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Grade Alignment Public Forum - 12/17/2025

Added Dec 18, 2025 •

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Presentation slides can be found at - https://bit.ly/491u4Uv

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I think we'll go ahead and get started it is 6 oclock I just want to I want to honor your time um I want to thank you for for being here showing interest in the PCM um I do want to I want to start that we do have this listed as a uh possible Quorum for our for our board meeting but it's not a formal coordinating it was just possible Forum that more than 3 board members could show up when school information is being seen so it's not a formal meeting no decisions will be made anything like that so um but um I just want to take some time to introduce myself I'm my name is Aaron Becker I'm the new superintendent here at PCM um I'm really grateful to be a new member of this uh this community and I want to just say that I'm going to do my best to state of note so I don't go off on a tangent and we we've got I've got a lot of information for you to go for for me to go through so that you have it uh that you feel informed about things that we're talking about this year there are plenty receipt that you want to to sit if you're good standing feel free to do so um so um I would say the information that I'm going to share will be roughly 30 to 40 minutes so it's kind Brandon bear with me a little bit it's a lot but then we'll have an opportunity to to share any thoughts any questions that you may have any clarifications that you may need and I do see some familiar faces in here some school personnel people that were at the Kanas meeting the other night a lot of the information is going to be similar so I apologize but we'll have time hopefully the conversation maybe at the end will be a little bit different okay or maybe it clears things up uh hearing it a second time so um first just a little bit about me um this is my 26th year in education and my fourth here as a superintendent obviously first here um I've done about 18 years as a as a principal anywhere from uh preschool all the way up to um the 12th grade so many of my years were as a high school principal so and then I had 4 years as a as a teacher so just a little bit personally um my wife Amy and I live here in Monroe and then my I've got a daughter that's 28 she's a uh she's an accountant in De Moine and um soon to be engaged to be married in July so we're working through all of that and then um I've got my my son Cole is 22 is senior at at Iowa State going through PT school and once tracked to the team there bless you okay um so when I when I agreed to be the the Superintendent at at PCM and uh December of 2024 I didn't Envision having a a budget conversation with with staff with community in December of uh 2025 you know so um but when I interviewed with staff and with with community I stated that I'd be honest and transparent about the the happenings within within the district and so that's what I'm trying to do right at the moment is to uh to share a lot of information about what we're talking about at the district level so but um our budget is is a topic that I could easily hide I could easily just stay quiet about it but that's uh and wait till the last minute to to inform you about what we've been talking about that's not who I am that's not who our board is assigned to our school administration is it's not who our school staff is so um you know and out of out of the group great respect for the people that I've already met and work with already I want to get this information to you early and often and so some of you may also think that this is the first time you're seeing me um talking with me possibly who is this guy to be sharing this information with us and we've been here in Prairie City Monroe Regional for all these years it this guy so I get that I totally understand it and I would say that what what I'm doing today is completely opposite of what a first year superintendent usually does or even a principal or what you sit back and observe but usually let the let the year go go by before you start talking about any possible changes or identifying like red flags big big items big topics to bring up uh to the board to the community but as I observed things as I you know I did my research about our budget our enrollment those sort of things felt like what we're going to be discussing cannot wait anymore okay so if I would wait another year to bring this up I'd be doing PCM at this service so that's why that's why we're here talking about it and eventually um aboard the board um continuing their conversations and and making a a decision possibly so um as I go through some slides we'll be going through some uh be talking about our budget using some various um some very varying funds but also some future planning for our district so uh like I said before you'll have some opportunity to ask some questions a little bit later okay so why are we here this is our why our kids and uh we when we talk about when we talked about the budget we often we often just see numbers and we lose sight of of the kids and as we're having these conversations we're doing our best to make sure to make decisions in the best interest of kids and making sure that um that if we do make some decisions that are hard we're going to do our best to have the least impact on on kids as we move forward so and to be honest