Anchorage School Board: 09/15/2026: School Board Work Session

Good afternoon, everyone. We'll call the Tuesday, September 15th ASD School Board work session to order. Present in the boardroom are members Jacobs, Wilson, and Lessons. Online, we have members Blakeslee, Bellamy, and McDonough. Member Higgins will be noted when he joins us.

We've called ourselves to order, engaged in a roll call. Item B1 under discussion is ASD Memorandum Number 037, FY26-27 Proposed Budget Revision Discussion. Um, board members will recall that this memorandum is in front of us at our meeting tonight at 6 o'clock. To allocate the remainder of the waterfall funding facilitated by the Alaska Legislature during the last session. We're going to use the first part of this work session to address questions to administration now that board members have had time to digest the memorandum and feedback from the public on the memorandum.

And then we have time to discuss amendments to the memorandum at the end of the work session as well.

With that said, I'm going to open it up to board members unless, uh, Dr. Bryant, you or your team have any comments. Okay, perfect. And then for our record, Member Higgins joined us at 3:04 PM. So we have all board members online or in the room here. So to board members, are there questions on ASD Memorandum Number 037, the contents, the provisions of the memorandum, as drafted at this time.

Mr. Chair, move. Uh, are we— so we're just simply looking at the original, not the S version, correct?

Somehow I thought There was a member, Bellamy. There, there will be an S or an amended version. We'll go through that amendment later in the evening. Okay, all right. Well, we'll do that actually at the end of this work session.

The start was just to give board members time to ask questions to make things a little bit easier during our meeting. So if there is factual clarification necessary, or board members are unsure about any of the allocations in the memorandum drafted by administration, they would have time to seek those clarifications. So, all right. Thank you for the clarification. Absolutely.

Yep. Do you yourself have any questions on the memorandum that was drafted by administration? I do not. I don't, you know, I really, um, I really, in my heart of hearts, I think we need to just roll all the money over, but I also know that we have pressing needs, um, and I do appreciate, um, I appreciate all the work that's gone into this, and I appreciate the superintendent recommend— bringing these recommendations forward. I don't, I don't have any, any changes, but, um, I, I know the majority of the body wants to, um, make amendments, uh, so it— so my, my vote might not be, um what I thought it would be.

Anyway, I appreciate the opportunity to ask more questions, but I think I'm fine. Okay, thank you.

Member Higgins.

Member Higgins, I saw your hand. Yeah, it helps if I unmute it. I sound, you know, Sorry, thank you. I don't know what the majority feels like, and I'm not sure where Marco's coming from from that, but I might— my question is in regards to this, what we're doing with the money. Have other ideas and suggestions and alternatives that the board has considered and hasn't presented to us that may be something we would want to consider?

We've gotten a lot of emails from people. I've seen classes with 33 in 3rd grade with 7 special ed kids that was out of control. I've heard the questions with sports and all that. Has the, has the administration generated any sort of alternatives if we wanted to do more with the money, what we would do with it?

Uh, through the President, Member Higgins, I think that's a great question. So the intent of this original proposal was to address 2 things at once. We have pressing needs in our classrooms now, and we also know we have a pretty sizable structural deficit going into FY 2028. So that the— some of the things that you described are actually why the proposal includes, um, a couple of million dollars for broad academic and student support. So that would provide flexibility for the administration to invest in additional teacher assistants, paraeducators, perhaps even safety personnel.

There's a lot of unknowns when it comes to what is the implementation of schools going to look like with such a lean budget. So that was intended to address some of that in terms of the pros and cons for the board to consider Uh, of course, one alternative route would be the board to make more investments towards FY28. I think that would be a reasonable thing for the board to consider given the, the large magnitude of the structural deficit. And of course, there's always the option for the board to invest more in FY27, but as I've shared, um, there are major pros and cons to that because the more that we invest in personnel for FY27, the larger the deficit grows, and we'll need to balance that budget, that deficit, by March, which will well in advance of any signaling from the legislature and possibly the governor. Again, there are unknowns there, and the other unknown to consider would be the level of investment from the municipality.

There seems to be some suggestion that it might be difficult for the city to meet the full level of the cap. Just a few thoughts for your consideration.

Well, my concern is I don't know what '28 will be like. I believe we're going to have a new governor. We had a governor that right now that believes in private schools, homeschools, and he's been very upfront about that. And we've got elections going on where education funding seems to be the top priority for discussion. And one of the criticisms is we're not putting enough into classrooms that could help lower classroom sizes or deal with the issues the public's crying about.

And I had to deal with that at a community council. I was surprised with that one. So I'm just hearing from legislators. I know locally that everything we can do, if we can do a little bit more towards cutting the classroom sizes, helping out in the classroom before we plan on, you know, determining that 28 is going to be a catastrophe.

Member Higgins, you— your mute is back on. Okay, sorry about that. I probably made more sense that way. I just would love to know if we put $5 million back into it and not put all of it towards 28, what we could accomplish with that and then evaluate that rather than assuming the worst-case scenario.

Did you hear that? Oops. So, Dr. Bryan, I think the question for administration, um, if I am hearing Member Higgins correctly, and that is not guaranteed, um, is if administration were to be given $5 million to allocate somewhere, where would it allocate $5 million? Oh, a great question, Member Higgins. Uh, there are some things that are not unknown.

So for example, enrollment continues to tick up, but we also know that enrollment is down from the previous year. So needs are going to vary across schools. I think the biggest thing on my mind would be the impact of staffing shortages, whether that be early resignations or, um, coverage issues. Just making sure that we have enough adults in classrooms, and the profile of those adults might vary. It could be a classroom teacher, it could be a teaching assistant to really support and provide extra services to a multiple or a single classroom.

It could be greater investments towards specialized services. I would imagine that this would have to be a very targeted approach because $5 million wouldn't be enough to meaningfully give every school the same thing. We would have to be very targeted. I will caution the board that if we invest too heavily in teacher positions specifically, there's going to be a ceiling in terms of the available, um, certificated educators that we can recruit this late in school year. So for that reason, if the board were to make a larger investment towards FY27, I would request some flexibility to be able to invest between urgent staffing needs that may range from teachers, paraeducators, security personnel, or potentially even administrators.

So one thing that is yet to be seen is the, the level of behavior issues that we might see, um, just due to fewer adults being in the room. And assistant principals, for example, play a really valuable role, especially at the secondary level, in preventing issues before they become present. Same thing with security personnel that we can put into schools. It would vary widely, and that, that's why I would really value the flexibility to make those determinations. And of course, the board is always able to put guardrails in place.

