St. Louis Public Schools Board of Education - Regular Meeting

we're gonna go ahead and get started thank you

All right, I want to first thank the Missouri History Museum for allowing us to be here this evening. They're such great partners. Josh is back there on tech. We want to thank Lila LaFleur and Lindsey Newton for allowing us to be here tonight. Also, there are golf carts for those of us that had to park at the Muny. So if you leave before 8 o'clock, you can get in your golf cart and they can take you to your car. You should have a couple of pieces of paper. You should have had the agenda that also has the note catcher. You should have had the companion document that comes with it. We will also have all of these in our families native languages that will go to them. And tonight we do have Carrie McDaniels with us and Donald Scales. They are a long time SLPS employees doing American Sign Language interpreters for us this evening. So thank you for being here tonight and thank you for continuing to engage with us as we move forward with the Future Ready SLPS and share our updated proposals. When we say community we mean all of us our students staff families local and state representatives community partners neighborhood leaders alumni and residents across this great city of St. Louis. Everyone has a voice. And that voice has a place with us. And we have heard from you. We have received your feedback through online portals, emails, calls, letters, community meetings, conversations in our schools, and yes, even while standing at the checkout counter in the grocery store. That's a true story. I appreciate every person who has taken the time to stop me, write us, challenge us, ask questions, offer an idea, or simply share what your school means to you. I also want to thank those who went even further. Some community members created their own dashboards, analyzed our data, developed alternative plans, and shared proposals with us. Whether we agree with every recommendation or not, that level of engagement demonstrates how deeply you care about this community and the children of St. Louis Public Schools. We appreciate your time and energy that you have invested. We are here again asking you for this structured opportunity tonight to talk, have dialogue, and provide feedback. The updated proposals that you will hear tonight reflects what we have heard from the community, considered alongside with two important factors, our current reality and the future possibilities. That is one piece of evidence or one piece of information that has stayed with me. A very simple question a parent asked me, what do we have to look forward to? That question reminded me that we have spent a great deal of time talking about what may change, what buildings may close or be repurposed, what programs may move, or what does the school portfolio look like? But if we were asking a student, staff member, family to leave a school they deeply care about, we also have the responsibility to clearly explain what they are moving forward to. Because future ready cannot be about leaving someone behind. It has to be about gaining something on the other side. Our students should be able to look forward to schools with stronger and more consistent academic programming. greater access to enrichment and related arts, more opportunities to participate in extracurricular activities, stronger student supports, and learning environments designed to prepare them for what comes next. Our staff should be able to look forward to being a part of a school, communities where enrollment and resources have better programming, where they have colleagues to whom they can collaborate with, where staffing structures are more sustainable, and where they have the tools and conditions necessary to do what they entered this profession to do, serve our children well and our families. They should be able to look forward to schools where their children have access to a fuller education experience and programs and supports that are more predictable and sustainable and where they can see a clearer path from the first day their child enters a school through graduation and beyond. This is why the transition cannot simply be about telling families where they are going. We have to help communities build something to look forward to. And we have to do that with them and not to them. Once the Future Ready proposal is approved, we will visit each school. to host a transition meeting. Those conversations will allow us to move from a district-wide plan to individual needs of our students, staff, families, programs, traditions, and school communities. We will talk about what traditions need to be preserved what programs matter most what supports do our students need and how do we welcome students and staff into a new community. Those details are important because it's how we implement the plan is just as important as the plan itself. This week our students are completing surveys specifically tailored to their grade level so that we can hear directly from them. So parents ask them if they saw them in school. We already have two hundred and eighty nine responses and the surveys went out today. Over the next four weeks we will also host dedicated staff engagement sessions because our staff in schools every day bring an important perspective into the plan and how it should move forward. Future Ready has never been about a building, enrollment, numbers, or portfolio of schools. It is always about what we want to be true for every student who enters St. Louis public schools. Our portrait of a graduate helps us define that promise. We want our graduates to leave prepared to think critically, communicate effectively, collaborate with others, and demonstrate the resilience and adaptability, and confidently pursue college, career, military service, entrepreneurship, or whatever future they choose. That is the destination. Our core four of attendance, literacy, financial stability, and operational effectiveness helps us remain focused on the work that is required to get us there. Those priorities do not separate from Future Ready. They are connected. We cannot create student experiences while envisioning what students will be like when they are not even present. We cannot prepare students for the futures without a strong foundation in literacy. We cannot make promises to students and families that we cannot financially sustain. and we cannot provide an excellent educational experience without transportation, facilities, technology, and other operational systems working effectively. So as you listen to the team tonight, I ask that you consider not only what may change, but also what becomes possible for our students because we are willing to change. Dr. Haywood.

