Updates on the Fight for Quality Public Education in Brevard County, FL
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16:08 » Good morning, the November 10th, 2021 board workshop is now
16:12 in session. Pam, roll call please.
16:17 » Mrs. Belford.
16:18 » Present.
16:19 » Ms. McDougall.
16:20 » Present.
16:21 » Mrs. Campbell.
16:23 » Mrs. Jenkins.
16:24 » Present.
16:25 » And Mr. Susan.
16:26 » Present.
16:27 » Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.
16:32 » Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America
16:36 and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God,
16:41 indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
16:49 » The purpose of this workshop is to discuss the elementary and
16:51 secondary school emergency relief or ESSER fund under the
16:54 American Rescue Plan or ARP Act.
16:57 Dr. Stephanie Sullivan, Assistant Superintendent of Secondary
17:00 Leading and Learning will be providing us with information
17:03 before we move into the special meeting at 10 a.m.
17:06 Dr. Sullivan, first, thank you. I know this has been quite the
17:09 task with a very short timeframe, so we appreciate all that you’ve
17:14 done.
17:16 » Well, thank you, Ms. Belford, Dr. Mullins and board members.
17:18 I’m excited to be here today. I am really proud of our district.
17:25 I think good work has been done to really understand the needs
17:29 of our community, honor the feedback of our community, bring
17:33 that together with our collective expertise to do some really
17:38 good work with the American Rescue Plan funds.
17:42 And so today, I’m going to talk through each of the major
17:46 buckets with you. Right now, this is a very draft application,
17:51 and so I just want to emphasize that.
17:56 As you all know, we began the process for the ARP funds back in
17:59 really August and September, and we were quite surprised two
18:04 weeks ago today when the first we heard about it was the
18:08 application with a deadline of Friday.
18:12 The good news is we had already done so much work. We read the
18:14 federal regs, and we were really ready to move forward.
18:20 Lo and behold, yesterday, the days are blurring. The Department
18:25 of Ed sent out a message extending the deadline into December
18:29 because districts had to do community feedback.
18:33 So we were once again sort of ahead of the curve in good shape,
18:37 but I certainly appreciate a little extra time when working with
18:41 a grant of this scale.
18:44 I’m going to have to put it away for a day after today and get
18:47 some fresh eyes on it.
18:50 So today, I’m going to be sharing with our draft application,
18:53 which is about $4 million over right now.
18:57 I do think pulling some hard costs can get us there rather painlessly,
19:03 but it was quite painful when our cabinet came together,
19:08 carefully reviewed all the community feedback.
19:11 In fact, the week before, I talked to the cabinet about really
19:14 staying keyed into that spreadsheet that Ms. Reinhardt kept
19:18 online and really began writing towards that.
19:22 So we were originally $160 million over budget. So in the last
19:28 week, we had to make some hard choices and relook at, of course,
19:33 the community data, relook at our student achievement outcomes
19:36 and the intent of the grant.
19:39 And so over the last few days, we’ve gotten closer and closer
19:42 and closer, and like I said, I’m close to where some tweaking I
19:47 think I can get us there.
19:50 It’s amazing because it’s such a substantial amount of money,
19:53 but in an organization of this size, things go to scale really
19:56 quickly and costs escalate pretty fast.
20:00 There’s different philosophies in a grant application like this.
20:03 Some districts put a lot in just a few buckets to just protect
20:07 kind of the district financial.
20:11 We haven’t done that since ESSER 1. Since ESSER 1, we have had
20:15 really comprehensive approach to all the different ways that ESSER
20:20 funds can support our students.
20:26 Did you do the dance though? That’s the question.
20:29 So we’ve always made our plans super comprehensive to impact as
20:34 many aspects of our organization as possible with two
20:38 overarching things in mind.
20:42 One, student outcomes. And student outcomes not only is measured
20:45 by traditional academic measures, but engagement, attendance,
20:48 behaviors, participation in things, all the things that we
20:52 equate to a really positive school environment.
20:56 And then of course, the financial stability of the district.
20:59 Those are some things that we’ve kept in mind. Something that we’re
21:02 able to do with ARP, ESSER, and we hope to amend ESSER 2 with is
21:08 more for our workforce.
21:11 There was much more flexibility in ARP than in the previous
21:15 grants because that ties so directly into my first comment on
21:19 student outcomes. So student outcomes and employee wellbeing,
21:24 staff motivation are just intertwined. We certainly all know
21:28 that.
21:30 So you’ll see a lot of that as well in the plan. So over the
21:34 course of the past few months, our communication team run by,
21:40 well team, Lori Reinhardt, we’re going to call her a team Frank
21:44 helps though.
21:47 She has held 31 different meetings, including our bargaining
21:51 groups, public comments, student feedback, priority schools,
21:56 some of the different groups within our community, different
22:00 minority groups, faith-based groups, business leaders, community
22:05 leaders, and district leadership and staff.
22:09 I know we also had four formal community meetings on top of all
22:12 the requested ones, posted two different online feedback surveys,
22:15 one that was kind of a choose your priority and a second one
22:18 where you could actually fill in your response.
22:22 And we cataloged all those open responses, about 630 different
22:25 data points. And our spreadsheet, when I checked it yesterday,
22:32 again, another view, we had about 600 different ideas.
22:37 And there was some clear leaders, some clear things that whether
22:40 it was our business community, our faith-based group of our
22:43 teachers that were a priority.
22:46 Compensation, no question was number one. Not only our actual
22:49 employees, but all of the community groups that we spoke with
22:53 wanted to see our employees receive additional compensation.
23:00 The student group that we spoke with, that was the one subject
23:03 that they unanimously agreed on. And they felt really strongly
23:07 that any compensation should include all employee groups.
23:12 And so that’s something that you will see evident in the plan.
23:15 Again, it is the most common response.
23:20 Transportation came up a bit, quite a bit, in terms of
23:23 eliminating barriers. One of the things that we tasked each of
23:28 our groups to consider is what are the barriers to student
23:32 success
23:34 and how we could tackle the barrier so that more students can be
23:36 positively engaged with activities and programs in schools that
23:39 we know are great.
23:42 So you’ll see some funds towards that. Activities in general,
23:46 lots of discussion around activities. And when I say activities,
23:50 I mean co-curricular and extracurricular, including athletics
23:53 and clubs
23:55 and all of those things that make school, helps school meet the
23:59 needs of all types of children. And so you’ll see some work
24:03 around there and trying to continue to incentivize our employees.
24:09 I say incentivize because the teachers and staff members that
24:14 sponsor all these programs, they do it because they love it. But
24:17 more recognize, I guess to say, and give them some compensation
24:22 in that.
24:23 Equalizing access, again, came up a lot. Mental health and
24:25 behavior issues. I would say that was the number one concern
24:30 brought up by our students.
24:33 It was a really powerful night when we met with our student
24:35 leaders. Definitely lots of concern about mental health, social-emotional
24:39 learning, and students being able to have sort of unfettered
24:43 access to resources.
24:46 Academic support, as you can imagine. Lots of requests for all
24:49 kinds of additional resources, tutoring, and similar
24:52 opportunities.
24:55 And some facility and health initiatives. Those were the big
24:58 buckets that if you look at the spreadsheet, you’ll see lots of
25:01 yellow across that our community stated over and over again.
25:06 So just kind of a preface to our discussion today. First, I want
25:09 to orient you to the two different handouts that are in front of
25:12 you. And these are the two components of our application for the
25:17 grant.
25:19 And again, these are super drafty, so please bear that in mind.
25:25 The first one, the one with the cover is where we describe each
25:29 activity that we are requesting to be funded.
25:34 And on the second one, you’ll see a rather comprehensive budget
25:38 sheet, because we have to, with specificity, write down to
25:43 function an object, identify the cost associated with each item.
25:49 You’ll see some items highlighted, that’s just my reference
25:51 point that I need to go back and put some more information.
25:56 It’s not over or undervaluing anything, it just means I have
25:59 work to do. And like I said, I still need to pair about four
26:02 million dollars off the budget before we submit it.
26:07 So if you open, we’re gonna start with this narrative process,
26:10 and I’m gonna show you how to make these two marry with each
26:14 other.
26:16 Hopefully there’s not too many mistakes. If you turn to the
26:19 third page of the narrative handout, you’ll see the beginning of
26:24 the grant application.
26:27 This grant is divided into two chunks. First is activity one,
26:32 and that’s literally the activity one, and that’s addressing
26:38 learning loss. We’re required to spend 20% of our allocation in
26:44 that bucket. We’ve exceeded that 20% in addressing learning loss,
26:48 but just wanted to make you aware that that is a required set-aside.
26:53 The second activity, activity two, has multiple letter subsets.
26:58 So you’ll see activity 2A, activity 2B, activity 2C. All those
27:05 all the way through S are the different categories within
27:11 activity two.
27:14 And so if you look at the budget sheet, and you look at this
27:18 first page side-by-side, you’ll see addressing learning loss,
27:24 you’ll see school year academic support, and you’ll see that’s
27:27 number one.
27:30 So when you look over at the budget sheet, if you look at the
27:34 fourth column, you’ll see that’s activity one, item one. So
27:38 those are all the costs associated with activity one, item one.
27:45 I’ll give you guys a second to take a look at it, ‘cause it’ll
27:55 be important as we move forward. And as you can see, we have to
28:01 separate it out by employee type, by all the fringes. And so
28:02 then as an example, activity one, two, is then you’ll see the
28:05 summer school programming for elementary.
28:11 So that’s how this narrative matches this budget. I thought you
28:14 might find a little moment of that helpful.
28:22 So on that note, I’m just going to briefly go over each of the
28:25 items, and your eyes can kind of go to the budget that we have
28:30 proportioned for that item to get to the budget.
28:36 Academic support, that continues what we’ve done last year and
28:40 this year, and providing dollars to schools to hire teachers for
28:44 before, during, and after school academic support.
28:49 One-on-one tutoring, small group tutoring, Zoom tutoring at
28:52 night, all of that extra help through the staff on campus.
28:58 We ended in for guidance counselors as well, so guidance
29:01 counselors could host evening hours, social workers, and
29:04 instructional assistants. That was kind of a lesson learned
29:07 after first go round.
29:09 We missed the instructional assistants and them being able to
29:11 work as well. So all four of those employee groups will be able
29:15 to, at their hourly pay, provide additional academic services
29:19 for kids in all elementary, middle schools, and high schools.
29:24 I’m really excited that we were able to continue that. Item two,
29:27 elementary summer recovery program, kind of speaks for itself.
