October 26, 2026 · Study session · YouTube transcript

Study session transcript

Northshore School District School Board Study Session, October 26, 2026.

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1. 0:02

   Okay, we are going to get started.

2. 0:07

   Um, we just need director Weir to join us at the table.

3. 0:14

   He's doing a good job of connecting with community.

4. 0:22

   Thank you. All right. Uh we are starting our study session um where we are going

5. 0:30

   to get updates on the enrollment and demographics advisory committees recommendations to the board as we work

6. 0:39

   through um our declining enrollment and we've had multiple study sessions as to the wise and the backgrounds on all

7. 0:47

   that. But just a reminder, mostly attributed to declining in birth rates um and something that's not going to

8. 0:54

   turn around anytime soon. And so um we have had a group of people that have been working very hard and coming up some with some proposals of how to deal

9. 1:03

   with this. Um tonight we are focused on the proposals. I know we like to solve problems and we're going to want to jump into the problemolving component of it.

10. 1:14

    Uh mitigation member measures and all the things. Um but we're g that's later.

11. 1:18

    So tonight is just uh understanding the wise and wherefors of the different proposals that they have brought forward.

12. 1:27

    Excellent. Are you starting or am I starting?

13. 1:31

    Okay. So I'm going to turn this over to Dre Ralph, our executive director of support services.

14. 1:35

    Excellent. Thank you so much uh Director Hayes. I really appreciate uh the introduction and it uh is one of the

15. 1:45

    things that I get to do as part of my job is be the chairperson for our enrollment and demographics advisory committee. It's a really important group

16. 1:54

    of folks who come together um almost every month to talk about uh where our enrollment is and how we are handling our student enrollment.

17. 2:05

    And there is a driving mission behind this group. It really is it's on the slide, but it's strengthening our

18. 2:14

    community through excellence in education.

19. 2:17

    Um, and that really is done through making the most efficient use of our existing sites and maximizing our

20. 2:26

    educational opportunities for all of our students. So, as we look at the information today, we really keep that at the heart of what we do.

21. 2:35

    As far as our context goes, um this is how we're going to organize our information tonight. We're going to

22. 2:42

    start with some background. For those of you who this is the first time you've heard about this, um we invite you to go

23. 2:50

    back and look at some of the study sessions that we've done over the last um several months with the board that talk through in more depth some of the

24. 2:58

    context. uh but we'll also talk about the problems that we're trying to solve, those primary goals. Then we'll talk a

25. 3:06

    little bit about our principles. We'll go into our scenarios and then talk about the timeline. And I think it's

26. 3:13

    really important before I set any context, I give any information just to say this committee that I um have got to

27. 3:22

    be part of, it's been really remarkable to see how much they care about our students and how they really keep the

28. 3:29

    focus on our students and seeing a decline in enrollment and uh

29. 3:36

    decline in birth rates is definitely not a challenge that this district has had to deal with for a long time. So, I'm

30. 3:44

    very cons conscious of um just the impact this has on our community as a

31. 3:51

    whole and our committee in specific as they're having to grapple with information that's really hard and hasn't had to be done before. So, with

32. 4:00

    that, we'll get to the context.

33. 4:05

    We're going to start with our demographics.

34. 4:09

    This is um it's been about 10 years since the district did a comprehensive look at our boundary lines. And so I

35. 4:18

    pulled the information that's about the last 10 years of birth rate. And you can see at the national level

36. 4:27

    [clears throat] birth rates um are one of the biggest drivers for enrollment and they have significantly decreased.

37. 4:36

    Uh it's been over 15% since just 2015.

38. 4:42

    And the numbers for us in Snomish and King County are even a little bit more

39. 4:49

    dramatic. Um our picture is similar. Uh since 2015, the general fertility rate

40. 4:56

    is down 24% in King County and 15% in Snomish County for a combined 22%

41. 5:04

    across the two counties we serve. Uh this information comes from the Washington State Department of Health and Vital Statistics. Uh so the decline

42. 5:13

    we see nationally is really echoed here.

43. 5:21

    While birth rates are a primary driver, they're certainly not the exclusive driver. Uh so I want to talk on a few

44. 5:29

    other things. First, population migration. This is the thing that has really um covered up some of the

45. 5:37

    demographic changes in birth rates that we've seen in our district. had a lot of people moving in, a lot of development

46. 5:44

    happening and still that migration is uh the dominant driver of growth in the

47. 5:50

    Seattle uh area the region uh but it has decreased significantly in the last

48. 5:58

    several years. So and we definitely have seen that in our district. So it's a lot

49. 6:05

    less than it was at its peak in 2020. We also see much less real estate turnover.

50. 6:11

    So this doesn't give us a chance to have new students move in if people aren't moving out of their house houses. So that could be due to interest rates.

51. 6:20

    That could be due to uh a number of things. People just wanting to stay in their homes for longer. Uh and then

52. 6:28

    we're having just overall less real estate being purchased and sold. Uh then we get into the type of real estate that

53. 6:36

    we're talking about. And uh as one who's, you know, an urban planner really into this stuff, it is remarkable to

54. 6:44

    look at our information about the type of construction that we've had in Northshore. For the longest time, our developers were b were building single

55. 6:52

    family homes in Northshore. Over the last four years, it's really flipped to being multifamily homes. We work with a

56. 7:01

    demographer less Kendrick every year and as he does the analysis uh we look at our student generation rates that come

57. 7:10

    from each type of housing and the students that are generated from single family homes are much greater than those

58. 7:18

    that are developed from multifamily homes even town homes even big town homes. So, as we're looking at that flip

59. 7:26

    with people building more town homes, they're not coming with the same number of students unit for unit.

60. 7:35

    Uh let's see, those I think are the big ones for the context.

61. 7:42

    So, now we look at enrollment.

62. 7:45

    This is another slide that our demographer put together for us with the exception of our last the last number

63. 7:53

    the 2026 number that is from uh the numbers that we just

64. 8:00

    did uh in October our October count. But the thing that's most significant for us

65. 8:07

    and really is the heart of the conversation today are the decreases in the elementary enrollment that we see.

66. 8:15

    So this is enrollment by grade band. And you can see that you know that high school and middle school has stayed pretty

67. 8:23

    pretty even but at the elementary school we've lost about 1,400 students since 2020.

68. 8:32

    So that's a significant number when we're looking at the size of all of our schools, the size of some schools in particular.

69. 8:48

    So if we take those numbers and we put them in bar charts, [clears throat] we start to see the other thing that the enrollment and demographics advisory

70. 8:55

    committee looks at a lot, which is how are our students spread across the district.

71. 9:03

    So you see we have a significant um difference in the size schools. And for the purposes of boundary line

72. 9:11

    discussions, this is very important for people to remember. This is um our resident students. This is not enrollment.

73. 9:22

    So these are the students that live in the geographic area that their school covers.

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    And you can see a visual demonstration of that in this slide.

75. 9:38

    This is a map of our current Northshore students. Every blue dot represents a student. And you can see that there's a

76. 9:47

    significant difference in the density in different um service areas. So, as we

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    look kind of in that central north area, we see very dense to the point it looks like one giant blue dot. Uh and then as

78. 10:02

    we look to the south and the east, we see those dots more space between them

79. 10:09

    and larger service areas. Uh so you just start to see that there is an imbalance of where our students are.

80. 10:22

    So, as we're thinking about what our mission is, we're really looking at two issues that we're trying to resolve.

81. 10:32

    Our lower student enrollment overall and the imbalance of students across schools.

82. 10:39

    So again, on that 10-year cycle, which is not unusual for schools to do more comprehensive boundary line

83. 10:47

    conversations every 10 years or so, um these are the things that we're keeping at the heart of the scenarios that we're

84. 10:56

    developing and the information that we're providing.

85. 11:02

    So [clears throat] you'll see on the bar chart, you saw a dotted line that was 400.

86. 11:08

    And as we're looking about what size should we be looking to make our schools,

87. 11:15

    as we're trying to balance them, uh we don't have a specific like this is the perfect number, but we're really looking for a range between 4 and 700.

88. 11:28

    If we're below 400, it's harder to balance our class sizes involving more split classes. There are fewer ways to group students by needs.

89. 11:40

    So it means some of our students with needs are moving schools. Uh there can

90. 11:46

    be an increased number of part-time and partial positions.

91. 11:51

    There's fewer peer options. I think um uh director Campbell talks to this very well when she's like if your student is

92. 12:01

    in a class with folks that they don't get along with, there's not another one for them to go to potentially if if that

93. 12:08

    is needed. So it just limits the mobility for our students.

94. 12:13

    Uh, and then it does increase the cost per pupil as we're looking at um overall

95. 12:20

    the budget conversations that we've been through and how we're utilizing our taxpayer dollars.

96. 12:27

    When we get between four and 700 students, we have more balanced classes, fewer split grades. We have a better

97. 12:34

    time with that matching uh students to teachers, more broad peer community, uh more

98. 12:41

    enrichment opportunities, and uh really more stable and sustained staffing.

99. 12:49

    At the bottom of the slide, you'll see we have a couple of different numbers.

100. 12:53

     Um 400 students is the elementary size the state funding model assumes.

