Thanks, Clara.
Is there a motion to approve the agenda?
Good motion to approve tonight's agenda. Second.
Okay, it's been moved in second into approve the agenda, any one opposed?
Seeing no opposition, the agenda is approved. That brings us to public recognition.
And to my knowledge, there's no schedule, unless Board Member would like to offer any public recognition.
Okay. We'll say that for next month. That moves us on to citizen remarks. And first for the
audience's sake, we'll just read this. Citizen remarks is an opportunity for community members
to be heard. The board will note the topics and we'll not enter into discussion or take any
official action on any of the topics presented, but we'll refer items to the administration to be
researched. The board will not engage in discussion with the speaker or answer questions.
Citizens having a concern should discuss the matter with the superintendent first, individual
students and personnel may not be discussed in public form.
Please contact the district office throughout these matters through the appropriate channels.
A sign-up sheet is available before the meeting, which I have with me right here, to allow
community members to sign up for an opportunity to speak before the board.
Speakers are limited to three minutes each and we will be holding tight to that this evening,
except by consent of the school board.
And just wanted to remind everyone that board members cannot engage or ask questions with the community during public comment.
So first up, registered for public comment is Frankie Earcard.
Good evening.
I actually have a parent letter to read for us if that's okay.
There's a concert tonight, a Halloween concert, and they asked that I read it because they can't be here and that I'll read my letter.
This is from Alicook. I am unable to attend this meeting as my child's winter concert is this evening.
I'm in a loss with both proposals, separating children who have been together for years,
having my child spend hours on the bus to go to North Point Higgins,
or having them not have music and physical education also library.
I don't understand how this is where we are at this point.
I, Ally Cook, and my family, Toby Perry, spouse,
Taylor Perry, son, junior at K. High, Leo Perry, son,
second grade at Houtling, please ask that you vote no,
until we can come up with a different solution.
Please, I do not want to pull my youngest from school
and attempt to homeschool.
He has learned so much from every teacher he has at Houtling.
Please, please vote no.
I'm certain there are other options.
Please, please vote no.
My kids and all their friends would be absolutely heartbroken
with either option.
They love howling, they love Ms. Gillian, they love Ms. Jen and they love library.
These kids are a future.
Thank you for your time and consideration, Alley Cook.
And then this one's me.
Good evening.
I am here to ask a school board to vote no on the budget proposal that will involve transporting
our youngest students to the ends of the island.
While I appreciate that the board is starting the budget conversations early this year,
it feels like this decision is being made without time to explore other options that would
less disruptive to families. Last August, during the first budget committee meeting, I asked the
budget committee to explore charging the cruise ship companies that come to Ketchikan in education fee.
I'm just curious to anyone on the committee follow up on this for the borough or the city.
I just read that we have an additional three cruise lines coming to Ketchikan in the summer of
2026. If we charged each passenger even just a flat fee of $10, with projected cruise ship
visitors we could bring in millions of dollars for our education.
This is a revenue that I don't believe has been tapped, and I wonder why it hasn't been
explored.
In looking at the proposed budget cuts, there is no mention of cutting any district administration
at either the building level, nor the district office level.
Only teachers, parents, and programs for students.
When I first came to work in the district back in 2007, our district office looked very different.
We had very few administrators in the district office compared to now.
There was a superintendent, special education director and a curriculum director who were all administrators.
But we also had a business manager and a human resources director who were both classified employees.
We could save a lot of money if we cut these administrative positions and return them back to classified positions.
Another money saving idea would be to consolidate some of the positions in the district office.
Perhaps the business manager and grant coordinator could be just one person, just as an example.
Our teachers and parents have been asked for years to do more with less, and now it might be time for the district office to do the same.
If the current budget proposal passes, we will be adding an extra .5 administrative position to next year, which is more than what we have now.
Okay, Frank, thank you so much.
Out of respect for everyone's time this evening.
That is three minutes.
I read someone else's letter first.
Can I have her time added to my time?
I did have about another minute.
Thank you.
In the current budget proposal, past, we will be adding an extra 0.5 administrative position to
next year, more than what we have currently.
There's a shared vice principal position between FOM Mountain and Point Higgins.
Next year, the budget is calling for two full-time vice principal administrators at both of
those schools.
This is an additional admin position in the same budget that's considering cutting
PE, music, and librarians at our elementary schools.
Administrators are at well workers, meaning they do not have tenure in our offered contracts
on an annual basis, so they can be cut at the end of any school year.
While we're proposing to app and our children and families, let's take a look at the leaders
of these schools while we're at it to ensure we have the best of the best.
I would love to see the school boards then out of survey to staff students and parents
of all the schools in the district to gather information about how the current administrators
are doing in each specific school.
What kind of climate are they creating for those staff students and parents?
Are they supportive and do they address the needs of all stakeholders in a positive way?
Not all administrators are the same and I can tell you that we could use more principles
like Kurt, Linda, and Jared Garlic.
I would like the school board to collect the service from parents and staff to make sure
that we are getting the best of the best in charge of all these schools.
Also, the Superintendent's budget's presentation stated there's a budget gap created due to
inadequate funding as well as increased cost due to inflation.
one element I found clearly absent was any accountability by the District Office of Administration for their mismanagement of District Funds.
At the example at the end of the last school year I was teaching Summer School at Rubela.
The school district didn't have enough money to pay all the bills for June.
So in order to pay everyone they had to request more money from the borough.
I don't think we should advocate any more money until we have the District Administrative Office who can balance budget.
Next up is Nila, your card.
Hello, my name is Nila Erkar, and I am a senior at Ketchikan High School.
Over the past month, I have heard many students and adults in the community discuss the ideas
that school board has taken considered about saving money for the schools.
Every single person I've spoken to has talked to me about how detrimental it would be for
any more teachers or electives to be removed from the high school.
We already lost multiple teachers in classes since last year, and I have seen it directly
impact other students as well as myself.
So many students show up to school every day just for their electives because those are the parts of their day that bring them the most joy.
Removing classes removes incentives for students to show up.
A lot of the electives that were cuts were the ones that helped students get jobs right out of high school.
Because of the significant cuts made to the CTE department, many students are left without the opportunities they had before.
Another way that the teacher and class cuts have affected students and staff is the class sizes.
There are almost twice as many students in each classroom compared to last year.
One of the things I liked best about K-Hi is that it had smaller class sizes so that the
learning experience was more one-on-one and the teachers had time to give each student individual
help.
With 20 to 30 students in each class, there are significantly less time for these opportunities
if there is any at all.
Teachers are too overwhelmed to help each student because they have taken on more students
than they can help during one class period.
The other main method of saving money I've heard people discuss is the district's idea
to combine elementary grades into separate schools for each grade level.
Combining all students from the same grade into one school not only creates class sizes that
are unreasonable to manage, but also takes away the children's right to choose a school
that suits them more. There are so many different kinds of teaching styles and even more
kinds of students. There is no possible way that every child will receive a quality education
while only being able to attend one school. Many families have more than one child.
Are we expecting that parents will have the time or means to drive one child to a school on one
set of town and then commute to a school on the office of the island for their other child?
Even if we were to forget about the inconvenience of this possible scenario, how would this be saving us money?
And if it is saving money then is saving money at the cost of these kids education?
The school district is supposed to put its students above anything else.
But right now, it feels like they are more concerned about finding ways to save money that will undermine our education rather than cutting from the top.
There are so many people who have spoken out and said that they think we should save money by cutting off loose ends from the top of the district, and I completely agree.
It is not personal, but we are considering consciously deciding to undermine the education of
students in Ketchikan to save the buds of the people at the top that were in charge of making
sure we didn't get into this budget crisis in the first place.
If the district wants to save money as desperately as they are trying to make everyone believe,
then they will consider making the right decision instead of the more convenient for themselves.
Thank you.
Amy Taufer?
I hope I said your name correctly.
My name's Amy Tepfer, and I'm bringing on my behalf, and these are my thoughts on my thoughts alone.
I want to start by acknowledging that you all are an incredibly difficult situation, and one that is not entirely of your own making.
I commend your effort to serve the community, and I know everyone in this room wants what's best for our children.
The two proposals set forth during last meeting are not what best for our children, though.
They're not what's best for our teachers or our community.
Both proposals focus on cutting at the lower levels
where the impacts hit the hardest to our children.
The proposals are sacrificing our children's education
and well-being to maintain administrative luxuries.
Our teachers and frontline staff are exhausted.
They have been jerked around,
asked to do more with less and had the burden of maintaining a cheerful and educational atmosphere
in times of uncertainty, uncertainty, and up people. They have stepped up over and over again
thinking of the children first. I personally and truly grateful to each and every one of them.
But this isn't how we keep or attract quality educators. If we end up following either the
proposals that were put forth by Michael Robbins, we will have degraded our school district
to the point.
We will be driving families from this island.
Our schools are not luxuries.
Our libraries and librarians are not luxuries.
Our RTIs are not luxuries.
Our music and PE teachers are not luxuries.
Our preschools are not luxuries.
These are essentials for well-rounded education.
They provide safe and stable environments to the children who need it most.
These services, safe and change lives.
These proposals do not make a community welcoming to families.
I would go so far as to argue that they push families out,
which will further decrease your funding.
It is time to take a hard look at the administration level
And the direction that the current administration is steering this school district.
Don't be fooled by forecasts. They're just that. They're forecasts.
They can be readily changed by putting funds back into creating a strong district.
Our children deserve better than these proposals. That's the hard fact.
There are futures. Let's not short-change it.
Finally, I just want to touch on the tone-depth social media post that the school district
put out last week, congratulating the administration staff.
I'm not going to go into details because I'm sure most of you have seen that.
I hope that this board addresses that with administration and ensures that it never happens again.
Administration should never be seeking praise.
The operation has come from a well informed world, right in here.
Thank you.
Not a self promoted social media post.
Do better.
Thank you.
Lisa Milna Dewitt and Natasha Clevinger.
YG YG Hanas, the Katyuan Ganesh,
it's at the Nakhya Khseai.
YG Khatewa Sa,
Lisa Milney Dewitt.
Khsebkh.
Keisqa, you can do us up, Khaad Lekha, Kheinak, Natasha Klavinger, my name is Keisqa.
My taxpayer's name isn't Natasha Klavinger.
Again, if she is, we are part of the Keisqa native education parent committee that
title sixth grant, the District Receives, are myself in the chair and Keisqa here, vice chair,
we'd like to read you a letter.
KGBSD School Board, the title sixth Keisqa native education parent committee is reaching out
helps to collaborate in the continuity of the IEA preschools.
In school years past, the K&EBC is tirelessly advocated
to keep these preschools in our district full time.
However, to help keep them full time, commitment is needed.
For the last five years, K&EBC has allocated funds
from our formulated federal grant to create
and keep the district's cultural coordinator position,
as well as part of both of the IEA preschools
currently residing at Font Mountain and the Pioneer Home.
This decision was made with the understanding
that the school board school district would also contribute towards the I.A. pre-schools.
Given the district's current financial status, we thought it would be beneficial to have
K&PC and the district enter in a memorandum of agreement. We requested our local education
association liaison to inquire on this matter. After watching the recent budget meeting and hearing
nothing regarding this from our liaison.
And not having any of you follow up. We thought it best to directly approach the school board ourselves.
As we more than understand the uncertainty of the amount of funds to plan with, each school year, we are asking the school board to help these preschools by entering it to MOA that will be submitted with the grant application until such financial sufficiency is given to the preschool programs.
Perhaps you can consider this in an annual step as the application for the title six funds.
Just as you must plan so much, we, the K&BC, look forward to better communication and partnering
to enrich the education of our youth of Ketchikan.
Going to teach, Hela, and Deluxe, and Newsom, Quayana, for your time.
If you have any questions, please reach out to us.
Kuchoeth, that's thank you very much.
Pat Tully.
Good evening, everyone.
My name's Pat Tully, and I live at 438 Old Dairy Road.
This evening, I'm speaking only on my own behalf, and not in my capacity as director of
the Ketchikan Public Library.
First of all, thank you so much for serving on the school board.
I really appreciate your dedication to our schools and our community.
Particularly at this time of year, I know you've got a lot of difficult decisions to make,
and I don't envy you.
So I am speaking here tonight and support of what has been termed special programs such as
Music, Physical Education and School Libraries.
I think it might be a misnomer to call them special, since there are central in preparing
students to become well-rounded adults who are able to fully enjoy and participate in
the life of the community.
Our democracy requires the kind of well-roundedness that these programs provide.
Physical education teaches the skills of teamwork, perseverance, and camaraderie that are vital
to success in adult life.
Music is a large part of all of our lives, and an acquiring some skill at
playing or performing or at least appreciating music inspires many to consider music as a rewarding
career at least a hobby. School libraries allow children to explore different perspectives
and experiences across time, cultures, values and individuals to discover what kind of
books they love and to return to these again and again. On a practical level, Kecchiken's school
libraries in the public library share an online library system which makes it possible to share
books between libraries. This collaboration is possible because each library is confident that
staff at the other libraries will be available to check out and track the books so they can
be returned to their home library after use. In the case of the public library, we require
this assurance because books at the public library are city property and we are the stewards
of that property. Without the staff at each school library, we would not have this assurance.
