St. Louis Public Schools Board of Education - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon and thank you all for joining us this afternoon for this year's portion of our um community budget forum. Today we'll go over a few things. I have first with me I'm Myra. We also have uh Kelly Dilbell. You'll be hearing from her. She's our ex executive director of finance and we have Miss Mack who was really the brains behind the money piece when we're creating this budget and she's our budget manager. Um, a few things. If you do have questions, we do ask. You can certainly put those. And can you hear me? Thank you, Miss Walker. I see your face. Can you hear me? Okay. Yes.

Okay. Perfect. Thank you. Um, if you have questions, please feel free to either drop them in the chat for us and we will pause to answer those. We do have a um a monitor on here, Jordan. He's assisting us. And feel free to stop us at any time. You can put your hands up and we'll make sure that we will respond to your questions. you do not have to wait till the end to um ask any questions. So today we'll go over a few things. We're going to talk about the data. You'll hear about the budget of where we are currently in this fiscal year and also where we are trying to go. You'll also hear about why we are going to spend and ask the board to approve a budget that is larger than this year's budget. We're also going to show you where we cut cost for next year as well as how and why there was an increase in the ask of funds. And then finally, you will get a glimpse into the 2728 academic year and our hope to get back to stabilization and moving forward to creating a balanced budget. As always with everything that we do, we are looking at and focusing on our students. And so we keep the core values that we look at and the portrait of a graduate and how we're going to get there. And so today with our agenda, a few items we'll talk about. We'll talk about the various buckets that you will see in the budget and what goes into each of those buckets. We'll talk about what the data says, the current data. We're going to look at again this fiscal year. We're going to look at the expenditures, the revenues in comparison to the future expenditures and revenues for the 27 um 2627 fiscal year. We'll talk about why it matters. We'll talk about as well next steps and again any questions, but do not wait till the end.

Feel free to um pose those questions. Now, I'm going to turn over now to Miss Dobel. So, I want to talk to you a little bit about how we do our budgeting. Um, in the school district, we budget by fund. We have our general operating budget and that's where most of our expenditures lie. That's where we collect our revenues from property taxes and for that we pay with salaries, things like salaries, benefits, transportation, and supplies in the classroom. We have our um federal and our or our grants bucket. Federal funding and grants is all in the same fund. Those are that's where we pay for things for our title programs, our special education funding. And then we have local grants, things like the St. Louis education fund, any trusts or endowments and Parsons blew it. We have a debt service fund and that's where we pay for things that have to do with our bond payments, which is like a mortgage payment that you would have in your own household. We have a food service fund. That's where we get revenue from the state reimbured for our meals and we pay for things like breakfast, lunch, and snacks, afterchool snack for our students. And then finally, we have our Prop S fund. That's where we receive the revenue when we sell bonds. And then we do all of our repairs. Some things that we've done with those Prop S monies so far are restroom updates, roofing, windows, and doors. Those are our big capital projects. Then a little bit about the budget buckets or the buckets of expenditures that we have within each of those funds. The biggest bucket that we use to spend is the one for employee salaries, benefits, health insurance. And also in that bucket is our property and liability insurance and workers comp.

Actually, property and liability insurance is over in the purchase service buckets. I'm purchase service bucket, I'm sorry. Um, but in that we also have transportation costs and food service management costs. And then our supply bucket, supply and material bucket. That's where we buy things for teachers, technology, books, paper, consumables that will be used in the classroom. And then finally, our capital outlay bucket. And that's where we pay for things besides the Prop S. We pay for things like construction, any renovation or repair, and then any equipment that's over $5,000 by item. So, let me talk to you a little bit about our budget development timeline for the upcoming year. Um, in February, we distributed our general operating budget workbooks to the cabinet departments and the schools. And from there, those individuals began building the expenditure budget. Then in March, we went through staffing reviews with HR and we continued building that budget. And then during the months of March and now in April, we continued reviewing and refining the expenditure requests from everyone and the allocations that were given in addition to adding known costs for our bond and our debt payments. Then this month we did some grant projections and we accounted for preliminary allocations that we have already received from the state. We reviewed those and then we did about 90% of what we received during this fiscal year we're operating in right now. And all of those numbers combined together are what we use to develop the grant budget. And then we are presenting to the community. We did our in-person forum last week and today we're doing our virtual presentation and then later this month we plan to present the preliminary budget document to the board of education for their review and then

we're aiming for final approval at the May 12th board meeting. So let me talk to you a little bit about our general operating revenue. I'm going to compare between FY26, the year we're in right now, and what we are projecting out for next year, which we refer to as FY27. Um, we are very conservative when we budget for our revenue. Um, that is not an area that we want to um overbudget for. We want to make sure that we're bringing in what we budget for to offset our expenditures. So, we are conservative in our estimates. Um, right now we've already received more than what we budgeted. So when we projected for next year, we are projecting that increase of about $10 million overall in our general operating budget. So as we looked through expenditures and analyzed the different requests from departments and from the buildings, we ha we developed three different scenarios from those initial expenditures. Um the initial requests as you can see were quite a bit higher. The number at the very bottom it says FBS that stands for fund balance spend. So those are expenditure requests that were in excess of the revenue we expect to bring in. So as you can see the initial request summary is quite a bit higher than we developed two alternatives. We are recommending alternative one. Um and we're going going to go into detail a little bit more on that in the next slide. Um but the department requests increase due to things such as a refresh of student technology. Um, you're probably familiar with the fact that we received a lot of all schools received ESSER monies several years ago and we

bought technology with that. So, we're at that point where our technology is old and we need to refresh that. So, those expenditures are high. Um, transportation expenditures are going up. We have contractual obligations with our transportation companies and we know those incre those those expenditures are going to be increasing due to things like fuel prices. Um and then we know about things such as our curriculum adoption. So those are all known things from our departments that went into developing this. We also are going to experience an increase in property and liability insurance. Utilities have gone up. Then services that we provide our students in special education such as occupational and physical therapy and nursing services. Legal services goes into those items as well as operational overtime and transportation expenditures for our students in transition.