Well, I appreciate that. I'm not trying to micromanage that aspect of it, but I know that there are critical needs. I've been visiting a lot of schools, listening to a lot of, of teachers who are pretty much in tears, and, um, and programs. And of course, we've seen the emails and the responses You're right, I do think it's, it becomes one of having a bundle of funds to help, and as long as it's in the schools, that's all I'm looking for. So that's, that's what I'm questioning as to how critical we could benefit these kids that are— you're in classroom with— if you're in a classroom with 33 kids in special ed, you've got a lot of disruptions.

It's not a lot of teaching going on.

Member Lessans. Uh, I appreciate the question. I might consider the reverse. If $5 million that's not currently in 037 were spent instead on FY28, how does that help us bring class sizes down next year?

So this one is a little bit more complicated, but the question is, what is the impact of additional investments into FY28? And the short of it is that we need to brace for the fact that the cost of all of our employees, but particularly our educators, is going to rise going into next year. And our Our CFO, Andy Ratliff, can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the cost difference for educators next year is at least $17 million. So investing forward potentially gives us the ability to minimize, not completely eliminate, but minimize displacements and disruptions to classrooms. In terms of lowering the PTR, I don't know if we can make a commitment that we could lower it just because to lower PTR would require an additional investment of about $7 to $8 million, and then of course that cost is going to grow every year.

Really, I think I think the biggest value could be to make the decision to invest more aggressively into FY28 so we can stabilize what we have, because the short of it is that the status quo is going to be about $35 million due to the cost of living adjustments in our labor contracts, utilities, and healthcare. Mr. Ratliff, what did I miss—. Leave out?

I think you got that fairly, fairly well correct. I think the, the basic premise though is money we spend now, we can save for next year. And also, it doesn't increase our baseline spend. So if we add $5 million worth of things that might be recurring, if we put it into a partial PTR even this year, that just increases our baseline budget heading into FY28 too.

Member Wilson.

So up to this point, I feel like every year we're in essentially for the last 5 years. At least every year has felt much worse in regards to the amount of money that we have to allocate towards our kids, towards our classrooms, towards our teachers. And every year I, I and many other school board members have allocated for us to continue to use pretty much every penny that we have to sustain what we have This year was an extremely difficult blow, as previous years have been, but this year even more so. I am concerned that if we try to use every penny that we have brought in to increase any amount of classroom teachers, classroom, any, any type of additional resources that we can bring to our classrooms, which they desperately need. I'm worried that if we use every penny again this year, that next year is going to be a, again, a huge blow, um, and we're going to have to take, again, take those resources away.

So I, I am not very eloquently stating because it is stressful when we talk about our budget and the lack of resources that we have for our kids now and for next year. But I would like to, as Dr. Bryant said, stabilize what we have, save as much as we can so that we are, um, not giving and taking so much, but at least what we have tried to give we can try to keep.

Thank you, Member Wilson. Member Higgins, I see your hand back up.

Thank you, and, and I appreciate the, the both sides of this coin. I really do. I guess we're talking so much about money, we're not talking about kids. There are programs out there, there are classrooms that are pretty dysfunctional almost. And there are some other issues out there.

That's what I'm hoping to say. Okay, where are we going to get the best value? We're making decisions here about budget long-term, like with closing schools and how much money we are going to save. And we're finding out we're not going to save it. I'm sure that you'll see that soon.

But the issue is, is there some— what is the benefit with that money, how much can be used and what types of things we can do, rather than just talking about the dollars. We're not talking about kids, and that's, that's what I'm hoping to focus on, is say, what could we do to help kids this year with $5 million? I know we can't separate out classrooms really at this point in time with elementary. High school, you can do things in between the semesters, you can do some things, but some CSports is something you can just decide you want to cover it. But there are other supports for the classrooms that can take place that I'm concerned that really are critical.

And I'm just, I just don't know that I've heard, this is what you're giving up. And that's what I would hope to hear from this is to have a statement there starting off, right? For the sake of the kids, this is what the $5 million would do.

Okay, I don't see any other hands.

Uh, Member Higgins' hand is up, but I'm assuming, uh, you aren't interested in speaking again, Pat. Um.

I think I have a clarification question. I believe I know the answer to this. Oh, well, then we'll go to Member Blakeslee. When we talk about worst-case and best-case scenario, you know, I think it was within this legislative session that we saw precedent broken, and for the first time, the Alaska state government chose not to fund honor the funding in the foundation formula, at least right away, due to a veto by the governor.

I guess to administration, you know, we have a new revenue, new revenue stream through legislation that was enacted that will facilitate additional funding targeted towards utility costs and the disproportionate impact that Alaskans are subject to because of our, the costs of heating lighting, lights, etc. But the language in that law, I believe, contains the word "may" and would be subject to appropriation regardless.

In addition, there's no precedent for at least the executive branch determining that the foundation formula would not necessarily need to be honored if state fiscal realities deem it appropriate.

My understanding is that even with, um, additional revenue from excess oil prices, that there's still a structural deficit in the state FY28 operating budget, um, that is in the billions of dollars figure. Um, I'm struggling to feel confident, uh, 100% certain that the worst-case scenario is that statutory funding will be given to ASD, but not a penny more. It occurs to me that a worst-case scenario might be that the state's unable to honor its obligation, um, especially given that legislation passed which has, um, incurred new obligation on the state, both in terms of the aforementioned utility costs as well as a shifting of the local contribution, um, to add additional burden to the state, uh, coffers. What is administration's thought on what a worst-case scenario from the state might be? Or is our worst-case scenario from administration's perspective truly stat— what was funding that's accorded to us via statute and nothing more?

Or does administration, not ruling out the possibility that the state might not be able to facilitate the allocation of all the funding that's available or should be available to districts via statute, Great question, President Jacobs, and of course this really rests on individual decisions made by legislators, so this is coming from a place of speculation, but I personally do not have confidence that it's completely assured that we'll receive the full energy rebate for a number of reasons. You know, it was unprecedented about 12 months ago, the previous cycle, when the governor chose to veto below the amount for schools dedicated in statute. And I think one of the reasons why we were able to be successful, um, in gathering enough support for a veto override was because at least constitutionally there's firm ground that the legislature shall maintain its schools. And I would argue at least maintaining the amount that they approved in statute would be a good way to fulfill that. However, this energy rebate is on much shakier ground for the reasons that President Jacobs described.

So in my mind, the worst-case scenario would be to not receive any of it. And on the On the upside, I wouldn't be surprised if our best-case scenario, we're just receiving the full appropriation. And I say that because that is a meaningful additional investment that the legislature will have to find the, the resources to fund. But it's also not going to change the game when it comes to the level of resources we would need to meaningfully decrease class sizes and get to where we need to go. So I worry that the best-case scenario would be the full appropriation of the energy rebate.

But again, this is speculation based off of what could or may or may not happen in the legislature.

Thank you for that. I thought I saw Member Blakeslee with her mic. I'm going to see a comment or question. Yeah, but I actually think I'm going to save it because we're going to talk about the amendment next during the work session, or just during, right? That's what I heard.