29:32 Ms. Klein has put together a pretty aggressive plan
29:36 to include more students in elementary summer school to get that
29:39 extra support, particularly in the primary year. She’s really
29:43 focusing on strengthening their literacy skills.
29:47 I should note that when you look at the budget, most of the
29:52 items in the budget represent school year ‘23 and school year ‘24,
29:59 and some also include school year ‘22.
30:03 You’ll typically see that notation in the first item attached to
30:05 the activity, because some of the things we didn’t fund for this
30:09 year yet, and we want to add funding to it.
30:13 So a lot of these, nearly everything in the plan represents two
30:15 years. Some of them include this year as well. Secondary summer
30:19 program, really excited to not only continue credit retrieval,
30:25 we’ve added some additional units for performing arts programs
30:29 in camps, and additional enrichment programs for schools to make
30:34 determination. So we want secondary summer school to be beyond
30:38 credit retrieval, and beyond sort of that old perspective that
30:43 you’ve done something wrong to be in summer school.
30:46 We want to make it a positive connection, so you’ll see some of
30:49 the notes attached to item three. Item four and five continue
30:54 the security specialists and transportation for summer school.
30:58 This past year was a great success.
31:01 Our transportation did an amazing job. Each of our sites
31:03 identified bus stops for their students, so the student didn’t
31:07 have to be two miles away because we’re paying for it.
31:13 So schools could look at their community and their neighborhoods
31:16 and identify spots, and those became their bus stops to school,
31:20 and it worked great. We had no problems at all.
31:24 Food services isn’t on there because it’s not required for us to
31:26 fund. Kevin Thornton, as always, will make sure all of our sites
31:30 have both lunch and breakfast again. It just didn’t need a
31:34 budget item.
31:37 Item number six, so again, if you’re checking the budget, it’s 1.6.
31:41 That’s our extended school day for our five most fragile schools,
31:46 and that represents the cost of continuing that for school year
31:52 ‘23 and ‘24.
31:55 It’s about $2.1 million a year to cover the cost of the
31:59 employees for that ninth hour. We wrote it with a lack of
32:03 specificity because obviously Ms. Klein wants to evaluate data
32:08 at the end of the year, evaluate the schools, evaluate that it’s
32:11 working, and so maintain some flexibility in that language as we
32:16 move forward.
32:19 Contracted services for supplemental tutoring, one thing that
32:22 became immediately evident is we didn’t have the capacity in our
32:25 employees to manage all tutoring. Ms. Klein already does a
32:29 significant amount of this with Title I,
32:33 and so this has set aside some funds for us to look at some
32:35 contracted services for tutoring when our programs aren’t
32:40 meeting the needs of the families.
32:44 RAISE, you heard a lot about RAISE at our data meeting, and you’ll
32:49 see those items to target the priority efforts to improve those
32:54 elementary schools on the RAISE list,
32:59 including a coordinator to be singularly focused on the school
33:02 improvement work at her RAISE schools.
33:07 Item nine, primary instructional assistants, I’m gonna give Ms.
33:11 Klein a lot of credit. She dreamed big. She originally asked for
33:15 200 so that every kindergarten and first grade class had an
33:19 instructional assistant,
33:22 which is, of course, an incredible idea, but not in the budget,
33:25 but more importantly, the human capacity isn’t there, and so we’ve
33:30 added some assistance for her to be able to work with principals
33:34 and her staff to prioritize that,
33:37 especially in the early reading classrooms.
33:42 Academic online subscriptions, we had a pretty big range of
33:45 requests, and so we left kind of a placeholder with a nominal
33:49 budget to be able to meet the teacher’s needs.
33:54 Great vocabulary were mentioned quite a bit. I think Nearpod has
33:58 kind of merged with them, and we’ll go through, of course, the
34:02 traditional procurement process, so we didn’t want to name a
34:05 specific one, but some dollars there.
34:09 Science instructional materials, really excited for our
34:13 elementary folks on this one. Ms. Klein did a pilot the first,
34:17 last year, and the schools had exceptional increases in their
34:22 science data on FSA.
34:25 Through ESSER II, it is in every one of our elementary schools,
34:29 and this will continue the use of PEN to Science through school
34:33 year 23 and school year 24 for every single elementary school.
34:40 iReady, you guys know iReady, so I’m not gonna spend too much
34:43 time on iReady, but what is important to note, this continues
34:48 the full instructional toolkit for every one of our schools in
34:52 both reading and math.
34:55 If any of you remember the hard decisions we’ve had to make in
34:58 who gets it and who doesn’t get it, and this ensures everyone
35:03 gets it.
35:05 Item 13 is the continuation of our tier two and tier three
35:08 intervention teachers. Those are in place this year in the
35:12 elementary priority schools, funded through ESSER II. This will
35:16 continue them through school year 24.
35:21 Primary literacy specialist, again, this is a continuation, and
35:24 these are two experts that work in our highest need schools to
35:28 provide some direct instruction in primary literacy.
35:33 Home base, you may or may not have heard of home base yet, but
35:37 our student services team piloted with six schools this year a
35:42 home base program, particularly with students with social
35:45 communication disorders,
35:49 which establishes literally a home base, a safe space for
35:53 students to receive services. Oftentimes, those are our ASD
35:57 students, but not exclusive to our ASD students.
36:02 They did extensive training with both the teachers and the
36:05 instructional assistants and put up a classroom that was sensory
36:09 sensitive, just making up those words as we speak.
36:14 This will allow us to continue with those six sites for the next
36:17 two years as well as add five additional sites. It’s been a real
36:21 positive impact to the schools.
36:25 Item 16 is targeting math instructional coaches. As you guys
36:29 know, we’re in a math adoption year and the year that the
36:33 standards change. And so this is a pretty significant impact
36:37 next year on our schools and our teachers. Moving to a new
36:42 curriculum in the middle of a time that’s kind of overwhelming
36:46 and stressful is always difficult.
36:49 And so these instructional coaches will be able to support
36:52 teachers in that transition. Item 17 is increasing our number of
36:56 bilingual instructional assistants. Right now the criteria is
37:00 fairly high in order to get that bilingual assistant.
37:05 This allows more schools to receive a bilingual assistant that
37:08 don’t necessarily meet the original plan. Just as a reminder, we
37:13 have to have a maintenance of equity and a maintenance of effort
37:16 per the federal guidelines. And so these are supplemental to the
37:20 ones that the schools may not technically earn.
37:26 School counseling support, that’s in place this year. We
37:29 provided a guidance counselor or GSP to my eight priority
37:32 schools for all the reasons that I don’t need to explain. But
37:36 that will continue their employment through school year 24.
37:42 You’ll see professional development for those math standards
37:46 that we spoke of. And some additional curriculum development for
37:50 our CTE teachers. We have a lot of target areas in making sure
37:54 our students in some of our underperforming clusters have
37:59 greater success with industry certification.
38:02 As you know, I mean, that’s a great opportunity for workforce.
38:05 So gonna work with our teachers on scaffolding instruction and,
38:08 you know, some of the resources even I think auto mechanic, the
38:12 books are written at incredibly high technical level.
38:16 So really working through some strategies to help all students
38:18 succeed. So all of those were activity one. And as you can see,
38:23 we’re going into activity two, and you’ll see again, it’s
38:28 activity to a, and then one, two and so on.
38:32 Then activity to be and one, two and so on.
38:36 So activity to a is any activity authorized by the elementary
38:38 and secondary education act of 1965. That’s our main funding for
38:44 what’s been reauthorized over the years from No Child Left
38:48 Behind to ESSA right now, and that includes Title One, Title Two,
38:54 Title Three, Title Four, you know, all the titles.
38:57 So if it’s allowable in any of those titled programs, it’s
39:01 allowable for ARP, you’ll see a significant plan to expand and
39:05 increase the impact of the conscious discipline program.
39:11 And you guys are pretty well familiar with that. I have to say
39:13 it’s one of the few things that we get universal positivity
39:17 about, you know, sometimes we don’t.
39:21 But student services team has put together an incredibly
39:25 aggressive plan to continue to try to help teachers manage their
39:30 classrooms in a way that minimize disruptions.
39:36 You’ll see some work on attendance parenting classes and support,
39:40 really excited about that as well. Some Saturday and after hours
39:43 training, this was a request particularly by our human resources
39:47 team that puts together a lot of the trainings.
39:52 We have begged, begged, and begged to not pull people out during
39:56 the school day, and so this allows for additional funds to
40:00 incentivize evening and Saturday workshops. Some professional
40:05 development for our IA’s, that’s critically important.
40:09 One of the initiatives that we’re really excited about is some
40:11 classroom collaboration furniture.
40:15 Some of our classrooms are not the warmest, most positive
40:21 learning environment with some of the furniture from a very long
40:28 time ago.
40:31 We’ve had the opportunity through some capital resources to do
40:33 some model classrooms in this district, and to go in and visit
40:37 students in some of the collaborative environments is pretty
40:41 awesome.
40:43 It is a modest budget, it may look like a lot, but a modest when
40:45 you go down to how many classrooms we have in this school, I
40:48 tried to get you more money, Dr. Mullins.
40:52 Classroom and program supplies, you know, I thought it was
40:54 really important to put some additional money in the hands of
40:57 the teachers and the schools themselves.
41:01 We’ve done a per student $10 allocation for every school, for
41:05 the school community to identify what supplies would help
41:09 students, whether that’s manipulatives or science labs or
41:13 whatever it is.
41:16 We really wanted those to be school-based decisions, so each of
41:18 the schools will receive an allocation and be able to make those
41:21 instructional decisions.
41:24 We of course asked them to work through their school advisory
41:26 council, like we do on all budgeting items, but we thought it
41:29 was really important to have that as well.
41:32 As we go on to activity 2B, I do want to mention–
41:36 Can I interrupt you for one second? I just want to highlight,
41:39 that idea particularly came from our conversation with students,
41:43 our Student Government Association.
41:46 I just got to give credit to them, their insightfulness, their
41:50 awareness of what their school needs were. They didn’t have
41:54 exactly how to spend the money.
41:56 They said, “But you know what? There’s needs across our school,
41:57 across different classrooms and that sort of thing. Can we set
42:00 aside additional allocation that would run through school
42:03 advisory council?”
42:06 We really appreciated their contribution to that conversation.
42:10 One of the threads that you’ll see throughout the entire plan is
42:13 minimizing financial expense to students and parents.
42:18 Not only because it deters engagement maybe in some programs,
42:21 but just adds an additional hardship.
42:25 Honestly, it’s an additional hardship on a teacher who has to
42:27 collect the fees, right?