All right. So now we're going to talk a little bit more about the indepthness of the ask and where we are now versus where we are trying to go in the request that we'll have at the board for next year. So in that um second column where you see it says fiscal year 2026 budget that's what we are estimated to spend this current year. We're looking at to spend approximately 179 million for employee salaries. Right underneath that, it talks about the extra service that goes with the employee salaries. And I do know that Mobel just mentioned a few of those areas, but that's um you talk about extra services tied to the salaries. Looking at the benefits with those salaries, we are looking to spend approximately $83 million in benefits. And just to give you an example of what how the benefits work, if you have an employee that's making roughly close to $45,000, if you tack on the benefits, you're looking at a little over $78,000. So that's about $33.5,000 that we're looking at on someone that's making $45,000. So just 10,000 less of what they're actually making for their salary. You will then see the extra service because with extra service is still part of your salary benefits are included. And then you have your purchase services. Our purchase services includes our OT, our PT, our physical therapy, occupational therapy, our nursing services, not our nurses, but nursing services. We're looking at food, transportation, legal services, travel, meeting expenses, as well as for staff and students will go in that bucket. Our supplies and materials are just what they are. Supplies and materials and our capital outlay. Those are items that are usually over $5,000 that we are purchasing. So now when we are looking at the two so I'm sorry the initial budget where we

are now you will see this year staff are asking for about $197 million saying that's what they need for next year in addition to if you see employee benefits with that $197 million going to cost us about $97 million for benefits alone. Purchase services were at $71 million. um our 29 million for supplies and then a roughly 2.5 for capital outlay. Now let's look at our budget one and budget two so we can talk about the differences in these two. Again, we are going to recommend budget number one to the board. But if we're looking at the differences from that 192 million to that 194 million, both have taken into account 100% of filling vacancies for teacher positions. So budget one and budget two, that's a 100% vacancy fill rate for teacher positions. However, when we're looking at central office fill rate for budget two, that's 100%. At budget number one, we're looking at filling central office vacancies at 50%. When we also look at just the variance in salaries, we're looking at roughly about $13 million increases in salaries. And we'll talk about the why. This isn't because we're just saying, "Oh, we think more people should get paid more." This is about negotiated increases and Miss Dobble will talk about that on the next slide. I do want to point out because I know we always talk about fund balance. So, there was a uh board policy where your fund balance had to have at least 30% of your budget in your fund balance. Just to give you reference, the actual state of Missouri requires at least 3%. Most districts of our size have about 18

to 25% of their revenue in their fund balance. So looking at this year, we would have ended our fund balance after starting the year this year, we would have had about $218 million in the fund balance. We're guesstimating to spend about $32 million over the revenues that we're bringing in. With that, we are estimating to end this year with roughly $186 million sitting in the fund balance. So, starting this year, we had about 51% of monies um sitting in our fund balance. We are set to end the year and start next year with about 45% in the fund balance. And then with the request of asking the board to spend approximately over again these are all guesstimations and it certainly probably will change for final numbers about $41 million over that will be able we will finish the year next year with still 35% in our fund balance with roughly $145 million in the fund balance. However, we know that is not sustainable and this is our hope to ask the last year to have such a large increase over the revenues that we actually bring in. And so now we will ask uh Miss Doville to explain a little bit more about if you did the math on our budget one to the what we were actually spending this year, it's roughly about $19.8 million differences after we still trimmed in the other areas. So, let's go over those differences. Um, as Dr. Barry mentioned, the largest increase from last year to this to the year we're moving into is going to be in salaries and benefits. And those are previously negotiated salaries, um, benefits for health insurance, all of the things we provide our employees. Um, we are going to see a

$7.4 4 million increase to our general operating budget because we are moving the academic instructional coaches from being paid with title money over into being paid with our go budget and that is because of a decrease in our title allocation that we receive as a district. um transportation. We know there's going to be a $1 million increase in our transportation costs both with our contracted transportation provider and then in addition providing uh transportation services to our students in transition. And then lastly to add to that 19.8 million increase is $400,000 for vacant teacher positions. Last year we only budgeted those vacant positions at 15% and this year we are budgeting them where we need to be budgeting them. So that's an increase in how we budgeted from one year to the next. Let me talk to you a little bit now about our grants budget. When we do the grants budget, we budget our revenue and our spend equally on the grants. So on our local, state, and federal grants, you can see the numbers that we're projecting. As I mentioned before, local grants include things like the foundation, any endowments, trust, Parsons, blue it, and then our state includes things like adult ed and literacy, career and technical education, and then early childhood special education. And then again, our federal um grants budget includes title funding, idea or special education. So like I mentioned, our grants budget, the revenue, we're projecting a decrease in that for next year and there will also be a decrease in the