Yep, we're going to pivot to any amendments that were submitted by board members ahead of our amendment deadline. So yeah, this was intended just for general discussion or questions on the memorandum that was drafted by administration. Yep, I, I'm going to save my question. Okay. I'm not seeing any other members in the queue for discussion on the amendment or the underlying subject matter, and so with that, we'll pivot to what happened with the second half of our process and what happened since the first meeting.

Um, board members will recall that we asked for amendments, both for public notice as well as to help facilitate a more involved discussion, a thoughtful discussion as to how to pass, um, ACMN Random Number 037 as is or as amended. I believe we had one amendment that was submitted by myself and Member Lessens I will invite Member Lessans to describe that amendment at this time, and then there could be questions and discussion as the board sees fit. Great, thank you. Um, so I want to begin by saying that Memorandum 037S, which I hope to introduce this evening, intend to introduce this evening, really builds on the administration's thoughtful proposal for how to bridge this year's needs, the immediate needs for our kids, as Member Higgins as put it, with next year's reality, which I think Member Wilson spoke to. And I don't want to take that lightly because I think a lot of hard work and discussion went into preparing the memo as, as it stands.

That said, we had an initial conversation at our last meeting about the memorandum. We pulled it from non-action and talked about some of the elements that informed the substitute that was attached to this, that was attached as 037S. And I'll sort of talk about it on a high level before maybe getting into a little bit of the nitty-gritty. So at its fundamental level, the recommendation decreases each of the amounts that you see before you by $3 million. We essentially Decrease $14.5 million to $11.5 million, decrease $630 million to $627 million, and decrease the overall upper limit spending authority from the proposed $896 million to $893 million.

So that's the technical reduction of $3 million.

It significantly expands the pertinent facts section because Speaking personally, I always believe there are lots of pertinent facts to consider, and frankly, the gravity of the situation, I think, makes it incumbent upon us to fully acknowledge all of the information we've received. So I want to flag that I detailed a bit more about both House Bills 28 and 263. I wanted to make sure it was acknowledged that we received notification that they were allowed to go into law 9 business days and 5 business days respectively before our fiscal year began. And that even though those both passed into law, and this was part of the original memo, we've discussed quite a bit that the extent of any waterfall funding was completely unknown to us as a board. Until effectively 2 months into our fiscal year, weeks after classrooms were established and students' routines were, were built.

So I just thought it was really important to have a summary of the legislative and gubernatorial actions sort of between May and into August. And there's a summary of what our board has done, uh, sort of since becoming aware that those 2 bills have passed into law. So it acknowledges that the board took action in July to leverage all known available funds and to take, quite frankly, a bit of a gamble on what we anticipated receiving through some of the waterfall funding. It also acknowledges that we as a board approved Resolution 2627.01, which removes school closures from consideration as a mechanism or tool to close our budget deficit. There's a section looking at the various other pieces of information we've received, really August and September.

And I want to begin with, um, the notification and the superintendent's update. And I have my printout here, and I believe it was August 18th, right as school began, which is when the superintendent's update notified the board and public that our projected FY28 deficit exceeds $45 million, and then the following year's deficit is there as well. On August 31st, so again, this is 2 weeks after students started the school year, that's when we received notification that the state had met its revenue targets. During September 1st, it acknowledges that the administration proposed Memo 037, and it kind of digs into one of the sort of exercises that we explored. Which was that if we were to move forward with 037 as it stands, essentially allocating $7.78 million for use in FY27, saving $17.6 million for FY28, we'd still be left with over $26 million in a deficit for FY28.

So that's— that was the original 037 exercise that we talked about. Out at our last meeting when we discussed 037. So I just wanted to put that into this document. Um, during the same work session 2 weeks ago, I added language from our conversation regarding polling data showing that 62.5% of respondents to a recent poll preferred that the board balance staffing or programmatic investments this year with the objective of protecting classrooms next year. And a second question that was shared with the board 61% of respondents indicated their preference to use additional funds to simply protect classrooms next year instead of restoring staffing, uh, or programs this year.

I also added language asserting that on September 2nd, the public was available, could see— the board didn't directly receive, but anybody could go and look— the mayor's preliminary 120-day budget memo. Which was a response to an Assembly resolution from July, which had requested the mayor to provide a ceiling and a floor for next year's additional local contribution. And essentially, that preliminary memo didn't directly answer the question, but it did indicate and underscore that no one will really know what that funding level will be until the Assembly passes is the 2027 municipal budget in November, and revisions are made in the spring.

But I thought that was important context to add to this memo as a piece of information which could inform us as a board. I also included language, uh, from the document the board gets, um, at the end of each week called Board Connect. We refer to it sometimes— that the September 4th Board Connect included a report of beginning of year staffing metrics. Fundamentally indicating to me at least there are not enough people to fill current vacancies. And so I'll share that with the public here.

The board was told there are 102 long-term substitutes covering classroom vacancies and long-term absences as of the first day of instruction. That may—. Number— that number may have changed today, but that was, that was the number that was shared with us on September 4th as of the first day of instruction. Um, as of September 4th, the board was told that we have 59 teachers who are here through the J-1 visa program. There are 106 teachers working under an alternative certificate, and we have 13 retired teachers who have come back, which is great.

Um, we were also told in that memo that of the nearly 100 holdback FTE that the board allocated, like, in July and August Principals had posted 66 additional positions. Of those 66, only 16 of them were genuinely new hires. 26 Of them were filled by long-term substitutes, and the remaining 24 were filled with transfers, retire rehires, and other non-new hire solutions. And, you know, I don't know exactly about the delta between 100 FTE and 66 positions, but my assumption is that that the administration was really talking about fundamentally new positions because you could distribute holdback FTE, 1 FTE to a school, and that could be given out to 5 different teachers to take a 1.2 each. So that's, I think, my, that's my assumption about part of the delta, that the holdback FTE have been predominantly allocated, but really of all of that we've only got 16 new hires.

We have more than 100 long-term subs. We have 5 dozen J-1 visa educators. Um, there just aren't a whole lot of bodies left in Anchorage to fill our needs now that we're halfway through the first quarter. So really, that's a lot of talk to say that this memo fundamentally decreases the item in memo 037 labeled student supports. The original memo said $3.7 million This memo says $700,000, and that is with the intent— and it's spelled out on the last page, sort of in sections 3 and 4— to allow just over $20 million, so $20,608,000 remaining from House Bill 263's waterfall funding, to be obligated to preserve approximately 144 teaching positions.

Including those required to maintain the middle school model for next year. So basically we, we say we're going to save money. We are intentionally going to take the middle school model off the table because I think we found in the prior budget conversations that students' requirements for special education, the immersion programs, um, their— and really kids' needs developmental needs to be supported through robust exposures to CTE, language, the arts. All of those things are really valuable, and I just want to take the middle school model off the table for the future budget conversation so we can plan. It has bearing, for example, on conversations we've had in governance about our health policy and health education.