101. 12:59

     Uh that does not mean that at 400 they uh Jolyn's nodding because she's the one who usually says this, but at 400

102. 13:07

     they're not necessarily funding all the positions we need. For example, it's up you have to have 685 students uh to have

103. 13:16

     a full-time nurse. Uh and then 700 we use as the top um because we do have

104. 13:23

     areas that are very dense. Uh but it does require we want to make sure our schools are built to handle that. Um we

105. 13:31

     don't just want to um you know cram them in necessarily which is why some of our bond um projects involved creating

106. 13:40

     permanent capacity for some of those areas that saw such rapid growth that we were very reliant on portables. Um I

107. 13:47

     think Fernwood is probably the best example of that.

108. 13:54

     So as we look through our process, we have uh some tools and levers that

109. 14:02

     EDAC has that um we can use to do some of that balancing of

110. 14:09

     enrollment and smoothing enrollment. We can look at how our spaces are being utilized. We can adjust waiverss in and out. We can adjust program placements.

111. 14:22

     Uh if we're growing quickly, we can add portables. We can lease additional space if we need to. Uh unfortunately, we are

112. 14:30

     at the point where those shorter term solutions are not adequate to handle um the differences in school sizes that we

113. 14:39

     see and the amount of declining enrollment that we see and anticipate.

114. 14:44

     So that leads to longer lead time items such as service or boundary area adjustments,

115. 14:51

     adjusting feeder patterns, uh building new buildings. I wish that was where we were, folks. Um acquiring

116. 15:00

     property if we need it, or consolidating and repurposing uh schools.

117. 15:10

     So EDAC has guiding principles. They're broken into four different areas. I think that they really represent some of

118. 15:19

     the conversations that EDAC has had that has resulted in the scenarios that we

119. 15:25

     see under instructional guidance. Um I would highlight that uh the number one goal is to support and strengthen

120. 15:34

     highquality instruction programs at every single one of our schools.

121. 15:39

     uh we want to align boundary decisions with planned program changes that are happening. This is to make sure that we

122. 15:48

     can provide the services to our students at their neighborhood schools and be in line with some of our instructional um

123. 15:55

     practices that we're and u plans that as a district we're moving toward. As we look under demographic considerations,

124. 16:04

     we um really want to look at how those changes

125. 16:11

     are impacting our students. Um from the community that they're served to the

126. 16:18

     utilization of the various uh schools that we have, what the in infrastructure can handle, what sometimes it can't

127. 16:27

     handle. uh and then really look at those projections that we get from our demographer.

128. 16:34

     Uh under operational considerations, this is where we want to be able to use our uh use our facilities to their kind of

129. 16:42

     highest and best use. uh as well as m really maximizing the efficiency of um

130. 16:52

     the all the things that go with having a school that's open. Whether that be our custodial services or our office

131. 17:00

     services, just making sure that we're being as um efficient as we can with the resources that we have. And finally,

132. 17:09

     there's geographic considerations. Um there are natural boundaries that we look at. This is somebody asked me this question the other day. They're like,

133. 17:17

     "What does that mean?" So that can mean anything from a ravine to 405. We have

134. 17:24

     this giant uh asphalt river that runs down the middle of our district uh to a few smaller rivers that run east west.

135. 17:33

     Um, but all of that plays into transportation and other things that we really look at as far as like what how will this impact our students.

136. 17:46

     So, just a reminder, these are our students. As we're thinking about how we best address these issues and how we

137. 17:55

     look at the information, we looked at what if we do boundary line adjustments only.

138. 18:03

     So we took the area of the school and a onem walking pattern uh around it and

139. 18:11

     then we built basically 4 to 700 students from there. And you'll see that

140. 18:18

     the map gets wild. Uh we have a bunch of different um seven different disjointed

141. 18:27

     boundary areas. There would be 32 neighborhood shifts. It's uh it just became quickly apparent that this wasn't a viable option.

142. 18:42

     So that led us looking a little bit more focused in different areas of the district. There are, as you think about

143. 18:50

     that map where all the blue dots are, there are areas that are more dense, areas that are less dense, and some that are in between. So it became apparent where some areas of focus needed to be.

144. 19:02

     There certainly was an area of focus on the east side where we had a number of schools that were under 400.

145. 19:09

     On the north side where we had some um or northwest, it's the purple area that we see some real um disparity in size of

146. 19:19

     schools. And then at the south where we also saw some disparity, but there were fewer options of um ways to look at it.

147. 19:30

     And you can see that more in this bar graph. That's the same information you saw earlier, but this time it's

148. 19:37

     separated by those different regions. So you can see that there's a big difference between, you know, under 400

149. 19:45

     to almost 700 students. In the purple area and the blue area, we have one school that is significantly under the

150. 19:53

     other two, that south area. And then in the green area, we have a lot of schools that are under that 400 mark. The ones

151. 20:02

     on the end, the blue area, the kind of middle of the donut, if you will, these are schools that aren't reflected in the

152. 20:10

     scenarios and that are all between that four and 600 u mark or four and 700 mark that we're aiming for. That's not to say

153. 20:19

     that um they aren't also impacted in various ways, but uh the focus of the conversation for our scenarios were those three areas that I mentioned.

154. 20:31

     So with that, I'm going to hand the mic to Ashley Davies. She has been a consultant who's been working with us

155. 20:39

     for the last year and a half from better education partners and um she has worked a lot with the committee gotten a lot of

156. 20:48

     feedback been able to um really kind of draw out uh the process and the why.

157. 20:57

     Director Hayes.

158. 20:58

     Yeah. Um be before we get to that just because I want for my own personal understanding but I think as well

159. 21:06

     there there's a lot and these recommendations are not pretty and we get that but I want to back up. So, when I was first asked

160. 21:15

     to run a million years ago, um it was in response, there was a group that had formed in response to a potential school

161. 21:23

     closure. And after I finally figured out that's what they were asking me to do, um I said, "Okay, I need to think about this, but I need you to understand I'm

162. 21:31

     not a never school closure person." And I if that's what you're looking for in a candidate, I I can't guarantee that. I said, "I am, however, a last resort. use

163. 21:41

     closed schools as a last resort. I know how harmful it is to our communities and what it means to families and staff and

164. 21:48

     students. So, what I'm trying to get to is I need to know these recommendations

165. 21:55

     are the last resort. So, if um I don't I didn't see it. I don't know if we have it available, but what happens if we do nothing?

166. 22:05

     What happens to Sunrise? What happens to Arrowhead? happens to these schools if we just this is how I tend to do things ignore the problem and hope it will go away.

167. 22:16

     We don't have a lot of evidence that it's going away. I definitely have heard that question before. But if you look at the birth rate, if you look at the

168. 22:24

     development in our in various areas, I think you'll see just a con if [clears throat] we go back to that slide

169. 22:32

     that has our enrollment at different grade levels. I think you will cons continue to see that K12 enrollment go down. And because it's been going down

170. 22:41

     for the last five years, that enrollment will you'll start to see it echoed in the middle school and high school years

171. 22:50

     as as we move years out. So we don't have a lot of um suggestion that there

172. 22:58

     is a change. I think as we are kind of as a community who does

173. 23:05

     facilities work in K12 looking at how we have determined enrollment in the past.

174. 23:13

     I think some of those um kind of other drivers uh we need to weigh more than we have in

175. 23:21

     the past. So again, the type of development actually really matters to who's showing up at our schools. So as

176. 23:30

     we look through that, we don't have a lot of evidence that that trend is going to have an upswing. Jolen,

177. 23:38

     I just want to add that Lake [clears throat] Washington School District put out some information recently that said that they're projecting in the next 10 years to lose

178. 23:45

     another 5,000 students um for their district. I think that what we see is our district probably

179. 23:52

     continuing to lose more than a thousand, maybe 2,000 students um due to all of the factors that Dre has already talked

180. 24:00

     about exacerbated by the economic situation in the state. There's zoning issues,

181. 24:07

     there's birth rate issues, they're all together. So, what you would see is those schools continuing to be smaller,

182. 24:13

     smaller, smaller. Um, and we would continue down that path.

183. 24:20

     Okay. Thank you. Um, and yes, I'm aware many districts in the state are in the same boat we are. Um, okay. And then if

184. 24:28

     we could go back to the boundary change slide just so that we can really dive into some of the problems with that

185. 24:38

     because again I the last time we did um changes massive changes um so okay so

186. 24:46

     this is a slide if we just reboundary everybody um and I'm looking and I remember this from the last time

187. 24:53

     Arrowhead Morland we've got kids having to drive past Morlands to get to Arrowhead.

188. 25:01

     Yeah.

189. 25:02

     Or option B is to put Morlands Elementary in the middle of the Arrowhead feeder pattern.

190. 25:07

     That's fun. Um okay. So, and do we have a sense or some of these um

191. 25:15

     I'm looking at uh Wellington. What kind of a bus ride for those kiddos that are up at the north end?

192. 25:23

     So in all of the scenarios that you see, they are within the bounds of our um

193. 25:30

     transportation guidelines, which is a 45minute um bus ride. We [clears throat] really

194. 25:37

     try and have that be the max. And this would likely exceed that. Um I will say we didn't model every single one of

195. 25:45

     these scenarios because um it was just beyond what we could recommend. um kind of on its face.

196. 25:54

     Okay. Okay. Thank you, Dr. Wear.

197. 26:00

     Yes. Thanks. Um and thank you, President Hayes. That was kind of I want to piggyback off of your question. I guess I was hoping for a little more granularity because I'm thinking also as

198. 26:09

     a parent and I know a lot of parents and and other folks are here. You know, one thing in my day job I try to do as a physician is remember not to use doctor

199. 26:17

     speak because we're notoriously bad at that. So I always try to think if I'm walking into the room and this is my first time hearing about EDAC.