42:30 We try to put things in place that release some of those burdens
42:33 for students, families, and teachers.
42:38 I do want to note before we go into the IDEA eligible ones, that
42:42 many of these could be in any of the categories.
42:46 We did the best fit, but obviously a whole lot of them could go
42:48 elsewhere.
42:51 I also want to mention that there is an IDEA separate ARP coming.
42:57 We haven’t gotten it yet.
43:00 Chris made some really thoughtful decisions on knowing what
43:05 could be in that bucket as well. That will target traditional IDEA
43:09 funded activities.
43:12 We should get it soon, I think. We’ll see.
43:16 Do we know yet what our allocation might look like for that?
43:20 Well, I know my estimation, which is just by reading the federal
43:24 paperwork, and I’m a pretty good estimator, I expect about 3.3,
43:28 3.5 million, maybe upwards of four depending on if the state
43:32 pulls a set aside.
43:35 So somewhere in that three to four million dollar range.
43:38 Extended school year, Saturday school. This is a pretty big
43:43 initiative where our student services team is looking to
43:48 structure a comprehensive program that involves additional
43:53 academic services with 10 district wide sites, including
43:57 instructional assistance, materials, and teachers,
44:01 transportation, and food services.
44:04 So you’ll see if you look at 2B1, a lot of line item costs
44:08 associated with it to provide students additional services.
44:14 Looks like I wrote that twice. We’ll fix that.
44:19 PBIS support, some additional materials, teachers and schools
44:22 have been asking for that, and I’ll clean up that little error
44:26 that you just saw.
44:29 Activity 2C, adult education. I just sent Miss Benjamin back to
44:32 the drawing board to get her down to 200,000.
44:37 And so she is right in the middle of reworking her budget,
44:39 primarily opening up access and flexibility with adult education
44:44 programs, contracting with transportation, and adding some
44:49 additional community leisure programs.
44:53 But I sent her back to the drawing board with less money, so we’ll
44:56 get a fine tune on that later.
45:00 Perkins, as you know, is our main career and technical education
45:02 federal program, and we are allowed to spend ESSER funds on
45:05 anything that aligns to it, and you’ll see some substantial
45:09 budget for supplies.
45:12 One of the things that we want to do is eliminate program fees
45:16 through school year 24, so currently we have school adopted
45:22 state approved fees for a student taking a career and technical
45:27 education course that garners a product.
45:30 And so our hope is to eliminate those fees during this period of
45:32 time, because that does become a barrier.
45:36 We would just withdraw from a class, of course we would tell
45:38 them we would compensate it for them, but again, eliminate
45:41 another barrier to high quality programming, instructional
45:44 materials, equipment.
45:47 You guys know we’ve built enough programs together, equipment
45:50 for career and technical education programs is extraordinarily
45:54 expensive, and we want to make sure we have the most relevant
45:58 equipment and safe equipment.
46:02 Sometimes the industries transition so fast that the equipment
46:05 we’re training kids on isn’t the most relevant equipment.
46:09 And industry certification costs covering some of the expense
46:12 that we incur for students to take industry certifications, we
46:17 are one of the few districts that we don’t gate keep industry
46:20 certification.
46:23 For our districts, you have to reach a certain point or a
46:25 teacher determines if you should take the industry certification,
46:29 we don’t gate keep that opportunity for our students who’ve
46:32 completed the work.
46:39 I love this one, I want to thank our student services team for
46:43 this submission under activity 2E find help subscription, which
46:49 I guess was colloquially named Aunt Bertha.
46:54 And I can’t do justice to this service, I’m going to let you
46:57 guys take a look at that.
47:00 But I think it’s pretty cool.
47:06 And as you can see, it goes into that community responsiveness
47:09 category. And it’ll be a really valuable resource, I believe, to
47:13 our, our families.
47:26 And if we move on to activity 2F, both one and two represent
47:30 some great materials, programs and opportunities to serve our
47:36 community that are not English speakers.
47:41 And if you’ve been to a meeting at a school with a strong non-English
47:45 speaking community, you’ve seen potentially some live
47:50 interpretation, did I say translation, some live translation
47:54 going on, I’ve seen it at Endeavor, pretty cool.
48:00 So this will allow some language translation transmitters, as
48:04 well as the translation services, student services rolled that
48:08 out, but it has previously been at the expense of the schools to
48:12 utilize the translation services and go into contract on
48:15 materials.
48:17 This will allow the schools not have to separately fund it,
48:20 which we believe will motivate a increased usage of it for
48:24 teachers or, you know, clerical staff or whomever.
48:29 You’ll see SEL leadership team workshop, that’s fairly self-explanatory.
48:35 And as I mentioned, mental health, SES, SEL curriculum and
48:39 learning were real high priorities of our community.
48:45 Transportation to vision services, making sure students who
48:50 require vision have the support they need, we can get a student’s
48:55 free glasses and free exam, getting there is been what’s
48:59 difficult.
49:02 And that is the simplest no brainer solution to impact early
49:06 literacy is making sure students’ vision is tended to. So we’re
49:11 excited about that.
49:14 You’ll see some specifics on foster care students, some special
49:18 hardware for some of our ESE classrooms that could hopefully
49:22 prevent some dangerous situations that our students are
49:25 sometimes placed in.
49:28 Continuing with the teachers on assignment that are currently in
49:31 our schools, these aren’t new units, these are the continuation
49:35 of the ones that have been in our schools for a number of years.
49:39 And they’re in targeted specific schools to support the teams
49:42 there and that will continue them through school year 24.
49:47 And physical health, PE health, FF&E and supplies. Boy, if there
49:52 was ever an area that we know is important to student well-being,
49:57 and I have to say we’ve grossly underfunded, I can tell you the
50:03 K-12 budget for physical education is around $3,000 a year.
50:09 For K-12, you heard correctly, so this is an opportunity to get
50:13 some more equipment and supplies to keep those classes relevant
50:17 and students wanting to participate because that physical health
50:22 we know is really important to students.
50:25 And then student fees, this is one as you can guess that I
50:30 submitted, want to be able to pay for those additional testing
50:36 opportunities, college applications, the different fees that
50:41 come.
50:43 We get a good amount of bubble kids that don’t qualify for free
50:46 and reduced lunch waivers, but it is a really dramatic impact on
50:51 the family, so we’d like to provide some money for schools to be
50:55 able to offset the fees and expenses in becoming college and
50:59 career ready.
51:01 Shouldn’t cost anything to become college and career ready, but
51:02 it does, and so that will help with that.
51:13 All of that, that’s the next week’s job is cross-checking to
51:20 make sure they all match, but yes, I did write a budget in there.
51:29 Right now it’s $150,000, which will be $50,000 for this year,
51:32 next year, and the following year, so I apologize, that’ll be
51:36 one of the little cleanups.
51:39 Thank you for catching that. Frank, I assume you’re tracking
51:43 what I messed up on, thank you.
51:46 Activity 2G, and this is also about response efforts of local
51:51 education agencies, and you’ll see technology for our student
51:58 services team, you’ll see some ESC procedures and professional
52:04 development, ESC support team training.
52:08 I don’t think any of those will surprise you as critical needs
52:11 for our district.
52:14 And then if you move on to page 12, in activity 2I, that’s all
52:20 the stuff, the PPE, hand sanitizer, cleaning products, and
52:25 related supplies, we’ve gotten really good at that.
52:30 We’ve moved to a system where the warehouse purchases it all,
52:35 and then it’s free to the schools.
52:39 So that has made it really easy for us to get better pricing
52:41 instead of each school going out on their own.
52:46 So they order it from the warehouse, but it’s at a no cost from
52:48 the warehouse.
52:50 We have, it’s a good budget guess because we’ve done this now
52:52 for two years, and so we know that’s a pretty solid budget.
52:58 Activity 2J, if you guys remember a couple of years ago, we
53:02 actually cut some technology specialists right before the pandemic.
53:07 So obviously it wasn’t very prescient of us.
53:11 So this added back, we did it with ESSER 1 and 2, added back the
53:16 six technology specialists, and this continues it funded through
53:21 ESSER through school year 24.
53:25 So that’s one we anticipate might return to fund 100 after that
53:28 four year period.
53:31 2K, as you can imagine, this is a pretty robust section, and
53:34 this is about educational technology.
53:39 And you can see some assistive technology there, that’s a hard
53:42 word for me to say for some reason.
53:46 I’m excited about that, anything that improves the communication
53:49 within our classes, within teachers, within students, where that
53:53 is a challenge, I think is pretty exciting.
53:57 Dr. Mullins walked out on his modernizing classrooms, classroom
54:01 of the future.
54:04 This is to prove that technology and connectivity, I had to cut
54:06 that budget a lot, so I’m glad he’s not here, we’re just going
54:09 to move right past that.
54:11 We’re just going to move right past that.
54:14 Student laptops and charging stations, I am pleased to say on
54:18 behalf of Russell Cheatham and his incredible team, this is a
54:23 substantial expense, but it will complete the one to one plan.
54:30 So obviously we believe that that is really important for our
54:32 students to be successful.
54:36 Right now our middle schools are still in various stages of
54:39 whether they’re going home yet or not, but this will complete
54:42 his multi-year plan, and we anticipate as quickly as we can get
54:47 the devices, we will be ready to be a full one to one district.
54:54 Student hotspots, pretty self explanatory, device asset
54:57 management system, as you can imagine, lots of tracking needs
55:01 for those devices, I think everybody would scream if we lost
55:05 Zoom at this point.
55:07 I know our IEP meetings have increased
55:10 with Zoom flexibility and we’ve been able to work
55:13 with parents much more flexibly with Zoom,
55:15 so we don’t want that to ever go away.
55:17 You’ll see some additional software
55:19 and technological needs there.
55:22 And then of course some summer training for one-on-one.
55:24 We want to make sure as we roll out the initiatives
55:27 to different grade levels, we are training those teachers
55:30 in some best practices on blended learning.
55:33 Dr. Mullins, you missed your classroom of the future one.
55:38 Activity 2L, you’ll see a lot here because as mentioned,
55:44 I think all aspects of our community mentioned this concern,
55:47 all educators, all parents, all teachers.
55:49 And you’ll see some comprehensive work there,
55:53 mental health curriculum training.
55:55 This is an interesting one for me.
55:59 As you know, we have a mental health required curriculum,
56:03 but both our students and our staff
56:07 just feel like they want to know more.
56:09 Like everybody thinks it’s good, which is awesome.
56:12 They just want to know more.