expenditure budget for grants that will reflect the lower amount of revenue. Um it is possible that on that federal line we may have some additional spend over what we bring in and that would be due to food service because just like in your homes we're seeing increases in food costs and in paper costs. Um and also there's a cost just for the operational service for the provider to run to run the program. Um we'll pause really quick. I did not see any questions but before we go on to the next portion we just did not know if there were any questions any lingering questions burning questions

there is one question in the chat um is there a current chart of vacancies or historic vacancies and a risk assessment to operations based on type of vacancy

so for the first portion and I believe Miss ions may be on here for the first portion. Yes, we do have a current list of vacancies and we also have um a comparison of vacancies that have been filled over time or those that have been vacant um for quite a lengthy time. And we do look at that to say, hey, we haven't filled this vacancy in 3 years. We need to go ahead and possibly filter these into um another job description and potentially this job is it needed or do we need to look at this job description to say what are we asking? Is it what we really need and how why is the public not interested in this particular job description? Um to the last portion, we have done that with right now just the finance department, but we are looking into um every department to see how we compare versus not only just other districts, but also what positions that we have in comparison to what we currently neither need or what we should have. Can you give me the last part of that question one more time, Jordan? Yeah, no problem. Um, is there a current chart? Let me use these or historic vacancies and a risk assessment to operations based on the type of vacancy.

Correct. And we have not done a risk assessment to the type of vacancies. I would love for you, Jordan, to get the um person's name that asked that question just so I can get a little bit more understanding or if the person wanted to come off mute to explain a little bit more about the ask just make sure that I'm understanding so we can fully make sure that we look into that. Yeah, Mr. Mr. Lindsay, if you're still in uh the

Yeah, I'm happy to come off mute and I don't want to take up too much time here. Uh, I'm in particular interested in whether or not the school district is going to be able to set a baseline complement of staffing at the school level. Something that has never been articulated or provided by SLPS in its past for parents to understand what type of staffing should be at every school. And that's where that question is coming from. Thank you.

No, thank you for explaining. That's very helpful. And so what I can tell you is twice a year we do have staffing meetings and um every school is unique. So of course there are desi standards that they provide about what staff you need for buildings. There are also individual building standards that we look at to see how much spaces and and the actual classroom versus the size of students what's needed also the different courses that are being taught. But we are in a very unique position because when we get to talking about reshaping the district and part of the um what we're undergoing right now is we have a team of principles. We are actually going around to individual schools to look at what schools are saying how many classrooms they need. How many um teachers do they think they need per per pupil? And we're determining what that looks like for SLPS to have a clear definition to be able to yes share with the public. But along with that, we are going to also work with the public when we go over these next couple of months to talk about what does it look like to have a well-resourced school and what is the definition that we're using a well-resourced school to be able to clearly articulate to our parents in the community what resources meaning staffing looks like for each individual school. So, thank you for your question and I think when we go through these next couple of months and over the next year, we will have something that's finite to share with the public. Um, so thank you and make sure you hold us to it. So, thank you for that.

And I do want to say before we move on to the next part, um, Attorney Dutch put in the chat that if anyone has, um, questions regarding, uh, records or anything like that that you can always make a Sunshine Act request or Yeah. And and you can make those requests at S is in SAM, A is in Apple, R is in Robert, SLPS.org. Those are for public record requests that email.

Absolutely. Thank you. All right. Seeing no more questions right now, we'll keep going. And so we get to the point we're talking about why does this matter? I know we gave you a lot of data points, but the the reasoning behind this. And so, um, we do know at St. Louis Public Schools, it is our responsibility not just to make sure that we're educating students for today, but to be able to sustain that in future years. And so we want to make sure that we are positioning ourselves and making sure that the budget reflects that. And so right now, this is what we're asking to get us through this next year, but then also making sure we're making a dual commitment to meeting the needs of the students right now, but also to begin to create a sustainable path forward. And so over time, just like many urban districts, we have shifts in enrollment and operational shifts increased in our systems. Um, but these realities, they're act they're they're real and they require us to make thoughtful and sometimes very difficult decisions to ensure that we are aligning our resources to meet our current needs, especially the needs that we are talking about our core for. We're talking about the attendance. We're talking about our literacy. We're talking about financial stability and operational effectiveness. And so by aligning to these resources that we can ensure that every dollar is being spent directly on the learning and teaching and the safe and effective systems and then our overall health of the district. But we must first stabilize where we are and we understand that and we are hoping over these next few months that you will be able to help us do that. And this just doesn't mean that we're going to have to continue to overextend ourselves. We have to stop overextending our resources, but also making sure that we're not underutilizing our schools and not compromising our ability to deliver high quality education. And again, this is going to cause us and we must make sure that we are being fiscally responsible