Um, so getting back to the bullet point on Page 5 about student supports, which decreases from $3.7 million to $700,000. Um, it also ensures that within that bullet point, um, that we would have guaranteed funding for the district to engage in contracted services with the Anchorage School-Based Health Center sufficient to sustain their current operational levels throughout the second semester of the school year. Of this current school year, and I'm going to ask Ms. Heather Ireland in just a moment to come speak to that and the, um, the health center's needs. And I wanted to flag the technical change in that same bullet point. It did say high-dose tutoring for elementary students, and I struck the word elementary not to mandate the way in which high-dose tutoring could be allocated, but to give give the administration a little bit of opportunity or leeway to see whether there are secondary students who could also benefit from high-dose tutoring.

And I know the funding is thin, but I, I believe that there's potential there. So it allows the administration to have flexibility to continue to support high-dose tutoring as it has, or perhaps branch into an additional new area. And then the very final point point on item 4 on page 6 is that other than for legal contractual compliance and/or budgetary corrections, no investments the board has made for FY '27, this current year, with one-time funds since July 1st would be included in the preliminary budget that the administration brings to the board for the first meeting in February. And I will make the technical flag that when I initially sent this to Ms. Sullivan, it said proposed budget. I recognized my error, so a technical correction was made.

This is now— it now reads as correct that we basically would say don't bring one-time interventions or investments forward for FY28 when we know we have a $45 million deficit right now. If that makes sense. Um, so I'm sure there are questions. I would— gracious, I would like to ask for the board's indulgence in holding questions until I could ask Miss Ireland to come up and just speak on behalf of the needs of the school-based health centers.

And maybe you could begin with just a little bit— you've been here before, but a little bit of what they are who you serve and your fiscal situation. Yep. So I'm Heather. I came last year and told a little bit about our program that we serve at 5 schools regularly: East, Bartlett, West, Clark, and Bagich, and then part-time at Wendler, Romeg, and Central. And last year I explained that we had gotten from 2023 to 2025 a grant from the MUNI, and it was kind of a game changer.

And since that time we've grown by almost 40%, serving more students. And unfortunately we did not get funded for 2026. I just yesterday submitted our application for '27, so fingers crossed on that.

But yeah, so, so my board made the decision in 2026 we've just been drawing down our reserves and that those will run out by December. Without additional funding. Um, and I've made lots of applications to various foundations, and some are still pending and some more promising than others. Um, but we opted to, rather than thin our services this fall, um, to continue with the services at the same level, knowing we were potentially going to run out of money, with the idea that hopefully more money would come in and then we could continue for the rest of the school year. It's really hard to say no to families that need physicals so their kids can participate in sports or need urgent care as they're referred by the school nurses.

So that's the route that we are going. So like I said, yeah, an application to the MUNI, other foundation funding, we continue to bill for services, and then the other hopefully bright light is the Meta settlement money that's coming into the state.

It will be coming soon but won't get allocated until the next legislative session. But the work we're doing in the clinics addresses some of those things that, that settlement resulted in— kids struggling with social media, kids not sleeping well, things like that. So we're talking to kids about that every day. I would like to think that the legislature will then allocate some money to this preventative services that we're offering. So I'm optimistic that, that funding might happen.

And like the school budget, lots will depend on the election, who the next governor is, and where the legislature is in the spring. So, um, yeah, if we're allocated some of this money, it will allow us to continue services for the spring semester as we look for additional funding. And, um, yeah, it just, uh, would make a huge difference just to the families we serve, but also recognizing it is only a one-time possibility to get this funding from the district. So does anyone have any questions for me about it?

I see Member McDonough raised his hand online.

Yeah, thank you. I have a question about the grants that, that you had won and were using to provide the services. Had the Anchorage School District provided a letter of support or a memorandum of agreement or any formal Like, how were— how was the Anchorage School District involved in building those grants? And also, how did the sustainability plan of those grants look?

Um, so a couple things. First of all, yes, when we submitted our application for the— a year ago, the district provided a letter of support. I did not ask for one this time around because in the grant instructions it said don't give us letters of support. So I suspected, should I have asked for one? I think generally the board is, and the district is supportive of our work, but we didn't ask for one this go-round.

And then, sorry, the second part— sorry, I'm just reading the transcript here.

Yeah, well, can you repeat the second part of your question? Sure, yeah, the— I'm wondering about the sustainability plan that was in that grant and how we may have been involved in helping get that plan drafted. So, so the, the funding source for this grant application is the alcohol tax. And a couple of things, when we initially received the grant, it went to smaller organizations. They had two different pots, the smaller organizations and larger organizations.

And so because there was a separate pot of money, we were able to, to, you know, have a more maybe competitive application than a year ago. And, and for also for the application we just submitted, if you had received funding from this source previously, your application was docked 5 points. So A base application would be 100 points and we were starting at 95, so that was a weakness, if you will, in our application that couldn't be helped.

And then, yeah, just in general, the alcohol tax funding was less than the muni had initially anticipated. Um, and so they reduced that number. And then finally, another challenge to that grant was there was a federally funded program by the muni, and some of that federal money was reduced. And so the alcohol tax went to fill that gap, and I'm not sure if that's happening this year or not.

Um, and then another thought about sustainability for some context. Um. The program in Juneau doesn't bill for services. Their city opts to fund that program almost entirely with a little bit from some of the Native corporations that provide healthcare there.

So, you know, different communities have different models, but we would like to think— and other models in other states, other states fund school-based health centers. That's not something that our state is currently doing.

Doing, but again, I hope maybe with this Meadows settlement money that becomes a possibility.

Okay, thank you. I mean, just to reflect, I'm very supportive of school-based health centers. I draw concern that the Muni has decided not to continue this investment through something that feels as arbitrary as a 5-point deduction. But that's less— I mean, it sounds like you guys have done everything needed to try to sustain this program, and the uni has given us more responsibility to pick up the slack than maybe they realized. So that, that really helps me understand where the need has been drawn from.

Well, and I think it's similar to the district that there's less resources available and more need, unfortunately.

Okay, we'll go to Member Blakeslee. Uh, thank you. I had similar questions, and I just sort of continuing the thought of the lack of investment from the muni from year to year, then I'm also now sort of thinking, does that mean that applicants inherently are only competitive every other year when they apply? For this grant. It's not even every other.

It's like the way that it's written is like if at some— so this, when the alcohol tax passed in 2020, like anyone who's received this money since 2020 is sort of docked in their application. Okay. And again, that's how they're structuring the application. So, and, um, uh, and this— yeah, okay. So have you— I mean, have you had conversations with the muni, or has the muni had conversations with previous previous funding recipients about why they implemented a new point system.