56:13 Teachers want to be better trained
56:15 and we want to make sure that we are managing those lessons
56:19 in a way that are constantly evolving
56:21 and reflective of the needs of our students.
56:26 Contracted services, you’ll see a couple
56:28 of different ones there.
56:30 We contract with a lot of services now.
56:32 This will be able to increase the opportunity
56:34 to contract with those vendors
56:36 and provide more direct services to our students.
56:40 They push into our schools,
56:42 work directly with students, families, and schools.
56:47 Item four there is allowing us to continue
56:52 the community partnership at Endeavor.
56:55 They’ve had a budget shortfall as a result
56:58 of all the things that folks go through.
57:01 And this has identified a relatively small budget, actually,
57:05 to be able to maintain the level of service at Endeavor.
57:10 A CBA lead, and that is a certified,
57:14 board certified assistant.
57:16 And I may have messed that up a little bit there,
57:19 I’ll fix that.
57:20 This is important because to try to onboard
57:23 more behavior analysts, they need direct supervision.
57:28 And so we would like to onboard as many behavior specialists
57:32 as we can, and this person will be able
57:35 to prioritize being their supervisor
57:37 in them finishing their things.
57:39 Did I mess that up, Chris?
57:41 Excellent, not bad. (laughs)
57:44 School psychologist interns, this looks like a big budget,
57:47 but it’s actually super modest.
57:50 Right now, we don’t pay our interns,
57:53 and we need them desperately.
57:55 And other districts pay their interns,
57:57 and so this will allow us to give a very modest compensation
58:01 to our interns for actually,
58:03 they’re essentially working full time.
58:05 And we’re always in need of psychologists,
58:09 and we want them to come to Brevard.
58:13 All right, moving on to activity 2M.
58:16 This is focusing on kind of all the other stuff,
58:21 is what I’d like to call it.
58:23 And you’ll see middle school intramurals,
58:27 funding there to make some facility improvements,
58:30 to pay supplements for coaches.
58:34 They’re looking at soccer and volleyball,
58:37 and that might change, but two formal opportunities
58:42 for middle school students to engage.
58:45 Athletics, FF&E, and supplies.
58:47 You’ll see a pretty big number here.
58:49 I actually gave them more than they asked for,
58:53 because the equipment is important.
58:56 And my overarching thread, again,
59:01 is minimizing expense to students and families,
59:04 minimizing the burden of coaches to fundraise.
59:08 So this FF&E would allow us to buy cheerleading mats
59:12 for all the cheer programs,
59:13 and all kinds of other equipment for our athletic programs.
59:17 We would let, obviously, the athletic directors
59:20 work with their principals,
59:21 and work with Chris’s office to maximize the funds,
59:25 but it’s a really good opportunity
59:26 to make sure we have the safest equipment,
59:29 and we, again, minimize that fundraising expense
59:33 on the families.
59:34 You’ll also see supplies there.
59:37 So there’s one funding string for FF&E,
59:40 which is basically, it’s furniture fixtures and equipment,
59:44 so it’s the more expensive stuff,
59:46 and it’s the supplies, the balls, the things
59:50 that are consumable.
59:51 Again, we’d like our families and our coaches
59:54 not to have to deal with that.
59:58 Paid internships for our career
59:59 and technical education students,
1:00:01 and expanding the opportunity for us to have more interns
1:00:06 over the next few years.
1:00:08 Obviously, I think we all believe
1:00:10 those career and technical education internships
1:00:12 are like the single best experience
1:00:14 for developing our job force.
1:00:17 Again, just some nominal teacher hours
1:00:20 to be able to manage that.
1:00:21 There’s a lot of legal requirements with interns.
1:00:24 Supplemented supplements.
1:00:26 So excited about that.
1:00:27 I chose those words.
1:00:29 So I wanted to be able to increase compensation
1:00:34 for our activity sponsors.
1:00:36 That would be our coaches, our band directors,
1:00:40 our club sponsors, and make it make sense
1:00:44 for these couple years.
1:00:45 So this would give each coach one or activity
1:00:50 or club sponsor 25% bonus for each of those years,
1:00:57 if that makes sense.
1:00:59 So for example, if a supplement was $1,000,
1:01:01 they would get an additional $250.
1:01:04 If their supplement was $4,000,
1:01:06 they would get an additional $1,000.
1:01:09 The teachers and staff that are willing
1:01:12 to do all these extra activities
1:01:14 and all the hours that come with
1:01:16 is the lifeline for a lot of kids.
1:01:18 They also serve as mentors.
1:01:20 They’re just so important.
1:01:23 And the fact that so many of our folks
1:01:25 have continued to do it in these critical times,
1:01:27 we just really think it’s an important priority.
1:01:30 So this would allow for that level of compensation
1:01:33 for school year ‘22, depending on when we get
1:01:37 an approved grant, school year ‘23 and school year ‘24.
1:01:41 So an additional 25% for each of those three years.
1:01:46 Music programs, FF&E, know that Katie’s excited.
1:01:52 Music is another one of those that it creates barriers.
1:01:55 So this will buy the tubas and the risers and the amps
1:01:59 and again, hopefully less fundraising for our parents,
1:02:03 less financial burden on the teachers.
1:02:06 This will be allocated by ratio K-12
1:02:11 and to make sure they have everything they need.
1:02:14 Well, they’re not gonna have everything they want,
1:02:16 but they’re gonna have a lot more of it,
1:02:18 a lot more of what they’re looking for
1:02:20 ‘cause those items are super expensive.
1:02:24 Transportation costs, I mentioned that earlier.
1:02:28 This isn’t gonna cover all transportation,
1:02:30 but this would offset some of the costs
1:02:32 of some of our programs and we’d have to work out
1:02:36 a ratio on that, but just to make sure
1:02:38 that a student in a sport can get a bus.
1:02:43 So right now, that’s tough and we can continue
1:02:47 to find ways to help support that.
1:02:50 Activity 2N is specifically targeting
1:02:55 our transportation services,
1:02:57 supplemental transportation services
1:02:59 for our students in transition,
1:03:01 allowing them to get to a doctor’s
1:03:03 and different services available to them.
1:03:06 Our student services team would contract
1:03:08 with a vehicle service to provide
1:03:11 that unofficial transportation.
1:03:14 Obviously, we bus them to school,
1:03:16 but that doesn’t mean their transportation items are over.
1:03:21 School facility repairs, the one biggie thing
1:03:27 that our facilities team is honing in on is carpet.
1:03:31 Talk about indoor air quality concerns.
1:03:35 I know Jane Klein was thinking about her carpets
1:03:37 in those primary classrooms that might be icky.
1:03:42 And for me, when I think about banned classrooms,
1:03:45 if you’ve been a banned mom,
1:03:46 they drop their spit on the carpet.
1:03:48 It’s all true and it’s yucky.
1:03:50 So hopefully, improving indoor quality via carpets.
1:03:56 I don’t think that’s confusing.
1:03:57 And then some opportunity
1:03:58 to do some outdoor learning environments.
1:04:01 Unfortunately, this is scaled back quite a bit
1:04:04 than where it started, but still will allow us
1:04:08 to build some spaces.
1:04:10 I know when Sue’s been working with Jane and I,
1:04:13 for me, I’m looking at my schools, my presidential schools,
1:04:16 where the kids are indoors all day
1:04:18 in a really kind of stifling environment
1:04:21 and having some flexibility for teachers
1:04:23 to be finding out the outdoor classroom
1:04:25 we think would be pretty awesome.
1:04:27 And it’s probably self-explanatory
1:04:30 why we need to continue the custodial strike team.
1:04:33 They have really become all duties as assigned
1:04:37 and I know invaluable to her team.
1:04:43 2P1 is selfishly trying to improve the electrical system
1:04:48 in our welding program at Astronaut
1:04:50 and taking that opportunity.
1:04:53 Deep cleaning HVAC, right?
1:04:55 No big surprise that that is a big ticket item
1:04:58 and an important need to be in the budget.
1:05:00 And of course, filters and being much more aggressive
1:05:05 than we had prior to COVID on filter changing,
1:05:08 HVAC cleaning and all those related things.
1:05:11 To Q, fortunately or unfortunately,
1:05:17 we have spent a lot of money on expenses
1:05:21 related to the medical impacts of COVID
1:05:24 in regards to our staff.
1:05:25 The fortunate part is our provider codes them in a way
1:05:31 that we can see the actual hard costs
1:05:34 that COVID has impacted our health trust fund,
1:05:41 if I’m saying that correctly.
1:05:43 And so this will allow us to offset all of the medical costs
1:05:48 that have been associated with COVID.
1:05:52 We also have a line item for that in ESSER II for $4 million.
1:05:57 But that wasn’t enough about halfway through last year.
1:06:01 And so we’re probably going to approach if I could guess,
1:06:06 Dr. Thady 8 million would be a good guess
1:06:10 of the hard medical costs associated with COVID.
1:06:13 And this will allow us to offset the impact
1:06:16 to the health care trust fund.
1:06:19 Similarly, the differential energy costs,
1:06:22 one of the most important strategies
1:06:24 is running the air longer, more and more often.
1:06:29 So that comes with quite a cost on our energy bill.
1:06:33 But it’s something that everybody obviously agrees
1:06:35 it’s important.
1:06:36 So the increased cost to our energy bill,
1:06:38 we believe can be offset by ARP.
1:06:44 Activity 2R, this is truly the other category
1:06:49 and definitely hitting the number one priority
1:06:54 of our community.
1:06:55 Number one is premium pay.
1:06:58 So ARP ESSER explicitly included the ability
1:07:03 to do premium pay for employees.
1:07:07 And obviously, that was probably the first thing
1:07:10 I put into the plan.
1:07:12 Dr. Mullins had requested
1:07:15 that we carve aside $20 million towards that.
1:07:19 So you’ll see rows of information
1:07:22 based on the employee groups.
1:07:24 I’m going to bottom line you and tell you it’s $20 million.
1:07:29 This will allow for compensation in school year 23
1:07:33 and in school year 24.
1:07:35 Obviously, premium pay would be non-recurring
1:07:38 and would be tied into some criteria
1:07:42 and the amounts bargained by the bargaining units.
1:07:46 But that much has been carved aside
1:07:49 for the two years to be able to do that.
1:07:52 And I think that’s the first time that’s been public.
1:07:54 So there you go.
1:07:55 Now it’s written in the plan
1:07:56 and I’m feeling confident about it,
1:07:58 but I just want to emphasize
1:08:00 we don’t have an approved plan yet,
1:08:02 but did have the opportunity to verify
1:08:05 with the DOE yesterday that they agree
1:08:08 that premium pay is appropriate
1:08:10 and it’s in the federal regs as well.
