Marta McAllister Posted November 9, 2006 Report Share Posted November 9, 2006 Proceedings of the Planning and Development Committee School District No. 2, Yellowstone County High School District No. 2, Yellowstone County Billings, Montana October 9, 2006 Call to Order The Planning and Development Committee Meeting of School District No. 2, Yellowstone County, Montana, and the High School District, Yellowstone County, Montana was duly held at The Lincoln Center, 415 North 30th Street, Billings, Montana, Monday, October 9, 2006 at 5:30 p.m. Chairwoman Sandy Mossman presided. Members Present: Sandra Mossman, Chairwoman, Kathy Olson, Executive Director of Elementary Education, Scott Anderson, Executive Director of Secondary Education, Cheryl Malia-McCall, Margaret Aukshun, Al Bloomer, Todd Buchanan, Sara Nyquist, MD, Stan Jones, Cindy Gopp, Jim Barry, Anne Barlow, Cathy Izatt , and Christy Fred. Trustees; Malcolm Goodrich and Dawn Achten. Also attending; Jack Copps, SD2 Superintendent, Rich Whitney, Director of Facilities Chairwoman Sandy Mossman welcomed the new committee members and expressed her gratitude with them volunteering their time so generously. She introduced Kathy Olson and Scott Anderson and informed the committee they would be the Executive Liaisons for the committee. Each member will receive a packet of information to look over prior to each meeting. Communication from the Public There were no public comments Committee Organization and Introduction Malcolm gave the perspective of the Board role and what the charge of the Planning and Development Committee would be. The charge of the committee would be to make specific recommendations to the Board and be the ears and eyes of the community. He stated that the overcrowding decision would be addressed for closure. This committee was reconstituted from the Education Committee to be the Planning and Development Committee whose decisions are based on where our community schools will be in 5 to 10 years, not the present time. Sandra Mossman stated the committee’s role was an important one. Every Board charge will have action recommendation for the board by the committee. All opinions are welcomed. She asked the group to refer to the agenda for the description of the duties for this committee. The description reads; The Planning and Development Committee are charged with strategic planning on behalf of the Board. It studies and makes recommendations in such areas as student population trends; staffing needs; staffing recruitment and retention; curriculum development; instructional delivery; instructional technology; research and development; special projects; strategic facilities planning, operation and maintenance; capital needs and financing. The Planning and Development Committee works closely with the District’s Office of Development and Advancement and the Billings Education Foundation. She asked them to further review the General Provisions of membership. The meetings will be held the second Monday of the month and run from 5:30-7:30 pm. The committee will not be meeting in December. Discussion of the Feasibility Study for High School, Middle School and Elementary Schools Presenter: Rich Whitney, Director of Facility Services. Discussion of the feasibility study for High schools, Middle schools and Elementary Schools Sandra stated the charge of the night would be for the committee to address the issue of population trends that have been occurring in the district as well as the outlying areas that has affected our schools in extreme overcrowding. The Board has been seeking outside advice on looking at educational specifications to deal with the overcrowding situation. The Board has received some information as far as square footage, number of buildings creating new sites, adding on etc. The issue before the committee right now is what you want the school of the future to look like for educational purposes. The 20-year planning committee did the most recent study. In the next 2 to 3 months this committee will be able to make a recommendation to the school board that they will act upon in terms of seeking the aspect of that study. Rich Whitney, Director of Facilities presented the information his office had on the history of what the district has done in planning for growth. He brought copies of 17 reports that were previously done to handout to the committee. The first report was 1978 and 1979. The long- range plan talked about the overcrowding situation at that time. He felt the most important factor that came out of the study was the 9th graders went to the high school and the middle schools became 7-8 and activities changed to the middle school model and not as competitive as the high school activity program. When this study was done, the city plan for water and sewer was in Lockwood and that is where they thought the new high school should go because that was the direction of the growth. At this time the city water and sewer is going to the northwest where there is more growth. Rich shared the High School Belief Pamphlet showed the study of the April and May study of 1999. At that time the west end John Isaac’s statistics showed heavy growth in the west end in1990-1991-contradictory to what the 20-year facility plan found. The Board approved the pamphlet and it was a template for the work that came immediately after that. Cheryl commented the elementary schools kindergarten children are being bused due to overcrowding. She noted consideration should be toward the county schools and how many come into the district for high school. Malcolm said Castle Rock middle school has 750 students and the ideal amount would be 500 according to Superintendent Jack Copps. Al asked if every elementary school in the Heights is about 450 students. Sandy said Skyview is down a bit but there is growth in pockets in the heights and the elementary schools are primarily steady. Kathy said there are critical issues on the west end. There are huge subdivisions are being developed in the west end and the elementary schools are full. The population trend started downward and then the trend started back up. She feels the new subdivisions are the reason for this. Growth is not consistent which makes it difficult to anticipate the enrollment number. Scott reported the middle schools are fairly comfortable but Castle Rock had 750 students. Will James has full classrooms and teachers working out of carts. Riverside buses students basically out of the Big Sky area and seems to be working well. Lewis and Clark is a large building accommodating approximately 500 students. Al questioned growth or redistribution of the Billings population within the city. Malcolm said the demographics are changing internally in Billings and also has largest of proportion of people who do not have a child in the school. School aged kids are moving out the central core. Students are bused for balance. Al said a market analysis was done and there was not that much change in the census. Malcolm said the 20-year committee concept showed that we will see a gradual decline in enrollment. Redistribution of the students might be more feasible, use existing resources and buildings to an extent and not think anecdotally that the enrollment rises because of houses being built. He felt it was important to get the data and information to aide in making their decision. Sandy will be working to give a visual profile for each school. She feels it is important to know