And, and I don't know, I guess I'm just thinking it seems like a crazy thing to cut. I also understand that there are fewer resources to spread around among many different organizations and needs, and at the same time I'm wondering how clued in they are about what the impacts, the resulting impacts are for previous recipients of these funds, and if, if they know Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, we report regularly and, and I've continued to report back to them the, you know, data that I provided to the school board members in the spring too, of like, here's the work we've been doing. And, and I think they would like to see our program funded, but they know that there's limited resources out there and that choices have to be made because in a good way, the alcohol tax isn't raising enough money. So like, there's some pros and cons on that. But, but I would also say that, you know, in, in one of the challenges that we're facing is that in serving more students, we're also seeing an increase in the number of uninsured students.

So the previous, the immediate previous school year, we were seeing 30% uninsured students. The year before that, it was less than 20%. And the 100 kids— I just ran the report this afternoon— the 100 kids that we've seen this year, it's maybe back towards 20%, but 20% of uninsured kids, they're not paying for the care that we're providing, and that costs money. Yep. So, um, do you—.

How—. Sorry, Member Lessans, um, how much of this $700K would be allocated for specifically school-based health centers? I think it's a relatively small portion, and really the question when we spoke 2 weeks ago we, the administration talked about kind of an umbrella to allow some flexibility because tutoring is under here. The school-based health centers, I think, were actually under there but weren't named as such. And credit recovery opportunities, I think it was like 300, 300, and 100.

And could you just articulate your understanding of your second semester needs? Yeah. So based on the billing revenue we'll get this fall, the resources we have, you know, how much we're drawing down on those, I estimate that it's going to be about a $50,000 need for serving in the spring without any other additional funding.

Okay, that's helpful. Thank you. Yep. So a lot of— sorry, a lot of talk, but a relatively small figure to support hundreds of students. Yeah.

As students and as student athletes, and to ensure that they are growing and thriving. Yeah. I just wanted to speak to the alcohol tax process. What I think I understand from previous Assembly budget meetings and having discussions with their members, I think the goal of alcohol tax funding and the programs that are in it was for them not to be continual recipients and not for those, that portion of their budget not to become calcified.

Classified, but to vet programs and then pivot them into the regular budget, or get programs started so that they can prove viability and in theory receive funding sources elsewhere. And so, while I, I will strongly and fervently hold the municipality accountable if and when they choose not to fund public education to the local maximum, I do understand in some sense where the alcohol tax budget is, is meant to make new investments and then prove viability and then transfer those programs elsewhere. It's unfortunate that one of our own programs that's demonstrating success is being impacted by that model, but just want to provide that perspective. Member McDonough, I see your hand up. Do you have additional comments, or was that from before?

Okay, let's see. Member McDonough's hand went down. Um, are there any other questions on, um, the amendment that was sponsored by Member Lessens and myself?

Seeing none, Miss Ireland, thank you for being with us tonight.

Um, Miss Blixley—. Remember, Blixley, Well, I, I guess I have questions, but we only have 7 minutes. Let—. No, we've extended our work session until 4:30, and then we'll do executive session from 4:30 to 6 PM. Okay, great.

Um, thanks for clarifying that. So, um, then I will ask some of these questions now, and maybe I'll continue to ask during our regular meeting. But, um, going back to the, the $3 million that was deducted from the original proposal in this amendment is for the personnel needs outside of high-dose tutoring and credit recovery, and now school-based health centers. Is that— that's right, right? Okay.

And, and from what I am interpreting, and after reading the amendment multiple times, and again the explanation, I understand that it sounds like the— a big chunk of that rationale is the fact that we have this shallow resource pool of educators to fill vacancies that currently exist. And is that— am I capturing this correctly before I keep asking questions? All right, ask my questions. Yes. Okay, sorry, it sounds like I, I'm putting you on trial.

Is that correct? Okay, so I just want to make sure I have a full context. So with that in mind, and I have also asked multiple times for, um, you know, updates on staffing reports, I've asked specifically about holdback positions But now, and so I really appreciate all the reports that administration has provided me so far, um, but now I have broader questions about vacancies, not just specific to holdbacks but inclusive of them. So I know, and we talk a lot about how we have this shallow resource pool to fill personnel needs. It's late in the school year, it's hard to attract people into those positions, and I still would like to have a better understanding of what that pool actually looks like.

And so I, I would love if there was a way to sort of hear about any trends in these vacancies or sort of a high-level bird's-eye view of the landscape around personnel. How do we know how many people, or do we know how many people are or are not looking for positions? You know, are we seeing patterns of positions, of some positions being filled in some areas but not in others? Because when I hear a blanket number of we have X number of vacancies, that doesn't tell me if it's a higher number of vacancies in specific grades or specific schools or in specific subject matters, or if it's just blanket across the vacancies. We have vacancies that are filled filled more instantaneously than others.

If there's more nuance there, I think I would, I would like a better understanding about how we know what the resource pool looks like. I can get started on a response, and if there are specific questions you want me to follow up on, we can certainly put the team to work on some of that analysis. In general, and I've talked about this before, right? Hiring pools, we know just from years of patterns, you know, are— there's certainly more available candidates in the early spring months than there is even in the summer, and certainly more than there is now, because the way teacher hiring works is once a teacher is under contract with the district, most districts will not even entertain them as a candidate any longer until the following year when they're no longer on contract with that district. District.

So, you know, there is a national teacher shortage. There's certainly a shortage of teacher-certificated folks in Alaska. And so by this time of year, most folks who are, you know, good solid candidates have been hired on contracts with other districts. So that's sort of the general trend that we've seen for a long time. I would say that another trend that has persisted for a long time is just fewer and fewer candidates available for hard to fill positions in special education.

That started probably 20 years ago in the related services fields. It has gotten more challenging over the last 10 or 15 years in terms of classroom special ed teachers as well, especially when we're talking about self-contained classrooms. Those are specialty skills, specialty degrees. There, there's just fewer people nationally going into those fields, and so there's just not— we're not producing enough folks to fill the vacancies vacancies anywhere in the nation in that area. More recently, what has seemed to shift in the system is we're seeing lots of vacancies that we're not able to fill in elementary education, and that's really a sea change because you go back 10 or 20 years and for every vacancy in elementary there were, you know, 20, 30, 40, 50 viable candidates to choose from that wanted that seat.

And so it has been shocking, I think, to a lot of people in the system to see in recent years fewer folks interested in those elementary positions. We've done pretty well the last couple years in filling most of our vacancies in secondary, so that has not been as much of a problem area. I don't know if that starts to address some of your questions or if there's any specific follow-ups you have given that information. Yeah, that's really helpful. And yes, I definitely am aware of sort of the trends, the earlier trends that you spoke to about about candidate recruitment and having a higher pool in general in the spring, and then summer it's less, and then obviously now it's— I totally get that.