1:08:12 So I feel rather confident
1:08:14 that it will be proved without question.
1:08:18 And then you’ll see some other strategies
1:08:22 related to compensation.
1:08:24 And again, compensation is very important.
1:08:27 I again want to emphasize bargaining and approved plan
1:08:30 and all those things so that I don’t get in trouble.
1:08:33 But we’re earmarking this money towards it.
1:08:36 You’ll see we’re continuing with the onboarding costs
1:08:40 of our substitutes.
1:08:42 We’re looking at additional funds
1:08:45 in terms of class coverage
1:08:47 when employees have to cover a class.
1:08:50 Employee overtime, interestingly enough,
1:08:54 this was a big miss by me in ESSER I and ESSER II.
1:08:58 We never built in overtime
1:09:00 and boy, if we use a lot of overtime.
1:09:02 So this is allowing to cover that in schools
1:09:05 and employees who want to do overtime
1:09:07 to do so without feeling like they’re breaking
1:09:10 the school bank.
1:09:13 Bus driver, assigning recruitment, retention
1:09:17 type opportunities, employment specialists.
1:09:21 One of the kind of, I didn’t get it until I saw this request
1:09:28 that the turnover and challenges have sort of doubled
1:09:32 the workload of the folks in human resources.
1:09:36 So some employment specialists to be able
1:09:38 to onboard more quickly and manage the turnover load.
1:09:44 Extended day school premium pay.
1:09:47 It was requested that we look at that
1:09:49 as an opportunity for our teachers
1:09:52 who are working in those extended school day environments
1:09:55 to receive an additional premium.
1:09:58 The continued employment of existing staff,
1:10:02 that is, those are positions we’ve been funding
1:10:05 for a couple years right now
1:10:07 that are above and beyond the staffing formula.
1:10:10 And you can see who’s sitting in those seats right now.
1:10:14 And that would continue them through school year 23 and 24.
1:10:19 The board and Dr. Mullins will of course have to decide
1:10:21 in school year 24 if that makes it back into fund balance
1:10:26 or not, the fund 100 or not.
1:10:29 And instructional reserve units.
1:10:31 We did the same this year with ESSER II.
1:10:35 Where we paid for all reserve units
1:10:39 and additional units given to schools
1:10:41 to be able to meet their needs.
1:10:44 Those six day count units.
1:10:47 And this will allow us to continue to cover those
1:10:50 for the next two years, of course,
1:10:52 at a dramatic savings to the district.
1:10:56 And then the rest on the budget sheet are indirect costs,
1:11:00 administrative costs, charter school costs.
1:11:04 And as you can see, the bottom line is 148 million,
1:11:06 I’ve got to get us to 144 million.
1:11:09 But again, I’ve got some tweaking to do.
1:11:11 I’ve got some errors to kind of clean up
1:11:13 and make another pass through it slowly.
1:11:17 As you can imagine, I’ve typed a lot of numbers.
1:11:19 So I’m gonna double check and cross check that.
1:11:24 And that I believe represents
1:11:29 what our community look for, what our educators look for.
1:11:33 Maybe nobody’s dream total.
1:11:36 But I think we did a really good job
1:11:39 of trying to hit multiple aspects
1:11:42 of the student experience, school operations,
1:11:45 and of course, our employees.
1:11:48 Okay, I’m done, I can go now, right?
1:11:50 (laughing)
1:11:53 - Wow.
1:11:57 This is, and I know you haven’t done it alone.
1:11:59 Obviously, you’ve done it with the input of your peers
1:12:01 and the support of your team.
1:12:02 But phenomenal work and a very, very short period of time.
1:12:07 And I’m thankful that they’ve given us
1:12:09 some extra time to address it.
1:12:12 But incredibly impressive that you all were able
1:12:14 to pull this together in such detail
1:12:16 and really address so many areas of need in our district.
1:12:21 So thank you.
1:12:25 Anyone else, questions, comments?
1:12:29 Thank you, I don’t have this on.
1:12:32 (silence)
1:12:36 Thank you.
1:12:42 Oh, no, no, no, it’s totally fine.
1:12:45 And I, you know, I have to say,
1:12:49 this has really been a BPS effort, right?
1:12:52 From the employees that who took the time out
1:12:54 to share their feedback and either attend
1:12:58 or online or whatever.
1:13:02 All the cabinet members, every one of them
1:13:04 did a significant amount of work
1:13:06 and they would all wanna thank their team.
1:13:09 Shannon Alvarez is probably one of the MVPs,
1:13:12 figuring out all those premium pay things.
1:13:15 And you know, the staff that did the work when we couldn’t.
1:13:18 So, secondary learning kept running
1:13:21 while I did nothing but.
1:13:22 And so it was truly a district-wide effort.
1:13:26 And I say our families, our communities,
1:13:29 the parents that came out to the meetings,
1:13:33 I think you’ll see something from everybody
1:13:36 throughout the plan.
1:13:37 So everybody’s serious involvement really made a difference.
1:13:42 And I think it’s gonna be good for kids.
1:13:47 (muffled speaking)
1:13:48 Thank you.
1:13:55 - I just wanna say thank you as well.
1:13:56 But you know, you brought this up during your presentation,
1:13:59 but I just wanna re-highlight the fact that
1:14:01 the reason that you guys were able to pull this together
1:14:04 was because you were proactive
1:14:06 and the whole entire team was proactive
1:14:07 and all the cabinet members to be ready
1:14:10 for when this money was finally released to us,
1:14:13 to be ready to go.
1:14:14 And so I appreciate you guys
1:14:16 for always being dedicated to the cause
1:14:18 and just pushing through with a ridiculous,
1:14:20 fast turnaround timeline, so thank you.
1:14:22 - Thank you.
1:14:23 - And I’m impressed that you only missed
1:14:25 one line item in all of this.
1:14:26 (laughing)
1:14:28 - It’s gonna, I’m gonna do like two days apart,
1:14:31 two separate tops to bottoms,
1:14:33 ‘cause I saw things I missed that you might not have caught.
1:14:38 - Mr. Susan.
1:14:45 - I concur with many of the sentiments that have been said.
1:14:48 Had a couple of questions, I was just gonna run through.
1:14:51 So each one of these has, you know, it’s very specific,
1:14:56 and I appreciate the cross-referencing.
1:14:58 It’s almost like a statute, support statute, really good.
1:15:01 There are some buckets that say like CTE
1:15:05 and all those other ones.
1:15:07 Do we have like a stronger subset of these,
1:15:10 like there’s some that talk about giving money
1:15:12 to like Title I schools for outdoor stuff
1:15:16 and everything else.
1:15:17 Is there a, is this just kind of a,
1:15:19 hey, this is how much we think it’s gonna cost,
1:15:21 we’re gonna divide it up among
1:15:22 and then we’re gonna do it that way?
1:15:23 Or is there a specific breakdown
1:15:25 of where those funds are gonna go internally
1:15:27 and a plan for it?
1:15:28 Like CTE, I think one says like $400,000.
1:15:30 - Yeah, mostly.
1:15:32 And so yeah, it’s some, we have really specific.
1:15:38 For the purpose of the grant,
1:15:40 we need to identify by function and object.
1:15:44 So basically by 5,300 is CTE and equipment is 640.
1:15:49 So we put money in there.
1:15:51 She has a pretty big list.
1:15:53 And so are my colleagues in all the other areas.
1:15:57 But as we’re modifying the budget to make it work,
1:16:00 then they will revisit it.
1:16:02 So for example, CTE or athletics
1:16:05 or any of those other areas,
1:16:07 teams will get together and figure out the best way
1:16:10 to allocate it based on the final approved budget.
1:16:14 So for music, Mrs. Orr will work with the music teachers
1:16:19 and they will put together a budget.
1:16:22 Most of them we’ve done by school.
1:16:24 So we anticipate an allocation per school.
1:16:27 So for example, in music,
1:16:30 our high schools will get $75,000.
1:16:33 So those schools will then identify the FF and E needs
1:16:38 within their music programs
1:16:39 with their three teachers to do it.
1:16:41 So as much as possible,
1:16:43 we wanted the actual impacted teachers involved.
1:16:46 CTE is a little different ‘cause of equipment.
1:16:48 It’s gonna be on our most failing equipment.
1:16:51 But athletics will be the same way.
1:16:53 We anticipate an amount per school
1:16:57 to then determine the FF and E that they most need,
1:17:01 considering of course gender equity, equipment needs
1:17:03 and all those kinds of things.
1:17:05 So a lot of it will go down to the school level
1:17:08 for final determination.
1:17:10 - Yeah, and the reason I was asking
1:17:11 is there are some schools that are just like you said,
1:17:14 the targeted for the CTE is gonna be
1:17:16 on the most failing of those programs, right?
1:17:20 Like the equipment that we go to purchase
1:17:22 is gonna be talking about, sorry.
1:17:24 - No, no, that’s okay.
1:17:25 - But I think that’s good,
1:17:26 because when we talk about just completely dividing it up,
1:17:29 might not be– - Yeah, correct.
1:17:31 - Okay. - Those will be really
1:17:33 determined by the team on,
1:17:36 like I know there was a list for automotive,
1:17:38 like super granular level will be made at that level.
1:17:42 Some of them, student supplies,
1:17:44 school-based things will be at the school level.
1:17:48 - So the other question I was gonna have,
1:17:49 and this may have already been said,
1:17:51 is okay, we have this 140 something million dollars
1:17:54 that we’re looking at for doing.
1:17:56 Is there a metric that we have that,
1:17:58 first off, are these separate funds,
1:18:00 kind of like the sales tax that we have?
1:18:04 Is it a separate fund and we’re showing those lineups?
1:18:07 It’s completely separate, we run it in a separate bucket.
1:18:09 And then as they’re spent, is there a way for us,
1:18:13 as board members or individuals to take a look and say,
1:18:15 okay, these got spent, these got spent, but these did not.
1:18:18 And that’s gonna lead to the next question,
1:18:20 which is what are we gonna do when we don’t,
1:18:22 you know what I mean, if some of these
1:18:23 are not able to be filled, because–
1:18:25 - Yeah, that’s a great question.
1:18:27 And that, I’m gonna use ESSER II as an example,
1:18:30 because we’re living that with ESSER II right now.
1:18:32 - Sure. - So,
1:18:35 we have the ability to amend.
1:18:37 So in ESSER II, we prioritize 32 parent liaisons,
1:18:44 which I thought was a brilliant idea, loved the whole thing.
