency historically and even in these the current budgets shown here in the areas that we were looking a little bit more deeply into to fund people when we need to be funding systems.

And so whereas we of course need to I believe continue with our strategic plan.

I don't believe that I think we can take a look at each one of these things and see where are there systemic approaches over time that that we can fund versus funding humans.

And I think we tend to do that because we are in a service model of you know where humans are in fact our primary expense the vast majority of our expenses.

However at the level of central office for example which is where many of these things are we are looking at things that should be funded more systemically.

And with that I guess I would say I would ask for I'll start with Chief Jessee what what you if you have any things that you think could be could be cut from from that the budget that you presented and would ask the same of Chief Pedroza and Chief Podesta as well.

Well since my budget is as you can see underneath that is almost all it's all staff there's really I would have to cut staff members.

Obviously in this conversation I don't talk I'm not really comfortable talking about exactly which position but I could see myself just representative of previous cuts into budgets.

You know I'd go through the process and you know identify whatever amount of money I had to cut in that.

And you know that usually yields to in a budget like this would be a couple of positions.

I hope that's helpful.

Is there anything to follow up to that.

Well I guess I guess I'm kind of looking or asking for everyone to think about it from a systemic viewpoint.

Like what are the particular systems or or lack of systems that are that are being supported or not.

So I mean that's fine for now because we're already over time.

So but and we can we will have to continue this discussion but that's just where my head is.

And so Chief Pedroza do you.

Want to respond at all.

Yeah no I was going to get ready to respond next.

I feel like for example just in terms of special education and I'll just speak about that right now.

I really want to be cautious about any cuts overall to any.

I do want to think through what we need to do to think through our programming.

We have to think about the collective bargaining agreement.

Right now there's a lot of staffing that's that's determined through that process.

And so I want to make sure that we have a robust process that includes our our our partners all around the system.

But also we have to be thoughtful about right now it's going to be a looming in terms of recovery and compensatory education for some of our students.

Many of our students actually.

And so those are going to be more costs.

So I am a little nervous about talking about cuts to special education budget right now.

We can look I think we can look at reallocations And we can look at reshifting some things but cuts right now when we're looking at the the the impacts of a pandemic especially for our students furthest from educational justice our students of color and receiving 504 and special education services is is something we have to talk about thoughtfully in consideration.

Regarding highly capable services you saw most of the staffing was related to staffing right now.

We have a process in place in our policies around identification and services and so we would have to have that conversation if there would be any shifting or reallocation of those funds as well.

Yeah I couldn't I couldn't tell from that whether what the district is what we pay over and above.

Leah can you go to the highly capable one what we pay over and above what we get from the state.

Nothing.

Okay.

That's what I thought I was getting for that but I couldn't.

This is the subset of the positions versus the that's just minus the supplies postage conference travel contracts right.

And there is more flexibility.

I mean and so that's part of the work we're trying to do is think about the way we've defined highly capable services.

There is flexibility in how we can allocate those funding and services.

And I think that's the conversation we need to have.

Okay that's helpful.

And then ironically actually Chief Podesta you're the only one you've already talked about cuts in a major way and that that's on the block.

So I guess you know this these are times when we have to be really bright.

I don't know if you have anything to add.

Obviously we've looked at a huge cut to the to capital that's not necessarily operations but do you have anything else you'd want to add.

Looking in transportation actually and how we which hasn't been an area identified here but how we build routes is an area that we're looking for efficiency.

Our historical practice has been to build our transportation services based on eligibility and probably less intense analysis of actual ridership.

to see to see if we can create some efficiencies.

That's a complex process.

So how quickly that would yield results we we have to think about.

But that's one area beyond capital that we've been thinking about.

With regard to security it cover the Safety and Security Department covers many many sites and we're opening another building soon.

So stretching that thinner gives me some pause but we are looking at some of the management functions and the emergency planning functions to see if those can be combined a bit that might create a little bit of savings but it would really be at the margins.

Thank you so much for that.

Superintendent Juneau or Chief Berge do you want to add anything around the strategic plan.

Relative to my question.

About cutting.

Yeah taking a systems level a systems approach to whether or not we would reduce anything and focus on those things that are that are creating system systemic positive impact.

Yeah I mean I think these are kind of like what we can dig into deeper about what's you know like as you say getting the bang for the buck and think about as Director DeWolf said what is necessary right now.

I do believe that our strategic plan is necessary even in hard times and difficult times to make sure I mean that's when it is the most important to focus on.

But there are definitely things that I think we can have further conversation about about you know where Because there's a lot to unpack into actually into each of those areas as well.

But you know we are talking people and programs when we have these conversations which I know all of you know gets difficult.

But we can have more conversation.

I don't have anything at this point to directly point at.

Okay.

And then just as a note Chief Berge for next time I think if we can look at in particular when the next time we discuss the strategic plan budget I think it would be really helpful for us to look at many of these areas cross over directly into other departments.

And that was that's something that we kind of talked about even like a year ago not quite a year ago almost a year ago that that really many of these things are in fact happening within other departments and so we to look at that overlay I think would be helpful.

So unless Chief Berge do you have anything you wanted to add to wrap up or Director Sebring.

I just wanted to one of the things that I forgot to mention about the the policy for the economic stabilization.

Just to remind us all it does say that if we drop below 3 percent we do have a We do need to have a plan to repay that or we would need to amend the policy.

And then we do have a December 5th work session I believe or a December work session that is also covering the strategic plan.

So I'll work with you Director Hampson to figure out which we're providing and in what format what's coming to the work session versus the work session.

And if y'all are thinking of it you could email me quickly now or text me if you have thoughts for what you want to see next time rather than me talking to you the week before because I know everybody's completely overwhelmed right now.

And by that I mean you know fellow board directors or staff that stuff that you want to present.

Shoot me a text or an email right now and copy Chief Berge.

Okay.

So As there is no further business on the agenda and we are already 19 minutes over the meet this meeting stands adjourned at 519 p.m.

Pįnagigi and thanks very much to all of you.

Stay dry and healthy.