it's hard it's tough because every time we make a decision there's a possibility to truly impact uh impact kits okay um many of you have seen this this slide maybe been shared shared online you've been been in 1 of these meetings uh before but um I was school Finance has a tendency to be very confusing and over the last few years my role as as superintendent I try to find a visual that simplifies the main funds that people in the community often talk about and um I wanted to find the way that maybe people could relate to what we're discussing when we we talk about funding sources so um we'll kind of go through each 1 of these here but um most of our most of our discussion is going to live right here in this General general fund red red paint bucket but over time though we will discuss these other these other funds so the main ones that we that we talked about a lot is the the pebble fund physical plant and Equipment Levy so that is a that's a property tax and it can only be used for school infrastructure buildings building spaces transportation forgot this is a touchscreen yes what did I just do okay um and then technology so we in Pebble annually in Pebble we have about get about 684,000 a year uh through the through that funding stream the next 1 is save otherwise known as the the penny sales tax so this is a obviously it's a sales tax the only thing that it can be used for is infrastructure transportation technology and our our debt service okay we on an annual basis uh receive about 1.4 million in that in that fund to address those items I'll skip over to here to the the Geo Bond that's a general obligation Bond and that's a that's a property tax and so that can only be used for school infrastructure if you remember about about a month ago many schools within our within our uh region in the whole state uh put out for a general obligation Bond or referendum to upgrade facilities in some way shape or form so that has to go to the only way a school would receive those those funds is through an election okay and right now um Geo bonds can only be up for election 1 time a year in November they used to be a couple years back before for the legislature changed it it was um roughly 3 3 different times a year that you could do that so that is no longer the situation and then the general fund this is student funded State a and so uh that can only be used for salaries benefits curriculum uh fuel electricity and water so this red paint bucket this is where um each each district I would say there are general fund runs about 80 80% of their budget is salaries and and benefits the other the other 20% meets these other meets these other needs okay um the 1 thing that's important to remember out of these is that is that little window right over right over there um it's against the law for these paint buckets to mix okay so if I have a surplus of peple funds say I've got uh 400,000 that's just sitting over there in peple and we're running short and the general fund to cover salaries and benefits I can never take this money and supplement it over here it's against the law vice versa if I have extra in the general fund wouldn't that be nice um and I want to build something I can't use any money I can't use this red red paint bucket to fulfill any infrastructure technology Transportation means so um the 1 thing that we'll touch base on a little bit later there will be times as we talked about right sizing our our general fund um and this is a hard concept for communities any Community because this happens all over the all over the state is okay we're running short in the general fund but a district wants to upgrade classrooms once upgrade uh activity spaces those sort of things and it's millions of dollars just remember that they these can never be used here okay that's the hardest that's the hardest thing to remember um and moving moving forward but it's it's something that um districts do often and it's something that we um we talked with our financial advisors from Piper Sandler earlier in the year and we talked about investing back into our district in into the facilities that we have and so the we have we talked to Matt Gillespie talking about what is our bonding capacities and So within save within within the save fund currently if we were to bond out uh over a 20 year span our Max bonding capacity is 12.1 1 12.1 million to be able to have access to that you have to have a public hearing um at a school board meeting uh Gio Bond our bonding capacity is 13 1 million and so that would be through voter approval before that could ever happen and then peple peple over there we have about uh the 3.9 million that we could borrow against that actually doesn't take a public hearing and it doesn't take voter voter approval okay so those 3 funds are way way different than the red the red 1 that we're going to talk about a lot okay questions on the paint buckets at all of how to understand those yeah all right the next thing that we're we're going to talk about uh with that really our general fund student enrollment absolutely drives our budget and what we can do each year so um what we do in October every year is we have to report out to the state what our certified budget or certified enrollment is so um we got some enrollment Trends here from 20th October 22 to October 25 and I've got labeled here certified certified here served here easy way to remember that certified is what they use for what the uh to know what to send how much money