200. 26:24

     One thing that would be helpful I think to hear for me and everyone else would be who who is EDAC? Are all of these different areas represented by EDAC?

201. 26:33

     What is their you know what is what is their bias? Do they you know represent us as a whole?

202. 26:39

     Yeah, that's my first question.

203. 26:41

     It's a great question. [gasps and sighs] Uh Ashley and I were talking about this right before we started today. We probably should have put a slide in that

204. 26:48

     had um all the members listed. However, I don't know if everyone wants their name uh listed, but EDAC is a

205. 26:57

     long-standing committee. It used to be called the Enrollment and Demographics Task Force, but since it's a perpetual

206. 27:04

     uh group, we have renamed it um advisory committee to be consistent with the rest of the district. And it is comprised of

207. 27:12

     both staff, students, and um community members and parents. Uh we have up to 12

208. 27:20

     community members and parents and about that same number of staff that participate. And students kind of

209. 27:27

     fluctuate. Right now we only have one student um who is currently attending.

210. 27:32

     But the committee is set up so that every year um all of our community

211. 27:39

     members have a three-year term. So every year some of them age out and some new

212. 27:45

     people um come in. And so this year uh I'm always absolutely impressed by our

213. 27:52

     Northshore community because we have so many people willing to give their time to do some things that are very hard.

214. 28:01

     So, we had really three open positions uh this year and we had 47 applicants um

215. 28:08

     for those positions. So, we interviewed about 15 people to decide um who would best serve. And in this case, because

216. 28:17

     we've been talking about these um conversations over the last year with EDAC, we made sure to prioritize some of

217. 28:26

     our schools that would likely be most impacted. uh the ones that were under 400. So, we had some new people join who

218. 28:35

     um are part of those committees. They are part of those communities. They haven't had as long to get caught up on

219. 28:42

     all the information, but uh it's really important for us to have a wide um look

220. 28:50

     and a geographic distribution of participants. Uh and also we have participants from each of our grade band

221. 28:57

     when it bands when it comes to our staff. Um and so we try and keep it as broad as possible.

222. 29:05

     We don't make it as large as possible because we do expect people to really dig into information and look at the

223. 29:14

     data. I'm I'm really trying to limit the number of times that word comes out of my mouth, but um to really get into that

224. 29:21

     and and examine the information and so a lot of the um those people who applied

225. 29:29

     and that we talked to have backgrounds when it comes to analyzing information and making decisions from that perspective.

226. 29:38

     Thank you, D. So if I'm summarizing correctly, this is people from all over our district from different roles, not just in our staff. It's community

227. 29:46

     members, parents, students. So that this these recommendations being brought to us are not from one specific entity.

228. 29:53

     This is trying to capture all of us and our viewpoints. That's exactly right.

229. 29:57

     Okay. Thank you. I think that's very helpful for me as also as a parent for context. And then um I guess my second question is a followup on President

230. 30:05

     Hayes with which is you know this is a big decision. Of course I walk in right right before this so great luck. Um

231. 30:13

     but to me the the question would is kind of the default would be to do nothing, right? So if we kick the can down the

232. 30:23

     road what happens? You know, if those numbers get smaller and smaller to me, if I were pulling the director hat off

233. 30:30

     and putting my parent hat on, I'd be okay with a closure if I knew my student my my kids weren't going to have the

234. 30:38

     same opportunities or the same quality as maybe some other kids would have, but I think if it were just simply a

235. 30:45

     convenience issue, I wouldn't be as excited. Could you speak in a little more granularity to to that piece of like what if we kicked the can down the road or what if we did nothing?

236. 30:56

     I'm gonna turn it over to Jolyn to talk about some

237. 31:04

     [clears throat] so if we did nothing the first thing that we would experience is some schools with 120 students in in the

238. 31:13

     school. we would have multiple um split level classes um and we wouldn't be able to staff at the same rate that we would

239. 31:21

     be able to at other in other buildings or in some cases because of the way in which contracts are allocated we would

240. 31:28

     have a difficulty spreading our resources around the large schools and small schools. So um so for example um

241. 31:38

     librarians or nurses or so forth. So when you have a school that size, it's very it's a challenge for us to be able

242. 31:47

     to offer the same kind of programs that we can and the same kind of enrichment and the same quality of education that we can offer in like around a 400 um or

243. 31:56

     more school. Um and so that's that's the biggest challenge that we're going to face if we continue to go down this road

244. 32:04

     is we're just going to see fewer and fewer and fewer students in some of our schools.

245. 32:14

     Thank you Dr. Irish. So I guess so that I understand that again um at some point there would be then a decrease in the

246. 32:22

     quality of services for some of our students compared to others within the district. So there would be an inequity there. Yes, there would be.

247. 32:30

     Okay. Thank you. I mean you have a situation where we have some schools that are getting to the point enrollment drives staffing, right?

248. 32:36

     En enrollment drives staffing. So they may have they may be serving uh six grades in their school but maybe they

249. 32:44

     would be allocated four teachers or three teachers. So it gets very difficult to staff in those ways. And

250. 32:50

     then when you consider our our uh specialists like PE and music they come

251. 32:57

     in again very difficult to staff because maybe they would only be needed there you know a couple hours a day or one

252. 33:05

     hour a day. So it just drives those pieces of staffing. Um

253. 33:12

     and then case load becomes very uneven across the district. Very uneven across the district as you start looking at that.

254. 33:20

     You could have classes for example of a kindergarten, first, second, third grade comb combination class, right? Um which

255. 33:27

     would be really a multi-age class instead of a a grade level.

256. 33:37

     Thank you director D Ralph for [snorts] the presentation and um Dr. Wear I'm

257. 33:43

     pretty much new to so welcome welcome to the show. Um so uh my question is around

258. 33:52

     and you all kind of touched on it already is what happens with the staff, what happens with the teachers, what

259. 34:00

     happens with principles, everyone that's working in the buildings to support the students.

260. 34:06

     So our staffing is based on enrollment and so as schools are consolidated or closed or moved to another building, staff would follow students. Um we

261. 34:15

     believe in a district our size we have um we'll have enough attrition because any changes won't happen until 2028. So

262. 34:22

     we would have enough change to be able to through attrition to secure most positions. Um there's no guarantee that

263. 34:29

     positions will be all positions would remain but we based on the size of our district and again the level of

264. 34:37

     attrition that we have staff are going to follow students. So, we're not going to be losing many positions.

265. 34:50

     Okay.

266. 34:54

     Hello. Okay. Great. Um hello. Uh as Dream mentioned, um my name is Ashley Davies. Um I'm with uh Better Education

267. 35:02

     Partners and have been supporting um EDAC um in this work that they've been doing. And so I am going to go over the

268. 35:11

     scenarios. I will face this way so that I can make sure to capture the information uh well and uh I have it on

269. 35:20

     my screen uh just so that I can follow along and and be facing everyone as well.

270. 35:25

     Could Ashley could you do just give us a little bit more introduction of who you are and Yes. Sure. Which direction am I supposed to?

271. 35:33

     You just have to point it that direction.

272. 35:34

     This Okay. Got it. Got it. Okay. Um just a little bit more background on myself.

273. 35:41

     Um I um have worked with inside districts um across Washington and have spent the past 13 plus years working

274. 35:49

     with districts on a variety of operational and enrollment related challenges. Um so have done direct uh uh enrollment um and and district planning

275. 35:58

     work with inside districts and then have supported districts across the country um as they faced changes in enrollment.

276. 36:06

     Um that has included uh having conversations about school closures, actually implementing school closures, um working with communities on both

277. 36:14

     talking about those changes, navigating the implementation, and then supporting uh schools and families on the other

278. 36:22

     side of that. Uh I recognize that these um conversations are very difficult. Um, and while I'm going to share information

279. 36:30

     today, some of it may uh fall and some of it may uh may go behind as you navigate both the emotions with the

280. 36:38

     data. Uh, staff will talk a little bit more about all the other opportunities that there will be to receive this information, not only uh online, but

281. 36:47

     through several community meetings that we're going to have over the next several months. So, um, just wanted to start there, give you, um, a little bit

282. 36:55

     of background about myself and and my experience with this work and and before you go forward, I just wanted to emphasize that even though we're talking about data d we're talking

283. 37:04

     about students, we're talking about humans, we're talking about families and staff um, who care deeply about schools.

284. 37:12

     And I want to make sure that we're centering our conversation around the real lives of people and their experiences in the communities that they

285. 37:20

     serve and work in and live in. Um, and so yes, we're going to be looking at data today and presenting to the board data and we're basing our decisions on

286. 37:28

     data and yet at the same time I don't ever want to lose sight of the humans as a part of this work. So just as we're we're centering the conversation.

287. 37:39

     Great. Thank you.

288. 37:41

     Um okay so the first thing that I also just want to make really clear um Dr. Irish talked about these uh scenarios that we

289. 37:51

     are sharing um discuss information that would uh begin implementation in 2028 um

290. 37:58

     and some cases even further out. So we'll explain that with each of the scenarios. Also want to reiterate that these are the committee's uh recom

291. 38:06

     initial recommendations. nothing has been decided at these at this point. Um and there are uh essentially three

292. 38:14

     scenarios um that we will talk about that have multiple options and then there are two uh scenarios that kind of

293. 38:21

     thread across them all and I'll explain that um as we move through the information.