Also, the schools in the school library collections are intended to support and enhance the curriculum and other classroom activities.
The public library does not acquire books and other materials necessarily to support classes or other school activities,
and rarely adds more than a single copy of the book to our collections.
Public library serves a different purpose than the school libraries, and cannot take the place of the libraries in the librarians and our schools.
In conclusion, I ask you to continue to fund and stay after the physical education, music,
and school library programs that are vital to the development of our children into capable,
creative, and successful adults.
Thank you.
Jason House.
Good evening.
My name is Jason House.
I have two students in the district on the Assistant Principal at Schombar, but I'm here
tonight as the president of the Ketchikan Leadership Organization, which represents
our district's admin team, and I think I need to point out our district admin team represents
just slightly over 5% of our district staff and we are very small team. I'd like to
begin by thanking the superintendent and school board for their leadership and for beginning
this budget process early. Thank you to our community for being so engaged in this very important work.
As a member of this community, I've been deeply troubled by the negative comments directed
towards our administrators over these past several months, including tonight, including last week's
committee meeting. Then, the next day, when the superintendent took time to publicly acknowledge
and thank our admins for their efforts, I was astounded by the number of negative responses
to the simple act of recognizing the group of hardworking employees. Or maybe you all remember
last spring when the board made the difficult decision to cut nearly 20% of our already small
admin team. There was literal applause and celebration in this very chamber as four of our friends,
neighbors and colleagues lost their jobs. So maybe you can understand why so many of our
admins are feeling unappreciated and might have needed a message of support from the superintendent.
Yet, I choose to presume positive intent because I believe that every one of us wants
what is best for our students. I choose to believe that this negativity is simply based on
the lack of understanding of the impactful work our admins do. So I ask them, what do you wish people
new about the work you do and here's what they said.
I wish people knew how much time we spend worrying about our staff and students.
I wish people understood how much work we do just so that teachers can focus more
of their energy on teaching.
I wish people realized that we also have our boots on the ground right alongside our staff.
I wish people knew that I do this job because I love it and I find it meaningful and important
for our community.
Most of all I wish people understood that the decisions we make are because we believe
their best for our students.
Research consistently shows that strong and effective leadership
is one of the most important factors in the success of schools.
In the past two years, our district has seen
significant improvement in our school facilities,
student achievement, graduation rates, and dropout rates.
These gains are the direct result of strong effective leadership
from administration and the hard work of our staff.
Yet now, we are already seeing the negative effects
of the admin cuts made last spring as our district struggles
to meet the goals of our strategic plan. We call upon the board to restore the lost elementary
assistant principal and curriculum director positions as those two admins will have immediate
positive impacts that will enable us to better support our staff and students through the changes
and restructuring that is ahead. Finally I encourage each of you listening to connect with your school
and district admins, find out what they do and why they do it, and then I hope that you too
We'll want to thank them for a job.
Well done.
Thank you.
OK.
Thank you very much.
Sophia Pilgrim?
Can I present a copy of these comments to the board?
They dropped it up.
Hello.
My name is Sophia Pilgrim.
I'm a K.I. Jr.
and I'm speaking as an individual and solely for myself tonight.
Good evening.
Members of the Board, staff, and community.
First and foremost, thank you all for being here tonight
and serving.
This is not an easy job and I appreciate that you do it.
I also want to share my thanks for Superintendent Robbins.
He was willing to meet with me this week.
to discuss my concerns, and that meeting helped me for my opinion here today.
So tonight, I'm here because, like many others, I'm deeply concerned about our financial
crisis that our district is facing.
The choices before us tonight are not good ones.
They are not solutions.
They are compromised to minimize harm and a situation where harm is inevitable.
We are at a point where we must choose what hurts the least because we simply don't have
the money or time for anything better.
I understand this crisis is not just about catch-a-can.
It's a reflection of a systemic failure in Alaska's education system and a broader national
failure to prioritize education.
For years, we've watched education funding be stagnated as a debt and deferred decisions
of piled up and as the needs of students have pushed aside.
We can't do those years of neglect overnight, but we can't also can't afford to keep
operating this way with limited transparency and outdated practices.
How can we, as a community, be asked to, accept the options presented tonight with a
clearer, without a clear line by line budget?
How can we make decisions that will affect students, staff, and families without knowing
exactly where our money is going?
The last time the district posted a red book budget was in 2019, yes, I understand that COVID disrupted everything, but it's now 2024 and it's no longer a valid excuse.
We need better transparency and I believe we need it now.
I have the utmost respect for everyone working to find solutions in this challenging time.
I know the administration is doing everything they can with what they have, but respect and trust require transparency.
More than slide shows, more than sit down discussions, we need a detailed itemized budget.
without it, how can we expect the community or even the state to have confidence and decisions being made?
It's clear that the governor will not give us the 1400-based student allocation raise we need.
They have said that they need more transparency before they consider it.
Why can we not try our hardest to meet them on that?
Why can we not demand more of ourselves when the stakes are this high?
You may not have created this crisis, but we're responsible for how the district responds to it.
If we're going to weather the storm, we need a clear understanding of where we stand.
And I am more so frustrated with the priorities that have been shown in this budget discussion.
With all of our respect to everyone in their livelihoods, we need hands on the ground.
We need teachers, parents, and parents.
We need to change the direction in which we're cutting.
We need to cut central office admin before we cut teachers, parents, and student programs.
But I say this with the most respect I can, because I do not like to call for who should be fired and who shouldn't.
It's a disgusting situation, and I hope we can solve it with the least amount of harm.
I'm a junior now, and I know this problem won't be fixed by the time I graduate.
but I'm still in the fight for the long run.
My youngest brothers, a fourth grader this year,
and I hope that by the time he graduates,
this will be well and truly behind us.
Tonight, I'm asking for clarity for an itemized budget,
for an audit, and for a vote no until we can get the transparency
and effort that we deserve as students.
Thank you.
Rob Arnold.
My name is Rob Arnold.
I'm city and city, and I'm representing myself tonight.
Through the President and School Board, let's keep pushing, be proactive, vocal, demand, transparency.
Keep talking, stand up for our kids.
News alert, Southeast population is shrinking by 17% until the year 2050.
The superintendent is correct. We cannot rely on state and federal money to make up the difference.
The incoming federal administration seeks to close the Department of Education.
That's 10% of all public school budgets.
Nationwide since 2000 there's been a 95% increase administrative jobs.
39% more principles and assistance while only 10% more teachers and 5% more students.
We spend the most of any nation in the world by double and get amazingly the worst results.
Our children deserve better.
Our town absolutely needs a functioning relevant school system.
Superintendent Robins proposals offered no plans to cut administrative jobs.
His plan won't work unless fair cuts are made.
One option will pack the charter schools.
First, two-third grade into an old and crowded building
because low-income families have not the wear with all
to send their little ones out on a cold bus or drive.
This is going to give parents more reasons
to homeschool.
Solutions.
Rent one of our mini buildings to a private parent
run classical model K through H school.
Keep music and gym for students well-being.
It's vital to their mental health.
Make it six through eight grade at shown bar.
I don't know why we don't do that.
CTE.
We must have project-based learning,
not just as an elective.
City of Ketchakhan needs linemen.
There's a report that K-Hive will not let KPU talk to seniors.
Is this true?
There's no maritime now, there's no auto shop, is this true?
What is the $1.8 million doing for us?
Now, you say graduation rates are up.
That's great, but what are the rewards?
Give reveal a more space without cuts.
I saw a comment.
All you need to do is just email your representatives and the governor.
We will, but what are you doing?
Lots of ideas out there.
Let's see private public partnerships, turn off the lights, et cetera, et cetera.
It's hard to talk about a budget that's tonight because on the agenda, we see more money
and administrative contracts and one of your policy adds more money to the bottom line.
Stop spending, learn to budget without federal and state money to save you, do the hard
work now. Isn't that what you ran for? As a homeowner, you're responsible for our money.
Balance the books. Make our schools better, stop avoiding the tough choices and stop the
blame game. Thank you, Rob. You can be courageous. You can consolidate. Really, realize you'll never
make everyone happy. Make the big sacrifice. Thank you, Rob. And let's make education work for us.
Thank you very much.
Kevin, Chris DeVitch.
Good evening. Kevin, Chris DeVitch. I'm here to
speak about the CTE courses that have been eliminated.
And being a lifelong resident, a catch can,
went through school here at K-12,
what really disappointed
me to see was those classes being eliminated.
The maritime, the aviation, culinary arts,
And the child, child care, that was on the cuts.
We only have two ways in and out of catch can,
it's either by boat or plane.
And by you guys cutting this out,
you are pretty much cutting off your foot.
I realize that there's a need for this.
These are elective classes from my understanding.
They were when I went to school, but they need to be made mandatory.
We need people in maritime industries and all sectors. Be in commercial fishing. The ferry systems in peril have been shut down because they don't have people to put to work.
Kids are going to need to learn how to cook. They can go into further culinary careers to make their life better. We need child care. People need affordable child care. We need these people to learn this.
My question is, how long are these classes going to be eliminated from your budget?
What's going to happen with our school boat that is just sitting there in shambles
because the school district did not have qualified people to maintain that boat?
I offered last year to volunteer to help out in maritime.
I took maritime and all four years at Kay High.
My last two years at school, I took it twice a day.
Growing up as a commercial fisherman might add on two boats. I knew most of the fundamentals before I got to high school. I was running a boat before I could drive a car.
So, we learned about stuff like this. I had an idea to enhance the maritime class.
I called, I reached out to Katherine when she was campaigning for school board told her the importance about maritime in catch a can in our area.
I called the district office to speak with the superintendent twice.
My calls were not returned.
I emailed the superintendent and got no response.
We need to bring these classes back.
They need to be funded.
We need to get our people trained to do these classes so they can further their careers, aviation.
When I went to high school, a lot of kids took it and a lot of kids are flying planes.
Some of them are here. Still flying float planes. Some of them study their own float plane business.
The rest of them are flying commercial jets now. We need this. You guys, I mean, budgets are tough.
But you guys need to start making the decisions.
Kelsey McNeill.
Good evening. My name is Kelsey and I'm the parent of one elementary school student in the district.
Although Ketch can't get liberal school district references their attempts at transparency and communication and their recent Facebook posts,
I have found it unnecessarily difficult to find information on the budget situation even when I'm actively looking for it.
There are some events in Ketch can that are so well advertised that I couldn't miss them if I tried.
If the KGBSD budget specific website is not getting as much traffic as you'd hope for, then it's simply not being advertised well enough.
One of the things I love about living in catch can is the community's ability to rise up and help each other in times of need.
We know how to face hard things we've demonstrated the capacity to care for one another.
In the past few weeks, I've spoken to several parents and teachers about the daunting web of decisions and domino effects that we're facing as a community in regard to school funding.
In having these conversations, my eyes were open to several contributing factors to our current crisis that I would have never otherwise known about.
I also heard creative ideas and solutions that I never would have considered, a perfect example of the importance and stakeholder engagement.
It seems as though we're facing the reality of losing important essential beloved teachers in either of these two options going forward.
I hope that that's clarified tonight.
And there will undoubtedly be compromises and difficulties in whatever plan gets put into place.
It doesn't seem like there's a painless way out of this.
What I'd appreciate most at this point as a parent and a community member would be hearing the district come to the table with transparency
Accountability and compassion for the many families that have been and will be affected as we pull ourselves out of this deficit
Trust is earned by expressing humility and not asserting authority. Thanks for your time. Thank you
Jolene Thomas
Um, Roosevelt Drive, most of you know me, or I've been at meetings with you, or I've spoken
loud and proud because I tend to do that as well too.
So, but I'm a mom, a grandma, and a teacher, and I'm invested in all the schools where
they'll okay high, and a fun mountain, possibly point Higgins, and Huttling.
So, I have a pretty good investment, I'm in the district.
Um, first of all, I want to acknowledge, I know, I know where we're at.
financially, the budget I know and I understand and it's hard. You got, you have a hard job.
And I apologize for anything that might make it more difficult for you because I know it's going
to be hard. What I would like to say is, first of all, I'm here first as a mom and grandma,
but mainly as a teacher, change is hard. I know I was forced transferred to helping this last
after 16 years of being at Fund Mountain, and it was hard like I cried all summer, and I spent
my whole summer moving, and it was rough because what I survived, because I had great
people that helped me. I have students, I have parents that have been supportive and helpful.
My family, the administrators have been exceptional. I can't even speak to them and how great they've
been through all of it. So, change is hard, but we can do hard things. We saw how we pulled together
the landslide and just many other things. I've just seen it. My husband was in his accident.
The community within minutes had meals for months for us because we care about each other
and that's why it's hard and that's why it's emotional for all of us but we can do hard things.
No matter what decision is made and I truly believe that and I believe in positive intentions.
This was already said so I'm just going to really quickly say that I would like to recognize
administrators, they're taken a hit on Facebook. And I'm going to tell you, I have worked with
some of the hardest administrators ever. And I see them running upstairs, downstairs,
outside, inside, six o'clock, nine o'clock. It doesn't matter. They're working. And our administrators
deserve recognition in a positive way. And I'm hurt that I'm Facebook. They're being slammed,
so so hard. Can we make changes? Sure. But I'm not here about that. I'm here to recognize how hard
they work.