1:18:47 We’ve only filled eight to 10 of them.
1:18:50 So those funds, we will kind of go back and revisit
1:18:54 and do an amendment for.
1:18:56 So we are constantly monitoring the budgets
1:18:59 for each line item, seeing where maybe we went over,
1:19:03 maybe we went under.
1:19:05 So when you do staff ones, you’re doing an average.
1:19:08 And so sometimes, you guess a little low, a little high,
1:19:12 we can amend the grant.
1:19:15 Medical insurance, and if you have a bunch of employees
1:19:17 that don’t take medical insurance,
1:19:19 then we’re gonna amend the grant to rewrite other priorities.
1:19:22 - Sure. - So each cabinet member
1:19:26 is the lead on the items in their area.
1:19:29 So when we got ESSER II, we sat and met
1:19:31 with each cabinet member, we gave them their budget,
1:19:34 they track their budget, and then submit possible amendments
1:19:38 throughout the way.
1:19:39 They still have to fit into the big bucket thing.
1:19:43 So we may be able to do more classrooms, right?
1:19:46 So, and obviously, Dr. Mullins has a final say.
1:19:50 But we may find two, three, four, five million,
1:19:53 which we will, and then we re-amend the budget,
1:19:56 we resubmit.
1:19:57 So this and this goes to the state,
1:20:00 literally every line item, they approve it.
1:20:03 If there’s not a line item in a budget,
1:20:05 we can’t spend the money there,
1:20:06 which is why this has to be so exhaustively detailed.
1:20:12 And then you submit another one that says,
1:20:14 take from here, add to there.
1:20:17 And so we’re right in the middle of doing that with ESSER II,
1:20:20 doing more instructional materials,
1:20:22 and moving the money around to make sure it is spent
1:20:26 as intended, so yeah.
1:20:28 - So what I’m hearing you say is that,
1:20:30 yes, it is a separate fund, yes, we do,
1:20:32 we will have some fall to the bottom line,
1:20:34 and there is a separate set of priorities
1:20:37 that we’re working on internally
1:20:39 that we would then fill those with.
1:20:42 Is there any direction from the Board on those priorities,
1:20:45 or you guys, ‘cause there’s probably some that are in here
1:20:48 that did not make the final cut, right?
1:20:50 So there’s like a whole ‘nother section two of the items,
1:20:53 kind of like we do with the capital budget every year
1:20:55 and everything else.
1:20:55 - For sure.
1:20:56 - Is that something that you need Board direction on,
1:21:00 or is that–
1:21:01 - Yeah, I would say, Doctor, you know,
1:21:04 as you think of things, which may be like a week from now,
1:21:08 in the middle of the night, let Dr. Mullins know,
1:21:11 is we can cost it out and kind of have it at the ready.
1:21:14 So with ESSER II, we’ve done that.
1:21:16 We’ve known what the priorities were,
1:21:18 and we’ve had it at the ready.
1:21:20 With all of the grants that we’ve managed,
1:21:23 I’m always sort of tuned into Board priorities
1:21:26 and Dr. Mullins’ priorities.
1:21:29 Those extras are much more realistically spent
1:21:32 on single purchases, as opposed to some of it,
1:21:37 times with salary, if there’s another year, that’s helpful.
1:21:41 But again, we have to watch maintenance of effort,
1:21:43 maintenance of equity.
1:21:45 So yeah, we amend all the time.
1:21:47 Dr. Mullins will say, “Hey, can we?”
1:21:49 And I was like, “Well, let me work on an amendment.”
1:21:52 We just are literally,
1:21:54 that’s what Frank is doing for me right now.
1:21:56 We got ESSER II lump sum about, what, four weeks ago,
1:22:00 and we’re already working on an amendment, so.
1:22:02 - That’s awesome.
1:22:03 - Yeah, definitely let Dr. Mullins know,
1:22:06 and then he and I meet on the regular.
1:22:09 - Sure.
1:22:10 - And so thank you for that.
1:22:12 And then, ‘cause there are a couple of things
1:22:14 that I was looking at that I’ll talk about in a second
1:22:15 that I was concerned about that may not,
1:22:17 we may need some more funds there.
1:22:19 But I was really interested in what you were saying
1:22:22 as far as metrics on each one of what we are going for.
1:22:26 You said that it’s a multitude of metrics.
1:22:28 You said not only is it student achievement,
1:22:30 but it’s engagement, it’s attendance.
1:22:32 That is fascinating, because one of the things we know is
1:22:35 is that those metrics are what we’re looking at
1:22:37 when we’re trying to go to student achievement
1:22:38 and drive-by-five and all those other ones.
1:22:41 Is that metrics attached to each one of these
1:22:43 that we’re doing?
1:22:45 And if so, that is incredible.
1:22:46 - There isn’t a specific metric for each item.
1:22:51 It really depends on the initiative, right?
1:22:53 - Okay.
1:22:54 - So we do, the state is expecting progress monitoring data.
1:23:00 There’s a whole separate narrative that I have to finish on.
1:23:04 Hopefully everything ultimately
1:23:05 improves student achievement, right?
1:23:06 So we’ll be using progress monitoring data.
1:23:10 I’m saying that vaguely, because right now,
1:23:14 our progress monitoring data is iReady, Read180, and MAP.
1:23:18 We infer from the state that it’ll be
1:23:21 a statewide one next year, and then that will become
1:23:24 one of our main metrics, along with other MTSS data,
1:23:28 everything from truancy, attendance, discipline,
1:23:31 all of those items.
1:23:32 So the state’s expecting us to measure the overall impact
1:23:37 and not necessarily the 600 different items that are on here.
1:23:43 So yeah.
1:23:44 - One of the reasons I asked Dr. Sullivan,
1:23:45 and again, thank you for this,
1:23:48 is because one of the arguments that we make
1:23:50 on a regular basis is that if we could utilize more funding,
1:23:54 what we could do for our students.
1:23:56 And here we have it, and here we’re about to start it,
1:23:59 and here’s the time when we can show the most gains,
1:24:02 because we just went into the drop.
1:24:04 So having those set and ready, and having them available
1:24:08 to talk to our community about, would be incredible.
1:24:10 And I know there’s nobody better than your team
1:24:12 to lead that, so I just was, I wanted to say thank you
1:24:15 for that, and I was really excited to work in that scope,
1:24:18 because I think that what we’re gonna see is
1:24:21 some real good improvement, and then we can make that case
1:24:23 as school board members to the state, and say hey,
1:24:26 this is where we need help.
1:24:28 The other thing I was–
1:24:29 - Yes, that’s good feedback, there’s, you know,
1:24:32 there’s gonna be a lot of interesting metrics on employees,
1:24:35 right, employee attrition, employee retention,
1:24:37 we’re putting a lot of money in, and a lot of effort
1:24:40 in trying to meet the needs of our employees.
1:24:42 I know Dr. Thady’s closely monitoring all of that as well.
1:24:46 I think we’ll have, as we move into school year 24,
1:24:51 we’ll have a pretty clear handle on what we feel
1:24:56 really passionate about continuing after this funding
1:24:59 is over, and you know, having that clear for the state,
1:25:04 I think is really important.
1:25:06 - And is there a way, I mean, I could probably do it
1:25:08 on here, but I was really happy that we didn’t just put
1:25:12 20% towards the learning loss, that we as a district
1:25:17 put that number, that is a metric that many other districts
1:25:20 are gonna be comparing to, because throughout the state,
1:25:22 you do have the two buckets, right?
1:25:24 ‘Cause that’s what I’m reading, and so us showing
1:25:27 that we care more about the learning, that’s incredible.
1:25:30 So thank you for doing that.
1:25:31 - Yeah, and I would argue probably half of the other ones
1:25:34 could fall in that same category, too.
1:25:37 And that was true in ESSER II and ESSER I as well.
1:25:40 We spent far more on academic initiatives.
1:25:44 And I think academic initiatives includes social emotional,
1:25:49 includes mental health, includes all of those efforts.
1:25:52 I probably could have put even more in there,
1:25:55 but I want to spread it out a little, so.
1:25:57 - Great, and then some of the, you know,
1:26:01 we have plenty of time to work on individual line items
1:26:04 and stuff like that, so I didn’t want to do that here,
1:26:06 but one of the things that I was looking at is that we’re,
1:26:08 there’s a couple of things inside of here that we’re doing
1:26:11 that are in like sort of like a pilot phase, right?
1:26:14 So like intramural safety, and some of the other things
1:26:17 that we’re doing, the fear that I have is that like
1:26:21 the intramurals, I think, is something we used to do,
1:26:24 it’s something that we need to do.
1:26:26 I would be fearful of starting projects and then not,
1:26:29 ‘cause like the student achievement loss, one thing,
1:26:32 that can be the gap, fill in that time period.
1:26:35 Intramurals is more kind of something
1:26:36 that we could push forward on.
1:26:38 - Yeah, they’re ready to go.
1:26:39 I mean, all of these are ready to go.
1:26:42 So everything in this plan is,
1:26:45 cabinet is just waiting for an approved plan.
1:26:48 But they do expire school year ‘24,
1:26:50 and so that’s to the point on the board,
1:26:54 and Dr. Mullen’s working on it will have to be tracking.
1:27:00 All right, as we’re getting to school year ‘24,
1:27:02 these are the things that I wanna hopefully continue.
1:27:07 They’re all ready to go, but they all will expire.
1:27:09 - Sure.
1:27:10 And then there’s, there are some things that I know
1:27:12 that we are, that we have that we are currently funding now
1:27:18 with like, you know, reoccurring funds and stuff like that.
1:27:21 And then we’re adding and enhancing them over the years.
1:27:23 So I was gonna talk in that field with y’all, so.
1:27:27 And then I was looking, where I’m gonna be focused,
1:27:29 just to give you guys a heads up, the athletic.
1:27:31 We have a couple of new sports that came online
1:27:34 with the FHSA, had parents at weight room in Cocoa,
1:27:39 where a kid, there was some, you know,
1:27:41 there was an equipment failure.
1:27:43 So I think that my concern is to make sure
1:27:44 that those areas are taken care of.
1:27:47 And that’s where I’ll focus.
1:27:48 So we have plenty of time to work on it.
1:27:50 I appreciate it.
1:27:51 And the other thing I was gonna say is that
1:27:53 where I think that I’ll be looking is at that reserve units
1:27:56 where we have 100 extra reserve units.
1:27:58 We’re at a point right now where we can’t even,
1:28:00 like we have a bunch of vacancies.