294. 38:29

     Okay.

295. 38:33

     Okay. Just want to make sure. Okay, perfect. Uh actually I think I can click. Yeah, I appreciate it. Um

296. 38:40

     okay, so before we talk about the details of the scenarios, I just want to ground us in a little bit of information and terms as it relates to what you will

297. 38:48

     see tonight. So uh in the data you will see and in the maps you will see there are three terms uh that are important

298. 38:56

     for me to share. Design capacity is how many students a building has. Um how many students a building was built to

299. 39:03

     serve. We'll talk about resident projections. Those are how many students live in a school's boundary area, whether or not they attend the school.

300. 39:13

     We use that number because that is the way that Northshore School District operates on a neighborhood school model.

301. 39:19

     And so that's how we plan. Um and then the last uh um term we'll talk about is pockets. And that's a small defined

302. 39:28

     neighborhood area. And that's how we described the changes and information about students who live within particular areas.

303. 39:41

     All right. [sighs] So, this first scenario that I'm going to describe is what we call our north and west uh scenario. As Drew went

304. 39:50

     through uh the different areas of the district, we acknowledged the fact that there was a need to rebalance enrollment

305. 39:57

     in the northwest, need to rebalance enrollment in the east, and a need to rebalance enrollment in the south. And so for um some grounding, our first

306. 40:07

     scenario is a northwest uh scenario. And so in this scenario, there are no

307. 40:14

     schools that close. Um you will see about 250 students shift in 2028 mostly

308. 40:21

     from Fernwood and Kenmore and then another 99 shift uh in 2030 once Shelton

309. 40:28

     View and Cook um uh have additional space uh due to bond projects.

310. 40:34

     So in the chart itself you will see what I've uh described as those pockets. The pocket number is a way for us to

311. 40:43

     reference the impact of uh that particular area. And we've labeled each to show the sending school. So the

312. 40:51

     school where those students are currently um assigned. And then the receiving school, those are the school that the students would be assigned to.

313. 41:00

     And then you'll see the resident uh projection count on the other side of that. So just walking through the

314. 41:07

     scenario, I'm going to start from the top. You'll have students from Crystal Springs moving to Canyon Creek,

315. 41:15

     projected 23 students. Uh there's a pocket of Fernwood moving to Canyon Creek as well. Total of 113 students.

316. 41:26

     There's an area of Ruby Bridges moving to Fernwood, nine students in that pocket. There's an area of Lockwood

317. 41:32

     moving to Frank Love. some cases you'll see here that currently predicted a zero but um there could be students there in

318. 41:41

     the future and so for alignment we've included that and then there are four pockets from Kenmore that would move to

319. 41:50

     Lockwood and then in 2030 there's two p two pockets from Maywood

320. 41:58

     Hills one to Cook and then one to Shelton View and so in the map you will see a

321. 42:06

     differentiated color uh for those particular pockets and that shows the shifts.

322. 42:19

     All right.

323. 42:21

     So I went through and walked through those shifts that are described. Um we also um share here the anticipated

324. 42:30

     resident uh projections in 2028 when those shifts would occur and then the next few years out for reference as

325. 42:38

     we've talked about that ideal um size for our elementarymentaries is between 400 and 700 and so that is what was

326. 42:48

     optimized for when we look at uh the projected resident counts.

327. 42:56

     And so what we've also accompanied here, just to summarize with this scenario, um it rebalances enrollment in the north

328. 43:03

     and the west with only boundary changes, no school closures.

329. 43:09

     And part of this um is a way for us to make sure that there is um space across

330. 43:16

     our schools for additional um housing units that we do anticipate in um the

331. 43:23

     north and then also um to utilize new capacity that we'll have in Shelton View and Cook from those bond projects.

332. 43:33

     I think the one piece that I would add about this particular um part of the scenario is

333. 43:40

     in that north there was an expansion of the urban growth area by Snomish County two years ago. So we expect kind of a

334. 43:47

     10-year buildout. So, while we don't expect overall there to be a lot of growth and a limited amount of

335. 43:56

     development, we know that that happened and they're in the midst of implementing the zoning regulations that go with that urban growth um area expansion.

336. 44:06

     Initially, we anticipated getting about 350 students from that change. I think we would anticipate a little less right

337. 44:13

     now, but still certainly um enough that we wanted to really make sure we had capacity at both Ruby Bridges and

338. 44:20

     Fernwood in particular uh to handle those urban growth area expansions from the county.

339. 44:30

     Thanks.

340. 44:35

     Okay. Um [clears throat] I'm now going to talk about the uh south rebalancing.

341. 44:42

     Um so [clears throat] in this scenario uh again there's one scenario for the northwest and then one scenario for the

342. 44:50

     south rebalancing. And in this scenario um uh Morlands would get repurposed

343. 44:56

     and uh with that on the west side about 230 students um from Morlands would move to Arrowhead. And then on the east side

344. 45:05

     about uh 200 would move to Woodmore. And that is what is seen in these in this um map that you see in front of you.

345. 45:21

     Okay.

346. 45:26

     And so on this slide here um we show the accompanying um projected um enro um

347. 45:34

     resident count that you would see as a result of this change. Um and then um similar to what we shared uh previously

348. 45:41

     and what I've just discussed, we just included a rationale. Um and so um one thing that the committee did talk about

349. 45:50

     as we looked at options uh for the south um across uh Arrowhead uh Morlands and

350. 45:57

     Woodmore in particular uh is the facilities.

351. 46:02

     And so while Arrowhead currently has uh a lower enrollment, um as we thought about and looked at the facilities

352. 46:09

     conditions, Morland's um and Arrowhead would need um a re would potentially need a rebuild based off some of that

353. 46:17

     initial data that we looked at. Um but there are site limitations at Morland's.

354. 46:22

     And so the Arrowhead site has room for a larger rebuild that could serve the combined community uh for the long term.

355. 46:31

     And so that is um how this recommendation came about. Did you want to add anything?

356. 46:38

     I think the one piece that I would add to this is when we were going out for our 2026 bond um the capital bond

357. 46:46

     planning task force considered a number of schools um for work and both Arrowhead and Morland's ranked high on

358. 46:54

     that list. Um and these schools are about one mile apart from each other.

359. 46:59

     So, as we're thinking about kind of the long-term investment in our schools and um where best can handle um some

360. 47:09

     additional capacity, I think we looked at Arrowhead as uh having a little bit more flexibility in that process. Um

361. 47:18

     over the last several years, the district has purchased some single family homes around Morland's. Uh but

362. 47:26

     even with those purchases, the actual cap site is about seven acres, whereas our typical elementary school sites, including Arrowhead, are more than 12.

363. 47:37

     Um so that gives us just more flexibility as we're looking at complying with current regulations,

364. 47:44

     whether they be storm water or other environmental regulations and parking requirements and all the things. Um, Morland's will always be a limited site.

365. 47:56

     We currently rely on uh pickup and drop off using the church parking lot. We uh

366. 48:03

     utilize the park next door as the playground. So I think that again just thinking about the need for investment

367. 48:11

     in that south and I think that um EDAC and the capital bond planning task force

368. 48:19

     work together a lot and um my guess would be based on these recommendations

369. 48:26

     that EDAC would recommend to the bond planning task force that arrowhead um be placed on uh 2030 if we stay with our

370. 48:36

     typical bond cycle um as far as a bond project goes.

371. 48:44

     Okay, thank you. That was super helpful.

372. 48:46

     I um just so that I'm tracking here, the Northwest rebalancing is happening no matter what scenario. Is that correct?

373. 48:55

     Correct.

374. 48:56

     Okay. Well, so when we say it's happening, it's part of the uh recommendation um in each of the scenarios. So there are three different

375. 49:04

     scenarios that involve different consolidations. All of them include a northwest rebalancing, a south rebalancing, and then three different options for how we rebalance the east.

376. 49:16

     Okay. So if we don't go with the ignore it and hope it goes away plan. Okay. So there will be rebalancing in the north.

377. 49:23

     Um, and you mostly dealt with this, but um, I just want to make sure

378. 49:31

     we have 20 amazing, wonderful, delightful, phenomenal elementary schools, and it's I'm speaking for the

379. 49:38

     board. It's breaking our heart to close any of them. And the decision can't be made

380. 49:45

     because something is less, you know, the quality, the people in it are less than, right? And so we need objective

381. 49:54

     data to to justify it. Um as because this as we I'm learning this

382. 50:01

     is our last resort. This is the only option we have left to address this problem that I can't keep ignoring. Um

383. 50:09

     so thank you. I that was um helpful to hear some of the issues with Morlands

384. 50:16

     that are objective, not about how marvelous the people are at Morlands and so forth. So that's what I'm going to

385. 50:24

     need to hear is to explain the the objective part of why a school is being

386. 50:31

     chosen for potential closure. So that I just wanted to say that I'm seeing a lot of head knots from board members.

387. 50:45

     um heard. Yes. Um our aim today is to share information um um and not to um

388. 50:53

     and to be as objective as we can in doing that as as um and for the board to be able to hear that and then ask

389. 51:00

     questions and then for us to combine that with community feedback that we have planned over the next several months.

390. 51:08

     Um okay. So um thank you also for bringing us back to kind of the understanding of the way um these

391. 51:16

     scenarios are laid out. Um so the last piece to this first um scenario includes

392. 51:23

     the east rebalancing um and so in this scenario um one which again includes the northwest uh the south and then the east

393. 51:32

     rebalancing option here is uh closure of Cottage Lake and Sunrise and so Sunrise students

394. 51:40

     let's move to the next slide. Sunrise students would move to Hollywood Hill um and Cottage Lake students would move to East Ridge and Wellington.