It is helpful to hear about some of the nuance around SPED positions and the new trends around elementary positions. So I think then a follow-up question is, I, I, um, we're talking a lot about teachers, classroom teachers specifically, Do we also have trends around long-term subs and paras? And I ask that specifically because while we maybe have a lot of these vacancies in elementary level positions, we also know that our elementary level classrooms are busting at the seams. We, we have some really, really tough circumstances, um, that we've never seen in years past quite like this. Um, and so in some ways I feel like I'm not surprised that a teacher wouldn't want to take on a position where you're going to be given a class of 40 kids, right?

Um, or high 30s. So I have heard from a lot of teachers and school principals and parents who say that there is still, um, a need for long-term subs and paras to provide supports to those teachers, because even this early in the year it feels so unsustainable when you talk about, you know, finding substitutes when people start to get sick, for example, and we're not even— we're at the beginning of the school year, right? Do you have a sense about how beneficial having long-term subs and paras are, even though they might not be as ideal as classroom teachers, and what the what the, um, the rate or trends look like in filling those positions when they're made available? Varies a little bit from year to year. Um, I'll start with long-term subs.

Long-term subs have actually proven to be a pretty good recruiting ground for us in terms of people who think they might like working in a school. They maybe start as a day-to-day sub, they enjoy the work, principals identify that they're pretty good in terms of interacting with kids and they pick up, you know, the kind of rhythm of the classroom pretty well. So then they may be moved to a long-term position, and then the principal, you know, talks to them about, hey, would you be interested in picking up an emergency certificate next year and moving into the classroom, you know, fully as the teacher of record and work through, you know, over the next couple of years, a traditional certification program to become a fully any sort of licensed teacher in the state of Alaska. And so that has proven pretty effective.

What we—. I miss Mr. Holloman, who used to talk about the days when there were, you know, thousands of people who on their own dime would fly to Alaska to attend job fairs to be a teacher in Alaska. During those years, because there were always more candidates than there were positions, we had really robust sub, you know, roles as well, and long-term subs who had certificates who were just waiting in the wings to get a For the last 10 or 15 years, again, that has really diminished and, and more or less gone away. We rely more now on long-term subs in the classrooms who do not have a certificate than those who do. So I'm thankful that the state opened up that emergency certificate pathway during COVID because it has at least created a new pipeline out of that resource.

Depending on how many vacancies we have, we don't always have enough long-term subs. You know, with content specialty, especially in secondary, to cover. This year we're probably doing a little bit better because we have fewer standing vacancies because we eliminated so many positions. So it's kind of a double-edged coin there. But, you know, it's— yeah, I mean, that's a little bit about long-term subs.

In terms of paraprofessionals, a few years ago when we raised the base hourly wage for paraprofessionals, we did do a better job recruiting folks into those positions. We had a lot of volatility, a lot of vacancies, and a lot of turnover in those positions in the years prior to that, especially after the Great Resignation post-COVID. We saw a lot of other organizations in the community raising their minimum wage offering, and we just weren't competitive anymore. So once we became more competitive, we reduced our vacancies from about 250 down to right now somewhere between 75 and 80 is kind of a standing number throughout the year. That's out of about 700 positions, just to give you a kind of a ballpark of, of the percentage of vacancies.

I would say with clerical and paraprofessional positions, really all of our positions that are hourly positions, we have seen less permanence in those positions over time. A lot of times people would take those jobs when their kids were in elementary school, they enjoyed working in the schools, and maybe the salary wasn't really high, but the benefits were good. And over time, as healthcare costs have risen, we have— we're not as competitive in the healthcare space, right? There was a time when we provided benefits and there was no employee premium. You know, that, that has really shifted over the last 10 years.

And so some of the staying power in those positions was for the benefits, and those benefits just aren't as as good as they once were. So I think we continue to see some turnover in those positions, although we still have folks who are dedicated to those jobs and have done them for 20 and 30 and 40 years in our schools. Sure, and, um, thank you. And the long-term sub positions are salaried, is that right? Because they're long-term, they're— are they not?

All of our subs are temporary workers. Okay. And we have multiple different pay scales, so you're sort of regular day-to-day sub, somebody looks at jobs and picks one up for the day, they, they make $175 a day. They get an additional $25 if they are willing to pick up a job at a Title I school. A couple years ago, we added another tier to try to attract back some of our retired teacher pool.

And so if they have a teaching certificate, we bumped that up to $225 a day as the base minimum, and then they can get— they're eligible still for that $25 Title incentive. When somebody moves to be a long-term sub, they're picking up now all of the responsibilities of that classroom, right? So they're taking attendance, they're writing lesson plans, they're grading papers, they're doing parent conferences. So the, the base rate for long-term subs is $285 a day, but it is still a temporary position, non-benefited. Okay, that's helpful to know.

Okay, well, those are my, my initial questions, and then I have comments, but I guess work session flow, we're not doing comments, right? We're just— we're saving that for the regular meeting, like our perspectives, opinions. The work session is intended for information, understanding. Debate will occur during the meeting.

Uh, certainly. I just want to ask a clarification question on the heels of something Mr. Lang said. Um, I was interested in learning more about, um, the breakdown, and it sounds like— I think I heard that the majority of our long-term subs are now non-certified.

I wonder if as we delve deeper into the pool of applicants for long-term subs, does the amount of certificated individuals who choose to apply, does that shift even further towards individuals who don't possess a current certificate? And then Could you—. I mean, I, I feel like I know the answer to this, but I think it's also just worth refreshing the board's memory, or at least for public understanding, discussing what a— the difference in a classroom, uh, you know, and to Member Higgins' point, we want to focus our conversations on students. How is a student benefited by having a certificated staff at the front of the classroom versus a long-term sub who might not have of a certificate.

So to start with, a long-term staff member who is full-time and certificated has been through some form of teacher preparation at the university level, so specific content area study around education, pedagogy, you know, how to teach their particular content area if they're in secondary. A long-term sub who is who's not certificated may not have that same experience. It is a requirement to be a long-term sub that they have at least a bachelor's degree, so they do typically bring, you know, some life experience and education to the role. The long-term sub is usually supported by the principal, by other teachers in that school in terms of helping them prepare adequate lessons and make sure that are ready to respond to the differentiated needs that might exist in that classroom. So we have some long-term subs who are truly, you know, phenomenal, and that's why they get tapped on the shoulder to be considered for emergency certificates and encouraged to go into education.

But that was, that's one of the primary differences that I would note.

Thank you. Then just one last point of clarification. Is it, I mean, do you, in your experience, do you know anecdotally or not that that as you delve deeper into the pool of applicants for folks who apply for long-term subs, that you see a shift in less, fewer and fewer certificated folks being a part of that pool, if for no other reason than we're hiring the folks that are certificated? Yeah, I think if, if those folks are interested in a full-time position with us, we've had enough standing vacancies over the last few years that it's likely that they would be able to, to be picked up in one of those positions. So somebody who has a certificate today who's serving as a long-term sub, that's probably a personal choice.