Thank you, Dr. Berry and good evening to the community at large. We're again, so excited that you have chosen to join us this evening, engage along with us as Dr. Berry stated so beautifully, as we walk this journey out together. The intent is very much not to leave anyone behind, but for everyone to understand the process that we've been on so far, and to also be prepared to continue with the planning process moving forward. So here, for our recommended portfolio direction, excited for the feedback that we've already received, the leadership team recommends moving forward with what we've dubbed or coined an A-plus portfolio model that we will continue to develop over the coming weeks. As we prepare to move into the recommendation to the board is very important to us that you continue to provide the feedback that you've been so generous with over the previous Community engagement meetings, because you will see evidence of that information in today's. informational as well as the meetings that are to move forward. This evening, I want to ensure you that we have heard you loudly and that we do plan to have a meeting on September 10th where you'll have an opportunity to engage with us in a different format. During that time, we'll have students, parents, administrators, developers, and other stakeholders at the table in a panel format where you'll be able to ask open-ended questions. But tonight, as we journey together, we want to make sure that we don't skip any of the details around the methodology that has brought us to this point, as well as the initial stages of our academic planning. So in framing that, during this phase of planning, the team has taken a strategic approach that addresses a two-plan architecture. The Future Ready A-plus plan that is focused on structural sustainability, as well as our enrollment, growth, and competitive positioning. There are two primary questions for each of these. The first question for structural sustainability, including how does SLPS create a sustainable system for the students it currently serves? And in that core work, we looked at facilities, consolidation, staffing, transportation, configuration, in resource resource allocation. The way we know that that would be working in the future is a financially sustainable network of stronger better resource schools for enrollment growth and competitive position. The question is how does SLPS make those schools compelling enough that more St. Louis families would choose them. Our market intelligence is around the core work the product strength retention recruitment family experience and partnerships in order for us to measure this and know that we've been successful in recruiting our families, we will have a higher market share. So families who are choosing other locations to educate their children will now be educating them in St. Louis public schools, stronger retention and measurable enrollment growth. At the onset of the portfolio planning process, The team created guiding principles. These guiding principles represent the beliefs of the team that have served as foundational in shaping every single decision. The principles are to create high-efficiency anchor sites, student-centered, opportunity-focused design, protect foundational conditions for learning, long-term financial and operational facility sustainability, data-informed, transparently disclosed decisions, strengthening feeder pattern clarity, equity of access regardless of buildings or zip codes, and consistent community engagement. Because these guiding principles are so important, we established guardrails. The guardrails were put in place to ensure that the guiding principles were not unintentionally overwritten. Since our principles are what we believe, we will not prioritize buildings over students, preserve enrollment practices that create inequity, exempt central office or leadership from the efficiency conversation, advance a recommendation without a disclosed data-based rationale, allow site-level autonomy to override district-wide consistency, use test scores as a sole condition for consolidation, or make plans without engaging stakeholders in the process. As has been stated numerous times throughout this community engagement, meetings there are so many factors and multiple criteria that have been examined while finalizing a recommendation for the board some community factors they have considered are effectiveness of school leadership teams safety health and well-being and walkability Equity across schools, regardless of their building or zip code, that's been one we've really honed in on. Community identity, trust, and sense of belonging. The number of school options nearby. Academic performance trend, and this will come up later in the presentation as to why this particular indicator has been examined. And then proximity to new housing development, parks, and community resources. Now Chief Watson is going to share some information about development and plans across the city of St. Louis and within the district that have informed the team.