Now, for my passion, this preschool, preschool is research and evidence-based to increase
student achievement, especially when we're looking at those children's specific early intervention needs.
Our developmental preschools here are designed to meet the individual needs of students. That takes teachers
with specific trainings. Day cares do not do. They're great and they have their purpose,
But they don't do what we do in our preschools.
We are specifically doing things to increase student achievement
for special needs children.
For example, we might have, oh, it's not three minutes already.
That's three minutes already.
Oh my gosh. Okay. All right. Thanks, Charlie.
Yes. So I'll write that out and give you a show.
But anyway, preschool might be cut and don't do it.
Just think about it, please.
Christy Johnson.
I am Christy Johnson and I know you guys have a thank-list job, so thanks for doing it, but I have
I have 6, 7, 8, 9 grandkids in school right now in various classes
5, 6 of them are in grade school, 3 of them are in pre-school ones in Shombar. I have another one starting pre-school next year
and in a few years after that, I have a couple more that will be going into pre-school.
They're all invested in staying here and right now, most of them are at one school because
we chose to have that there, all there together so they will have their siblings together
and their cousins.
We have numerous cousins there also and I'm just curious how if you split the schools and then
still cut positions.
How is that going to help them?
Well, that make bigger classrooms where it's going to be harder for them to learn because
there's less teachers but more kids.
And then if you cut all the extra classes they have,
like music, PE and stuff,
actually it's not PE.
It was required by state and everything
to have free to graduate.
So I don't know how much you would do it.
Besides having it.
And when I was in school, there were way more kids
in school here, way more kids in school.
way less administration, way less issues like this. I've been trying to look at the
budget for a while. I used to be on the APC for charter school and we looked at
the budget when we had to budget for our school there when my older kids were in
school, but I have not been able to see a budget here in the last five or six years that
I can really look at and pick something out if I want to and see where we're at.
And I don't know how you can make any decision without having a clear budget that shows everything.
So you know exactly where you're at, where you're going to be, what the costs are going to be.
Without one, I mean, I can't do that for my house for my own home.
If I don't have no, what I have in the bank, what repaying whatever, I can't balance.
I don't know how this school district can without it.
I also noticed I just had a question.
I noticed the business manager is going to get a contract and I said they were always like
at will, employees kind of.
So that was something different this year.
And in a business when there are usually when there are budget constraints, they look at those
newest jobs, they did first to kind of look at where they can cut or how they can cut back.
And our teachers got cut last year.
So they're going to get cut this year.
Are they going to get cut in next year?
You want people to move to town people are going to want to move here. They're going to look at the town
It's a hey the town's nice, but the schools and don't really know if I want my kids going there because next year, what are they going to cut?
I mean without knowing that's a real hard one and
If they can't get a budget or if you can't get stuff taken care of, I just think it is my time up. Thank you
Alley Jones
Hi, my name is Alley Jones and I'm speaking for myself and as a student who will be affected by any decision you make.
I just have one question, what's next?
You take away our exercise with some students who's as a vent and the only exercise they get on a daily basis.
Second, our arts that has affected so many kids and some of you as adults on the board.
And studies have shown improved so many things including mental and physical health.
Next are libraries, which are the pillars of reading comprehension, giving us a world to escape to.
What's next? Are foreign language programs? Which colleges look for? They look for well-rounded individuals.
Getting rid of these would rep this away. You as the school board are supposed to be looking out for us,
but you are limiting our chances for scholarships, which many kids rely on and decreasing our chances to be accepted.
Not only by, with an educational standpoint, but also our mental health.
We need these outlets because of stress from school.
I'm not even talking about the students, but the teachers.
They already have higher numbers of students and now you want to ask them to have more.
Plus, teach things they didn't even go to school too teach.
And on top of that, decrease the day length.
Asking so much more of the already stressed and overwhelmed teachers.
We already aren't getting the best education we can because the teachers can't pay more attention to each kid
with one-on-one-time, even when trying their best.
I just want you to think about the impacts that it has on us, the people and students who
have lives and futures and who you are supposed to protect and help, well people are slowly
cutting and chipping away the essence of our schools for the sake of poorly managed budgets,
something that could have been handled in the beginning, but it was failed to do so.
My mom is even talking about how if this doesn't change, if this changes, she would rather send
to New Jersey, then have me continue to go to the school system you are proposing. If that doesn't
show the raw concerns of these parents, I don't know what does. Please talk about making cuts
that actually matter. I don't know maybe even from the top positions instead of the bottom
of splitting up families that already stressed about this and the people that try and help the situation.
Thank you and think of us. The people and students who rely on us for our future.
Thank you.
Martha Thomas.
My name is Martha Thomas.
I'm here because I have some serious concerns about my son's education.
I have two sons who have small engines as their first period class, and they let me know that they spent time in the library and haven't even used a wrench.
The reason is because they don't have a teacher and haven't for most of the school year.
My second son, I've asked him to talk to his English teacher and to have him great his assignments from November.
My son tells me that his English teacher has been absent a lot.
And there always seems to be a sub.
I'm now learning that this teacher will become the vice principal at Point Higgins and has spent most of this semester
Learning his new role and not teaching my child, let alone other children.
If as a district, you saw this coming when you find a better solution.
Maybe someone in your administrative staff,
at least for the remainder of the year.
You don't pull an English teacher in the middle of a semester.
Are you saying that Ketchken High School
doesn't need an English teacher?
My son's grades in this class could or would be better
if he had a consistent instructor.
Or when that grades assignments.
Are you saying that this is okay to just pull a teacher
from a core class and have the students take the fall?
I've been upset with my child about this problem
and now I'm learning it's not all his fault.
As a parent, I should be informed of what's going on.
This is not my child's fault.
That you as a district have decided to pull this teacher in the middle of the semester and not inform me, or any of the parents of this English teacher, someone needs to be accountable for what's going on.
And times, it's time for the school district and staff to inform parents of what's going on in the district and not just hide behind rose-colored glasses.
Please let me know what you're going to do to fix this situation.
Thank you.
Okay, that is all of the people that signed up to speak. Is there anyone else that would like to be heard?
Okay, with that being said, I've been asked to read. Oh, I'm so sorry. Please come forward. Tell us who you are.
I'm Gary Williams. I miss the sign and jeet. I wanted to speak tonight because of my experiences with
the school district and I'm speaking for myself, not anything associated with the district.
Before I get into it, I want to tell you guys who I really am as an educator.
I did my student teaching at Point Higgins.
I was hired as a para while I was working as an intensive para.
I did things like organizing science night or volunteering as an after school tutor.
And I did all of this while I was completing a master's in special education.
I got hired as a special education teacher at K. High in 2015.
While I filled many roles that nobody else has stepped into, I was the GSA advisor, I served
as a P coordinator.
When we moved to a one-to-one laptop model, I went and got another master's degree in learning
in technology to be better equipped to deal with our students.
During COVID, I really got stretched thin and I worked as the Special Education Manager at
RYC and at tribal scholars, so the students would still get service times.
I've served as KIA President and delegate and now I'm a building rep, I have worked all over
this district doing everything I possibly could to contribute to our kids education.
In 2020, I did my required 4,400 hour practicum in educational leadership with multiple administrators
in the district. When I ended up being met-of-act to encourage with complications to my pregnancy with my twins,
I kept working from a hotel room to give my kids their IUP service times.
I kept in touch with students.
I have done everything imaginable to work for our kids.
And I see all of the other teachers here doing that too.
So that is why it hurts that I have a master's in educational leadership.
I have an administrative certificate.
And when I applied for the Open Vice Principal position,
I wasn't even granted an interview.
And the contract was offered to someone who does not have a certification and does not have the degree completed.
So I am asking to consider why we are hiring people for certain positions.
We have requirements in place for a reason.
My family and I are now looking at if I should take a job elsewhere.
It would be easier to have access to metal care care for my son.
It also means taking my children away from the place that their ancestors have lived for thousands of years.
I thought I would spend my entire career here, but now I'm really reconsidering and I know I am not the only teacher considering leaving.
There are at least seven others within Kay High-Lone who have looked at other job opportunities.
We are in a great state of uncertainty and our teachers feel it.
We need support from our school board, from others on staff, from our administrators and from our community.
We don't need to be talking about cutting administrators.
We need to be talking about how can we find more resources.
Our admins do ahead of a lot.
Our teachers do ahead of a lot.
And we're going to take care.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Okay.
Due to the help in concert tonight, we have had two individuals who have asked to have
letters read.
The first one is from Miranda Tucker.
Hello, catch can get we were a school board members.
My name is Miranda Tucker.
tonight. I have written this letter as a parent in our community. Last week, our community was
presented with two options for the upcoming school year. Well, I understand with our current
budget and funding that big changes are necessary. I cannot believe that these are the only two
options our community can move forward with. Regarding option two, I would like to share a personal
story with you from my experience with forced school borders in removing parent choice. I was raised
town called, this is me, I will butcher this name, coquit them, which is located in the lower
mainland of British Columbia, Canada. A very big city in comparison to catch Canolaska,
a grew up in a family with three brothers, myself being the youngest of the four of us. When
I was in fifth grade, our school district decided to change the school boundary lines. The boundary
line for my parents house was changed by one single block. But this single block forced me to attend
separate middle school than my siblings. The school I attended was further away from my home and
often put my parents in a difficult position of choosing which school events they could attend.
Growing up, close to our neighborhood elementary and middle school, I built very strong bonds
with many of my classmates. These connections were something I needed entering middle school,
but I was never able to regain my new school. On top of that, I didn't have my siblings
at my new school for support or help when I needed the most. Attending the school may have
go from loving school to absolutely griting school dropoffs. This is not something I want for my kids.
Like many families, my parents chose to purchase our family home near neighborhood schools. They
knew trusted and loved. When my husband and I got married, we made the choice to stay and catch
kind of raise our family for many reasons. Our children's education being a main reason, which included
parent choice in the schools or children in tent. School borders and grades section schools will
force our future kindergarten or to bus 50 minutes minimum in the morning and again in the afternoon
to point Higgins.
It refused to believe that we are five-year-old's best interest to spend almost two hours
each day on the bus to attend the school for this to away from his home.
Our rows are already structurally unsafe, adding in winter conditions and congestion from
tourism.
And this is not in our child's best interest.
My husband and I both work in town and I live at most two-minute drive-to-houtling if our
son were to need us with work or current road conditions.
And the distance point Higgins I would be at a minimum of 45 minutes from my child.
this is completely unacceptable.
As a community, I truly believe if we come together,
we can collectively come up with a plan
that aligns with our students best interests
and our current budget and funding crisis.
So let me back out of this one.
And the next one is from, let me find it,
I started, oh, it's up here.
There we go. It's from Gillian Pollock and let's see if I have three minutes enough for this.
My name is Gillian Pollock and I'm the music teacher at Houghtling Elementary. I would like
first to address and thank everyone who has involved in this conversation and decision-making process.
Changes difficult and while it is very apparent changes must be made to accommodate our budget next year.
This change hurts and we must consider what is inevitably going to hurt the least.
I have been a K6 music teacher in this district for 10 years, however I am more than just
to music teacher.
Our school as well as others has seen inconsistency and absence of a counselor in
our school since I began teaching in this district.
As a music teacher in Dorston's psychology, I infuse social and emotional learning into every
single class in less than every day.
From the ages of 5 to 13, I provide crucial continuity through relationships I build with
students through the seven years I have with them.
In addition to the social and emotional learning, I am able to effectively provide with the
K6 population, I am able to set the foundations in their primary years that allows me to form
the connections necessary to minimize negative classroom behavior increased student buy-in
and lay the groundwork necessary for effective music instruction as they grow with me.
That being said, we are being given two very real and likely scenarios tonight.
One of these options include music education for K6 in this community and one does not.
Well, I could spend time discussing the impacts that option 2 would have on our community.
I'm forced to advocate for myself in music education.
That means I must inevitably outline the benefits.
I see as a music educator when considering option 2 specialized school boundaries by grade level.
As the primary 4 to 6 music educator in this district, it is clear I would have a much greater reach within our population.
I would see connect with and provide music education to almost all 4 to 6 students on the silent.
given this opportunity, I would find greater ability to implement consistent language and instruction
to students before their middle school years.
This will lead to increased numbers in our secondary music programs through my ability to
instill excitement and proficiency in the areas of voice instruction, ukulele, songwriting,
and beginning band.
Currently I teach 7 classes a day and 14 total lesson plans each week.
Throughout the day, I see K all the way up to 6.
this leads to vast differentiation in my instruction-style materials used in music fundamentals
covered.
By focusing on a smaller number of grades in lessons each week, I will be able to focus
my instruction and energy levels to a specified area of music that I feel will be more impactful
as I will not be spread so thinly in areas of planning and funding.
With option 2, I continue my model of upper-level instruction by providing voice lessons
and choir to all fourth graders.
I would continue to provide ukulele instruction and songwriting workshops to all fifth graders.
I would provide beginning band instruction to all six graders.
It is through these instruments that I can enforce the fundamentals of music taught at
the primary level in a applicable and exciting way.
I love catch can.
I move to her because I feel strong since I belong through the arts community removing music
from our schools with not only push our students away from the access to the arts.