They like maybe the flexibility of being a temporary worker, or maybe they're retired and they're, you know, coming back to serve in that capacity, you know, to supplement their income. Okay, thank you. We'll go to Member Lessans, then Member McDonough, then back to Member Blakeslee. Yeah, this is really a question for about finances. And so I have an understanding, I think, of what the FY28 deficit looks under— looks like under 037 as it stands.

Can you— this is Mr. Ratliff— do you have an understanding or a tentative model of what FY28 deficit looks like with the movement of an additional $3 million towards savings and the stipulation that other than for legal contractual compliance and/or budgetary corrections, no investments made for FY27 with one-time funds after July 1st would be included in the preliminary budget. Give a sense of what that looks like. Uh, yes, um, if you allow me to share my screen.

You can pull that up. So this is the spending plan that was put forth by the administration with regard to Memo 37. Um, it backfills Memo 16S for the $6.8 million, adds charter school fair shares to $3.7 million of just kind of general support, and then activities— snow plowing, security, transportation So the line items we included in our memo, that all kind of rolling forward, and about $3.7 million, we've designated that, that piece of it as non-recurring.

So I would leave, you know, roughly a $27 million deficit. So when I kind of looked at the Memo 37S, very similar things, just took out the $3 million from the school supports. But then when we go to the deficit calculator to see what's considered non-recurring, I started to put together this sheet. So I don't know if you can see this, I can blow it up a little bit, but it really allocates— shows everything that the board has approved since July 1st for with the new money to include the holdback teachers, the specialists, some of the corrections we made. So I kind of went down the list and said which one of these would we really need to what we might consider in that pool of non-recurring expenditures if with the language that was provided.

So really, you know, kind of going down it, the holdback teachers go away, the curriculum, the activities, the transportation. Some of the charter funding stays in because that's tied to recurring revenue. Some of it goes away because that's part of the one-time, one, uh, revenue. So they would feel cuts also, but it wouldn't necessarily be something we build into our budget. So with that, just kind of what I've identified here as non-recurring, it's about $17.5 million or so that we get there.

So if I go back to the waterfall thing that I did for the amendments, Um, that gets to an estimated deficit of about $6 million if you consider all this stuff to be non-recurring. Um, I'm going to caveat that within our budget book it will show that we did have to cut all this stuff to get to a balanced budget, and the schools would definitely feel it if we don't have all these holdback teachers to push out and the activities, of course. So the community would definitely feel it, but if we have the guidance up front not to return any of these things then we'd still have to, in addition to what we cut not returning it, we'd still have to cut an extra $6 million, notwithstanding any changes in enrollment, other kind of curriculum purchases, or emergent needs that really do come up throughout the year.

Thanks, I appreciate this. It reminds me, I guess it underscores our timeline. I mean, that we have to have a balanced budget budget at the end of February, that the cycle begins in some ways with the board's receipt of the administration's proposal, which is the preliminary budget. But honestly, the board— each of the cycles I've been on it, this— our board has given the administration guidance. That guidance happens in December, and we've had various ways through which we have given guidance.

We've used the Balancing Act we've used, um, sort of giant chart paper on Saturday work sessions in early February where we've had to, um, say, I, I'm willing to cut this but not that. Um, so I guess I want to say that to any member who would be concerned that we're automatically making cuts now, I think that's not the case because the board will have to discuss any proposed item of the budget in February, but this would give the administration stability in planning for that budget. For example, with the ability to retain the middle school model, we just need to take the— we would take the burden of planning for how do we change from the middle school model to a 6-period day off of the administration's and our educators' plates, for example. Cycle. So it's not set in stone because nothing is going to be set in stone until the board approves a budget in late February.

But it signifi— it basically says we made really hard decisions in February of 2026, and the things that were added back were things that had been by and large taken away in that budget cycle. And perhaps Perhaps it would be helpful to the community in a stability framework, as awful as that sounds, to not yo-yo people and ideas and programs. They just would know that those things that have been added back are not going to be proposed to be added back in February when we know that we have an even bigger deficit. It. We know we're going to be cutting either way.

It's just, do you want to look for $26.5 million of reductions or $6 million of reductions?

That's the way I'm sort of understanding it. Well, that's— member Les Adolph, just to add, as, um, the other, uh, sponsor of this amendment, that the, the other half of that sentence is that, um, the reason why these programs don't have the extra stability of knowing that they will be present in the FY '28 budget is because the resources that was used to fund them came from the Alaska Legislature by and large in the form of one-time funds. And that, I think that nuance is lost with many of our constituents, unfortunately, because there's so much gap and distance between when we spend funding which is growing later and later and closer and closer to the school year, and then sometimes even beyond it now. And then when we have to draft our budget, had the legislature appropriated permanent funding in lieu of waterfall funding, for instance, through a base student allocation increase, we could direct administration to continue funding each of these expenditures or something equivalent should they seek efficiencies or reductions elsewhere. But with one-time funding comes one-time allocation.

And I think that will be hopefully helpful both for the legislature to better understand, and there will be new legislators seated this year, as well as I think more intellectually honest conversation for the public to understand, as well as setting expectations and linking the type of funding we receive as well as the timing of the funding with how that impacts our budget. So that's one of the reasons why I appreciate this method, as painful as it is.

Until we as a state get our fiscal house in order, which will allow predictable and stable funding, this is one of the measures that we can use to help engage and inform the public as to where things stand with with our funding, especially when it's one time. We'll go to Member McDonough, then Member Blakeslee.

So my questions are on the really the business case of the S version of this, which I appreciate we were able to get early this weekend because of the way the deadline was set. I think that was a wise way. I've studied it in clear I cannot make out the business case that this is a stronger proposal than the regular. And I know while we're not yet debating, I would just like— so, so far from the last hour, I've been able to discern that the drafters of the resolution— or not the resolution, the draft— the drafters of the substitute do not furtively believe that we will be able to spend staffing money to fill the vacancies. Is that a correct assertion that I've picked up over the last, like, 45 minutes of discussion?

Um, and I— while this isn't a raised motion, the makers are not obligated to respond, but I would invite a reply because I, I truly don't understand if that's really the business case.

Um, if I think— I appreciate the question. I I think, and I actually appreciate some of the commentary and questions from Member Blakeslee earlier, it prompted me to go to Frontline, which is the job portal, and I haven't looked at it for a couple of weeks. And you can look at elementary school teacher vacancies overall and, and by specific school, and we have vacancies dating back to the middle of July. And I will be honest and frank, and I haven't done a full tally, but but the majority of the vacancies appear to be at Title schools.