Good evening. Thank you, Dr. Heywood, Dr. Berry. This is an audience. So before we look at the district's long-term facilities vision, I want to provide some context regarding what is happening throughout the city of St. Louis. Through our previous work sessions and real estate committee presentations, the district has been consistently engaging with our city partners as we gather information regarding current and anticipated development. This includes the Planning and Urban Design Agency, SLDC, the Real Estate Development Division, and other government and community partners. purpose of this work is to ensure that our facilities planning is not done in isolation we need to understand where development is occurring where investments is planned and how those changes may affect future neighborhoods and communities and ultimately our schools where our students will attend so this particular slide reflects information provided by our partners and identifies approximately 90 development projects throughout the city that are at various stages of planning, design, funding, or construction. Some of these projects are already underway while others are still in the planning or the development stage. We will continue to monitor these projects because they provide important context as we make long-term decisions about our school facilities. So understanding each individual development projects is important, but we also need to look at the city's broader vision for where development and investments are expected to occur. This brings us to this slide. This slide provides a broader view of the city's planning framework. The city's planning and urban design agency has identified several planning areas that encompass neighborhoods throughout the city of St. Louis. These areas provide insight in where the city is focusing its planning redevelopment and community investments for the district this information is important because our facilities serve as anchors within these communities so as we consider the future of our schools we need to understand not only the enrollment or the data pieces but also what may be happening in these neighborhoods over the next 10 20 and 30 years we want to We want our decisions to be informed by multiple data points, not just today's numbers. We continue to work with our city partners and update this information as development plans and additional information becomes available. And as you can see on the slide, you'll see the concentration in North St. Louis. The areas are numbered in terms of the wards and you will see the status given the legend. This is a lot of the information that we receive when we have our monthly meetings with the city. And again, as we plan and as we move, as the city moves, we wanna move with. So this slide just shows a current footprint of our schools within the city. And as you can see, just where our high schools, our middle schools and our elementary, and again, the amount of square footage that we cover throughout the city. Now this next slide looks at the beginning of a long-term vision for the future of SLPS. Our objective is to prepare our facilities, not only for the students we serve today, but also for future generations of students. The vision takes a balanced approach. We anticipate a combination of new construction and strategic renovation of existing schools. In other words, we are looking at how we can effectively mix the new with the old, building modern facilities where needed while continuing to invest in facilities that have long-term value to the district and their communities. Under this preliminary model, the district could potentially construct 11 new state-of-the-art facilities and complete approximately 21 major renovations through 2050. And this is with the support and with the collaboration from the academic department, the technology department, even from our school-based staff. The preliminary capital projection represents approximately 1.245 billion in estimated construction costs for new facilities. There are over approximately $2.25 billion for those renovated facilities. The other component is this will be funded through a bond. Our intent would be to establish a reoccurring capital planning cycle. Each of these planning cycles would in between a three to five year bond cycle. So they will correlate and correspond with those bonding cycles. It is not uncommon for districts to go out for bonds every three to five years to get funding for a lot of these capital projects. And at each of these five year iterations, we would establish or reestablish our priorities, make necessary investments, and then revisit the plan. Each cycle, some of the items that we reassess would include our facility condition assessment, our enrollment and demographic trends, look at building utilization and capacity, academic needs and how they could be supported, the impact on transportation, neighborhood and city development, and any community needs. At those changes, as those conditions change, our plans will change with them. This approach allows us to move away from simply reacting to facility problems and towards a more proactive and predictable capital strategy. Pass it over to Chief Mitchell.

Good evening. There was lots of questions around the methodology, so we just want to talk through some of that approach today. So before finalizing the methodology and scoring approach, our research and evaluation team reviewed recent school consolidation practices in several urban districts, including Houston, Austin, Atlanta, Boston, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Baltimore, and St. Paul. Across those districts, the same core factors appeared repeatedly. Enrollment, utilization, capacity, facility condition, operating cost, proximity, staffing, and receiving school capacity. That comparative review helped confirm that the factors we are considering locally are consistent with broader practice across the country. We then translated those common factors into criteria that fit the specific conditions and priorities of St. Louis public schools. That includes FCI, building capacity utilization, student population within the attendance zone, in proximity to St. Louis public school options. In the next slides, Dr. Haywood will walk through the actual scoring methodology, including how these criteria are weighted and applied at the school level.

