March 23, 2022 at 5:30 PM - SPECIAL BOARD MEETING

Discussion:  Matt O'Daniel called the meeting to order at 5:43pm

Discussion:  Discussion is for review of classroom capacities from the March regular board meeting.  A special meeting is being held to review and discuss. 
Chase clarified his concern from the prior board meeting, wanting to look long term for the capacities for classes and what option enrollment looks like, not just cutting off the option enrollment completely immediately. 
Bruce Scheer revisited his ideas as to what class number look like for enrollment- he was concerned with numbers for the total enrollment.
Board changed our resolution in 202,0 we had run into a grade level that grew so much that we needed to add a section for capacity, needed a policy to determine that the admin had authority to regulate the class sections for each school year (made it a capacity cap at each grade level) Classroom split policy- set capacity size- used to be just grade level size now is a section capacity- policy was needed to be able to move quicker in the process instead of having to wait a month or so for a board meeting to make changes.
Policy prioritizes option applications to students who have siblings, students that have been here for 2 or more year, and then they go in the order they are received.  Attorney cautions against prioritizing any option students outside the current credentials, like specific teachers students or siblings, we would need to follow policy for how we go about approving option students- 
Previous to the added policy in 2020 we just went off of classroom size instead.

Discussion was made on the MS/HS level, Janet asked how that works as they enter into higher grade levels, how does that affect for teachers and how does that look for class sizes, 
Special needs students were discussed and how that affects the classroom size, are these students in the classroom, in separate classrooms, wanted to know if any student that is classified as sped are they counted in our class counts?  Do these students change the numbers?  It was brought up that all sped students and students enrolled are counted towards our classroom capacity and counts each year. 

No new teachers have been hired on the High School side to accommodate class size- per Aaron Pfingsten.   On the Elementary side- Mrs Morgan thought there were 6 new teachers hired to accommodate classroom sizes and capacity- meaning we have grown each grade level in the elementary and the teacher to student ratio was higher than it is now. 

Reason for us being here tonight is to decide what our classroom sizes are for the next year 2022-2023 school year, Mr O'Daniel said that Chase has a valid concern on the option numbers and the future with numbers for students enrolled... This is a time sensitive matter at this time with the option application and approvals need to be done by April 1, can we keep this as a discussion on our board meeting for all prior meetings and stay up to date on anything that looks like it might be an issue for the district and our numbers. Need to continue to have this conversation regularly with the board meeting. 

Asked about how the numbers and option enrollment affect the sports and activities for us and how Arlington is placed in Classes like Class B or Class C 
Mr Shada said that the enrollment does not affect the class listing for athletic listing, he also added that we have room to grow in terms of enrollment size to help up compete with the larger districts that we compete with in athletic competition.  It affects us in the factor that we are the smallest schools for C-1 class size, so we have room to grow to help our team sizes.   We offer 32 different extra activities and if we deplete our numbers and then lose some of our programs that we only have a small amount of kids involved, if we don't have our numbers then we might have to not offer some of the activities and lose some of those programs.  There are lots of components to this situation 

Suggested to create a committee to look at both the policy and the capacity - thought was brought up are we asking the admin going to be asked and tasked with getting all the numbers if a small committee meets, or is the committee going to be in charge of getting research, 

Question was asked if we shut off option enrollment completely, how much funding would the shool lose- Dr. Lewis said next year we would lose close to 1milion dollars for the next year.   If we make this kind of change in the next 5 -6 years we would see about a .13 change with the taxpayers to offset the funds.  We would have to get more in taxes in, or make adjustments with in the school such as teachers and supplies to offset the costs.
Chase proposed that we have it on the board April meeting that we create a board meeting.

Discussion:   Matt O'Daniel meeting adjourned at 6:46pm