and looking ahead as we are going to reshape and restructure the district, but also doing this with the budget will allow us to engage again deeply in conversations over the next few months with our community and also with our families to meet the needs. Our future planning of the schools will help us again be able to utilize our facilities in a way that will ensure that every building is a well-resourced building. But we are not going to make these decisions in isolation. We are going to create conditions that our communities be able to help us and figure out how we can strengthen our school district to make our entire community successful. And we begin to align our resources, we become and we create stronger and more sustainable schools and communities. Thank you. And the way we're going to do this, I just mentioned about working with our community. So, we're going to have a few meetings. First, we're going to have a planning committee that's comprised of a smaller group of stakeholders. It is our hope to have three meetings in June. with these three meetings that we will have created um a shell of three plans. And with those three plans, we we want to present those to the community to look at, take apart, say what you do like, what you do not like, what you think we should do, how we should change it, add it, and hopefully help us generate one full plan. We will then go back to the planning committee um maybe either depending on the dates for our um July meetings. And just to give you an idea, we are going to bring these meetings to you. Uh Chief Watson, you'll hear from him soon, but we are actually meeting with community groups to see if we can have these actual meetings in our community centers right in the neighborhoods. And so between July and August, we'll have that final meeting with our planning committee from what the community has said and taken all that feedback back and then present a proposal to the board and hopefully

start the implementation of this with our staffing with um with the community with the uh teachers with our families in that September October month and then implementing that all the way throughout the year to be able to successfully start the new year for the 2728. But with this, we are also going to come to the community to ask for a bond issuance. And when we talk about a bond issuance, just first trying to help. Um, I know many of you are probably already astute. We we've asked the community for bonds in the past, but just a refresher. So, a bond is essentially a way for the school district to borrow money now and then to be able to pay it back. And the exciting part is right now we have about because we were um good stewards of how we were able to invest our money. And I know you may have seen presentations where people steep people, they come and talk about how we have a a minus rating. And so with that, we were able to invest money and we have about $500 um million dollars that we could potentially ask the community to approve. Um we are going to ask for roughly approximately $200 million. But at that $200 million, it's going to be a new no tax increase. And so we're asking again to be able to get that money upfront and then we'll be able to um pay that back over time. It's usually between 10 and 30 years, but this will help us to be able to do renovations, improve safety, have upgrades, enhancing our our buildings. And again, it's almost like a mortgage where it spreads out over time, allowing us to make the improvements now while making the payments later. and we'll be able to use um older debt because the the bonds we've had in the past to pay off some of the newer debt while also making sure that we are staying again fiscally responsible while doing so. And just a few things that we're going to talk about when we're going to ask the community what the bond issuance when we create what a well-resourced school looks like and modernizing our classrooms, beautifification and

community pride, talking about safe and secure buildings, having state-of-the-art facilities and and fields and having a place where our children can actually call in and have pride just like any other school district. Innovative learning spaces that we are looking to have. I talk about those safety measures with the vestibues um and you'll see some some of those that we're going to actually talk about having for starting with our high schools um and just being responsible and using the existing buildings and how we can use the actual envelope of the building and maybe go in and to create a better learning space. So again, it's not just about the buildings, but this is about an opportunity that we can have again to have excellent classrooms, learning environments, thoughtful community support and neighborhoods while also remaining fiscally responsible not just to our district but to our community. And again, this will be a no tax increase and it's safe and innovative ways to to utilize this to make our schools more modernized and to sustain our communities. So, you will um hear more about that, but I did wanted to give you just a look into what we are talking about doing. And now we're going to turn it over to uh and thank you, Chief Watson. He is actually presenting at a U council of great city schools right now to um share some of the unique things that our districts are talking about doing and we want to do. So, thank you for joining us and I will turn it over to you, Chief Watson.

All right. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Barry, the finance team. Uh, thank you all for joining in on this forum. Um, so I do want to mention and Dr. Barry, I appreciate you setting the tone in terms of where we are and where we plan to go as SLPS being future ready. The district has had several stakeholder meetings that have taken place. Uh, we've had meetings such as the citywide blueprint or the citywide plan. Um, we've had engagement sess sessions uh that was conducted last year. And then we have one other data point uh that we have done with our partners Cordic and Clark which is the facility master plan. The facility master plan provides projection of current costs and projection of future capital needs throughout the district. So capital needs is defined from procurement standpoint is any any type of equipment um systems that are over $5,000 or purchases over $5,000. So from an operational or from facility lens that is almost anything that we do to put it in perspective a typical boiler or heating system ranges anywhere from 250 to half a million dollars which is a capital need a capital improvement. So the slide that is presented in front of us it shows some of the data over the next five years. It gives the current and it's based on the current numbers of schools that we currently have uh in the district. So over the years the data show how much we will spend which you will see in the bottom right hand corner of approximately $438 million in capital repairs or sometimes we call deferred maintenance. So each year you will be able to see how much of capital needs that in in terms of dollars that are needed to maintain our

systems and operations within the district. So Dr. Barry has charged the cabinet the leaders the district as a whole to decrease and reduce our budget. And although the data shows that in order for us to maintain and sustain these operations, we do have some solutions to save cost for our facilities or our deferred maintenance. So the next slide and I'll bleed with the concept that if we build it, they will come. So for these next few slides, we'll show some photos and as Dr. Barry mentioned around the opportunity that we have within the district and that from our stakeholders and again I applaud the city residents for our bond issue um where we had a 87 passage rate uh which is almost unheard of again as as being in the the meeting at a conference where uh across the country again this is a conversation that that we're having but one of the items that help support not only the capital needs and even for new buildings or new infrastructure are through a bond. So the concept that you see in front of us is a slide or visual of a new elementary school with the early childhood center component. So note the welcoming appeal to the school with a parking lot and an entrance entrance for pickup and drop off location for students. The next slide shows the outdoor play. with a screened in fence for for students safety. And you can see just visually you can see it like a walk-in trail for our staff with seating with with shades. Next, we looked at what a potential middle school could look like. The middle school again focusing on the the pickup and drop offs in the roundabout.