Thank you, Chief Watson and Chief Mitchell. So in reviewing the actual criteria that were scored and the weight, as has already been shared, we did research. And based off of industry standard, the FCI, or Facilities Condition Index, was weighted at 25%. And this looks at the long-term facility condition, building capacity was at 25%, looking at the ability to support current and future enrollment, building utilization at 20%, the efficient use of available school space. We had enrollment criteria of SLPS students living in the attendance area that was weighted at 15%, as well as the percent of students attending SLPS school in a one mile radius at 15%. As we moved into the actual evaluation of each of our schools, the scoring scale for the criteria ranged from one to five, one being a low score and five being the high score. For FCI, the lower the score, the more points that were awarded. For the capacity, the higher the numbers, the more points awarded. Elementary schools ranged from 300 to 400 or greater than 400 middle schools from 400 to more than 500 high schools from 500 to more than 600 building utilization from 20 to 80 percent and finally our enrollment factors where slps students living in the tennis area broken down by elementary middle and high from 100 down to 500 from 200 down to 600, and then within the one mile, 20% down to 80%. And I think I skipped our elementary school students for the students living in the attendance zone. That was from 175 down to 400. My apologies. Here's a sample. scorecard or data sheet. After compiling all of those criteria, we were able to generate individual school scorecards that include enrollment data, includes the overall evaluation score, the grade band that the students who are being served at that school along with not just some of those operational or quantifiable data points, but also some of the exciting things that are going on already in our schools, because that was important to look at as well as the consideration for merging in that conversation took place. So each and every one of our schools has one of these scorecards. So here, as we get to the proposed portfolio school structure and feeder patterns, Having the five zones, if you look at zone one, elementary schools pre-K through five in zone one are Adams, Dewey, Laclede, which is to be replaced by the newly built Mitchell in 2028, Washington Montessori, middle schools of Compton Drew, and high school, the Anchor High School being Sodan. For Zone 2, the elementary school is Herzog, Lexington, Nance, and Pomoja. Pomoja is to be replaced by the newly built Turner Branch in 2030. The middle school is Yateman. High school is Sumner. And Zone 3, Jefferson, which is to be replaced by the retrofitted Dunbar in 2028. Gateway, Bryan Hill, middle school being Gateway Middle, and the high school being Beshine. In zone four, we have Frable, Hodgin, Humboldt, Peabody, Woodward, and Lyon. The middle school being Long and Corningham. Segal will serve as pre-K through eighth grade, and the anchor high school will be Roosevelt. And then finally in zone five, we have Mason, Booter, Mann, Oak Hill, Werner, and Malampe. The middle school being Long and Bush, and the anchor high school being Gateway. proposed portfolio school structure for focus school pathways included for early childhood the early childhood level sticks p3 through second grade and wilkinson p3 through second grade for our special education public and separate we have gateway michael kindergarten through eighth and madison and then at our high school level be not as nightingham c a j t Thank you for slowing me down. Visual and Performing Arts. Our elementary school would be Shaw BPA, middle school, Carl Lane BPA, and the high school, Central BPA. We look at our Advanced Academics. The elementary school would be Betty Wheeler and Mallinckrodt. Our middle school, McKinley Middle School, and the high school, Collegiate School of Medicine and Bioscience, Metro High School, Central BPA, Advanced academics. Our career and technical education at the high school level would be Clyde C. Miller Career Academy, as well as Gateway High School following a hybrid model. In the other educational programming, SLP is virtual learning, both at the elementary and middle school level, alternative education at both the middle school and high school level, high school success, fresh start, and adult education. So now I am going to disaggregate the portfolio by zone. And admittedly, I understand that I'm doing lots of reading to you and I'm saying many, many numbers, but I think it's important that the community have good faith and understand that we touched 62 schools and did it with great thorough being very thorough and wanting to make sure that we covered all of the data points for all of our buildings. So in zone one, elementary schools Adams, Dewey, Laclede, and Washington. For Adams, the evaluation score was 40%, school capacity 364, Dewey 66%, school capacity 506, Laclede, which is to be replaced by the newly built Mitchell, evaluation score of 69%, school capacity of 338. Washington, evaluation score 66%, school capacity 462. The middle school in that zone is Compton Drew with an evaluation score of 85%, school capacity 589. High school, Sodan, 67%, school capacity 1,232. The repurposed or proposed repurposed buildings in the zone are Hamilton and Louverture. Hamilton have an evaluation score of 58 percent school capacity 442. Louverture have an evaluation score of 62 percent with a school capacity of 560. Adams was selected over Hamilton due to Adams lower FCI score. Proposed school mergers will transition Hamilton to Dewey. For each of the zones, when mergers were needed, the evaluation score, projected enrollment, and APR were cross-checked to ensure that the receiving school had the capacity when combining and a higher APR. Hamilton has an APR of 15.7%, and Dewey, the receiving school, has an APR of 58.1%. Louverture has an APR of 38.5%, and Compton-Drew, The receiving school has a APR of 43.4%. In Zone 2, elementary schools are Herzog, Lexington, Nance, and Pomoja. Evaluation score for Herzog, 64%, school capacity 494. Lexington, evaluation score 65%, school capacity 