Time's up.
I almost made it. I tried to read fast and that isn't present.
Is that was that sent through like an email? I don't I didn't see that one come through.
It was sent through the clerk and I've specifically asked to be read. I will forward it back
through the clerk to all the board members. Thank you.
Okay. So seeing no more citizen comments?
I got a couple hands up. Oh, I'm so I'm so sorry. See this is why you need where the glasses
for the close-up stuff.
Please come forward.
Good evening.
My name is Darby Maynardee.
I am a parent of four children who will be in this district, eventually.
Three children who is head and point against elementary school, I did come and talk to the
budget committee.
So some of you have already heard me speak on the issue I'm speaking on tonight.
Number one, I am against a split up of our elementary school students.
I do not think it's what's best for kids.
What's best for families is best for kids.
Kid families can't get to your school.
Families have to attend two different sets of conferences.
Two different parent days.
All of those things are not going to be best for kids.
If their parents can't show up.
Not just that.
It's a daily drive.
Every single day, you're going to be busing kids from town,
You're going to be busing kids from north to town.
I honestly do not believe it's safe with our road conditions
and the winter I heard that already said,
but I believe very strongly.
There's many days.
I choose not to drive to town because of the road conditions.
And I really just think that we need to step back and look and say, is this what's best for kids?
To spend two hours of their life potentially on a bus.
It is 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.
Those hours are not going to be spent in a car with conversation with mom and dad.
They are going to be on a bus.
That's a lot of their life.
I do think that we shouldn't just sit here and say we don't like your ideas.
We should come with some solutions, right?
So I have a few creative solutions.
Number one, at point Higgins, about 10 years ago,
we used to use grade combos.
We've done it a few times in the past.
It depends on teachers who are up for it.
But if you're worried about balance class sizes,
let's not just say, hey, we need all the first grade teachers
to have even number.
We can have a first and second grade split.
We can have a two, three split.
You need teachers who are willing to do that,
but I believe they exist.
And I think that if you're looking at keeping our schools intact
and looking at trying to keep our special teachers intact,
people are willing to do some creative things, right?
If we are in very dire straits, I think we should be looking at our claims report every single meeting.
Diane Gubertayo used to sit on this board, and I would listen to every single school board meeting.
She almost always pulled one up and said, what is this about?
I just met a few minutes at the beginning of this meeting, looking at our claims report,
and I'm not trying to be nitpicky, but I can just throw a few things out that look like possible ways to money,
or possible things we could consider in terms of the rest of this school year
into next school year saving some money.
There were $220 spent on post-it notes,
that were a specialized in custom.
I'm sure they could have been used regular wallpaper.
We have a $300 mobile phone bill in thousands
in school phones every month, or both of those necessary.
I'm not sure.
We spent $200 per month on the Jack Cotan
for it to sit there and for our kids not people's use
that that makes my heart hurt.
$200 waste it and we're cutting that CTE program.
but this is the biggest one and I don't mean to be rude to central office but it costs
$4,718 per month for them to rent this space here at this building that used to be a
k-high. Why can we not save that $56,000 every year? Seems easy to me. I love our principles. I
want to keep them all. I want to keep our specials. I want to keep my kids at their school. Thank you.
Thank you.
I thought I saw someone else. Come on up Dan.
Good evening. My name is Dan Ortiz, and I am currently your state representative of my term
ends on January 20th. I am here tonight to first of all thank each and every one of you for the work
that you do, both in administration and board members. You have been very difficult job. I know a
little bit about difficult jobs and feeling public pressure, and I appreciate your willingness to serve.
With that said, I think it's clear that the proposals that are before us, each of them
have big downsides to them, and you're going to have a public that is unhappy with
whatever direction you choose.
So one of the things that I'm here to advocate for is to have this
Board, this community began to let your voices be heard at the state level. It is not a option for the state to fund education.
It is a constitutional mandate that they adequately fund education. It's right there in the constitution.
So, yes, money is getting tighter at the state level. Well, prices this year are projected to be lower than they have been in the past couple years.
that's a problem. However, when you have less resources, you have to function, you have to find the solutions.
First of all, with what's absolutely essential and what's absolutely essential under the Constitution is that the state fund public education and that they fund public safety.
Those are the only two things. Everything else is optional.
And so you need to unite, get your voices heard, and demand that the legislature do this.
Just so you know, back in 2012, the base student allocation was $5,930.
Today, the base student allocation is $5,960.
The equivalent money of the $5,960 per student when you factor in inflation is compared to what it was valued at, and FY12, is $4,451 per student.
So that means we've lost per student in real spending power.
$1,300 since FY 12, per student.
What does that say?
It says that we value our student's education,
each and every one of our student's education
across the state of Alaska, less, $1,300 less.
That's what it says.
That's unacceptable people,
but the problem is we don't have,
and it's not just the K&K community's responsibility.
We need a unified statewide voice
saying what's been happening at the state level is unacceptable. Thank you very much. Thank you.
So I'm Kendra Adams. I'm the parent of a first grader and a third grader at point against elementary.
I realize that no matter what not everyone's going to be happy but both of the proposals brought
forward are non starters. One proposal splits my children apart next year. They won't be together
and that is a non-starter to me. The other cuts library, which is laughable, consider and we've
the Alaska Reads Act, and you're going to cut library.
I've already felt the impacts of the cuts we've experienced from last year.
On Thursday mornings, I'm using Leave to take my six-year-old to speech therapy, because
we're using virtual speech therapists at point-higns.
You can't do that with a six-year-old.
They're easily distracted.
I'm then also having to deal with the results of having her beat hearty every Thursday.
As far as having kids in different schools, a lot of people have mentioned the challenges
of that just with being a parent and having to divide your time. I'd also like to bring up
the fact that the busing is so irregular and inconsistent, even at point against my children,
nine times in a two-month period, between September 27th and November 19th, the buses were
10 plus minutes late. There were multiple times where I was using the tracker on my daughter's watch
to see where she was, because she wasn't making it to where she was supposed to be. And that meant
we were then therefore having activities that we weren't attending that were paying for,
because she wasn't getting off the bus on time.
That is too long for an eight-year-old or a six-year-old to be on a bus.
I don't see that getting better with the proposals that have been mentioned.
I would really like the board to vote no on this and say that we need to consider more options.
It's early enough. We have time. Let's see what else is out there. Thank you.
Thank you.
Okay. Any other further public comment?
Okay, moving on, information or reports from board members?
I have a couple.
So, the budget committee met last Wednesday, and that's why many of us are here in the room,
because we're going to continue that conversation.
I appreciate everybody who was in the room and shared, which is present.
And then also, last Wednesday, there was a burrow liaison committee meeting, that was our first
one that we've had since our new board, and I know that Superintendent Robbins is going
to talk about that, but I just want to cover a few of the things that we talked about.
So Michelle and I are on the board, and I believe that Tom is the alternate, and we actually
had a very productive meeting.
So I was on the Berlin's and committee last year.
And boy, some of those meetings were very tense.
There was a lot of, you can just see that there was a lot of,
I'm just going to use the word like distrust and like a broken working relationship
between Burrow staff and district staff, it was very uncomfortable.
You could just really see it, and you could feel it.
We made it through those meetings, and coming to the Burley's and committee meeting that
we had last week, it was night and day difference in regards to the relationship between district
staff and Burrow staff.
It was obvious that there was a lot of collaboration and communication and teamwork that had
happened in regards to problem solving, coming up with good solutions for different things.
We've been able to, by working with the borough, we've been able to actually pay down our health
care debt significantly and I assume that Rob is going to speak more about that.
And then the borough also assisted they've been working with our business manager, Mr. Schuler,
on finding ways to present the financials to the public in a more readable way.
So if you look in our packet, that's available for this meeting.
you can see under the November 2024 Board Financial Report.
On the second page, it actually includes a very easily consumable one-page sheet that
tells you what our budget is, where we're at in that budget, there's numbers, how much we
have remaining, what the percentage is, and then it even has like bar graphs.
So rather than having to scroll through, however many pages the report was previously, we
have a nice amount of those.
We have that nice sheet available.
And that was due to the collaboration and teamwork
that's been happening between the burrow and the districts.
We have also been invited to participate in the burrow
assembly policy days.
So every year in January, they take two days
and they go, they make their budget start to work on their budget.
They work on, they determine what their assumptions
are going to be for income and for expenses and they want us to have a joint meeting with
the borough assembly and with the school board to meet together on Friday, January 24th
from 9 am to 11 am to so that we can know what they're expecting to bring in from property taxes
and that is a lot of what that's what funds the discretionary and or the required contribution and
and also their discretionary contribution for it.
So we can have an idea of what they're expecting,
and they'll also talk about capital projects.
So it was a very, very productive meeting,
and I am very proud of not just the district staff,
but also the borrows staff for really working hard
to come together and be able to work as a team,
and really work through all that conflict and tension
that had existed previously.
So.
Thank you. I agree. Having been on that borough liaison committee date myself back in 2012 or something.
Yes, it's definitely a different tone. So it's good to see.
Good to see any other information reports from board members. Tom.
The EOL Task Force met last Tuesday, December 3rd working with the superintendent on recommendations and questions.
be answered by staff. We'll next meet January 6th, 4 p.m. in the K. High Library. Policy committee yesterday, we have three fairly simple policy recommendations coming to the board soon. We're working on one more that was a little more complicated getting some questions asked from Council. Policy will meet next January 14th.
11 a.m. here in the chambers.
Okay, anything dead?
Okay.
All right.
Any other information reports?
Okay.
Moving on.
Any questions on the claims or on the board financial report on the reports for information?
Seeing none, a student report.
Hello, my name is Clara Odin and I am standing in as the student representative of
this meeting. Kay, has had an activity filled last couple of weeks. The wrestling team will attend
the Region 5 tournament in Haines this weekend. Then the state tournament will follow next week.
When our sports have also kicked off with basketball and cheerleading trials, happening last week.
Meet the Kings will be this Saturday at six with a fundraiser dinner before and starting at four.
And the Clark Cockering Christmas Classic will be on Star on Friday the 27th and go through Sunday the 29th.
Usually, as usual, we hope that our community will show up and support our basketball team's
cheerleaders dance team and pet band.
The drama debate in forensics team will leave this weekend to compete at a meet in Juneau.
The academic to Catholic team will also be attending a competition in Craig this month.
The annual performance of the Nutcracker was last weekend at K.I. with many students
putting on an amazing performance.
Two weeks ago, the K.I. student government had the opportunity of meeting with Mr. Robbins.
We were able to fill them on, fill them in on projects throughout our school and ask questions about fixing larger projects, such as bathroom and locker room maintenance, as well as missing classes such as maritime aviation, culinary, child careers,
aviology, astronomy, economics, psychology, speech, choir, and Spanish.
Thank you very much.
And you needed to leave early.
Do you still?
Oh, you're good.
I'm giving you homework over there.
I'm going to have a brief report tonight.
There'll be a much larger discussion I guess during the work session.
I'll go through there.
I would like to take a moment to extend my heartfelt thank you to our mayor and members of the
Barrow Assembly.
For their continued support, especially with the recent ordinance introduced at the last
Barrow Assembly meeting, the mayor has been instrumental in helping our school
to start over the past year and the passes of the ordinance has played a critical role in balancing
our budget for fiscal year 24. We are truly grateful for the ongoing support of our students
and our staff. This partnership is vital to ensuring that our district continues to move forward.
I would also like to highlight an important achievement shared that are recently as on committee meeting.
As many of you know we have been diligently working to reduce the health care debt
that at one point reached a high of 4.9 million.
I am pleased to report through the hard work and collaboration of many dedicated individuals,
the debt has now been reduced to 1.7 million, a 3.2 million dollar drop,
or a 65% reduction in just two years.
This is a remarkable accomplishment.
I want to acknowledge all the people contributed to this effort.
In particular, I want to thank the borough of staff, their patients support and cooperation
in helping us understand the challenges and find solutions have been invaluable.
This has been a team effort, and I truly believe that this collaborative approach has
been key to our success.
Additionally, I want to express my appreciation to the members of the assembly for their
continued support of our students.
Their commitment is crucial to the ongoing success of our schools and the well-being of our community.
I'm also happy to report that our relationship with the borough has strengthened significantly in the past few months.
We have worked together more closely and more effectively, and I am optimistic that this positive momentum will continue throughout the upcoming budget season.
Once again, I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to everyone involved.
our mayor, the assembly, the bro's staff, our school board, our staff, our teachers and our
students, and our community partners. The more we work together, the better it is for our students,
our school and our entire community. Well, I don't know.
All right, thank you. Any questions for
the superintendent?
Okay, thank you very much. Is there a motion to improve the consent calendar?
Mayor President. Yes. I moved to adopt the consent calendar of December 11, 2024.
It's okay. It's been moved in second to it.
Kerry, could you please call the roll?
Actually, before I made to need to make a, before we go to the vote.