and you look at the wide entryway that helps prevent congestion or bottlenecks as students are coming in and out of the facility or the building. The next slide you will see uh the the aerial view and you will see an adjacent field athletic field in particular to our middle schools. Extracurricular activities are increasing. the needs for athletic space is is an opportunity because students are participating more in extracurricular activities. So imagine if we have a new facility and again with an athletic facility or an athletic space for not only outdoor play but for gym or for PE and physical education and other ways that students can get out outside and get outdoor um get some air from outdoor. The next slide we is another conceptual and this is of a high school. You can see the welcoming entrance the drop offs for the parents in the front. You can see the buses in the rear as another drop off location. This particular concept is a theme. Uh you can see the performing arts signage on the building. But again, this is in in order for us to provide the accommodations for the different programs to meet the needs of our students. The next slide will show an aerial view of our high schools with an athletic facilities in the rear. Note the spacious parking. And again, I'm focusing in on the pickup and drop offs. The next few slides we'll look at some of the safety safety enhancements of the schools. So um it's not in here but what you will see when it comes to some of the schools and and particularly

when uh a lot of the schools have these state-of-the-art classrooms you'll see uh secure zones that are that will be in every classrooms. These these rooms will be equipped with some of the latest safety features that will support Senate Bill 68, which by the way is an unfunded mandate, but it does include intruder locks and doors, safety films, and just a a wide layout of our spaces. So, now we we're looking at our auditoriums. So what you will see is to the left of the current state of our auditoriums and to the right you see what future ready looks like. So the photo to the left is of gateway stem. Again to the right you see what gateway stem could look like. So in the mindset of reducing co cost and we are exploring every avenue. For example, this photo that you see now is Roosevelt and it's a very aesthetically pleasing auditorium and again the concept or the renovations to the right. So imagine hosting a graduation at at our facilities as opposed to going outside where there is an additional cost because we do have elegant features in all of our facilities like what you see at Roosevelt that in my opinion are similar to the Fox Theater. very elegant, architecturally pleasing, and also could be a way that we can generate revenue revenue throughout the district by renting out some of these spaces. And last but not least, the next photo shows Sumner and again, historically high school, first African-American high school west of the Mississippi, but then look and see to the right what future ready looks like. So now we'll transition to one of the themes that that has stuck with me um over the years where schools have always

been the pillar of our communities. Schools have always been a pillar of our community. So as you can see from this photo, there's a school in the center of these residential housing or within this neighborhood. And as we plan for the future, imagine facilities on the next slide where they could be used for housing. So this particular photo, this again is a concept. Um, and again something that's not new in terms of redevelopment or repurposing, but imagine where you could have housing that may be for teachers andor affordable housing for the community. And the last slide shows gives you that visual of what this could actually look like. So you see the picture to the to the left and you can actually see the lockers um that have again this has been reimagined in a way as we get ourselves plant ready for the future of SLPS. And you can see the studio style apartment uh where we are and we we will be looking at developing or looking at two to three two to three bedroomedroom housing which again supports families supports children and ensuring that when they do and they do come as we will build it and we know that they will come that they will be properly educated within St. Louis public schools. So again, just wanted to frame just some where we are and imagine what SLPS in the future could look like from the condition of our buildings to new facilities as well as um what lessons learned from previously where the the the schools that may be left for repurposing. And these are just some of the ideas and concepts that we have in planned as we get ourselves ready for the future for SLPS. Turn it back over to you Dr. Barry.

Thank you so much, Chief Watson. That was so exciting. I I think I appreciate you so much. Um next we are looking at um for some reason didn't change. Our final slide and so we just want to thank you um so much for joining us. We did have a QR code on the next slide. Unfortunately, it's not working. So don't worry about the QR code. However, um we will open it up right now for any questions. I am extremely excited about where we are going with our district. I know and thank you for being on this ride with us. I know that you care and you are um invested in what we do. We want to make sure that we get it right. And as always, we're looking for ways to improve. So certainly if you don't want to share any improvements with us today, you can always email us, reach out to us, uh send us a note, a telegram. We want your feedback. But right now, we'll turn it over to you for any questions.

All right. We did have one question and I think this is for you, Chief Watson. Um, does the current Well, I guess um for anybody that can answer, does the current SLPS budget include dedicated funding for security measures at early childhood centers? And if not, what steps will be taken to prioritize those campuses? I will let Chief Watson come in um about the security measures that we're doing um specifically for early childhood. I know we can also talk about that. I know they have a few different things when you come in the how you sign in but overall we are doing a lot of things for our actual district and Chief Watson if you want to talk about some of those things that we're doing.

Absolutely. Um we're making use of technology. Uh currently we are rolling out our raptor platform which is a visitor management tool, a v visitor management platform and with this raptor technology what it does is that as visitors come into our facilities um they are required to show some identification um and we have some protocols that they will have their badge as they enter into our facilities. Um so making use of technology has been one of the best ways that we are enhancing the safety uh and security of of our schools including our early childhood centers.

All right, we have another question. Uh and this goes to the um the concept photos you were just showing. um where where would the conceptual schools be located?