450. Nance, evaluation score 78%. school capacity, 380 and Pomoja evaluation score, 62% school capacity, 378. The middle school is Jake Milladale with the evaluation score of 71% school capacity, 625, but the anchor high school being Sumner evaluation score, 79% school capacity, 1,163, the repurposed buildings. and zone two are Ashland, Hickey, and Walbridge. Ashland has an evaluation score of 44%, school capacity 440. Hickey, evaluation score 68%, school capacity 408. Walbridge, 61% with a school capacity of 495. Lexington was selected over Hickey due to Hickey's lower school capacity. An important note that the potential build of Turner Branch Elementary and Turner Middle will replace two other buildings by 2030. Proposed school mergers will transition Ashland and Hickey to Lexington. Ashland has an APR of 43.1, Lexington with an APR of 51.1, Hickey an APR of 30.9, and Lexington again at 51.1. Walbridge's APR is 47.1% and the receiving school Herzog has an APR of 57.9. Zone three, elementary schools, Gateway, Jefferson, Bryan Hill. Gateway have an evaluation score of 69%, school capacity of 660. Jefferson, which will be replaced again by the retrofitted Dunbar, has an evaluation score of 61%, school capacity 522. Bryan Hill, 41%. School capacity of 300. The middle school is Gateway. Evaluation score 75%. School capacity 645. The high school, Anchor High School, Besshaun. Evaluation score 69%. School capacity 1,281. The repurposed buildings in Zone 3 are Ames, Carver, Columbia, and Patrick Henry. Evaluation score for Ames, 50%, school capacity 462. Carver, 31%, school capacity 285. Columbia, evaluation score 57%, school capacity 364. And Patrick Henry, evaluation score 46%, school capacity 350. Bryan Hill was selected over Columbia due to Bryan Hill's key location in the northeast region of the city. Ames is currently a magnet school, and so with the evaluation of score of 50%, the receiving school would be the neighborhood school or Shaw BPA if the parents decided they would like to transfer their child to Shaw. Carver has an APR of 25.5%, with the receiving school being Gateway Elementary. The APR of Gateway is 40.2%. Columbia has an APR of 30.6%. receiving school being Bryan Hill, who has an APR of 42.6%, and Patrick Henry has an APR of 42.6%, with the receiving school, Jefferson, that has an APR of 51.1%. Zone four. I'm really starting to feel like I'm the high school principal doing graduation diplomas, but zone four. The elementary school, Frable, evaluation score of 67%, school capacity 448. Hodgin, evaluation score of 48%, school capacity of 330. Humboldt, evaluation score of 37%, school capacity 374. Lyon, evaluation score of 60%, school capacity 300. Peabody, evaluation score of 44%, school capacity 336. Woodward, evaluation score 82%, school capacity 459. Segal, pre-K through eight, evaluation score 57%, school capacity 408. Middle schools in zone four are Carnahan and Long. Long will service both zones four and five. Carnahan has an evaluation score of 76% with a school capacity of 483. And Long has a school capacity of 493. The anchor high school in zone four is Roosevelt with an evaluation score of 79%, school capacity 1,710. The repurposed buildings in zone four are Merrimack, Monroe, and Shenandoah, evaluation score 31%, school capacity 266, Monroe evaluation 52%, school capacity 390, Shenandoah evaluation score 43%, the school capacity of 204. Hodgin was selected over Monroe due to Hodgin's newer building. Humboldt and Peabody were selected due to upcoming housing developments near each of the schools. Both Merrimack and Monroe would transition to the receiving school of Frabel. Merrimack has an APR of 40.3%, Frabel's APR being 48.2. Monroe has an APR of 42.6%, Frabel again at 48.2. has an APR of 52.8%, transitioning to the receiving school, Hodgin, at 64.7%. And then McKinley High School is proposed to transition to CBPA, who has an APR of 51%. In our final zone, zone five, the elementary schools are Booter, Mann, Mason, Malampe, Oak Hill, and Werner. Booter has an evaluation score of 72%, school capacity 416. Mann, evaluation score 48%, school capacity 322. Mason, evaluation score 72%, school capacity 459. Malampe, 71%, with a school capacity of 560. Oak Hill, 54%, school capacity 345. Werner. 71% school capacity of 414. The middle schools are Bush and Long. Bush has an evaluation score of 57%, school capacity 405. Long again at 76% and school capacity 493. With the Anchor High School being Gateway, evaluation score 63%, school capacity 1,800. Zone five did not have any schools for repurposing or merging. As you can see from the map, this region of the city has the highest concentration of St. Louis public school students. Here is a list of all the schools that have been proposed to merge beginning the 2027, 2028 school year. It's important to note that this number has gone down. since the beginning of this journey together. Currently 11 of the 14 on this list are actual building closures with ongoing repurposing conversations taking place regularly. So in Zone 1, transitioning school is Hamilton, receiving school is Dewey. In Zone 2, transitioning school is Ashland and Hickey, receiving school Lexington. transitioning school Walbridge with the receiving school being Herzog in zone three, a transitioning school aims to the neighborhood school or Shaw BPA transitioning school Carver, the receiving school gateway elementary classy Miller with the transition receiving school being the neighborhood school and important note for classy Miller, as well as McKinley is that we're still seeking additional stakeholder input. for Columbia to determine if there'll be a clean cutoff for the 27-28 school year, or if we'll begin to phase out those programs. So that's the input that we're continuing to seek. For Columbia, the receiving school will be Bryan Hill, and for Patrick Henry, the receiving school will be Jefferson. In zone four, the transitioning school is Lowverture with the receiving school being Frabel, Monroe also to Frabel, Shenandoah receiving school being Hodgin, and then McKinley High School with the receiving school being Central Visual Performing Arts. Now I'm gonna hand it back to Chief Mitchell.