395. 51:50

     And so um what we have shown in the map is the area of Cottage Lake um that

396. 51:58

     would move to East Ridge, a projected 90 residents. Um and then we have areas of Cottage Lake moving to Hollywood Hill,

397. 52:07

     about 28 um resident students. And then we have four pockets of sunrise moving

398. 52:15

     to Hollywood Hill. A pocket that has about 30 residents, 151 and 8. And then

399. 52:23

     we have two areas of Cottage Lake which would be moving to Wellington uh pocket that includes um 168 projected residents and then 19 projected residents.

400. 52:44

     Then the accompanying slide here um shows the projected resident students in

401. 52:51

     um 2028, 29 and 30. And as you can see here, it puts the schools um that are

402. 53:00

     consolidated uh between that 400 and 700 range.

403. 53:08

     So we did want to be objective and transparent about the considerations. Um

404. 53:14

     and so with each of these we did include considerations that came up as we talked about uh these particular scenarios. Um

405. 53:23

     just noting you may see the reference to B. We had once um labeled them with letters uh but now renamed them. So, uh,

406. 53:33

     B just means this option here. Um, but we're just calling out that under this particular scenario, there would

407. 53:41

     essentially be three schools, um, that would have um, closures. Uh, some receiving schools um would be near full

408. 53:50

     to their capacity. Um, some families would have a slightly longer uh, travel time. Um we did do a transportation

409. 53:59

     analysis of these particular scenarios um and found just a few additional minutes for those who had uh um at the

410. 54:07

     tail end of their length of time traveled. And then also noting um just some considerations as it relates to the

411. 54:16

     infrastructure for the receiving schools. And so we've just noted that the Hollywood Hill bus loop would need um likely need some increased uh capacity.

412. 54:26

     And one thing that I um just wanted to note on the comment about some receiving schools would be um near full. That's

413. 54:33

     just in uh relation to their design capacity. Um we do have some schools that have really large capacities. Some

414. 54:41

     elementaryaries that have capacities of 900. um even though that's we've talked about our ideal size being less than that. Um and we do have

415. 54:50

     elementarymentaries that have lower capacities. Um some that we've shown here at the um mid 400s to mid 500s. So

416. 54:59

     um while we don't anticipate that being a problem, just wanted to note that for transparency.

417. 55:05

     Yeah, I think that it is just in reality a lot of these schools were built about the same time and are in general smaller

418. 55:14

     than the schools that we've built um in more recent years due to kind of a

419. 55:20

     booming movein construction cycle. Um so they will be more densely populated for sure the number of students at the

420. 55:29

     schools and I think that we just need to be very just acknowledge that this

421. 55:36

     process isn't easy and um while these are our current projected resident students I think we're all really

422. 55:44

     interested to see where our projections come in from our demographer this year.

423. 55:49

     uh we came in below the projections this year. So these numbers are likely as optimistic as they will be. So there could potentially be um fewer students.

424. 56:02

     I think it's just one of the reality of this work is that it's not um it's not perfect. Uh we're doing the best with the information that we have.

425. 56:13

     And D, can you um give us an update on the HOA and deed situation at Sunrise?

426. 56:21

     Yes. So, Sunrise is an interesting um building. We have an agreement with the HOA that if it is that building is not

427. 56:30

     being used as a school that it would revert to the HOA uh ownership. So, we've thought a lot about that. It does

428. 56:39

     not specify what type of school. I think there are definitely um specialty uh

429. 56:46

     services that we might offer as far as continuing to provide educational services in this location. We do know

430. 56:53

     how important it is to the community. I think uh the folks here today really represent that and um that's the best

431. 57:02

     information that we have. I do think if we go move to something that's not a

432. 57:08

     typical K5 education, it is on the district to continually evaluate how we're using that building and make sure

433. 57:16

     that we are in compliance with um the deed that we have there.

434. 57:26

     I was just going to ask so coming right out of the gate, you know, if we were think about one school that's already significant, right? And in this scenario, we're seeing three school

435. 57:35

     closures. Um, and especially two on the east. Um, just wondering a little bit about Edex's thought process there. But

436. 57:44

     is that is the idea that if only one of those were done, it's more likely another would need to happen again in the next few years. I would presume that

437. 57:52

     would be the only reason they would do this rather than to inflict pain on all of us.

438. 57:56

     Yeah, that's exactly right. These are in order of preference for um EDAC as they

439. 58:03

     ranked them. Uh and it really was the long-term uh viability and looking at the long-term health of the district. This

440. 58:12

     is the only option that shows all of the schools in that 4 to 700 range in the outy years uh which you'll see in the upcoming um scenarios.

441. 58:22

     Thank you. So then if Yeah. If if it weren't this scenario, then it's possibility, especially in the east, that if we just did one closure, we might have to go through this again in the next few years. Okay. Thank you.

442. 58:32

     That's very helpful.

443. 58:38

     Okay. Um I'm going to move us to the next scenario. Um so this next scenario,

444. 58:46

     uh has the same uh north and west rebalancing and south rebalancing. and

445. 58:54

     then shows uh different east rebalancing um which uh includes just the closure of sunrise.

446. 59:03

     So um I will skip through this because we uh because I went through but again for completeness in uh the community's

447. 59:12

     understanding of what these scenarios and the packaging is we've included it this way for you all to understand and I just want to clarify again that

448. 59:20

     the 2030 there's projected students in 2030 at Kokan and Shelton View and that's due to the um rebuild of those

449. 59:28

     sites and so that's why those dates are extended. Thank you.

450. 59:36

     Okay. Um All right. So, this uh east side rebalancing um includes uh the

451. 59:43

     closure of Sunrise. Um and so Sunrise students would move to Cottage Lake and Hollywood Hill.

452. 59:50

     On the map, it shows pockets of Sunrise going to Cottage Lake. 151 um in the one

453. 59:59

     pocket and then eight in another. And then we have two pockets of sunrise uh

454. 1:00:05

     moving to Hollywood Hill. Um uh 30 student pocket um and then another

455. 1:00:11

     pocket that's zero. And then um our last uh pocket is a area of Cottage Lake

456. 1:00:19

     moving to Hollywood Hill and 28 students there.

457. 1:00:33

     Okay. And so this next um chart, as we've shown with the others, is

458. 1:00:40

     essentially our projected uh resident count as a result of these changes. So,

459. 1:00:47

     we have used these yellow boxes to indicate any schools that would remain with resident uh projections um under

460. 1:00:56

     400. So, as you can see in this um Hollywood Hill, Eastridge, and Wellington would still be projected less than 400.

461. 1:01:07

     So, we've identified that as a consideration here. Um, also, uh, similar to what we just talked about,

462. 1:01:15

     um, while it does provide some level of rebalance, it is likely a short-term, um, fix in the sense that we would

463. 1:01:22

     still, um, have schools that have resident projections less than 400 and would need additional rebalancing later

464. 1:01:30

     on. And then uh we've talked about the Hollywood Hill bus loop um and the fact that that we would need increased

465. 1:01:37

     capacity given the fact that we would be sending more students there um in this scenario.

466. 1:01:49

     Okay. And the last scenario um uh includes um the uh repurposing of

467. 1:01:57

     Hollywood Hill. And so, uh, the first two, um, rebalancing of northwest and south are the same.

468. 1:02:08

     So, I'm just skipping through these.

469. 1:02:16

     And so in this scenario, um the uh in addition to Morlands, which we've talked about, um there would be a repurposing

470. 1:02:25

     uh or or closure as we've called them interchangeably through this presentation of Hollywood Hill.

471. 1:02:31

     Hollywood Hill students would move to Cottage Lake, Sunrise, and Wellington is what's captured in our chart here. So

472. 1:02:39

     we'll have two pockets from Hollywood Hill moving to Cottage Lake. um an area that has 47 and 21 residents.

473. 1:02:47

     Um we'd have an area of Hollywood Hill, two areas of Hollywood Hill moving to Sunrise, uh projected residence of 70 and 13. And then one area of Hollywood

474. 1:02:56

     Hill uh moving to Wellington and that has a projected resident um student count of 110.

475. 1:03:04

     Those colors correspond

476. 1:03:12

     And then we show um the chart again that shows the projected resident student

477. 1:03:20

     counts. Again, we are anticipating based off of having only one um school

478. 1:03:27

     consolidation or closure. There would still be um three schools, Cottage Lake, Sunrise, and East Ridge in this scenario

479. 1:03:35

     that would have projected student resident counts. uh below that 400.

480. 1:03:44

     And then we've also noted um because we did do a transportation analysis on each of these scenarios um that there would

481. 1:03:52

     um be some families in this situation that would travel um farther than they currently are. And so just quick um

482. 1:04:00

     background on the analysis that we did do. We used uh current students uh to do that analysis and essentially looked at

483. 1:04:08

     what is their current transportation route and time. And then under this new scenario, taking that same exact student, what would be their

484. 1:04:16

     transportation route in time and we did that by student so that we could see for those students um across uh that um

485. 1:04:25

     scenario um if particularly we had any students who already had a long travel distance. does it increase? Um, and so

486. 1:04:33

     we were able to look at that across all these scenarios.