I'd talk to you about this earlier, Madam President.
but just
Item 8 E. And a , regarding student travel out of state, I've done this consistently since
I've done the school work for past three and a quarter years and just making the public and
to wear that. I also an advisor slash coach for 18 at the high school. However,
we don't
have any, I guess, way to benefit or not benefit from this being adopted or opposed. So I just
want to throw that out there and let you rule and whether I can. It's not, it's not a conflict
of interest. If you're making another, another quick comment, just because this is, this is
up before, but the unrelated to you, Keenan. But on the consent calendar, there's two motions
to approve out-of-state travel for the K-I baseball and K-I self-ball teams. And I just
wanted to make it clear to the public that those are self-funded trips, those funds do not
come from the district. So sometimes when they come in groups like that, we do get questions
from the public. Yep. Okay, so it's been moved in second-in, clear, would you please call the
roll?
Thank you.
Yes.
Anderson.
Yes.
Okay.
That passes.
No unfinished business?
No.
Okay and no new business.
No.
Okay.
That brings us to a work session.
No.
Discussion.
I'm sorry.
I've skipped it.
So we have discussion about the school board meeting calendar.
And that is in your pocket.
So the question is about the January meetings.
And so with the winter break.
We're looking possibly doing alternative dates and making those January 15th in January.
to 29th just a quick clarification is just the sole reason just to make sure that we put
enough distance between break and when school starts to just have more possible engagement
with the public or like what would say that's a that would be a large part of it.
Okay, that's clear. Yeah, because these will be very crucial, you know, they we've got
a work session on the budget tonight. We're still going to be having active conversations
with the public and working on solutions so you know it's not like we're we're
going to be sealing the deal on a budget tonight right so we still need that
critical public input and by putting these dates in a time frame where a lot
of public can attend and it gives a lot of people time to think and I believe we'll
let the superintendent talk more about this but we're going to try and allow just
tiny bit more time before anything is finalized than sent to the burrow.
Now, I would remind the public also that technically speaking, the school board does not
have a requirement sent anything to the burrow until May 1st.
And so the goal is to do that significantly earlier.
But we also have to think about that from a time frame where we give the public enough time to
about it, make input, do we need to make adjustments? And so by moving these dates, I just gave
you like a big thesis, but I guess there wasn't like another reason outside of just, it's too close
to the winter break. But I'm fine with it. I just as it kind of, I should be fine, but I have
a potential work engagement for the 29th as the Board of Fisheries is going to be in town.
And generally, they're good about staying ending at 5 p.m., but I can't guarantee that.
I probably still would make my best effort to get here by 6.
It's just...
Yeah, that's fine.
That's fine.
So...
I'll probably be out of town.
I can zoom in.
Okay.
Okay, so that seems to be acceptable, so we'll go ahead and make that happen.
Okay, now we're moving on to the work session, but we're pushing 725.
So I recommend that we take a break until 730, so then we can move into the work session.
Please, thank you.
And we will enter into a work session to you discuss the FY26 budget. I would like to remind those watching at home and also members of the audience that this is a work session only. And this is not, there will be no motions of any action to be taken.
Okay.
We
got it.
Can you stay on the screen?
Can you hear me?
Okay, back there?
Go ahead.
Okay.
This is very similar to the budget committee meeting that we had on Wednesday, which I believe
all the school board members got a chance to take a look at.
So I will go through this because maybe some of the members of the public did not get a chance
to see it.
this will be posted online sometime tomorrow on our budget website and I know that somebody
had asked where that is on the school district website. If you go to the home page and
right underneath the pictures, you know, the pictures of the kids graduating and a beautiful
picture that was taken over a sunset, it's right underneath there. It says budget, that's how you
So for those who need it and if you need help and you can't find it, please just give us a call.
Okay, as always we talk about the student being the center of our decisions,
that all of the people who are involved in this believe that we're doing what's best for students
and I believe that and sometimes we're not going to agree on what's best for our students,
But please note, one of the things that we had talked about in Mr. House
brought it up, that presuming positive intentions, that we are all working hard,
that everybody in our organization is trying to do what's best for what they believe
for kids in our students, and sometimes we're just not going to agree on what those things are,
but that's okay. That's why we have the process that we have, and that's why we started it
early. Okay, so introductions in rationale, the budget gap created by inadequate funding from the state
increased cost to do inflation. The based out of student allocation funded by the state is
unlikely to increase. We budget it. We'll get into the assumptions a little bit later on
$680 because we've got indication from the commissioner of education that that's where the
will start the conversation. Hopefully we get more. I think Mr. Ortiz did an excellent job of
explaining the impact that everybody can have on-state government by being involved in sending
along notes and having conversations with not only our representative, Mr. Minum, but also
with other representatives in the state. It's okay to contact those people. And once that
it's finalized is where they are and what committees they're on will make sure we
forward that to the community and to our school board.
I think that truly you have an impact on BSA and on school funding.
We testified twice last year in front of the State Senate Finance Committee.
I think it does have an impact.
Decisions need to be made as soon as possible, but also understanding that there's a
online for discussion and I think that that's why we moved or one of the main reasons
why we moved the January moodings just to give us a little bit more time to have this
discussions. So this was discussed both Mr. Ortiz. We really have not had substantial increase
to the base student allocation. We had one in 2017 to 18 but that was a relatively small amount.
We had $30 increase to the base student allocation and we had outside funding.
The base student allocation gives us an opportunity to make sure that we can plan from year in to year out.
And that's incredibly important in school districts.
We don't know our funding last year until June and the end of June of last year.
And that is because the governor's budget was not completed and signed into law until then.
We start our fiscal year July 1st.
And so it's very difficult to plan when we don't have a BSA that's consistent and inflation proof.
So, estate funding levels remain the same.
at 5960 and the SAA 680 and then maintaining those current staff levels that we have, we do have
decreasing enrollment and I'd like to emphasize with the decreasing enrollment that it doesn't
decrease all in one grade and it doesn't decrease in all in one area. It's howling may lose three
kids in third grade point-higgins may lose five and fun mountain may lose one. That impacts how we
staff and when we staff and I think somebody had asked me a question is do we zero-based budget
every year we do based on staffing and what the students are based on the number of students
that we have and then we staff accordingly. But unfortunately we have a situation where
we may only have 37 kids in the class and say third grade. They drop down then to 34 kids
We still need two teachers. We're not going to have 34 kids in the third grade class.
And so, although we do have a decrease, that then causes an issue where you still need two teachers.
You still need to staffing, but we don't get the money for the enrollment.
Can you read it?
Yes.
I have two questions that are sort of related to your fingers on this slide.
The first is a rough estimate from you, I could probably do the math on my head, but if obviously we're at 5.5960 PSA, how much money would we lose if we were not given another 1x680?
3.4? 3.4 million.
Okay, and that's assuming that, you know, obviously there's been discussions with the commissioner to at least start the discussion at 680, but that's not guaranteed.
Correct. Yes.
My second question is, obviously, we're, again, we're hopefully assuming that we're going to stay status quo with 560 plus 680.
However, obviously we have a, you know, inflation has been a factor in other things that
other expenditures that we need to consider.
I don't know if you, you were the business manager, no, what, this number could be,
but what you say that, what would that increase at least in one time be a say to maintain
what we have from this year to next year?
So I want to make sure I understand this correctly.
So are you saying, if it's a one time increase
meaning just a lump sum just for one year,
or is this 680 moving forward year
after you're meaning a permanent thing?
It's for past like four years that they've given us one time
different forms.
There's been years where they just said it was like 80 million
and then it distributed through all the school districts
in the state, and in the past two years,
I believe it's been just an additional one time
six eighty.
Okay, so to that point.
So then I comment was going to be for newer board members
and also members of the public.
It's extremely dangerous and I think foolish
to do any sort of long-term budgeting on a one-time BSA.
Because then what happens is you are automatically
putting people at risk in terms
planning their future. You can't say, oh, great. We've got this one-time BSA pot of money, and
now let's go hire a new third grade teacher because no, because that might not happen the
following year. Catherine, also want to just make a distinction about like a one-time 680 funding.
It is not included into the BSA amount. It is, and so it doesn't go through the formula, it doesn't
do and does, it does, it does, okay, well, let me just explain really clearly. The 680 that we have
this year does go through the formula. I don't know in the past what that was, I got a question
about that yesterday. In this case, it did go through the formula. Mr. Bynum had brought that up,
touring the discussions in the spring. Mr. Schueler confirmed that in the budget,
with the, excuse me, with the budgeting people at the state level. So in the past, that may not have been necessarily true.
That is true for this year. And so, and that's why putting 680 into BSEs, BSA, so critical to Madam President's comment, you can't really budget more than the year that's in front of you.
like you can't look out two years, three years, knowing that you may have retirement,
so that you may have natural attrition through people moving. It really just
you're a year to year to year operation in every school district in the state.
I just have a quick clarifying question for the superintendent over the business managers.
So basically, my question was, what one time increase would it be to inflation prove for
next year to at least offer the same stuff that we're offering this year to next year?
So is it like 750, 800, but you have a rough estimate, what would be, if not, that's okay.
I just curious if somebody happens to know that off the other hand.
Mr. Schuller, do you want to, let us take some time or do you want to answer that?
Can you let me put together some scenarios and get that distributed out to the Board of Education?
And I'll also put that on the budget website for those who are interested.
Okay, so I'd like to start really with the process that we had.
We had determined after the budget committee met informed that the sites and when I say sites schools
with me. And so they met with staff members, they met with community members, and then they
forwarded their recommendations to myself. And we looked at them with our building principles,
and we brought together these two ideas. So these really generated from our teachers,
our paraprofessionals, our building principles and then they kind of flowed through the district
office and then we put them together along with our building principles and that way we
wanted to maintain the last year we had some concerns that you know the because of the way that
it occurred in the timelines that we had that there wasn't as much sight and teacher involvement
And this year we wanted to change that, and that's why we started the budget process so early.
And they did that. They came together and they had some good ideas and they had some ideas that may not have worked.
But they did work together with us and in a district office.
And I think that's a much better format is to have an understanding at the site level or school level of exactly what occurred.
I took those, and we worked together with the budget committee to present those ideas that came from
the schools, and I think that that's a good process.
We presented to the budget committee, and then now we're going to present to the school board
of what the ideas were that came out of those discussions with our schools, and then we did
community events they weren't, all that well attended, but now I think that there's more people
engaged and that's good. That means that we're going to have also other ideas that we may not have
thought of at the site level.
So really, our budget consists of 91% of our budget is personnel.
We are a personnel driven organization. It's what our strength is, and it's also what drives
All of the decisions, unfortunately, when it comes to where we need to make cuts as far as a reduction if necessary during a school year.
And that is just the makeup of schools.
There is, and I'm going to show you here on the next slide.
This is what each site received or school.
I'm just going to choose howling.
And as you can see, between salary, insurance, life and health,
a psychic contribution, retirements that were required, retirements for purrs,
and that is the bulk of those particular schools.
And each school got a copy of this, for their particular site,
Also, the schools got a copy of all of the sites.
So, they could see what everybody else was spending money on and what they were. And really, like I said before, it's 91% personnel.
So, it's driven by all of the people that we have working for us who are doing a fantastic job. But even if you took out utilities in water and garbage in electricity and gas and diesel and supplies,
that still leaves us, you know, $250,000 short, and we wouldn't have lights in paper
and whatever we might need for students or heat, and so this is howling had a
$402,000 deficit moving forward based on contract health care and those items, and so
Each one of the sites receive this in the beginning of October.
They work through their processes and then they brought forward ideas to us as a school district.
So this is option A that we talked about.
I tried to clarify.
I got some feedback from some budget committee members,
some members from the community to try to look a little bit more clear.
So I'll try to do the best I can for these.
Can you go back one slide please?
Yeah, good.
So, I just kind of another thing to think about, and because catch can is very, very
dedicated community, right, and very passionate about our children and education.
That's a great thing.
And so people are coming up with all sorts of ideas, which, again, catch can is very good at coming up with
great ideas.
But the one thing I think that's really important to note is you could literally take every
single idea that people have come up with, and I'm just going to use Houtling here as an example.
You take away one teacher, you take away other, I'm just going to make this up here.
I'm going to take away the garbage, I'm going to other purchase services.
It's still when you take away all of the little things that have been suggested.
It doesn't even come close to making up that deficit in that pie.
So, thank you.
So I tried to, and these two options try to clarify a little bit what came from the site
levels up to us.
And really what you're looking at is, in the secondary schools, and understand that Ketsuke
and High School and Shumbar and Reveila, they've already received reductions over the last
few years.
And so it would be a pretty significant reduction in the secondary staff, increasing student numbers.
And you're looking at, you know, 27 to 1, 29 to 1, 30 to 1, and high school classes, same with middle school.
We're Villa has a little bit smaller PTR people to teach your ratio, but that's really based on the needs of the students that they have at that particular program.
And just a quick shout out to Reville and I know Mr. Lunderman here is that they had the highest graduation rate that they've had since they changed over at 82.2% last year.
And that is a, we can clap for that, can't we?
Thank you.
And I know Aaron Knights here too, so I'm going to point
her out, she's a teacher there.
And that's a phenomenal, phenomenal number.
And so, but that's why that number is the little bit smaller
based on the needs of the child.
So the level of reductions in the secondary schools
will really be based upon the decisions
that has and made regards to the elementary schools.
So with option A, here, this, and like I said,
this comes from the sites, point Higgins right now
and found mountain and have a half time they split.
And their request was that they have a full time
at the system principle.