So we know there's been significant discussion about charter enrollment and its effect on St. Louis public school enrollment. So what you see here is a map that shows our proposed schools that will remain open proposed closures and then charter schools in the region. Charter schools are absolutely part of the competitive landscape. and St. Louis public schools must compete more effectively for families. But this analysis also shows an important demographic reality. There are approximately 35,000 school-aged children living in St. Louis. St. Louis public schools, charter schools, private schools, homeschooling, and other educational settings are all serving the same finite population. So our long-term strategy cannot simply be to maintain the same number of seats and assume that enrollment will return. We have to create schools that families actively choose, schools with strong academics, excellent programming, safe and modern facilities, extracurricular opportunities, and strong student support. That is how Future Ready and our enrollment growth work connect. This does not mean that we accept enrollment loss as permanent. The goal is the opposite, strengthen the quality and competitiveness of the St. Louis public school portfolio so that we can retain more of the families we currently serve and attract more St. Louis families back to the district. Okay, I'll turn it over to Chief Watson for a transportation update.

So this slide shows the eligibility requirements for transportation. As you can see, for those students that live more than one mile from their assigned school, they will be eligible for transportation. The far right column indicates the distance to the bus stop. So for preschool, that's from P4 through kindergarten, it's either the walk distance will be to the closest corner or up to one block. For students grades one through six, it would be up to three blocks or 0.3 miles. For grades seven through 12, up to four to five blocks or 0.5 miles. For those students living, for those students in our focus schools that are living more than two miles from their assigned school, they will be assigned a hub stop. And particularly for our high school students, it could be up to one mile from the student's home. For those students that live less than one mile from their assigned or neighborhood school, they will not be eligible for transportation. For those students that attend a neighborhood school outside of their attendance zone or their attendance boundary, they will also not be eligible for transportation. For any students that have special needs or IEP with accommodation, we will follow the legal requirements for transportation as a related service. They generally do receive the eligibility, and we follow the legal requirements, similar to our McKinney-Vento and our foster care students. So now this slide provides an overview of the potential financial impact of the Future Ready proposal. There are three primary areas we will be examining, staffing, transportation, and building consolidation, or our facilities. The first area is staffing. As we looked at the multiple data points that was described by both Chief Mitchell and Dr. Haywood, where we look at the enrollment, utilization, the number of schools we operate, there are opportunities to better align our staffing with the student enrollment and the size of our school footprint. The current estimate identifies approximately 13.6 million in potential staff savings. The second area is transportation. We're evaluating our current transportation model. It includes the routes, the ridership, the bus utilization, and those eligibility requirements that was just mentioned. By creating a more efficient system and aligning our transportation with the Future Ready model, we're currently estimating approximately 10 million in potential transportation savings. The third is our facilities, our buildings. This is particularly important because every building we operate carries ongoing costs. including utilities, maintenance, repaired and deferred maintenance. If we are able to consolidate these buildings, we could reduce some of those ongoing costs while also creating opportunities to repurpose or potentially sell properties that are no longer needed. At this point, we have not signed a specific dollar amount to the building consolidation savings because we want to complete the analysis and validate the potential costs and benefits before presenting the figure. So based on the two areas, that we can currently quantify staffing and transportation, we have identified approximately 23.6 million in potential annual savings. The facilities component could provide additional savings, but that number requires further analysis. Turn it over to Dr. Hennig.