487. 1:04:43

     Okay. Um, so those are the three um scenarios. Uh, we are also going to show

488. 1:04:52

     um the middle and high school rebalancing um impacts. Uh we'll say that these are separate from the

489. 1:05:01

     scenarios that we just showed. Um and there's one scenario for each of them, one middle school and one high school.

490. 1:05:09

     Um based off of the analysis that we looked at.

491. 1:05:20

     Okay. So the first is going to be the middle school rebalancing. Um what we can see here um is that we have several

492. 1:05:29

     areas of Kenyon Park that would be moving um to Kenmore in order to alleviate capacity there. And then we've

493. 1:05:38

     outlined um those pockets um and those resident projected student counts. So, a

494. 1:05:45

     pocket of 20 23 0 and again that's uh based off of being able to align that

495. 1:05:52

     boundary 15 and 30 and then um also looked at moving a

496. 1:06:00

     pocket of sky view to address capacity challenges that currently exists there to Kenya Park. So, a little bit of a a

497. 1:06:08

     domino that you see there and that would be 82 um projected uh students in that count.

498. 1:06:17

     Then you can see at the bottom we capture the projected resident students as a result of those changes in over the

499. 1:06:26

     next um 3 years after those changes take place in 2028.

500. 1:06:35

     In this middle school scenario, I would just add that we do still see a disparity between the size of schools, particularly as we look at the middle

501. 1:06:43

     schools on the east side of the district. That said, none of them are small enough to the point that we would look at um consolidating them, but we

502. 1:06:53

     still remain with Timberrest being our smallest and Sky View being our largest school. uh in part it's just right there

503. 1:07:02

     in the middle where all that growth is happening which why so these are really more smoothing uh to handle some of the

504. 1:07:10

     growth that has already happened and that again that UG might um lead to

505. 1:07:18

     just quick question and you don't need to go back but is there part of this

506. 1:07:25

     aligning so as we move pockets gets from Sky View to Kenny Park for example. Are

507. 1:07:33

     we also then the elementary school that northwest is are we kind of lining up

508. 1:07:40

     that kids that were moving the elementary schools stay as feeder patterns? I'm not asking that well at

509. 1:07:47

     all, but there seems to be head nodding that we're definitely working on the feeder pattern piece. I think that that is

510. 1:07:54

     something that we need to continue to look at. Um, EDC is continuing to work on that piece, but in general, we tried

511. 1:08:04

     to keep both the middle and high school as few changes as possible to um make that

512. 1:08:13

     smoothing possible uh without impacting with impacting the fewest number of students.

513. 1:08:20

     The one thing I would just add on to here, we do know that not um every elementary feeds directly into a middle.

514. 1:08:27

     Um and so one of the things that we did talk about um with EDAC was about as Drew mentioned, is there any way for us

515. 1:08:35

     to use as an opportunity to maybe make some more alignment um that still allowed for us to have um balanced

516. 1:08:42

     enrollment across our middle schools. Um and so we will be looking to see if there's anything that we can do to um

517. 1:08:51

     smooth a little bit more. But again, our goal was not to make uh huge changes. Um really just thinking about what's most necessary for the district at this time.

518. 1:09:03

     Director Tren.

519. 1:09:05

     Yeah, my my question is very similar and this extends more from elementary.

520. 1:09:10

     President Hayes, you were talking about elementary feeder pattern to middle school and you mentioned not um messing

521. 1:09:18

     with middle school and high school feeder pattern as much as possible. Um, I do see here that, you know, Canyon Park usually feeds into, and correct me

522. 1:09:27

     if I'm wrong, both High School and Sky View typically feeds into North Creek High with some of the students from

523. 1:09:35

     Canyon Park going to Kenmore and then some of the Sky View students going to Canyon Park. Does that mean those neighborhoods will now change feeder patterns in terms of high school?

524. 1:09:48

     Um, great question. I'm going to need to look at it. I don't know off the top of my head. Thank you.

525. 1:09:58

     Um, one just follow up to that. Um, we we also have talked throughout this process about how to make sure this

526. 1:10:07

     information as well as the information itself and then any changes in particular are really clear to families.

527. 1:10:14

     So, we've talked about ideas around making sure that we have clear maps um and charts around the feeders, what

528. 1:10:21

     currently is, what will change, and then we did talk about some form of overlay.

529. 1:10:26

     Um, so just want to acknowledge that what you've just asked um is likely what we know families will be asking and it's

530. 1:10:34

     also part of the process for us to be able to share this information with you here so that we can make sure that we have um a solid um presentation of

531. 1:10:44

     information to bring to the community over the next several weeks and months uh so that those questions and that

532. 1:10:51

     information can be really clear. So I appreciate that ask

533. 1:11:00

     Do we have any guidelines as to how big a section of an elementary school should be to feed into a middle school? Because

534. 1:11:08

     I'm looking at like what's coming from Sky View and going to Canyon Park as 82.

535. 1:11:12

     And I've been flipping back and forth repeatedly trying to figure out if they overlap with other sections or small sections that are moving. Um, so like when we see that that'll make it easier.

536. 1:11:22

     But, um, just I'm thinking about like an experience I had where 45 students were split into

537. 1:11:31

     five different middle schools and you maybe didn't have any friends who went with you to middle school all of a sudden and you'd been in that group of kids from second grade to fifth

538. 1:11:39

     grade. Um, and so I don't want to necessarily have another situation where we've got like just this tiny pocket because you live in this one neighborhood are all going somewhere else ripped away from everybody else.

539. 1:11:50

     Like you have to have a cohort that goes with you. And so absolutely like seeing and and you know seeing some of those

540. 1:11:58

     like lovely concrete highways like Both Levert Highway would be helpful um as we go forward to know exactly like which

541. 1:12:05

     neighborhoods need to know what's coming. Yeah, I think Carrie will talk a little bit more to what we have um as

542. 1:12:12

     far as information goes, but I do think that that is um one of the things that we'll continue to work on and we don't

543. 1:12:20

     we've worked hard to make it so it's not just a tiny sliver. Uh that said, uh it's always good to double check our work.

544. 1:12:33

     It sounds like he could have been on EDAC. Just the level of um uh yes, just

545. 1:12:40

     uh um a shout out to the type of questions that conversation that we do have in that space. Um exactly nailed it.

546. 1:12:49

     Um okay. And the last piece that I want to share um is the high school um

547. 1:12:56

     rebalancing. Um so our uh focus here um was on being able to even out um

548. 1:13:03

     rebalance enrollment across our high schools. So in this um scenario you will see North Creek sends about um 190

549. 1:13:11

     students um to Woodenville and about 100 um students to both um to help even out

550. 1:13:18

     the comprehensive high schools. Um and so um and then Inglemore uh will also

551. 1:13:24

     receive about 277 students from both um in 2031. Um and that is as a result of

552. 1:13:33

     uh phase 2 of the capital project. So 2028 uh for our North Creek changes and

553. 1:13:41

     then 20 uh31 uh for those Inglemore changes as a result of the capital projects that are still being worked on.

554. 1:13:51

     Did you want to share anything else? I think the one thing I want to share about this slide is what you see tonight is different from what is in your packet

555. 1:13:59

     as far as the table goes. This was absolutely my mistake. Um so we I changed the language about the boundary

556. 1:14:06

     shift because of the uh capital project but I neglected to change it in the table as far as the years uh and the

557. 1:14:14

     numbers of students. So that is reflected um that uh 277 student uh

558. 1:14:21

     shift is reflected in the table here and my [clears throat] um sincerest apologies.

559. 1:14:30

     Um, this is more of a reiterating to make sure that like everybody here and listening has the same information, but

560. 1:14:38

     um, different high schools offer different things. Um, students who are in eighth grade now will have already

561. 1:14:45

     finished 9th grade may already be taking a foreign language that is not offered at their now soon to be new school, which would throw off their high school

562. 1:14:53

     path. And so we will be considering those sorts of things where students are already in motion towards graduation requirements um as we're looking at like

563. 1:15:03

     how we say exactly every the the final details for people.

564. 1:15:08

     Yes. So we have begun conversations around all the different scenarios and the implications of those scenarios um so that no matter what decision the

565. 1:15:17

     board makes we are prepared to take action um and clearly communicate with our staff, students and families um around those decision-making processes.

566. 1:15:26

     We don't have answers yet, but we will do everything possible to create legacy opportunities for families to extend time or to choose to go at certain time

567. 1:15:35

     so that we're not seeing a senior, for example, who plans to graduate from a certain high school and now that high school has changed, does that senior

568. 1:15:43

     have an opportunity to stay at that high school? Um, those are conversations we're having and we aim to try to have as much flexibility as possible within

569. 1:15:52

     the um constraints that we have. Um and no decisions have been made yet but we're modeling all the different scenarios now. So again when you make a

570. 1:15:59

     final decision we'll have clarity around those things.

571. 1:16:04

     Yeah. And um just uh to add to that uh we have also um started those

572. 1:16:11

     discussions within EDAC um so we can bring in that community perspective around those particular implementation

573. 1:16:20

     um ideas as well. So um we spent uh last meeting and then we about two weeks ago

574. 1:16:27

     or two months ago we dis we started that discussion um and so would imagine that we'll continue to have some more

575. 1:16:34

     conversation to go along with some uh uh the um um likely operational um considerations that the district will

576. 1:16:42

     have to bring to the table as well. And and to add to the the seniors, I would say that and I know it's not as

577. 1:16:51

     academically important, but when you think about kids who are in their last year of elementary school, switching to a new um community,

578. 1:17:00

     uh could also have a lot of social upheaval. like a lot of um social emotional implications

579. 1:17:08

     of switching school communities depending on how many kids from their previous community are in the new community. Um so yeah, thinking about

580. 1:17:17

     the supports that we have in place at the new school to support students um you know from the school that they're coming from.