1:28:02 So there might be an opportunity that in the event
1:28:04 that these are very high level priorities,
1:28:07 that we might be able to lower the reserve unit
1:28:09 to fund some of those.
1:28:10 - I’m actually hoping to lower the reserve units
1:28:13 to cut the 4 million, and I still have to cut.
1:28:16 So right now, for this school year,
1:28:19 the good news is we did the same thing this year
1:28:21 with ESSER II, and actually just asked Mr. Stockman
1:28:26 this morning to give me hard costs,
1:28:29 and to look at every employee in those line items
1:28:33 and actual hard costs to see where I can save some money.
1:28:37 So right now, it’s about 90 allocated, maybe 70 filled.
1:28:43 That’s why we’re double checking.
1:28:45 So that’s gonna be my first stop
1:28:47 for the 4 million that I’m over.
1:28:50 But you’re thinking correctly.
1:28:51 So like at the end of this year, at the end of next year,
1:28:54 we might find ourselves with an additional 200,000
1:28:57 that could then get added to one of the FFNE projects.
1:29:01 FFNE projects are a great place for those underages to go
1:29:07 because they can amplify in a system
1:29:09 that we already have going.
1:29:11 Athletics, I gave them more than they asked,
1:29:14 and I would love to have given them more than that.
1:29:15 So that’s a really easy spot for if five people start late,
1:29:22 then I’ve got like another $50,000
1:29:25 that might go to an FFNE project,
1:29:27 albeit classroom furniture, or athletics,
1:29:30 or music, or activities.
1:29:31 - I think one of the issues that we were looking at,
1:29:33 and I was looking at the overall budget for it,
1:29:34 was that our weight rooms are really in bad shape
1:29:38 throughout the county, and that might be an area to go,
1:29:40 and the supplement that’s inside of there
1:29:41 was not at that point, that’s all.
1:29:43 But we can talk about all these afterwards.
1:29:44 - Yeah, I’m going, for me, that’s more a granular decision
1:29:50 by the team that oversees that,
1:29:53 and whether it’s weights or whatever,
1:29:56 I would say keep working with Chris Moore and Andrew,
1:30:00 and just keep telling Dr. Mullins,
1:30:04 and he will tell me regularly,
1:30:06 “Hey, do you have whatever?”
1:30:08 And I’ll say, “Let me get an amendment in and see what we can do.”
1:30:10 - Sure, thank you.
1:30:11 - Yeah, and for the awareness of anybody
1:30:14 that might be listening,
1:30:17 on our webpage, we have every application
1:30:22 and every amendment.
1:30:23 So if people are wondering,
1:30:25 “Well, what did you amend from the original?”
1:30:27 It’s all super transparent.
1:30:30 And so right now, this is our 15th grant.
1:30:34 Yeah, this is our 15th CARES CRISA ARP grant,
1:30:40 and then each one of those have several amendments.
1:30:43 All of those are posted on the website.
1:30:45 So this will all get posted on the website
1:30:47 as soon as I’m past draft EMS,
1:30:50 and any amendment we request
1:30:53 will also be posted on the website.
1:30:55 So there’ll be no confusion on where any dollar is going.
1:30:59 - Before we were canceled for a lot of the revenue
1:31:02 that we saw from the local funding,
1:31:04 back in 2005 through 2008, if you remember,
1:31:07 there were a lot of mentor-teacher supplements
1:31:10 and everything else,
1:31:11 and they worked if they were given the right way.
1:31:14 We’re about to do that,
1:31:15 and I’m extremely excited about it,
1:31:17 and that’s why I was getting into that.
1:31:19 Thank you so much for your work, Dr. Sullivan.
1:31:23 - Thank you, Mr. Cusick.
1:31:27 - I feel like you have to come.
1:31:31 (laughing)
1:31:37 (no audio)
1:31:47 - No.
1:31:50 - I wanna let you know we did have weight room,
1:31:52 locker room refurbishment
1:31:53 in the $280 million version of the plan.
1:31:57 So we pulled that off, but we have all the work,
1:32:00 and we felt like that was gonna be part
1:32:02 of some of the work we were gonna do
1:32:03 with Dujuan moving into the future,
1:32:04 but we have the information.
1:32:06 I think the other key there is that it’s not,
1:32:11 like it’s something that,
1:32:12 I feel it needs to be addressed immediately.
1:32:14 It was able to be addressed through here.
1:32:16 It’s something that we can talk about offline,
1:32:18 but the one other concern that I had
1:32:19 was that we have a bunch of FHSAA sports
1:32:22 that are coming online,
1:32:23 and we don’t have facilities for our kids
1:32:25 to be able to participate in those.
1:32:26 So just talking through those
1:32:28 with the athletic directors and stuff like that
1:32:30 would be good, but I think that’s one of the things.
1:32:32 Thank you.
1:32:33 They were one of our groups that we met with,
1:32:37 and they gave very specific feedback,
1:32:39 and we have it all, so for sure.
1:32:47 - So part of, and you have addressed this to some extent,
1:32:51 but I just feel like it’s important
1:32:53 for it to be recorded for eternity, if you will, right?
1:32:57 There’s been lots of discussion
1:32:58 about what happens when we hit the cliff, right?
1:33:04 And I feel like our team has done a really good job
1:33:06 of addressing that and committing dollars in places
1:33:09 where we can have a long-term impact
1:33:13 with a one-time spend, where we can, via attrition,
1:33:19 absorb a lot of those positions going forward.
1:33:22 And so could you just talk briefly
1:33:25 about our commitment here in Brevard
1:33:27 to not hit that cliff, and what we’re doing
1:33:29 to ensure that we can make decisions,
1:33:32 as was referenced, about this is something
1:33:34 we may wanna pull into Fund 100 after it’s all said and done?
1:33:38 - Yeah, we’ve actually been super mindful of that.
1:33:40 It keeps me up at night.
1:33:43 The only positions that you will see as funded by ESSER
1:33:47 are at a scale and in an area that we absolutely can absorb.
1:33:54 So for example, we just did the eight guidance personnel.
1:33:58 That is no question a position we can absorb.
1:34:01 Janes are primarily teachers.
1:34:03 As you can see, we’re not pulling teachers
1:34:06 up to the district when we’re in that hiring crisis, right?
1:34:12 So you’re not seeing positions added up here
1:34:15 or positions added in a way that A, are short-term,
1:34:18 and B, exacerbate our hiring.
1:34:21 So one of the things we try to do
1:34:23 is look for maybe a different type of employee
1:34:26 that isn’t already part of our workforce
1:34:28 that might find a niche in Brevard Public Schools
1:34:32 for these couple of years to help impact but not feel from,
1:34:36 ‘cause a lot of our positions,
1:34:37 we’re just stealing from each other every day.
1:34:39 So like one of us is always mad at each other
1:34:41 ‘cause we stole someone’s employee.
1:34:43 So we try to avoid any type of positions like that.
1:34:47 And so there’s, I’m not, the plan as it is
1:34:51 and what we’ve done with ESSER II and ESSER I,
1:34:54 I don’t have concerns about anybody
1:34:56 we’ve onboarded under ESSER.
1:34:58 However, there are positions that
1:35:04 if we didn’t have the hold harmless,
1:35:06 if we didn’t have some of the issues
1:35:09 to mitigate the impact of COVID,
1:35:11 we might have had to cut,
1:35:13 but we have maintained their employment because of this.
1:35:17 Those are the ones that are gonna be
1:35:19 the tough decisions in 2024.
1:35:22 ‘Cause part of the grant is,
1:35:24 it’s part of the big picture financial stability
1:35:26 for the country, right?
1:35:27 This is just education slice.
1:35:30 And so workforce stability was important.
1:35:32 It was in, they did not want people laid off,
1:35:34 those of us that did ARRA together, remember that.
1:35:37 And so in a normal situation of evaluating student needs
1:35:41 and personnel, we may have laid off some
1:35:43 had it not been for COVID.
1:35:46 So that decision has been delayed
1:35:49 in hopes of recovering enrollment
1:35:52 and some of the other economical issues
1:35:54 changing over this period.
1:35:57 I can tell you, Dr. Mullins talks to me about it
1:35:59 every single day.
1:36:00 And so really being mindful of that is important,
1:36:04 but you won’t see a lot of new positions.
1:36:07 You’ll see a lot of additional compensation
1:36:10 for our current additional incentives for our current
1:36:13 and resources for our current personnel
1:36:16 who feel like more valued and supported.
1:36:19 So we did not go personnel heavy by design.
1:36:22 And in fact, that was a lot of last night’s cuts, in fact,
1:36:27 just because of the concern,
1:36:29 we really wanna take care of our workforce.
1:36:31 - And that’s a great segue to my next question
1:36:35 or comment, I guess.
1:36:38 And that is, we hear a lot in education
1:36:42 that we have all of these dollars that are coming our way.
1:36:45 And obviously, we’ve put together an awesome plan
1:36:47 to utilize the dollars in fact, but can you speak
1:36:51 just a little bit just for clarification for our public,
1:36:53 if you will, and once again, for it to be there documented?
1:37:00 I feel like one of the struggles is the lack of understanding
1:37:03 about the difference between a recurring financial commitment
1:37:06 and a non-recurring financial commitment.
1:37:08 And so while we do have significant non-recurring dollars
1:37:13 currently available, addressing things
1:37:17 like long-term pay commitments would put us into recurring
1:37:21 that that doesn’t fit into this plan
1:37:24 and would bring us to that cliff, right?
1:37:26 - Yep.
1:37:27 - So has that also been a priority in looking
1:37:29 at how we are allocating these is making sure
1:37:32 that we differentiate there and focus as much
1:37:35 on non-recurring commitments as possible?
1:37:36 - Yeah, everything’s non-recurring that I have.
1:37:39 I mean, we didn’t build in anything that would be recurring
1:37:42 ‘cause I tell everybody it has to be expended
1:37:46 by September 2024, there’s no gray area.
1:37:51 Even some of the instructional materials contracts,
1:37:54 so we are paying for 3/5 of the contract
1:38:00 because we can only cover it for a year.
1:38:03 So some of the expenses will protect Fund 100
1:38:08 as the district recovers from the financial hardship.
1:38:11 So it’s giving some breathing room, if you will.
1:38:15 And some of it, of course, is just super targeted work
1:38:19 to eliminate barriers for student success.
1:38:22 And so, again, we just kept focusing on the barriers.
1:38:27 And the barriers include all the common things
1:38:30 that you can think of, but again, workforce, right?
1:38:33 So having a stable workforce is an unstable workforce
1:38:37 is a barrier to student success.