if they are bused out, transition boundaries etc. It wasn’t entirely anticipated but Senior grew by 200 students and Skyview declined. Sometimes it is difficult even to predict even though there are thorough profiles. Outlying areas are having a significant impact in our district as well. The transient population affects enrollment temporarily. Kristie requested the display to include which elementary schools feed into which middle school and which middle school students feed into which high school. Sandy said Superintendent Copps and several other people are working on a visual map of the entire district that has a pin for every student. Scott showed a map that was already done. Kathy said there is an electronic map in the works. The new map will eventually be color coded by age level and demonstrate where the students will feed into from the outlying areas. This will help predict future enrollment for each school. Sandra informed the committee the distinction of the Educational Adequacy Study is a study that is how to put together an education for the future school. We would be going to the tax payers to look at doing new construction, reconstruction, remodeling or whatever it takes to go forward to the future. The recommendation from the committee to the school board will be at which grade levels we want to go forward, do we want to go forward, affordability etc. Sara questioned the affordability of future projects. Malcolm stated that there is funding and it comes from various sources. We have several funds into which those sources are spread. There is an operating budget for the Elementary and High School. These are two separately managed state-law budgets. The sources are the state, local and federal property taxes. 89.6% of operating budget goes to staff and 10% goes to textbook, heating etc. It is 10% below optimum. We have a transportation budget that is based on a levy. This is a levy voters don’t vote on. This can only be used for transportation. Budgets cannot be combined according to state law. He said we do not have enough money to go forward. We would need to sell bonds on the open market. A Bond is a function of your liquidity and your financial credit rating. Interest rate is lower if the district had 5-7% in reserves. Malcolm stated this process isn’t something that is done overnight. The final analysis of the study of educational relevance, liquidity standpoint, bond issue, election, estimates, and construction will all be influencing the time factor. The district wouldn’t be in position to run a building bond until at least November 2008/2009. He suggested a general financial overview assembled on 1-2 pages showing the budgeting process. He also requested a demographic of how many Title I schools are in the district. It can show the proportion of kids below the poverty level. Demographics can show a range of services. Sandra introduced guest Superintendent Jack Copps. Rich has committee review the draft of the proposal from Genesis. The work product would provide information as follows: A. Condition of each school B. Capacity of each school C. Site adequacy D. Best Use of site E. Considerations and recommendations, incorporating information and findings. F. Summary power-point CD provided Billings Public Schools The proposal addresses facility deficiencies. Our deficiencies are rated like all the other schools in the state. Also a state report is included. The condition of each school with emphasis on education adequacy is the education appropriateness of the classroom space. Not physical but educational condition. We would get capacity numbers respective and paradigm, based on the instructional program and educational goal and how the architectural footprint met those. Rich said we don’t want to attempt the unachievable but this study is more about educational adequacy and if the footprint of the facility fulfills the education program. If the footprint doesn’t fit, than that particular building may be taken off the list. Cindy commented that our curriculum should drive what we do. We need to be considering what our curriculum should look like in the future so we can make sure our buildings can be accommodating. The state authorized 3 years deferred maintenance and weatherization money that will be available to each school district to help them with their facility issues. The funding is open on how this money can be spent and it was discussed if this meets the conditions. The state has approved. The funding to complete this Educational Adequacy Study could come from the state funding. There is an earmarked piece that was appropriated in the special 2005 legislative session where money was given to each school district as part of a legislative package. It can only be spent on certain things that have to do with facilities. The cost of the study would be $106,800.00. Sandra commented we would not be duplicating other studies that currently have been done or what the state has done if we choose to go ahead with this study. Jack said the constitution says the legislature has an obligation to provide a basic system of public schools. As a result of this last session the state has realized it needs to spend some money to back an assessment of the facilities. In the end, the state will have to decide as to what it intends to do to provide its fair share of facility costs, either in the area of operation maintenance or capital instruction. Al asked why is it necessary for the district to hire a consultant when we have capable people in-state to accomplish this. Jack said credibility is a key factor. It would be more credible to have someone independent and out of state other than a local company. The Educational Adequacy Study has been in the works for about a year and in May, a committee made up of administrators and community members looked at proposals from several local and national architectural consultants. Dr. Paul Trauptman’s proposal was chosen. At that time Dr. Paul Trauptman was with 3D International. He is now and independent consultant in Texas for Genesis. Rich said if this study is to go forward, it would only be the first step. It would take 6-8 months to complete the study. Once you have the list of facility educational adequacies and then the committee would have to go facility by facility and see concept estimates of what it would take to get the buildings to educational adequacy level. Sandra asked the committee to take this charge seriously and visit with the community and get their input. She would try to compile the necessary information and get it to the committee as soon as possible. Malcolm said it will take a couple months to acquire the necessary data to make this decision. If yes, how will we pay? He gave a list of the data the committee would need to help them with this charge. 1. Short overview of curriculum at high school level 2. Description of school location, number of students demographics 3. Short Overview of budget and process- i.e. levees bond issues 4. Description of boundaries, feeder schools 5. Description of legislative stance and process at present earmarks 6. Demographics and location of 7. Expense and numbers on maintenance As there was no further business, the committee adjourned at 7:30 p.m. _________________________ Sandra Mossman, Chair _________________________ Barbara Gustafson, Recorder Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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