Yeah, thank you. So, those are just um ideas of what we could potentially do. I think once we start talking as a a committee and as a community about um what what do we want to see happen in our community? I know there are a few buildings that are listed for demolition right now. if we talk about if there's a current building and we think that building could be um reshaped or if we need to tear down and and build a new. So, there are no real foundations of where we would like to put the buildings, but these are the ideas of where we could go as a district and we're hoping to get there. All right, next question. I think this would be for um

for uh you Dr. Barry and also Attorney Dutch. Uh not sure if this is relevant to the forum. Not sure if this is relevant to forum, but how do um how does litigation or any lawsuits affect the SLPS budget?

Sure. So, I will um also if attorney Duck wants to say anything, but what I can tell you is um the district this size and if you've been with us for a while, you know that we are uh definitely not um this isn't new to us to be in litigation. So, we have set aside funds and I think I mentioned it a little bit when I talked about the um capital projects. We do have funds that we set aside every year for potential litigations. Um we do have insurance carriers that do cover a large portion but there are many of them that do not reach that maximum number. So we do have budget set aside. I can tell you when we ask the community for um the bond, we will not use bond for that. There are certain parameters that bonds can be used for and I can certainly let uh Miss Dobel speak to those parameters, but rest assured the dollars we ask in the bonds would not be utilized for the um for any legal matters. In addition to anything legalities that we set aside funds for, once you reach a certain number, your insurance carrier kicks in. And again, we do have insurance. So, um we are very confident that we will still be able to maintain and sustain um our district and be able to move forward with any projects or any um well-resourced schools that we desire.

Right. Um, the 2027 bond issue is exciting, as is pairing it with new construction, but it seems like we need a lot more direct discussion about consolidation figures. Ultimately, is the plan to end up with less buildings and larger school populations? If so, let's say it.

Yeah. And so, um, I think we all know that we have to do something different. Um, and when we talk about doing something different, we do know that could potentially mean looking at how do we get more children inside one building. Um, it is it's public knowledge. We have buildings that have um almost just a hundred students in it. So, ideally, we know we have to do something different, but I want to be very honest. Um I cannot say what that is right now because while internally there are pre-con conversations happening we're going to have a committee again where we talk about the larger aspect of what that looks like and then be able to share that vision that's comprised of various stakeholders with the entire community so they can then give feedback on say hey yes no not this school yes this school we can do these great things with the school. We just want to be able to share that we are meeting with um the city. We've been meeting with urban planning committee, the neighborhood committee, SLDC, various developers to say, "Hey, what do you see that potential developers would like to put into our neighborhoods? What can we do with them?" Even some of our old schools, we're talking about how do we um take this building and rehab it to make it to a building that we can utilize in the future. So, um I'm not trying to hide anything. I'm not trying to be curtally. There are no plans made and we do hope that the community will help us with that over the next few months. I know we've taken information, we've had multiple meetings when we did the reimagining meeting. So, we've taken that feedback of what you said you want to see in the in the school district and when your community, we've taken the feedback when we were part of the blueprint from 2023. So, we have those that those two big items and we're now combining it into what the community said they wanted, what we physically know we need for our students here in our community and our district and how do we comprise that into three plans that does then will say have school names to be honest that will have what we want to do with potential uses and

then take those plans but not just internally having those plans having the support of the committee that helped us develop those plans and bringing those plans to the larger community for you to then have your eyes on plans saying, "Hey, this is what you told us you want to see. This is what SLPS thinks we need to have in the committee and now you tell us community if you think we are far off and how do you help us to get to where we need to go?" And we'll have those very detailed and serious and engaging conversations um like the chart I showed, we're hoping to have those in July and early August. And the hope is to have at least four to five community meetings where you can voice and help us plan the exciting I agree it's exciting to plan what that looks like and still have time to implement all of this and then over the next seven to eight months after it's approved.

Right. And it looks like this is a followup to the u the question regarding safety and security at early childhood. um will we be placing actual security personnel back in the early childhood buildings and if so when can family and staff expect that to happen?

Yeah, I'll go ahead and take that question. Um I know this is a ask not just for early childhood which we know those babies are so precious. Um I think this is a ask for every school building and so again um while we are looking at how we are going to reshape the district and talk about a well-resourced school and we do know the community and not just the community we do know our own principles are saying hey every school needs to have a safety officer. So when we're talking about what a well-resourced school looks like it will be hey we need a safety officer in every school. Um to that question though about so it's it I think you're also wondering like how soon can this happen? I will certainly speak with Chief Watson to see what does it look like within the budget that we're already proposing uh to the board with alternate one. How can we support our early childhood center specifically with um the the security presence? I do know we have like the two sites and so um I do hear your ask. And so to the first point, I know we'll do it for sure in the 2728 year, but we will look at our current budget now to see how we can make that happen for the this next coming year. All right. So, that was all of the uh questions in the chat. I know he had opened it up for anyone to come off mute. So, if anyone wants to come off mute and ask a question of Dr. Barry or Chief Watson or Miss Dobel, feel free.

All right. Right. Rosemaries and yes um my question is uh with concerns to PTO um I've signed up to be on the PTO staff and I need um um instructions as to how that would be ranked.