All right, thank you. So as we transition into the academic programming portion of Future Ready SLPS, this is really about answering a fundamental question. What should students experience in our schools that prepares them for life beyond St. Louis Public Schools? The College and Career Academy work is one part of the larger Future Ready strategy. We are looking at how we can create stronger, more intentional connections between academic learning, student interests, career exploration, and future opportunities. This is not about asking students to choose a career too early. It's about making sure students have opportunities to explore, discover, and develop their interests as they grow. Ultimately, we want students to leave SLPS with a clear understanding of who they are, what they are capable of, and what possibilities are available to them. Our theory of action. So I'm not going to read through this and just try to save a little time here. So this is our theory of action. Basically, if SLPS implements Future Ready, we will create rigorous, dynamic, and engaging learning opportunities for our students and should be able to see greater relevance and purpose in their education. Okay, the St. Louis Public Schools College and Career Academies. The College and Career Academy model is one way we can translate that theory of action into the student experience. Academies can create opportunities for students to explore areas that connect to their interests, strengths and potential futures. And you can see those academies represented here in these lovely banners. The intent is to create stronger connections between what students are learning and the possibilities that exist after graduation. We want students to see that knowledge, the skills they are developing today have real world relevance. At the same time, students should have the flexibility to explore different interests and change direction as they learn more about themselves. So here again is our portrait of a graduate. uh... the portrait of a graduate gives us the what behind this work we want every saint louis public school student to graduate college and career ready we want them to exhibit all of these competencies that you see listed here i'm not going to read through those i think dr barry did a great job of describing those before uh... so as we evaluate future ready academic model the question is will this give us more Will this give more students meaningful opportunities to develop these characteristics? This is our current Missouri Career Cluster Framework. This is aligned to 14 industry career clusters, and this helps us to define some of those experiences that we're going to give to our students with this academic model. As we think about future ready SLPS, one of the most important questions is how do we help students discover what they're interested in and connect those interests to meaningful opportunities? RIASEC gives us a common framework for doing that. And to be clear, RIASEC for us is an access tool. It is not a tracking tool. It is not a tool of exclusion. It's actually quite the opposite. RISEc gives us this common framework. It helps students to explore their interests, strengths, and areas of curiosity so that we can begin connecting those interests to academic and career possibilities. We want to introduce career exploration early and intentionally, not because we expect young students to choose a career, but because students should have opportunities to discover what excites them and what they might want to learn more about. RIASEC can become a foundation for access and opportunity. When we better understand what students are interested in, we can be more intentional about connecting them to STEM experiences, the arts, advanced academics, career and technical education, internships, dual credit, and other pathways. From an equity perspective, this is especially important. We should not rely on students or families already knowing how to navigate the system to find opportunities. We have a responsibility to use what we learn about students to help make opportunities more visible, accessible, and connected to their interests. This also allows us to think beyond individual programs or individual schools. Every student should have the opportunity to discover multiple possibilities for their future, regardless of their zip codes or current school placement. Ultimately, RIASEC is not about putting students into boxes, it's about opening doors. It gives us another tool to help students understand themselves, see possibilities, they may not have considered and connect their interest to the opportunities available throughout SLPS. That's an important part of future ready vision, knowing our students well enough to make sure opportunity finds them, not just expecting them to find opportunity on their own. And at this point, I'm gonna ask our chief of schools, Dr. Alison Dino to come up and put a little more meat on the bones of the structure I just laid out for you.

good evening in the future ready slps students will spend their early years exploring as dr henning shared it's not about waiting for them to find opportunity it's bringing opportunity to them all learning will be centered on high quality rigorous core instruction that means students will be provided with high quality teachers who will ensure that they have opportunities to practice and demonstrate mastery of state standards Students will begin their college and career exploration through the introduction to a various act, through junior achievement, through STEM labs and school links, having lots of ways to discover their interests and even new ones for their own future possibilities. Academics is the key foundation of schools and we know without sufficient student family supports to create a supportive learning environment, they are not enough and enough themselves. At each step along the way, students will have multiple ways to demonstrate their understanding and growth in the SLPS portrait of a graduate competencies. They will be able to develop a portfolio of their achievements and earn badges along the way. You can see a few examples of how students will earn their Explorer Elementary badges in elementary school. These achievements not only will be recognized annually, but through their culminating celebration of students as they move into middle school. Middle school is moving from exploration into deeper experiences. As they move into their middle years, they will have further opportunities for more specialized rigorous core instruction. They will deepen their college and career readiness through more career knowledge, introduction to computer science, digital citizenship, and deepening their use of our School Links platform for their portfolios. They will expand their knowledge and choose their own experiences. By their eighth grade year, their exploration and experiences in SLPS will help support their solution of their, excuse me, their selection of their high school academy. They will continue developing their Portugal graduate portfolio, earning badges, such as their ICAP completion, that is their four year plan for what they're going to do in high school, through digital citizenship presentations, through STEM lab activities, and even moving on through All of this culminates in their choice of a high school and the academy they wish to learn more in. While in high school, students will have strong core experiences alongside specialized coursework, such as advanced learning, CTE, dual credit, dual enrollment, and other meaningful opportunities beyond the classroom. By the end of their sophomore year, students will be able to identify which pathway is most important to them and which one they want to be exploring through their high school academy. They will finalize their Portrait of a Graduate portfolios through demonstrations of their engagement badges, which will all support them to develop their plans so they can select their futures. On this page, you can see each academy and the pathways within it. Please do note, students will be able to take courses outside of their pathways, and unless otherwise noted by school, all pathways are available to all students enrolled in St. Louis Public Schools. All of this begins in preschool when we have strong experiences for students to explore their own interests their own learning to be happy curious find what works for them find what challenges them. All of that will set them up so that when they are sophomores they can choose which pathway is the one I want. It's not a life determinant but it's a way for them to choose what their next steps will look like as they move beyond their high school graduation. Gifted education is just one of the SLPS-focused pathways we spoke about earlier. While at this time no changes are recommended for either gifted schools or itinerant gifted teacher services who currently serve students attending in their neighborhood schools for the 27-28 school year, we will be undertaking a review of our gifted services with a team that includes staff, families, and students. As always, our goal remains that every experience a student has, whether they are in a general education classroom receiving special education services or receiving gifted services, that those services meet the needs of the individual students and that they are able to demonstrate all of the competencies of the portrait of a graduate. I'd like to welcome Dr. Letitia Smith, our Chief of Student Support Services.