So the answer to my question, that is, in fact, like, one of the business case rationales behind this rescission or reduction of the memorandum is that the makers of the substitute version do not feel as strongly as the superintendent did when drafting the original version that those will be filled? I think that the data that I— my interpretation of the data that we as a board received on the September 4th Board Connect was that there are a very large number of vacancies and people are working very, very hard to cover those vacancies or fill them. But we're hearing that those are not being filled with certificated educator positions. Now, any, any warm adult body is going to be helpful I think, in a time of crisis. The question is, is that the best way to spend our money?

And I think it's an important question, and I don't think there's an easy answer. So while the question, I believe it was answered, and thank you. So I do hear, I mean, and frankly, the only business case I think that is up for debate is should we spend now or should we proactively handle a deficit? I think that logic is something that that a board is equipped to debate, and I look forward to how we debate that in a couple hours. I would caution that we take off the table things that are out of our lane.

Something I raise concern about many times is the tail wagging the dog, which would mean like somehow business coming up to us that wasn't from us, that that's a problem. But this is actually the opposite. This is like the dog chasing its own tail. If we are debating something about how well the superintendent can execute on a spending plan that he has already released to us and says he would spend on, um, I, I would ask that we only entertain the debate about where the priority is between investing now and reducing the deficit later.

If I may, sorry.

A few years ago, the only year I've been on the board when we had additional funding to fight over, um, we had the sort of the very last round of COVID funds. And, um, although he was not the board president then, I have never failed to— I have remembered that we had a— just remember, Member Jacobs and I had a disagreement disagreement about how to allocate $5 million, and the board as a body settled the disagreement. And I was committed personally to investing in classroom class size reduction, and Member Jacobs was committed wholeheartedly to supporting students' mental health. Both are incredibly important. The board as a body voted to an investment in student mental health supports.

And I think that's a little bit analogous to this moment in time where important things are desired on two sides, right? I think that— I guess my personal belief is that each member of this board wholeheartedly wants to support kids and students and learning and schools this year. We have fought tooth and nail as a body to do so, and at this point in time, I guess my personal stance is that, um, the data that we've received seem to suggest that we are not going to have a really strong rate of success halfway through the first quarter in filling bodies and classrooms with, with certificated educators. I actually think back to last year when funding for the Academies of Anchorage was, um, removed and we had to grapple as a board with what to do with academy coaches. And I had proposed, and it did not move forward, that the academy coach positions revert to classroom teaching positions for the second semester.

And, and what I recall is that it was— it would be exceptionally challenging to create new classroom positions positions for those educators in the middle of the school year from a scheduling standpoint, and they were also doing work in, in schools where they were, so we sustained them. I realize I'm in the weeds, but I think that the lesson that I learned is that it's hard to, in the middle of a year, successfully add classroom positions.

And I'm trying to not do I'm trying to do as little harm as possible to next year. Thank you. We're definitely on the first side. You have 5 minutes left.

Uh, the 20 seconds is yours. Okay, so in, in 20 seconds, um, the concern I have is actually just, uh, we pay the superintendent to be the senior advisor to us, to basically give us the first interpretation of the report. And while being able to read over those reports independently ourselves and make our own conclusions is important, I don't see right now a benefit of us discussing how viable a hiring plan is that he has already requested the use of funds to be able to enact. I think I will trust him on saying we'll get these positions hired. If we debate outside of that, that it's poor business case to do that, that's fine.

I, I would encourage that debate. Debate. I don't think it's productive for us to debate about how well the hiring strategy will be successful right now.

Uh, we'll go to Member Blakeslee, and that might be— after that, we might need to move on to executive session. Member Blakeslee. Yeah, I, um, appreciate all of the different perspectives. One thing that I keep hearing is about the ability to fill certificated teacher positions now now versus saving funds to reduce harm next year. But the original proposal, um, correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm reading that the original $3.7 million was supposed to support both high-dose tutoring, additional credit recovery opportunities, and personnel to support schools, which includes, in all the examples, paraprofessionals, holdback teachers, substitutes, counselors, and other position needs.

And so the types of supports in terms of the personnel that would be supported with that $3.7 million was not exclusive to certificated teachers alone. It was supposed to be used for personnel that would support classrooms in a multitude of ways determined by need communicated by those schools to administration position. Is that right? Is that— that's how I'm reading the memo, right? It's not just for certificated— I'm, I guess I'm addressing it to admin or Dr. Bryant.

It's not just for certificated positions, it's support. Yes, it was designed to be flexible. You're correct. Um, and so I think that would be, um, one thing I would caution the board is to make sure that we're focusing on How, how we can support classes and students and even existing teachers with additional adult support to support even those teachers can come in many different forms.

And, and there is a significant harm reduction in my mind and in being able to provide those opportunities this fiscal year. We're really talking about $3 million. I, I will not debate right now, but I think my last question, just for the question portion, are long-term subs as an example of one of those types of support positions? I think that when Member Jacobs was asking about the benefits of having a certificated versus a non-certificated teacher, I'm— it was kind of going in the rabbit hole again of a certificated teacher, and now I'm back to long-term subs as an example. So do long-term subs, whether they're certificated or non-certificated, always have just full class sizes themselves, like they're taking on an entire class?

Are they also used by principals in other ways, like pulling kids out for WIN groups, or maybe supporting multiple multiple classes at a time, or I mean, are, is it always just long-term sub, full class?

I believe typically they're used to fill a vacancy, a known vacancy. That said, we do have sometimes vacant positions for instructional coaches or reading interventionists, folks who aren't directly tied to a classroom, and if you had a long-term sub filling role, I think they would be functioning the way that you kind of outlined and described there. Okay, that's helpful. Thank you.

Member Lessons, last word. We have a minute left. Yeah, the— I would just encourage board members as they can over the next tiny bit of a tiny amount of time to explore Frontline. There are 87 classroom support positions that have been posted that are open and unfilled, which range from— there's a lot a lot of special education supports there. There are kindergarten parapros there separately under certificated.

We have vacancies for school counselors. There's like open recruitment as well as specific schools already have vacancies. So there's just a broad— there's a broad array of vacancies across our system at this point in time, and I would love to see our current vacancies filled. I'm not sure that $3 million can be filled this year.

Okay, that was, I think, a productive work session. Thank you, board, for making time to attend early. We now have in front of us an opportunity to adjourn for executive session. Is there a motion?

I move to adjourn. Second.

The, uh, the ideally the motion would be to enter executive session. Sorry, that's— I move to enter into executive session for the— well, someone else do it. For the purposes of discussing— I had moved to, uh, enter into executive session for the purposes of discussing contracts, legal and student—. What—. Hearings and negotiations.

Made by Member Blakeslee, seconded by Member Bellamy. Is there any objection? Okay, we are in executive session as of 4:31. Thank you.