1:38:39 And so all of those are really targeted focused efforts
1:38:44 and definitely are not committing the district
1:38:48 and anything beyond it.
1:38:50 So we’ve been super careful about every contract,
1:38:53 every issue, even when we looked
1:38:55 at potential construction projects,
1:38:58 we were realistic about supply chain projects being done,
1:39:03 materials, time, and effort,
1:39:06 ‘cause it has to be fully completed by the time of it over.
1:39:10 And we can’t encumber something
1:39:12 that would obligate the district.
1:39:15 - Perfect.
1:39:16 - I don’t know if that answered your question.
1:39:17 - Yes, it did.
1:39:18 And you actually segued into my next question.
1:39:20 I promise I’m almost done.
1:39:22 But encumbered is important.
1:39:25 As we know, there’s been some discussion
1:39:27 at the state level about the utilization
1:39:29 of SR1 and SR2 funds.
1:39:33 And I address, Mr. Susan had asked,
1:39:37 will the board be updated on when these dollars are spent
1:39:41 and how they’re spent?
1:39:43 And I’m assuming, I know our finance department
1:39:46 and you’re on top of it all of the time.
1:39:49 But documenting the difference for explanation
1:39:53 for the board and anyone else
1:39:54 who may be looking at those numbers,
1:39:58 I’m assuming that it will be documented
1:40:00 what we have committed, what we have encumbered
1:40:03 and what we have actually spent throughout that process.
1:40:06 - Yeah, that comes up a lot.
1:40:09 We actually get requests on that a lot from the DOE.
1:40:12 And it’s tricky.
1:40:14 And so using personnel as one example,
1:40:18 we’ve just committed to personnel for school year 23
1:40:23 and school year 24, bonuses for school year 23 and 24,
1:40:28 like all these things.
1:40:29 So that money is going to be looking unutilized
1:40:33 through that time period.
1:40:34 It’s budgeted, it’s planned for,
1:40:37 there’s intentionality around it.
1:40:40 But if somebody just wanted to look at a number
1:40:43 at the state, they would see that we haven’t used it.
1:40:46 So I really discourage that line of thinking,
1:40:50 but I don’t have any power over that line of thinking.
1:40:53 And so I’m always happy to show the budget.
1:40:55 No, it’s budgeted.
1:40:57 We’ve got 24 more months to pay these people.
1:41:00 And so it’s not going to show as expended
1:41:04 ‘cause they’re not looking at budgeted.
1:41:06 And so that’s frustrating on our end
1:41:08 because we understand that.
1:41:09 The other thing happens in large purchases.
1:41:12 So I’m gonna use our last $2.8 million technology purchase
1:41:17 from Esser 2’s Technology Assistance.
1:41:21 We placed the order literally like three days
1:41:23 after we got the money.
1:41:25 It won’t show as obligated
1:41:28 until we actually get the computers.
1:41:31 And we don’t anticipate getting them until February-ish,
1:41:34 if we’re lucky.
1:41:35 And so those dollars are gonna look like
1:41:38 we haven’t touched those dollars.
1:41:39 Some people may say we don’t need that money.
1:41:42 We have a budget, we have a plan.
1:41:43 It’s really clear on where the budget’s going.
1:41:46 As you guys can see, this many pages detailed
1:41:49 every single dollar, but it may not appear that way
1:41:54 based on the questions being asked.
1:41:57 I can’t solve that.
1:41:58 So it’s a grant that goes through 2024.
1:42:01 We’ve judicially planned it out to have maximum impact
1:42:05 to our students and our staff over, and our community,
1:42:09 over those next two and a half years.
1:42:12 And so I would just hope people ask further questions
1:42:15 to understand that.
1:42:17 Again, that’s also why we put every single thing
1:42:19 on the website so that if somebody had a question,
1:42:22 they could see every line item, planned expenditure,
1:42:26 and you’ll see notes like school year ‘23, ‘24,
1:42:29 so that anybody who looks at it
1:42:32 can see the intentionality of the plan.
1:42:35 - Awesome, thank you, Dr. Sullivan, Mr. Susan.
1:42:40 - In a subset that says place order awaiting the block.
1:42:43 You know what I mean?
1:42:44 Something in there so that they can see.
1:42:45 ‘Cause you’re right, and that’s not fair to us.
1:42:48 - Well, they don’t ask, that’s the thing.
1:42:50 So typically what’ll happen, what I’ve seen,
1:42:54 in my experience with ESSER I or ESSER II,
1:42:57 they’re looking at the drawdown from the state.
1:43:01 And it’s not gonna draw down from the state
1:43:03 until it’s executed.
1:43:05 With a question, I could absolutely answer all of that.
1:43:08 They’re just not always looking to that degree.
1:43:11 - Yeah, not so much for them.
1:43:12 Even though the DOE does stuff for us too, in our public,
1:43:15 so thank you.
1:43:16 - Yep, and we do quarterly updates,
1:43:19 and again, 15 of them are sort of live right now,
1:43:23 and just for the sake of the group we mentioned
1:43:26 at the board meeting, ESSER I is pretty much done.
1:43:30 We are, we’re sitting on about 150,000.
1:43:34 That’s all in charters.
1:43:35 Charters haven’t fully expended theirs yet.
1:43:37 So again, the charter expenses are also in our budget.
1:43:42 And ESSER II is being operationalized as we speak,
1:43:46 and getting ready for a big amendment.
1:43:50 - Thanks, Dr. McMillan.
1:43:53 - Yeah, if I could just add just additional comments.
1:43:56 I appreciate the interest and concern, Ms. Belford,
1:43:59 about the reality that these are limited funds.
1:44:03 They are finite funds.
1:44:06 Ms. Lesinski and her team are working very closely
1:44:09 to monitor and manage those items,
1:44:13 not only that have provided workforce stability for us,
1:44:18 ‘cause the board is very aware,
1:44:20 we have used some fund balance to offset our loss of revenue
1:44:26 and not have to do workforce layoff.
1:44:28 That was our priority.
1:44:30 We know we’re hopefully in the swing
1:44:33 of enrollment recovery, so we’re monitoring that.
1:44:38 But also, those items like middle school intramural,
1:44:44 once we’ve implemented those,
1:44:46 it’s hard to not want to continue and perpetuate them.
1:44:50 So beginning now to know what that priority list
1:44:54 is gonna be come to fiscal year 2025.
1:45:00 So we will have that waiting for the final plan
1:45:03 to be approved.
1:45:05 We will be managing and monitoring that regularly.
1:45:08 And our regular updates to the board
1:45:10 throughout this next two years, two and a half years,
1:45:12 we’ll provide a look at that as well for the board,
1:45:16 because there are positions in here
1:45:19 that are currently offsetting fund 100 expenses.
1:45:23 That but for the grant, we wouldn’t continue to carry
1:45:27 because we’re already, the board knows
1:45:29 the $14.9 million revenue decline
1:45:32 from last fiscal year to this fiscal year.
1:45:35 So fortunately, the grant has allowed us
1:45:38 to provide that workforce stability,
1:45:40 which is allowable moving forward.
1:45:43 I wanna highlight just how much thought
1:45:47 and intention went into this whole process.
1:45:51 One to one technology.
1:45:53 Mr. Cheatham and his team have had
1:45:56 a one to one technology priority
1:45:59 moving out the next several years.
1:46:02 What this allows us to do is accelerate that.
1:46:06 And now he is able to use those out years
1:46:10 to build the sustainability.
1:46:12 And that’s what’s so exciting about investing this one time
1:46:16 in technology getting us to the standard.
1:46:19 But he’s now working to take the funds
1:46:22 we know will have in a recurring sense through capital LCI.
1:46:27 And now let’s have a sustainability plan
1:46:30 so that we don’t have five years, seven years from now,
1:46:35 not only the financial cliff when the money is gone,
1:46:38 but then the technology failure cliff.
1:46:41 So I wanted to reassure the board
1:46:42 that a lot of thought and consideration
1:46:44 has gone into sustaining that.
1:46:48 But I appreciate the opportunity.
1:46:49 Just kudos to the entire grants team of a few,
1:46:56 as well as just tremendous yeoman’s work
1:46:59 on behalf of cabinet in literally two weeks
1:47:03 to present such a thoughtful, intentional,
1:47:07 integrated proposal impacting across our entire district,
1:47:14 all facets and stakeholders.
1:47:17 It’s just been a real impressive demonstration
1:47:21 of the commitment of the people behind this organization.
1:47:26 - And Dr. Mullins, for the sake of,
1:47:29 there are people here, huh?
1:47:31 For the sake of anybody listening,
1:47:34 we will post the application as soon as it’s ready,
1:47:37 and then note that it’s not yet board approved
1:47:39 for anybody that wants to view the application.
1:47:42 And then, of course, we’ll note when it’s board approved.
1:47:46 Just still a week or two with crossing the T’s,
1:47:51 dotting the I’s, finding mistakes,
1:47:54 but it should be relatively soon.
1:47:57 - Thank you, Dr. Sullivan.
1:47:59 - Anyone else have anything?
1:48:01 - I’ll just tell you, Dr. Sullivan,
1:48:02 when I got the call from Dr. Mullins
1:48:03 telling me that we had gotten word that we had two weeks
1:48:06 to get this submitted to the state,
1:48:08 my first, the first thing I said to him was,
1:48:11 thank goodness our team was already ahead of the ball.
1:48:14 I can’t imagine where other districts may be
1:48:17 at this point in time being asked to do this amount of work
1:48:20 in truly two weeks, when we,
1:48:22 you guys were just so far ahead of it, so.
1:48:24 - I think they were quite vocal,
1:48:26 which is why there’s now an extension.
1:48:29 We grimaced, but we were okay,
1:48:32 as we knew we had already done so much community feedback.
1:48:37 But yes, I think those other districts spoke loudly
1:48:40 and got a delay, and I’m thankful to try to catch errors
1:48:44 and fine tune, and I’m literally hand input
1:48:47 almost every number on that sheet,
1:48:49 and there could be a million dollars off somewhere.
1:48:52 I don’t think so, ‘cause I double checked that this morning.
1:48:55 But I am thankful for the opportunity
1:48:58 to do much more detailed work.
1:49:00 - I’m sure, and hopefully get some rest in between as well.
1:49:03 Somewhere. - That’s the plan.
1:49:04 - A little.
1:49:06 All right, thank you so much.
1:49:07 - Thank you.
1:49:09 - All right, hearing no further business,
1:49:10 this first up is adjourned.
1:49:17 (upbeat music)