Good evening, everyone. I will only be before you a short period of time. I just wanna let you know, and I also wanna acknowledge the members of the Student Support Services Department that I saw come into the room. The Student Support Department stands to address the social, emotional, mental, physical health and wellness needs of all of our students. And so we recognize that in this process, there will be some grappling of feelings and emotions, not just for our students, but also for our staff that's dealing with some of the transitions that's happening. So we stand ready to address those. We have internal and external supports that will address some of the needs of our students. We understand that students For some of them, the transition of schools, for them leaving the only school they've ever known, it may mean not being able to see some of the teachers they've seen all of their lives. For some of our staff, it's the connection and memories that they have in some of those buildings that they worked in. And so we recognize that those things will bring up some emotions that individuals will have to deal with. So in student support services, we are highly engaged with our internal supports through our EAP services through our wellness and resources through human resources, as well as our external partners. The same for our students. We have our counselors and social workers that do groups and therapies. We have clinical consultants that are on our own staff that will also work with those individuals. And then we have a ton of external partners that I won't start to name because I'll hate to leave someone out. But we just know that we are and we do recognize that there are some emotions because we are all people and people have feelings and we do recognize that. So just know that we're not in all these conversations about the savings of money and the transition of schools, the saving of resources. We are also thinking about the resources that we're pouring into our families. So if you and or your child needs anything in the midst of this transition, please don't hesitate to reach out to the Student Support Services Department. We stand ready to serve you. Thank you. And I'll be turning it back over to Dr. Haywood.

All right. So we have said a lot to you in a short amount of time. I would like to draw your attention before we move forward in the agenda to the companion document that you received as you walked in. And as you're internalizing some of the things that you've heard, I want to give space for about five minutes for you to familiarize yourself or to review some of the content that's inside this document. to set us up for really rich conversation in the next portion of our time together. So I'm gonna allow you five minutes to actually just go through and review some of the information. Maybe some of you have been here with us every single meeting, which is true of some in the audience, but this might be your first community meeting and I want you to have at least be equipped to have rich conversation with the individuals in your group in about five minutes. So we'll take five minutes to review this document.

Okay. Thank you.

All right everyone. So one of the things that any good teacher does is observe their students and read the room. And so based off the conversations that are already starting we're going to go ahead and move forward with our small group discussion. So you can still reference this document throughout the course of your discussion as well as the things you've heard. But we do want to honor your time. And so since you all are ready to move into this portion that's what we're going to do. So I would ask that after I finish giving you instructions you will get into small groups about five to six or people who are in close proximity to you and you're going to answer the questions on the note catcher that talks about what resonates perhaps some questions that you still have outstanding as well as, um, any suggestions that you might want to offer the district as we continue to move forward in this future ready planning process. I wouldn't ask that when you get into your groups that you'd identify one presenter, because that, that individual is going to summarize the information for the group and then place it into the padlet. we're ready to have our share outs and so this information is on your agenda so if you have your agenda you'll be able to access it in front of you i am going to go back oh so the wi-fi no problem so you should be able to easily if you tap your cell phones when you click the wi-fi and just hook up to history museum it was for public it was very very simple for us to do but i'm sorry i should have told you all that And if you need support, we'll be walking around. We can support you. I can support you on an Android. And Chief Mitchell can support you if it's an Apple. So if you all would get into small groups, we'll come around to support with the internet concern. But you can begin having discussions and capturing your thoughts, those things that resonate, questions that you still have outstanding, and suggestions that you have for us.

Thank you. Thank you.