Yeah. um if you either you can either share the school you're you're with or you can um after the call if you want um we can give you a couple emails you can reach out to if you don't want to share the school but thank you for one wanting to be involved and two I am a huge fan of component I think there needs to be a PTO at every single school just like a te committee so the fact that you want to be involved that's that's great I believe the pack may also be on here um so we do have um I know Miss Vantini and Miss um Avis they are also kind of leading the way with parent action council. So even if you wanted to get involved with more than just the PTO at your school, there's a broader um context that you can do to support the actual district being involved with parent uh Gloria Nolan for the school district. That's gloria.nolandslps.org can help you with some of those larger issues as well. Um but feel free if you want to tell us now or we you can get in contact with us and we'll let you know how to um get on one of the PTO's. Yes, that school is uh Humbult Elementary.

Humble Elementary. Okay. And uh Miss Rosemary, is that your first or your last name? Or do you mind sharing your name? Or if not, we again we can figure it out. Yes, my name is Rosemary Ersen. One more time, your last name. Urs. Us i. All right, Miss Rosemary, we will contact you. I'm sure we can figure it out and we will be in contact. If you don't hear from us by tomorrow, please email me, but we are going to contact you. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Thank you.

Okay, we have another question in the chat. Says, can you please clarify is the purpose of the planning committee and the June meetings to develop a school closure plan? So the purpose of the planning committee is to help us develop of what we think an ideal future readiness plan looks like for SLPS. And so um I know everyone wants to say just about school closures but when you look at the plan it could not only have potential um what what people are saying closures but also opening up new schools. It can also have how do we reconfigure and move schools around. um we have a many buildings in our district that are not being utilized and then looking at where are our populations at right now where they're going to potentially grow. And so while I know everyone's like just tell me what the schools that going to have closed. Again, I can't just say that because it's much bigger than just a school closure plan. Like this is an opportunity for us to literally take our district and figure out how we want our district to look in the future and create that. What services we want in our schools? Do we want agriculture? do we want, you know, just what do we want in our schools and for us to figure it out? And so, um, I've asked the community, I've asked our our principles. I know we're so used to having like this is our school. Um, but we have to also think about like you're a part of SLPS. We are one big large school made of multiple buildings. And so figuring out how we get there and changing the mindset, I think, is what's going to help us in the future. But to your point, there will be some hard conversations around what it looks like if a school does not exist in the form that it currently is in. All right, PAC committee SLPS.

Hi, good evening. Oh, congratulations on um your position. Um I wanted to ask along the lines of PTO. So, some of the I guess it's not lowerhanging fruit, but if the elementary school has a lot of paved playground, what would that look like if we wanted to take up some of that pavement for some green space? Is there like a I mean, I know um Square Watson is a you know, over that, but I was just wondering what would be the process for a PTO to request, hey, is there a portion of this pavement that maybe we can have dug up for a little bit more green space.

Yeah, thank you. And I'm definitely going to let Chief Watson come in. I know there are different ways that we can handle it to figure out what it looks like or how we maintain it or what kind of green space you want. So, there are a lot of different options, but I'm going to let Chief Watson just come in and chime in a little bit on that.

Thank you. Thank you, Miss Fanches. Uh there are, as you've mentioned, a lot of different avenues. Uh, one avenue that we've um been working with, again this is some of our partners that Dr. Barry mentioned when it comes to some of our stakeholders and this is through project clear through MSD. There are grant opportunities for green space so that we can um remove some of the asphalt and replace it with green space or or just play areas with grass. So those are some of the opportunities that are out there. um definitely would like to talk more just in terms of how again through the through partnership uh community efforts that we can work together in this space. So, I'll definitely be uh happy to to have the conversation, Miss Punches, as well as with the pack uh any community members that want to improve any facilities buildings within the district because again, we're all in this together and um with all of us collectively contributing. This is how we can definitely make our our schools a better a better place. All right, looks like we had uh one more question added to the chat. I understand that the student and teacher technology needs to be upgraded or excuse me, updated and functional. I also know that technology is a necessary part of our educational climate. Is the district looking at the research around the efficacy of edtech and the impact of screens on children children's mental health, social development, and critical thinking skills? If so, any plans in motion?

Yeah, thank you for your question. And I know Chief Mitchell is on here and she's probably excited to respond to this question. So, I am going to let her come on, but just to I don't know if you're following any of the legislation that's happening in DC. And so this is a real thing. Um to the first point, yes, we have to refresh our um technology ever so often. We are actually looking at now to moving to um outside of what we have now for Dells, but using for some of our classrooms going to the Apple just because the refresh cycle is much um shorter. Oh, sorry, longer I should say. And it's it costs the the the amount that it's going to cost us is a much lower than what we're paying right now. Um, and then I think Chief Mitchell actually just came back from looking at a few things that specifically talked about technology and AI. And so I will let Chief Mitchell come on in to um share some information that she has regarding that topic.