And so we try to reflect that in the proposal
that was given to us and that we look through that
and we thought that was a really good idea also.
And so as a result of that, that's why you look, and you see that there's an addition,
but the reason why we had the addition is that both sites, and we want to listen to our
staff's request to that would be the case.
And this circumstance, unfortunately, no library, music or PE, there was a question that I had
as PE would be taught by the teachers or a combination of the teachers.
And so I wanted to say that we'd still have that, but it would be structured completely
differently. We are lucky enough to have phenomenal physical education teachers in our
schools, and so that's why when you look at, oh, I'm sorry, right here. It would be
about a 1.3 to 1.5, 1.6 million dollars. But once again, this is an estimate, and it's
based on the average cost of staff, staff members, healthcare, payroll taxes, pension. These
figures may change based upon experience levels of remaining staff, and healthcare
renewal, which we will not know until late April, early May. Go ahead, Judy.
If you go back to the previous slide.
Yeah.
To the point, Higgins and Font Mountain are reduced by 30 minutes, and
Houghtling doesn't have that reduction. Can you explain?
I'm going to try. Yes. If not, I can get back to you on it. It has to do with the way
their special schedules are that they currently have.
And so when the special schedules change,
that's then shown as their school day based upon what they have now.
And so I can give you a little bit more detail on specifics with it,
but that's the macro picture of it.
Thanks.
Thank you.
Yeah.
I think my answer later, but just in case you don't.
On an average here, how many people would you say
would be like retiring, because that that happens a natural thing. I know I think it
prefers it's been like four to eight, if but I don't know for sure but I don't
want to say we want to count on that but that is something that will help if this
is an option that we pursue. Yeah it's usually more than that. It's usually between
eight, seven, five to twelve depending on the year. We get we start to get
It's between now and really towards the end of the year, but there's in a small incentive
of the contracts, so we try to get them around June.
It's another reason why we might, as part of our timeline, bring tenure contracts to the board
earlier, so they have 30 days to sign those contracts.
Then we will know, be able to know which staff is not returning, which then helps us place
staff in those particular positions and in our school district our size we would need all of our tenure teachers to come back
So bringing that to the board
Doesn't necessarily put us in a financial liability because we're going to need those anyway regardless of of where we are at
But we'll never get to
I know you and I had this conversation a little bit earlier where I asked about the the viability of keeping the vice principal part-time and the music teacher part-time, especially because
music, we can't fill the second decision as is. Is there any possibility that we could
explore that viability still? I know that the principles of asked for a VP, but...
The stats also. I just want to... I just like to emphasize that this comes from the teachers
in the paras and the principles and that that's what they requested. Yes, we can explore whatever
You know, and so I would say one of the reasons why we have one floating teacher now in music is that we just couldn't find a second music teacher, and that is a concern not only here in Ketchakand, but in Alaska in general, we had over 650 openings on day one in the state of Alaska, and it's also the same that's true in
In the lower 48, I have friends of mine who are superintendents in Watertown, New York, and Greenville, Pennsylvania,
and they have difficulty finding elementary teachers.
And that's usually a pretty, there's a lot of them usually, but in this case, there's not good.
I guess some of my point was, even if we were to do the K-3-3, it's possible that we would still have to have a floating teacher.
Yes, because, because of staffing, right?
Yeah, that's an excellent, I'm sorry, Mr. Pointer, but yes.
Yeah, it's absolutely, the case is that sometimes when you don't have programs, we
want to have a maritime program, we could not find a teacher for a maritime program.
Like, we want to have these programs, I think that sometimes we get this idea that we don't
want to do that, that's not true.
It's just sometimes staffing is very difficult.
And sometimes you have to know somebody who wants to do it, and somebody that reaches out to them, and now that they know that there's an interest, then we find people like that.
It's unfortunate that we're in that position, but the same thing can be said about our SSP case, right?
Like that we have hard time finding speech people.
I mean, of course, we'd like to have speech here on the island with people, but unfortunately it's not that easy to find who want to move up here.
So it's an excellent question, and we certainly, we would look at it, and once again,
the earlier that, you know, if we know in February and March, it does give us an advantage
when it comes to recruitment and retention.
I know that it's difficult, and it stresses our HR director out constantly is because we need
to know, you know, who's not coming back, how we place people and there's contract language
that we certainly want to follow, and we need to follow, there's state law that we have
follow when it comes to those things and we certainly want to be in compliance with that.
Okay. Option B, there would be much less of an impact on the secondary schools simply because
of the specialization part and some of those are zero to one. Revealment might be zero to
one. Shumbar zero to one because they've already taken a lot of the cuts or reductions and
Class sizes may still go up a little bit, but not as significantly, I think that those would
stay around 20, 20, 15 to 1, 26 to 1.
But those may drop a little bit depending on what classes they're taking, the flexibility
that we would have within those structures because we'd have to lose less staff.
The specialization idea, K-3, K-3, K-3, 4, 6, and once again I'd like to reiterate that
came from our school buildings and our school staffs as what is best for in a very difficult
situation. The reason why they picked K3 was really centered around the Reeds Act. The Reeds
Act came in two years ago kindergarten through third grade is required by the state to implement
the Reeds Act. We felt that through professional development and I'll get into this a little bit
is that is helps our students and helps with alignment and we go from there.
I'm sorry. Go ahead.
Just for the last slide, we had talked about just to clarify.
This option includes preschool staying where they are as is.
Correct.
That would be a discussion once again probably, well, Julie was here,
but in Sally's talk house and director's special education.
We'd have to have a conversation if that's where they wanted to stay.
I think there's an indication that we do, but that might shift.
I would say that it's helped streamline our preschool program.
It's helped with collaboration within our preschool structures and, you know, change is
hard it is and it was difficult, but I think the benefits we have seen.
But once again we're still working through it and also with preschool, we've changed
I think every year for like five years in a row, seven years in a row, thank you, Julie, is that I think we try to, maybe we try to do something two years in a row and see if that works and then we move forward and we go from there, but if you ever get a chance, you should talk to Miss Turina to go visit down there, it's pretty awesome what they've done with that space.
What do you think I want to clarify to that was mentioned in public testimony?
Well, I would agree that I would not classify preschool as a luxury, that's not what the state thinks about preschool.
We do not get a single well.
We get some special education money for the students that we need to service for who are ages of three and four.
And that's based upon the amount of time of service.
It's not necessarily like a 1.0.
It's based on the amount of time that they have in their IEPs and go ahead.
No, it's just a thing that I want to make it very clear that like I think everybody on this
word will agree with me that preschools absolutely have a significant value, especially within
our communities.
But it does make things a little bit more difficult when we are trying to allocate money between
all of our different sites when we're having to, again, I don't want to call it a luxury,
but, again, in the States, it is a luxury to have a preschool that's not funded by the IEA
title six grams.
So it's just another piece of the puzzle that we have to consider when it
putting our budget together. And I think there's a misconception of what is,
Just where is the money coming from to support those services and it has to come from somewhere
and if we want to support a preschool, it's possible we might have to take from somewhere
else depending on how much money we do have available to us.
And I would like to say that by moving it to howling has streamed on a little bit of the staffing
that we need to have and that's truly made a difference.
I mean that's a benefit that there's also many other benefits of having it there and they've
done a great job.
with that being said, though, with pre-school.
That means students into our district earlier than they would. So technically we are getting the BSA for them.
No, we don't. So yeah, it's a good question. So let me try to clarify this as best I possibly can. We receive funding for students in preschool that have special education needs.
So we have something called child-fined and we're required to do this.
We then identify students who may need special education service.
Whatever those might be.
Having a preschool program like we do, we can service those students in those classrooms,
which I think has a long-term benefit.
It has a short-term benefit of obviously providing the services they required for the IEPs that are created,
But it has a long-term benefit and I agree that now they're connected to our schools.
We know who those students are.
We can identify the transition into kindergarten a lot easier in first and second grade.
And if literacy is a key to success, particularly in kindergarten through third grade, preschool
allows us to have a more of a connection, a stronger connection with the schools.
So we do service kids and we do get a certain amount of funding for pre-K based upon special education needs.
Now, if a student doesn't have any special education needs, for example, and they go to preschool, then we then as a school district would then pick up that particular cost.
with IEA pre-school, there's a grant that's, well, title six, it's not a grant, but title six
monies that we receive, they've paid for 1.0, the school district pays for 1.0, and that's been a very successful
program for us for a long period of time, and I think they've done a fantastic job of helping our students,
particularly our last native students, who struggle in kindergarten through third grade when it comes to literacy.
Now, we've caught up our literacy scores with our Alaska Native students over the last two to three years,
but there's still a little bit behind. We have some other things in place to help students in kindergarten
through third grade, but certainly preschool in the IA has done an excellent job of helping
transition into those kindergarten classrooms in first grade classrooms.
So, if you look at, this is the dividing line.
And like I stated before, we tried a variety of different spaces for places to divide.
We sat down with some elementary administration to look at it.
We helped the administrative assistants helped with this process extensively.
We worked with our school bus company and we tried Jefferson Street first.
That did not create an equitable distribution of students.
That's why we had to move the line to white cliff.
And so I just, we tried to balance the kit.
This is not going to increase the money spent in transportation.
Correct, yes.
We worked with our bus transportation provider first student.
And they said it would be a cost neutral move for us as far as the transportation costs and I'll get into that a little bit later.
So the projected total enrollment would be 176331 and 172 that's equitable.
And once again, these are projected enrollments.
They change a few kids here, a few kids there, kids move, kids move into the district, they move out of the district.
We have a lot of people that go in and out based on, we have co-starred families and they come in and out.
And so these are our projected enrollments based upon the look this map that we had here.
So if we did, if the school board decides to move in this direction,
Pre-K with today's currently structured, we'd have pupil the teacher ratio of about
20 to 1, 21 to 1, that's a relatively low number.
If you compare that to Juno or Anchorage where they're at 28, 29, 30 to 1, that's significantly
lower than where we are right now, we would have, obviously, special education teachers
There's an RTI teacher, RTI program is very strong over the last couple of years that we've
developed, physical education, teacher dedicated to that particular school, library media
specialist, or teacher, and then the music teacher that we have, and then to your point,
board member, hopefully we'd be able to find the music teachers that we would need, if
not then we'd have to figure something out.
And maybe we hire some, maybe an art teacher and a music teacher and kind of flip them and we'd have to look at those things.
And then once again, the system principle which came from the sites and the site discussions, and then the principle that we have, obviously we have to have a principle.
So that's, that is where the sites came up with as far as trying to make a sustainable
structured change.
And so this is a significant shift from what has happened here over the last couple of years.
Let's look at the current staffing versus proposed specialization.
You would have a seven person cut and certified, and to board member Sanderson's point.
We do have retirements, we do have a tradition, and through those natural processes,
I believe that we would keep the same teaching staff that we currently have, and we may
end up hiring teachers, which I know sounds a little strange when you're having cuts or reductions,
But based upon where those reductions are based on, where their certifications lie, you may
end up having to hire teachers in this particular, certainly we would be hiring another
music teacher in our school district if this proposal went through because we wouldn't
have, we need another one and we couldn't get one this year.
And then the spend pair is so I did try to color code it a little bit because we did
add some questions on our pair of professionals.
We have a phenomenal group of pair of professionals.
We have a really strong core group of about 80 to 85 pair of pair of professionals who have been
working for us for a long period of time in our community.
We do have some difficulty trying to find, you know, that, like, that last 8-10%, we have
a lot of pairs that start and they don't, and they don't finish with us for a variety
of different reasons.
This reduction, we would be able to keep the pairs that we have now, pair of professionals,
who are so critical to the education of our students.
But we wouldn't have to try to go out and get the other 8-9-10, 12 that we need every
single year. That consolidation helps us save a significant amount of money based on the benefits
and purrs requirements. And so when you look at the colored chart here, you can see that
it's a diagonal movement. And so by consolidating classrooms, which is essentially what you're
doing by going to a K-3-4-6 model, you then need less pair of professionals that we have
difficulty hiring anyway.
And so I wanted to emphasize that this is you're moving on the diagonal way.
And like I said, I don't believe any of our pair of professionals that we currently have
would lose their positions simply because of this reduction.
And this is getting us to where the classes can come together, and it's easier for us to
staff.
It saves us about, yeah, Jordan, go ahead.
Can you say, I have an idea of what might be the reason for a reduction here, but can
maybe explain a little bit about why his specialization would fire less spread here.
Yeah, that's a great question.
Let me try to explain it as best I can, so let's say, for example, you have a three to one
student and so you have pair of professional and three students that work with that particular
pair of professional based upon their individual education plan IEP. Now, if you have only two
kids in that particular class, you still need to have one pair of professional because of the IEP.
What this model does is that you can move kids around in those particular classes, because
you have a third grade, a fourth grade, a fifth grade, a sixth grade, to where as those
three to one models are met, which keeps us in compliance, but then also allows us
to streamline the number of paraprofessionals that we have.
And so one of the things that we ran into last year
with as much student movement that we have on a yearly basis.
And we've tried to limit that a little bit is that you would have three to one
and then you'd get another student in your school that needed special education services
but you can't have four to one.
So now you would need to add another pair of professional
to either have a two-to-one setting or a one-to-one three-to-one setting.