581. 1:17:27

     It was as if you were in a meeting that we were in today. Yes, we are planning to u address those as much as possible.

582. 1:17:33

     So this is this is the problem solving that I I and I want to make sure that we because there was some big bad ugly that

583. 1:17:42

     um we need to go back to and ask some more clarifying questions about these are excellent uh mitigation and all the

584. 1:17:50

     things that we're going to work on as we go forward as we have community meetings we want people to share what if what

585. 1:17:57

     about um and that is all to come but I think we need to spend the rest of our time focus focused on the horrible, no

586. 1:18:06

     good, very bad um no option proposals and kind of make sure that we have understanding and clarity of of the why

587. 1:18:15

     those schools were chosen if that's okay. And we're going to we're going to parking lot of that. Shout out to our engineer husbands who find that a strange thing to talk about.

588. 1:18:26

     What are you putting in a parking lot?

589. 1:18:27

     Okay, we have just a couple more slides to go.

590. 1:18:32

     uh one is the next steps and then the timeline. Regarding next steps, all of the scenarios that you've seen tonight unfortunately do include school closure.

591. 1:18:42

     So we have a policy around closure of facilities that requires us to provide

592. 1:18:49

     analysis for each example and um provide that to the board before any action is

593. 1:18:56

     taken and have uh formal public hearings for each uh proposed school closure. So

594. 1:19:03

     we um plan to put that analysis together and bring it to a board meeting likely at the end of November.

595. 1:19:12

     um if that is the direction of the board.

596. 1:19:15

     And again, I'm I'm just to clarify that bringing this pol the the the hearing is not a decision-making meeting. It's a

597. 1:19:24

     hearing that starts the 90-day process for you all to hear and to gather the feedback. So, um so this is not a decision-making

598. 1:19:31

     meeting. This is a taking action on the 90day um window for us to gather more feedback and more information to share.

599. 1:19:39

     Yep. It really is the presentation of the analysis is our first step for sure.

600. 1:19:48

     And with that, I'm going to turn it to executive director Campbell.

601. 1:19:53

     Thank you. So, you'll see October 26 highlighted in blue, and I want to draw your attention to the bullet right after that. That indicates that a lot of

602. 1:20:02

     engagement is about to take place. So, tomorrow uh we will launch a brand new web page. So there has been a web page

603. 1:20:10

     around enrollment and demographics and now it's transitioning to be focused on enrollment boundaries and closures and

604. 1:20:19

     within that web page will be the scenarios that have a lot of the data sets that you've seen this evening as well as uh by the end of the week there

605. 1:20:28

     will be voice over maps that explain some of the changes that are being proposed so that I know that folks um

606. 1:20:36

     sometimes in narrative form it's harder to understand what you're looking at so that it's really explicit for our community about what is being uh

607. 1:20:44

     recommended by EDAC. So that will happen uh tomorrow beginning and then through the rest of the week beginning next

608. 1:20:52

     week. We actually will hold those staff and family meetings. So we've tiered our support. We are going out to schools that are first recommended for closure.

609. 1:21:04

     They're first on the list. then schools that would be receiving students and then schools where there are those

610. 1:21:11

     boundary changes. And so those meetings will take place all of November into December. And the objective of those

611. 1:21:19

     meetings is really to solicit considerations that haven't been um thought of yet

612. 1:21:26

     through EDAC. So again, bringing data to the board um to help you with these very difficult decisions. On December 1st,

613. 1:21:35

     2nd, and 3rd, we're going to hold town halls. Um those are very broad uh community meetings, and those are

614. 1:21:43

     meetings that um anybody can attend, including our broader community. One of them will be virtual. I should mention that interpretation will be offered at

615. 1:21:52

     all of our meetings. Um and for the school-based meetings, we've already worked with um our language access coordinator to identify those languages

616. 1:22:00

     that are most in need. So, we'll be prepared to support our families. And I really do hope that our families reach out to their networks and their

617. 1:22:08

     community to make sure that our families who are most often disenfranchised from these kinds of conversations are able to

618. 1:22:16

     attend and ask questions of staff as well. And so, um, you're going to see a lot of communication come out. In the

619. 1:22:24

     survey from last spring, one of the requests was excessive communication.

620. 1:22:28

     And that is our hope that we're going to be able to um meet that request and ensure that everyone is informed.

621. 1:22:41

     Okay. So, it's [clears throat] 6:23 and we've just had a lot dropped on us, but I want to just kind of point out so we

622. 1:22:48

     can um focus our questions and the things the information that we're going to want to get. We don't talk about this again as a

623. 1:22:58

     board until January 11th. So that's two and a half months from now. But EDC meets in a couple of weeks. So I think

624. 1:23:06

     what we want to focus on is the big picture concepts that have been thrown at us. Make sure we understand the why

625. 1:23:14

     um and ask those type of questions around the three proposals that were brought forward.

626. 1:23:24

     Go ahead.

627. 1:23:27

     I'll start. Um, so just to to double triple clarify, when we're looking at

628. 1:23:36

     the the east part of the district and the rebalancing, the only option that

629. 1:23:42

     gets us to schools that are within that um ideal number size for students

630. 1:23:50

     between four and seven is the option where there are two school closures on the east side. that that basically is

631. 1:23:57

     going to help keep communities stable over time without

632. 1:24:05

     having to revisit uh additional changes with um

633. 1:24:12

     school consolidations or or something in the near future, right? Is that my understanding is correct on that?

634. 1:24:20

     Correct. Okay. Okay.

635. 1:24:28

     Can I ask a couple and this is I don't expect exact detailed answers but just to be thinking when we say near future

636. 1:24:36

     what are we talking five years are we talking eight years when we because that's

637. 1:24:44

     important I mean we have a 10y year reook anyways so how long before we get into trouble I

638. 1:24:52

     guess is my question if We only do one on the east side.

639. 1:24:56

     I think Jolen and I are looking at each other because it's really um you know how small do you want a school to get?

640. 1:25:04

     So I think that's good information for us to have before we make that decision is what

641. 1:25:11

     what kind of a timeline are we looking at and then how small um could a school potentially get. My

642. 1:25:18

     other question just again to be thinking about when we were looking

643. 1:25:24

     at the three school the three school closure options Eastridge gets very very close to capacity

644. 1:25:33

     and I don't want to be in a position where we have closed two schools on the east side and now we're putting

645. 1:25:41

     portables in at East Ridge. So, um, if we can just kind of be mindful of what

646. 1:25:48

     that could look like and make sure that we don't end up in that scenario. I think that's one of the reasons why we

647. 1:25:55

     put this the information about capacity is because there could need to be a portable especially as we're thinking

648. 1:26:04

     about how students are moving through if we start at 2028 depending on how our instructional

649. 1:26:13

     um colleagues choose to offer services and work with our students. they might

650. 1:26:20

     need pullout spaces that uh cannot be handled in our current classroom

651. 1:26:27

     configuration. So that might require at least as we're still in this kind of higher numbers like we haven't seen the

652. 1:26:35

     real um lower grades one two and three like at that 28 29 year we might need to

653. 1:26:42

     put another portable at Eastridge. Um Maywood Hills will also be very tight uh

654. 1:26:49

     before we open Shelton View and Coin. I think we are looking at for you know a

655. 1:26:56

     year two years there being increased density at some schools and I think that's why EDAC didn't bring only one

656. 1:27:05

     option today is because none of them are perfect um scenarios. But the trend as

657. 1:27:14

     far as birth rates, as far as real estate, we don't see that changing. So there's not a lot of evidence of that.

658. 1:27:23

     So it seems prudent to make decisions that um can carry us through.

659. 1:27:34

     So these are two questions that I have for [snorts] consideration, not necessarily to answer here. Um, but

660. 1:27:41

     there's one around bond projects and impacted impacted schools. Are we using

661. 1:27:47

     the funds for schools that maybe closed um in a in a way that is transparent and

662. 1:27:56

     honoring what the community voted for um in the bond?

663. 1:28:01

     And if that particular school is being closed, how are the funds actually going to be used? um what happens with the

664. 1:28:09

     bond essentially. Um and then the second question is

665. 1:28:16

     understanding how and why the decisions are made in terms of which neighborhoods are being targeted like why is this

666. 1:28:25

     particular neighborhood and why this crossroad and just understanding those things might help us navigate decision

667. 1:28:33

     and also provide some transparency to our community. Okay.

668. 1:28:40

     None of the school closures that have been or potential closures that have been recommended have um

669. 1:28:49

     uh major bond projects as far as rebuild, etc. That's not to say that

670. 1:28:55

     some of them don't have needs. Some of them, as I mentioned, were on that list with the capital bond planning task

671. 1:29:03

     force. Uh, as far as um just blanked on the other half of your

672. 1:29:10

     question, understanding how certain neighborhoods were selected and the streets. Yeah, the pockets and the the streets cross roads.