And I apologize I'm walking to pick my son up, but yeah, absolutely. Missouri actually, as you know or may not know, um uh a screen time bill went through the house. They did lift the 45minute restriction on it, and I actually just met with the instructional technology specialist team today. um what our task is ahead in ahead of this legislation and as a district to build trust with our families is to define um the difference between what we call screen time and what we call in intentional and structured instruction. And so the example that I always give is there is a fundamental difference between um your pre-K student being in class watching YouTube videos or engaging in a um what we call a DK level one type of app that would otherwise be a worksheet versus um students developing a podcast based on some research they did or coding um using Tinkercad to code a a 3D figure based on um some sustainability projects. And those are kind of high level examples, but that's where we are as a district. We are very very aware um of this legislation coming through. What we do not want to do is remove access uh from devices as a district because we do not want to increase the digital divide that already exists with our students. And so if we're not one to one um technology is here, it's not going anywhere. And so it's our duty and responsibility to make sure that students understand how to use the technology, understand how to be responsible digital citizens, understand how to navigate um all the technology at their hands. And so um if we're not one to one, the students have devices at home, they get to go home and experience this. And I could go on and on about this and so I won't I know we're right at 5:30, but yeah, we are 100% looking into this. anticipate having something to the community and families soon um again on what we're defining as the district as screen time versus instructional um intentional instructional usage.

Thank you so much Chief Mitchell and we will make sure we get that out. So I know that's a concern probably for a lot of our our parents and students. I see Miss Nolan you have your hand raised.

Yes. I just wanted to chime in to say thank you for hosting this this meeting these, you know, there's lots of moving parts. Um there's lots of topics to cover, lots of concerns, feelings, all of the things. Um and we we definitely have to stay on this and keep this in in the forefront about moving the district forward. So, I just really appreciate um this opportunity to just even, you know, have these conversations and it sometimes if it feels like, you know, we're we're at a starting point, we made some movement and then we have to take a step back or whatever. I just appreciate just this effort and bringing everybody on board and giving people the opportunity to chime in. So, thank you. Big kudos for taking that step.

Thank you. Absolutely. Thank you, Miss Rosemary. Yes. Um I would like to know will you all or will the district be testing all of the students as far as academically for giftedness? Um I know there are some studies been shown that um I know with prisoners um most of them have been tested and have been determined that they are gifted. So, um, I was wondering if will the district be testing that and help of the students. Yeah,

thank you. I had not heard that comparison, so I will certainly have to do my own research. Um, to your point, I'm going to see if Dr. Dino was on. I know at one point districtwide, we were testing um, every second grader at one point. Um, I think that has since shifted. Um, if Dr. Gino was not on then maybe I know Chief Mitchell she's no longer in the gifted department but she might have an answer but I didn't know if Dr. Gina was here but if not Chief Mitchell. Oh yeah. Oh Dr. Carter is on. Perfect. Hey Dr. Carter. Thank you Dr. Carter.

Um so yes we still screen all of our second graders yearly. And then in addition to that, we have universal screening in place so that we do look at students MAP and STAR scores throughout the year to determine if they're um that they make a good candidate for further evaluation. Thank you. And Dr. Carter, she is our executive director um for teaching and learning and academics. So if you have any other questions as well, Miss Rosemary, um Dr. Carter is a former principal teacher. She can certainly help you with that and I'll be interested in those statistics that you, you know, that you've shared. So, thank you. Oh, thanks.

All right. Well, there uh let's see, we have one more one and I know we're at 532. One more question in the chat. What is the district's strategy to acquire additional and alternative funding and revenue sources that will allow it to increase services and service quality rather than simply cutting costs to meet budget targets?

Yeah, thank you. That's a very good question. And so I I will admit we are in the midst of trying to figure out one how to get to a balanced budget to sustain that, but also making sure that we are not cutting highquality instruction and access to our students. And I think once we talk about and once we're able to have a plan of how we are going to reshape the district, what you're going to see is having a certified teacher in every classroom. Like the day that we can say we have a certified teacher in every classroom will absolutely be amazing. But we are working with community partners, partners that we have lost that are now coming back to us to say, "Hey, these are the services that I have, how can we support?" And not just saying they have services that are paid, saying services that we want to give us for free. We are now working with um outside organizations that actually have funding that can say, "Hey, we can support this endeavor to help you get where you need to go." And so we are calling on community partners. We are looking for if you um know foundations that are willing to support um the children and the families of St. Louis public schools, we are actually going to create a plan of what that looks like. And when I say a plan, just around like how do we um say out loud like we are SOPS. We know we are going to be the school district of choice for families, but how do we ask you to help us and support this for the next three to five years and be able to sustain that? So, we are looking for ways to um ask those philanthropists that are out there that are willing to give and wanting to support the district on how to do that and how to do it well. So, if anyone has suggestions or even know organizations that are are burning and itching to support a great cause like SLPS, we will certainly reach out to them and let them know that we are true partners, that we are being transparent at how we're moving and we are also, you know, making sure that we're being held accountable. You know, our our business is always laid out in everything that we do. So, we are not fearful of what it is and what's happening. We own it. We talk

about it and then we do something about it. So, we are looking for community partners. Well, it sounds like that's Oh, I'm sorry. Is there another one? Oh, no. I was just going to say that was all the questions in the chat.

Perfect. Um, I really appreciate you all today, especially hanging in with us past the 5:30 mark. Um, I know it is not perfect. I know we have a long way to go, but we are going to do it together and we will do it well. And so, I'm extremely excited about where we're going. We will get over these next uh few weeks and then making sure out to you about the next event so we can have these engaging conversations. Again, we will have in-person meetings and virtual meetings for us to all talk about and then we'll be able to have I know what we're looking for that concrete data so you can then start talking about where we go from here. So again, we thank you um for supporting us and continuing to bring your children to us and we look forward to seeing you in the near future.

Thank you. Thank you.