And so as a result of that, you have to add the para-professional, right?
Because compliance with federal law is something that we are going to do.
And so obviously, and so this, what this does is,
allows a little bit more flexibility within the schools,
so that the principles, special education teachers,
our paraprofessionals can address the needs of the individual education plan or IEP to those
particular students.
Did that make sense at all?
Anybody out there?
Another comment.
I feel like I got something that was telling me that in the past several years that the
number of Sped students says personal has increased exponentially.
We have seen an uptick in special education students and the number of intensive students.
And so we're still looking into maybe why that might be.
It might be one of the results of COVID.
It might be one of the results of that we have an excellent child-fined program that identifies students
at an earlier time, which is what we want.
that's a preventative education or preventative
when you find a student, that helps them.
The sooner that you get an IEP,
that does help students.
And then they may not be, have an IEP later on,
because you've met the needs of those students earlier
and they kind of move on after that
and they leave the IEP.
And as you can see, as they get into 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th grade, they may need less special education services because of the early interventions that occur in pre-school kindergarten first grade second grade.
Okay, this saves us once again about the same amount of money.
It's also based upon the estimate of the average cost of staff members, healthcare, payroll taxes, pension, and we're not going to know what those numbers are.
We'll know our health care may be late April, early May.
It could be 8% like it was last year for us, and it could get away from our school district.
It could be 22% like it was in Scythka last year.
It just depends upon who makes up our particular group of individuals.
What our claims are, what our claim history is.
There's a lot of factors to go into those particular things.
how U.S. I negotiate for us and in as far as what contracts are out there, inflationary pressures.
Those six things and about ten other things that make up what healthcare costs for our school district.
So, what are the benefits? Because this is a shift from what we are doing now.
So I did want to spend a little bit of time on what came out of the site budgets as far as
are their benefits to this particular structure.
And necessary remedy for long-term structural deficit, create flexibility and district
budget, maintain current program format.
Last year during the budget process in the spring we heard and I believe we heard loud
clear that librarians, music, and physical education are incredibly important in the elementary
schools, and that's true, and they, and so when, just having these conversations at
the site level and at the district level, this format here keeps those programs in place,
and although it looks a little different as far as the schools are concerned or drastically
different, I guess from your point of view, it certainly keeps those programs in place.
And it allows for reinvestment and additional classroom resources.
The number of secondary reductions would be decreased significantly.
And it hopefully will install a buffer for projected budget shortfalls in fiscal year 27,
based on BSA health care and those types of things.
Option B elementary specialization.
It would be an improved instructional focus because it's K3 and 4.6.
principles would be focusing it on those particular great areas, and once again, why they were chosen
was because of the Reed's Act, Reed's Act is a K3 program that's required by state law.
It was passed two years ago, and so easier curriculum alignment, it's both a vertical curriculum
alignment, and when we say vertical, that's kind of an educational term, that's kindergarten first
3rd grade, 4th grade, 5th grade, 6th grade,
that vertical alignment, K-12, essentially,
or horizontal curriculum alignment, which...
Which is kindergarten teachers, first grade teachers, second grade teachers, third grade teachers, and having that more collaborative experience with more teachers and promotes consistency and instruction student achievement and equity across classrooms.
We had a person to be heard last week at the budget committee talking about, you know, we have 42 kindergarteners in one school.
We have 32 kindergarteners in another school and we have 23 kindergarteners in another school.
This would balance those out, and so they wanted to be to make sure that I put that in there.
Targeted professional learning communities focused work with instructional coaches.
We have grant funded instructional coaches that work with our teachers to increase their levels of pedagogues
You based on student achievement and helping student achievement and learning
They can offer specialized support for those K-346 buildings
They offer support now in our buildings. They do a fantastic job
We have a K-3 instructional coach for our last Canadian focused on our last Canadian literacy rates
And those have improved we have a K-6
instructional coach and another K6 instructional coach and then a secondary instructional coach and those are not paid for
out of our general fund, 100 budget, those are paid for out of grant funding.
I think that they've done a fantastic job and it helped our teachers.
It's been very positive feedback but they would be able to focus a little bit more on grade centric.
The same goes as ES enhanced social emotional learning and restorative practices.
We have seen a significant decrease in a number of suspensions for our students and our
schools.
I think that that has helped keep kids engaged, helps attendance rates, and those things that
do make a difference with kids, and those would be more specific for those grade levels.
Now, there are challenges to this.
I mean, this is a loss of a community school identity.
That certainly has an impact on people.
And I totally understand that.
I have a child in the school right now.
I have a first grader, and that's certainly like a lot of families
that would be impacted increased transportation times.
For some students, they will have longer bus rides.
For other students, they'll have shorter bus rides.
I would like to note, and Board Member O'Brien mentioned this, our transportation costs would remain the same.
Additional school transitions. Currently, we have a K6 transition into 7-8 into 9-12.
You may only have two transitions in this school district. If you go to K6 and then go to reveal it for 7-12,
When we do have students for that, that certainly would be something that we would need to take a look at
Not only with our building principles and but with our teachers. It's a shift from the current catch a can school structure and that is a difficult thing
To digest in a lot of ways and it does move away from the neighborhood elementary school and that's certainly something that needs to be reviewed and looked at by the school board and
is it's something that you will have to weigh when you make that decision and then it could be
a temporary budget solution based upon once again we may be back here next year if the state
funding doesn't increase if inflation goes to 10% if healthcare moves up question yep so between
A and B which one of these offers more more longevity and flexibility I would say the kindergarten
3, 4, 6 model would be able to be more flexible for us as far as, and the longer on, yeah, because
you would be, because of class sizes, move up and down, it's easier in those buildings to assign
teachers and students and paraprofessionals because you have the same levels of grades and that would
provide long-term stability.
And I wanted to just say that, once again, Ketchken is not in, we are not alone.
This is a statewide issue.
I think somebody mentioned it.
The National White issue.
And people to be heard.
Anchorage is looking at closing four schools.
I know this, Kodiak, who is kind of, they are the exact same size as we are.
They have about 2,100 kids.
They have a similar budget than what we have.
They're closing a school this year.
We have, I have been in communication with their superintendent over this process.
There is very similar place that we are, they presented to their school board on Monday,
we're presenting here on Wednesday.
We are actually, we were a little ahead with them because we did a site budgets in that regard
and we had a budget committee, but they're in a very similar place that we are in.
And this is a statewide nationwide issue that has gone on for a long period of time.
And then the school board will have to make a structural decision,
contacting your legislators,
state senators and representatives, attending and speaking and hearing electronically
or in person.
And then once the determination is made, then staff will work with our KEEA, our Vice President
is here.
We would certainly work with our friends from KEEA and our KLO and our paraprofessionals
to make sure that those transitions are as smooth as we possibly can to whatever has chosen
or whatever combination is made.
But we do that every year.
We certainly want to our employees need that and deserve that.
We try to do the best we can with that.
I was wondering if you could explain the notion of the cap because I believe it was one of the speakers
tonight, you know, said, why can we not use cruise ship funds or other ideas will come out,
but if I understood correctly there's there's some limitations that handcuff us.
Mr. Schueler, jump in if I start going the wrong direction here.
So I'll try to explain this as simple as I can.
We, about 75% of our budget, is received from state funding based on student population
and the base student allocation.
Another 12.5%, 11% is a required local contribution from the borough.
It is based on property tax, it's in state law they have to give us on to us.
Then there's a discretionary contribution that's given and that is up to the borough.
They have been incredibly generous and my time is super-intended, and so I thank them again.
But there's only so much that can be funded inside the cap, or excuse me, outside the cap.
And it's really based upon those.
So hold on one second.
So you've got a cap, which means it's the top limit that the combination of the burrow and state funding.
Correct. Yes. All right. Yeah, so that we can't go ahead. Just add to that really quickly.
That amount is stated in law. Like we can't the burrow cannot contribute more than a certain percentage of
I can't even remember what it is, but that is like so that's what determines the cap. Correct.
And if I may, I'm President, I don't know the full specifics, but maybe our superintendent does.
I do believe there was a situation in Juno where they were maybe you can explain that situation.
I'm going to turn that over to Mr. Schuler when it comes to cap calculations and what occurred with the state now,
moving forward on limiting the items that can be outside, quote, unquote outside of the cap.
Go ahead, Mr. Schumer.
Yes, and Juno, there was what are called in-kind contributions that were taking place.
And so there were items that were being funded by the Burl and closer and louder and louder.
like me? Is this better? Yes. Sally? Thumbs up from Sally. Okay, go ahead Mr. Schueler.
Okay. And the state has now, they were alerted to this with respect to what was being funded by
the burrow in June, because what they want to do and what the formula is designed to do
is to provide equitable funding across the state. And so when you have instances of burrows
providing other additional funding outside of the cap, that creates red flag for bead.
And it went to the point that now deed has put together a recommendation of what can and cannot be included in funding by the Burrows to local school districts.
And that is going to be coming up, I think it's going to be presented in January and it doesn't come up for a vote in June.
Yes. And what is our current cap right now?
the cap number just to overall what we can spend no cap number for the
verb I believe that number for 24 25 is 12.9 out of a 42 million dollar
budget yes and the required contribution is about 5.4 right okay so just to make
that clear, so it's 12, 9, roughly.
Roughly.
5.4 is the required.
Is the required?
Regis mandated from property taxes out.
That is 12, 9 out of a total funding of 42 million
roughly.
Roughly.
And the state's contribution is roughly about 25.
And so if you look at it from the perspective of what
is actually required to be provided to the school district.
It's about $31 million.
And so that's why as superintendent Robin says alluded to,
we rely upon the good graces of the borough
with respect to the discretionary amount
because of the fact that without that money coming
in the door, if you think you're looking at cuts with these options, take that number back
down to 30 million, 31 million of just the required and no local discretionary contribution.
I'm not exactly sure how we could even open the doors.
And they've done, like I said, they've done an excellent job of supporting the schools there.
So is it the that's going to be making the recommendations on what is allowable for inside and outside and will that be they're going to be presenting that in January to whom and who's voting on it.
I think.
Are they presenting to the legislature or is the commissioner present?
I'm not.
Is it the state school board?
Yeah.
I believe it's the state school board that it's going to be presented to.
And this has been a discussion that's been ongoing for the past year and a half, since
I became superintendent two years ago, but certainly in the last year and a half, it's
certainly starting to pick up on what is identifiable as inside the cap funding and outside.
And the state now is certainly more attentive to what those expenditures are.
And so thank you for, I forgot that somebody had mentioned that, but I wanted to address
that there's just certain equity issues that we have to have across the state and one of
those, the way they solve those, is through this process through law.
So, Heather, so that means that we would not be able to accept monies from like a cruise ship head
tax in addition to what the, what the, what the borough contributes because of that law.
Just to kind of add on that on to that too, I'm not a legal mind by any sense of the definition, but one thing that we also have to consider, I'm not so I'm not going to ever say something as an awful idea, but we do have to consider what we're legally allowed to do and then also another consideration is that we can't control what other entities do.
The school board doesn't have jurisdiction over a potential cruise ship tax, but neither does it grow. That's all up on the city and the city and the cruise ship industry.
I mean, I don't want to necessarily speculate on that relationship, but I don't know.
I was going to leave at that.
We can't rely on outside entities to come out and save us.
We're having to do the best of what we can with the Burrow, and especially the state government.
I'm kind of around with the business.
The majority of funding really falls at the state level.
The discretionary money is incredibly important and they've been very supportive, but that's
small percentage, smaller percentage of our overall budget, and really the base student
allocation and the lobbying effects efforts that we need to have really should be directed to.
The state level in our state representatives in our governor. The burrow also does an excellent job of lobbying for us with a mayor. I guess the mayor just became, well, I don't want to announce that, but anyway, he's in a very influential position. And he uses that as part of his platform when he speaks. He did an excellent job of speaking in the Senate Finance Committee last year.
They are advocates, and so if you do contact the borough member, I would be contacting them
then to try to continue to advocate and what they've already done because they've done
an excellent job.
Go ahead, Mr. Schulder.
Well, what I was going to say is that in the presentation that you made to the Senate Finance
Committee, we included a slide that showed what has transpired over, I believe the last
10 years in terms of the split in funding between the state and then also the local contribution
that we received from the borough.
And the burden over the past 10 years, you see it increasing on the local contribution and it's
pretty much flat at the state level.
And so the burden has been increasing on local contributions and not coming from the state.
Sure.
And we, I would just like to emphasize, and I talked about this from our report, is that
we have significantly reduced the debt that was there when I came in.
And that is, and we are properly funding the healthcare, and that's, once again, working with
the borough or partners from the borough, but that has a significant impact on our budget.
You know, 20 to 25 percent is an employee benefits. That's a significant number that we have.
It's what we want and what we need to keep and retain the phenomenal staff that we have.
But it does come to cost.
I just want to ask this question, maybe because there's people who don't know about it.
But like, so how did we pay off that money if we're talking about doing these giant cuts right now?
Um, how were we able to bring that debt down so much?
Um, Mr. Schill is going to take that.
The local education fund and, and that sort of stuff kind of rolls around that.
Yeah, well,
yeah.
Don't be shy.
Sally can't hear you.