673. 1:29:22

     How do you pick your pocket? Thanks, Jolen. Uh so I got a chance to talk with um one of our consultants who was part

674. 1:29:31

     of the major boundary line changes that we did 10 years ago and he gave me the whole history of how pockets were

675. 1:29:40

     determined which was um we had community members from at that time EDTF uh that

676. 1:29:47

     went through the entire district and put kind of what made sense as far as neighborhoods together. Those do change

677. 1:29:55

     over time. So we do regularly adjust pockets a little bit here and there mostly based around development and

678. 1:30:04

     transportation uh routes and as street closures or builds happen those pockets are

679. 1:30:11

     adjusted. But um usually the zero pocket is the walking uh pocket the mile radius

680. 1:30:19

     around the school and then it's built out from there. Um, so it really is what made sense and again this is where some

681. 1:30:27

     of those geographic considerations come into as far as like we've got the big power line that goes down this. It's

682. 1:30:34

     we've got culde-sacs here. We have to drive all the way around even though it's only this far on the map. So it really they did a whole thing from top

683. 1:30:42

     to bottom for the whole district. And we've really maintained that and made small adjustments, but it was based on the work of EDTF a decade ago.

684. 1:30:52

     Just really quick, EDTF is enrollment and demographic task force which is now EDAC.

685. 1:30:57

     Which is now EDAC because it's graduated to an advisory committee. Yes, exactly. Thank you.

686. 1:31:05

     I know we're getting here on time. So, I was actually hoping I could summarize it in my own words in a 20,000 foot view because I we get really in the details

687. 1:31:13

     and especially for people who are hearing a lot of this for the first time. I I I just personally always appreciate that. So, also correct me if

688. 1:31:20

     I'm wrong, but this was kind of my synopsis. So EDAC, as you're just mentioning, a group not just of staff members, but community members, parents,

689. 1:31:29

     students, people who are invested in this and people who may be directly affected, including their own schools being closed were a part of this process

690. 1:31:36

     so that all of us got to have a voice in the community. That's correct. Absolutely.

691. 1:31:40

     Okay. And we're doing that because enrollment is down and it's continuing to be projected to go down and it's not

692. 1:31:48

     going to get better. This is going to have to happen at some point or the other or we will have kids have loss of services potentially multiple grade

693. 1:31:56

     levels in the same class and taxpayers in our local area will be spending more of our money to cover what's not covered from the state. Is that all correct?

694. 1:32:05

     Y.

695. 1:32:05

     Okay. And then the preferred proposal from EDAC is a three school closure including Morland's Sunrise and Cottage

696. 1:32:14

     Lake. But the whole point of this would be to avoid any further south or eastern closures over the foreseeable future.

697. 1:32:22

     And it would rightsize all of our other schools. Is that correct? Yep.

698. 1:32:26

     Okay. And then there will be no middle school or high school closures proposed in this whatsoever. Just balances in in their overall uh populations.

699. 1:32:36

     Yes, I think correct.

700. 1:32:39

     Okay. Thank you. That helps me. I just wanted to make sure that I had the big picture. Is there anything I missed there?

701. 1:32:47

     That was a good TLDDR.

702. 1:32:51

     Um I guess my question is about when we're thinking about on the east side um some of those numbers that are getting close to capacity and then the numbers

703. 1:33:00

     that are shown up there are are they a little bit aspirational since we had our enrollment numbers that were so much

704. 1:33:07

     lower than anticipated. There's a possibility that even those numbers are higher than what we're going to

705. 1:33:15

     potentially see in 2028, 29, 30. Is that quite quite possible?

706. 1:33:23

     Yes.

707. 1:33:24

     Okay. Thank you. Also, I'd like to note that three of our five staff uh board

708. 1:33:31

     members are going to have families impacted by these changes. So that's why some of us are asking detailed questions

709. 1:33:39

     about things elementary wise but yes and otherwise and otherwise. Yes. Yes. Yeah.

710. 1:33:45

     So four Yeah. Oh four. Yep. Yeah. Five.

711. 1:33:48

     Four of five will be impacted by these changes.

712. 1:33:51

     Everyone with a child still in our schools. [laughter] Yep. Basically. Sorry Sandy. Obviously. Are you okay with that?

713. 1:33:57

     Trying so hard. Not [laughter] the kids are not cooperating. act did not highlight our school board [laughter]

714. 1:34:05

     houses, which is the right thing to do. And so, um, the the point of all that is that we

715. 1:34:13

     are grieving right along, um, in real time with everyone here. So, um,

716. 1:34:22

     maybe this I don't know if we have time for this, but that objective reasoning, we really didn't get into why

717. 1:34:31

     Sunrise, why Cottage Lake, why Hollywood Hill. What are the objective reasons of

718. 1:34:36

     why those would be closed as opposed to East Ridge or Wellington?

719. 1:34:44

     You know, it's similar to the more detailed rationale that we talked about when it comes to Morland's.

720. 1:34:51

     Both of those schools are difficult to get to. Um, they're smaller. They when you say both of those schools

721. 1:34:59

     when I mean Hollywood Hill and Sunrise in particular um they are both harder to get to and

722. 1:35:09

     you're kind of going through smaller the transportation is more difficult on all of them and again we're

723. 1:35:17

     in a situation where frankly a lot of those schools on the east side were built at about the same time. A lot of

724. 1:35:25

     them need capital investment. So finding a way to uh make changes at places that have a

725. 1:35:33

     longer term viability. Cottage Lake is in some ways uh at least from my perspective for being the chair of EDAC

726. 1:35:42

     but not necessarily being a parent in the district. Um I think Cottage Lake was more interesting. We looked at

727. 1:35:49

     another scenario that may have closed both Hollywood and Sunrise and um it

728. 1:35:56

     would have changed the feeder patterns more uh more significantly as far as middle schools and high schools and

729. 1:36:05

     there was a reticence on the part of the committee to um bring that forward. I mean, that um

730. 1:36:12

     scenario was on the list until literally um two weeks ago. And I think that it goes back to their guiding principles

731. 1:36:21

     when it comes to some of those neighborhood conversations when it comes to the overall um length of the

732. 1:36:28

     district. Um so again as we're looking for trying to get that 400 to 700

733. 1:36:36

     um mark for our schools looking at um how to do that and there were there are definitely compromises.

734. 1:36:46

     Uh and there were a lot of ways to look at that east east side which is why you see on the north and the south not as

735. 1:36:54

     many uh much flexibility in the information to get us there. But on the east there was a number of ways that um

736. 1:37:03

     were considered discussed um looked at and this is the one that uh the committee recommends.

737. 1:37:23

     Don't worry, we'll come up with something as soon as it's too late.

738. 1:37:25

     Yeah, this is all what we signed up for. Um, okay. So, um, much more to come, but

739. 1:37:36

     what I want to make sure is everyone feels like they've gotten some feedback to share with EDAC as they continue with

740. 1:37:43

     this process because we're not done. And I'll just remind folks that those boundary lines when we did this 10 years ago, they're very fuzzy at this point.

741. 1:37:53

     So, it's not um all done and they're not exact to streets. So, still lots of work

742. 1:38:01

     to go. Um, uh, yes, go ahead, D.

743. 1:38:06

     We have put maps together that are almost to the street level that you'll see on the website over this next week.

744. 1:38:12

     Um that said, as we are having this robust conversation, I assume with our community, I can imagine us having

745. 1:38:20

     conversations about specific pockets as you're looking at your guiding principles and how you want to make uh

746. 1:38:28

     decisions if uh things come up. Uh I think EDAC is ready and willing to look

747. 1:38:34

     at other options and um see how we can respond.

748. 1:38:40

     So again to the community the boundary lines are not locked in. They're at this point suggestions and just talking about

749. 1:38:48

     boundary changes at this point there it we are such a large district and there's so many components to it that we are

750. 1:38:56

     looking for help from our community to point out oh by the way did you know they closed that street last week. So um those are important details that we will

751. 1:39:06

     be using for us as a board. We are going to be now going out into the community.

752. 1:39:13

     Dr. Wearer um did a great job of summarizing that we have a proposal with boundary changes at the secondary,

753. 1:39:20

     boundary changes in the northwest part of our district, a potential school closure of Morland's in the southern

754. 1:39:27

     part of our district, and then some number of school closures on the east side.

755. 1:39:35

     And that that is really where the question is for the board. Is that correct?

756. 1:39:45

     Correct.

757. 1:39:47

     So, three scenarios have been prepared tonight. Mhm.

758. 1:39:51

     Um, our next step, as long as the board wants to advance this, would be at the

759. 1:39:58

     November 23rd board meeting, staff would be preparing um the written summary and

760. 1:40:04

     analysis of each of those scenarios and that would start the 90-day clock per our policy for that consideration period. Okay.

761. 1:40:15

     So that's when we can next expect information um is the seven or eight points that are in the policy need to be addressed and

762. 1:40:24

     that written information provided to the board and that would be the November 23rd meeting.

763. 1:40:37

     Okay.

764. 1:40:41

     kind of giving last chance for oh I really need to know this.

765. 1:40:46

     Okay, thank you. This stinks. There is no um this is not anything anybody

766. 1:40:54

     chooses to do. This is a last resort. We have no alternatives but to close schools um to be able to provide the

767. 1:41:02

     quality education. Now, we did hear from Dr. are Irish that our amazing people, our students, our staff and our families

768. 1:41:10

     that make our schools the amazing places they are are not going anywhere. So we will still be Northshore but we are

769. 1:41:18

     going to look different and that's going to be hard for all of us as we go through the next six months,

770. 1:41:26

     [snorts] two years really two years before this starts.

771. 1:41:30

     Okay, thank you. Um,