Sally doesn't need to hear me.
I don't think.
What transpired in 2023-24 and then also what is taking place in 2024-25 is that there
was a portion when you take a look at the maximum cap of required and discretionary in terms
of actual dollars that the district received is less than that.
And so that gap, the burrow took that as an incime contribution and wrote down the note
receivable in the health care liability.
And so in terms of actual dollars going out the door, that didn't necessarily happen,
But they were able to use, and take a look at that cap calculation, and instead of providing
the dollars to us, they used it as an incline contribution to write it down.
I'll follow up a question, so then why can't we get the actual dollars?
Well,
that's a question, I think, for the Burrow, because we did make a request of the Burrow
for in February 1.6, which would have taken us to the cap.
But that was a request that was not fulfilled.
But what they've done in turn is, after the fact that I have used that 1.6 in a little bit more to write down the note receiver.
Is it okay at Michelle?
No, yes, I'm sorry.
I just wanted to add it to that a little bit.
So just from my understanding of like,
And that's where, you know, the property tax money goes to, that's where the marijuana tax money goes to and that's what they use to fund us.
That local education fund inside of their, their codes or statue or whatever it is that they have ordinances.
But I believe that they have that $2 million floor or that the local education fund cannot
go below $2 million without having a super majority vote of the borough assembly and other
things.
And I think that that played into why we didn't actually get that cash when we made that
mental request because there's it just adds a layer of complexity, it adds another layer of approval to this whole thing.
So I just wanted it to just to make everybody aware of that as well. So the debt needs to be paid.
Yeah, and it needs to be paid. We just don't want to keep carrying it down the road. So
And I think we've done a pretty good job of that. So
Okay, any other question?
I'm sorry.
Yeah.
You know, especially given that we've heard lots of ideas, I'm kind of curious, are there
ideas that are on the cutting room floor that you're like, you know, we explored this,
we thought about it, and this is why it wasn't practical, we're talking about ever strategies
for addressing the shortfall, and it has a very big question.
Sure.
And I'll do the best I can to try to answer those questions.
We did look at a four day school day.
There's some positive to that, financially, we don't believe that there would be that much
of an impact in and as far as getting to 1.4, 1.5 million.
There's some drawbacks to that.
Certainly, I think, 34% of our kids are food dependent, and that's just within the last 30 days.
We just got our YRBS survey, and I was looking at that today, and that's a pretty significant number.
when you think of one out of every three students.
And that would be, we had that conversation
about Thanksgiving break, right?
That's two days, but this would be every Friday
moving forward.
That would be, I think, someone difficult to manage
when it came to student care
and the daycare situation that you might need to have
And that certainly impacts families who have smaller ones, if we can't take care of themselves, obviously.
And so that would certainly be looked at.
Really, the cost savings in those particular cases centered around transportation.
You would need the buses a little bit less.
You may need food service a little bit less simply because you know, they wouldn't be reporting in on Fridays.
but you would also, your school days would be longer during the school year, kids still
would miss, because of travel, we have a pretty extensive travel being here in the
Southeast, our kings are going all in nights are going all over the place, and so that
would impact those students as far as, you know, missing those school days that
schedules are, it might be a little bit different.
The advantage is if they left on Thursday nights,
they wouldn't be missing any school on Friday.
So there was some discussion about light sensors
or moving, reveal or moving district office.
That always gets brought up.
I think one of the things to address that
is there's a certain amount of confidentiality
and privacy that exists.
When you come to district office,
there's medical things being discussed.
There's human resources, when you're in a school that certainly allows more people, more
eyes on something that somebody may not want anybody to know about, except those people
who do in those situations.
I think that one of the reasons why the borrows staff and the school staff are working
so much better together is that we are literally one floor above each other and we run into
each other, we talk to each other, we can communicate with each other.
It's an incredibly important relationship that we have, and it needs to be where it is
right now, where we can call, I talked to the mayor today, he's been incredibly supportive,
talked to Borough staff, they are our partners in education, they do help us.
The drawback is, yes, there is money that gets expended for being in this building.
And so, I think that you have to look at both sides of that when it comes to that particular
issue.
I don't believe that we should move or villain at all.
I think that the strength of their program is centered in that site.
They own that place.
They love it.
They arrange night shaking or head, no, don't move it.
And if you ask those kids, they go there for a reason.
If you've ever been in that school, the sense of community is amazing.
If you look at our climate connected survey, the highest levels of relationship building exists
at Revilla, and they don't have an 82% graduation rate because they locked into it.
They have an 82% graduation rate because they take every kid, they care about them, they work
with them, they build relationships with them, they love that building, they care for that
building.
So I don't believe that that would be something that I would recommend as superintendent.
I'm sure the Rick kids at Revilla wouldn't recommend it either.
North of the staff and so we did look at those but once again when you're looking at a 91%
personnel there's very little things that we can look at you know we cut four administrators
last year we cut three district office administrators last year in a vice principle we cut
four and a half tech positions in the last three years and we are in the process I think
there's two reductions in maintenance and it makes it very difficult to run school districts
without those particular groups of people in all of those areas. We have a one to one we
have over 4,000 computers that we use on a daily basis and that makes it difficult to maintain
that environment and they do a fantastic job under very difficult circumstances.
So, then that needs to be your question.
Allie.
I just had a question.
I had an email to you.
One is North Point Higgins still classified as Title 1.
If not, are there steps to get that back?
Sure.
I don't believe that there are Title 1's school currently.
So, that's fun mountain and howling and reveala, KCS,
and that's T-S, with the shift in the demographic population, if we did go to the second model, they may become a title one school, but they may not, it's, we're having, and this is across the state, the filling out of the forms although we've tried to do a much better job of that.
And they're in different languages, it's still been a little bit of a struggle for us.
And some people just don't qualify anymore.
I mean, they're in terms of raised or they don't qualify under the regulations of
Title 1.
That's the next one question though.
And then the other question was, I know, so we talk about preschool, not getting funds.
I was kind of poking around in the Reeds Act before is there a reason why we haven't
proceeded with trying to get our preschool funded.
So we did the first year and we were rejected.
We were resimitting our application this year.
And so we are hoping that we've made some changes in our program
that we think that will help us with our application.
We talked to the state this past week.
We had a meeting that I was a part of with the preschool teachers
and T-SAS and looking at those areas.
So we are a recent meeting our application, this school year and hopefully will be successful.
And if that was the case, then some of our students would receive that 0.5 ADM.
Excellent question.
Thank you.
Catherine.
One of the ideas, you know, I think you even put it on our initial budget committee meeting
of, you know, possible ideas was closing down one of the charter schools.
Um, and I haven't heard much about that since then, so there's there's certain amount
of, um, processes that would have to go into that particular, um, discussion, um,
that would be certainly a much broader discussion with their APC.
Um, that would be a significant change in what we do, um, our, our charter schools do an
in our community of providing education in a different way for students.
Family certainly have that option.
I think that that would be a much broader conversation with the school board and their APC.
Isn't there a contract in place?
There is a contract in place.
There's some things that you can, I'm sorry.
There's some things that you can
makes that contract null and void and I'll forward that to the school board.
but that, like I said, that would be a much longer conversation and something that
would certainly take some time. And I don't know to say that we would recommend it in a short
period of time, as far as that would be concerned. Thank you. Okay.
Good going. Oh, you're done. Oh, you're done. Go away. Okay. Well, thank you. Thank you very much.
And so just as a reminder to the public, those who are watching and those who are still here,
Thank you for staying but
That this is very much a discussion in progress. And so we appreciate your input. And I would not anticipate any sort of decision on this until probably the earliest, early February, but more than like limit February.
So anyway, with that being said, any board, that'll take us out of work session, any board comments?
I can start. I really appreciate it representative Vortez coming up and talking about the need for a united state voice up and you know because that is he's fully correct in that.
And I was hoping that we as a board could make a decision sooner rather than later about whether or not we want to participate in the upcoming Alaska Association of Alaska School boards legislative fly in.
I believe it's scheduled for February 7th through the tenth somewhere around those dates.
But I think, you know, we participated in that last year, and and it really did that on top of a, there's a lot of, you know, my goal and Daniel testified in front of the Senate committee and, you know, and different things like that, but we really did make a difference and then the governor veto did, but I think that it's very important for us to continue doing that.
And then also to show up to represent our community, our region, southeast as a whole, because it's easy for people who live really far at North, to just be like, oh, yeah, those people down there, they don't matter.
That's where the veto came from. Exactly. And we do matter. We absolutely fully do. So, so I'm making that request.
Okay. Any other board comments?
Ali. Just to kind of add to Katherine's, I'd really like to see students go into the
fly-in. That would be really beneficial and it would really hit home for a lot of the
legislatures to hear our students speak more so than board members.
I sent all of my questions
to Mr. Robinson. He's been really great about getting back to me. I know we heard a lot of community
comment about wanting to cut admins and something that Mr. Robbins has worked on is a list
of admins and what their duties are and why they're important to the district and I do believe
he plans to put that on the project website.
Yep.
I can put that there and just like to reiterate that there has been a significant reduction.
I just put it then on there too.
I'll put that on.
What actually has been reduced over the past two to three years?
Thank you.
Back to that really fast.
Can you have like average for like what are
admin salaries to like others districts?
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, percentages.
We used to get that all the time.
Now remembering.
Yeah.
Okay.
And do you want like how other district offices are structured?
Like close to our size or no?
I don't know.
I don't know where.
I think what would be helpful to the public is not thanks, Katherine, now I'm remembering
this.
I'm a decade ago, but it was always noted that the catch can distance office was say 3%
of the budget, but the average, and other say like acreage, Juno, sick, all these other districts,
they all average, literally like 10 or 12% of the overall budget.
Yeah, and so it's a good comparison,
and then also just the reduction, I mean, this goes back to the transparency that people are asking for.
And I can also share, for example, like, what Codiac has, and similar side schools to what we have.
I'm just to give context, take that information for how you want.
I had another thought now, I'm trying to remember it again.
So, would you do an email?
Maybe, I'm trying to remember what it was.
I can come back if it's okay, any more board comments?
Okay, Tom, and I'd like to thank everybody you showed up tonight.
I'm going to be honest, I'm sitting here, I'm sitting in a pool of sweat, because there
was such a powerful, such powerful passion brought to these meetings and such articulate
arguments to this board and the student, the students who showed up and delivered a very powerful
cogent message. I'm just, I'm so grateful for you and I, you know, I like O'Donnell or
Tez and just say, keep bringing this pressure on. Thank you. Okay. I remember right now. Okay.
Yes, as has been said, thank you for the the impassioned commentary. The comments bring ideas to the group to consider as we go through a really challenging process. I can't help but want to remind everybody that again when we're talking about cutting personnel we're talking about shaping things every decision we're talking about this someone's life is someone's family is someone's role in this community.
And while I think we're having bracing and difficult conversations, say we have to do the best with what we're going to have from the state and from other funding sources,
when the tone of the conversation changes from expressing priorities of what we feel is best for kids to
accusing other people by either being like unhelpful or not having the interest of kids in place.
I think it's really challenging and hurtful to hear, and so as we go through this process over the next couple of months,
I just hope that Keshe can keep the spirit that's gotten us through so many other challenges,
which is wrapping around each other and supporting each other,
and finding something to like about each other even when we're having challenging discussions.
I think we can get far and find something creative to make the best of what we have. Thank you.
I agree.
Ellie.
Two things.
First, I know that there was a post or in Mr. Robbins.
You've talked about how the public was invited to be site budget meetings.
I'm a mom.
I have four kids in this district in three different schools, K.I.
Howling and North Point Higgins.
While I do believe howling had something in their newsletter,
but it was only on one or two occasions.
I did not see anything in the North Point Higgins one,
which I went back.
So maybe if we could post it on the school face book, not just their PTO, because I didn't
even follow all of the PTO pages for that, so.
Good suggestion.
Yep, we can certainly do that.
So thank you.
And it's once again why we have the budget process early, so we're not up against the May
first deadline.
Okay, Judy.
And I would just like to say that as soon as we can can not only the school board, but the staff and parents receive a list of those legislators who should be contacted, but also other state officials like even the Governor's office should
Absolutely.
Here from us.
I'll have, when I clearly get back from her training, I'll make sure that she gets that out
to everybody and we'll put that on Facebook and on our website for you to reach out.
So it's a situation where the more that we talk to them and more that we have conversations
with them, the better off we're going to be.
Extra pressure for the VTIL guy.
Okay, moving on to advanced planning.
We talked about much of this already January 15th, the 29th of January and February 12th will be the next meetings.
Can we add to this the borough assembly policy session? That was for Friday, January 24th from 9 to 11.
Madam President, we haven't said a date yet, but the Native Education Committee has expressed interest in having a meeting sometime in early to mid-ish January.
I will try to get a more finalized date in time so that it can be posted and well in advance.
Great, thank you very much.
The location will probably still remain the same, which is a 615
Steadman Education Building for the Catch Canine community.
Date and time will need to be figured out
at what works best for us three community members and
the staff at KSU.
Okay, great.
Thanks, Gita.
But we're looking at one meeting in February.
Well, that's as far as we're going in the schedule right now.
I'm assuming no one's opposed to adjourning.
We are adjourned.