to send to us certified is the your resident students in the district no matter where they attend the we can have resident students and they might be going to going to Pella right um so in that case pela would Bill back to us to say hey you've got 3 students from PCM they built they build back sir is all of the student students uh that we have that we serve within the within the buildings so that's everybody what was um you know like it's your headcount that includes the residents and and the open enrolled in tuition to students so what we're seeing here the enrollment trend we were serving in 2022 1072 just this October we have 966 students that we're serving so that's a loss of 106 students uh served in in 4 years so when you think about that each each student is roughly 800 8,000 okay that's what we get from the state so like 7 700 988 is for easy easiness round up the 8000 and so when you look at certified here like the budget enrollment it's a loss of 88 over 4 years times that 8,000 704000 just in that time frame but in comparison to where we're currently at for served or served right now 966 our largest was 201314 up 1082 so that's a decline of 166 students times that by 8,000 Softly that's where we um where we have some issues when we develop our budget so another way to look at enrollment when we look at our current current served enrollment when we start to develop the budget we have to look at our current student enrollment and project what the enrollment will do in the years to come so um right here is served enrollment that includes open enrollments and that again that money flows to us but this is this is the amount of students that are in grades K through 12 right now so the strategy that we use to be able to uh project our enrollment is looking at what students are graduating how many students are graduating as seniors and what's coming in as as a kindergartener right so right at the moment and it may mergency right at the moment we have we have 88 seniors at the high school that are going to graduate so then we come all the way over over here and we look at what would be coming in as next year's kindergarten right now right now we have 56 preschool students so uh what we're going to what we're doing in exercise is we are going to we're projecting 65 into that um into that kindergarten class next year this 1 right here 70 it actually this presents having TK and it also of roughly 1111 kids so what we're doing we're saying 65 kids are going to come in next year to kindergarten so what worries me a little bit is that if you look at first through third the enrollment trend um 59 6059 65 might be high okay so when we take this 88 minus the 65 that we project is going to come in next year it's a loss of 23 students times the 8,000 184,000 that we don't have available to us um for the upcoming year then the next thing and when you're projecting out 5 years 6 years you take the you take the next class 11th grade 84 again projecting 65 loss of 19 students 152,000 less than we had the year before and I just continued that same process until something in your community or your school district tells you differently that you need to adjust your incoming kindergarten class right now we don't have anything telling us that there's going to be an adjustment to our incoming kindergarten class so um as you can see just by looking we've got we're up in the 80s 80s here there's a 72 800 even a 93 here but if we stay here of what our enrollment um Trend looks like that's a big difference for many years to come um of what we've been seeing so right now our high schools obviously the biggest but we're we're feeling it in the in the Elementary's class sizes way down so um let's see another wave another way to look at this is current um current enrollment projections again this is what I just showed you just jumped out a little bit differently okay so this is our current served first through first through 12 so right right now 9 through 12 343 students at the high school you chunk it out you take that same take the fifth through eighth grade move them up to high School we're down to 318 in the next 4 years if you take that take that chunk then if you keep going you keep taking a chunk you're down to 245 take that first grade through fourth our current first grade through fourth grade move them up to high school we're at 2:45 at the high school okay that's a loss of almost another hundred students plus the ones we 00 that we've already lost okay so um that's just another way to view it think through chunking uh chunking those those kids out yeah okay okay um this is unspent authorized budget um Tanya and I Tanya over here SPO um School business official Tanya and I do a lot of work with the budget 1 1 thing that we do in our office is that we work with another financial advisor group where we do a 5-year projection model and so uh Within this model the number 1 number 1 Thing within a with that you would say is a financial healthy indicator is this unspent authorized budget and so it's cash it acts it acts like a credit card okay it it basically tells you the state the state tells you the SBC school budget Review Committee tells you here's here's the max that you you can get to that you could technically spend lots of time schools don't have the cash to say that they can get to that credit card limit so um this 5-year projection model is it's a much bigger document than this this is just 1 screen but this model is based on 3% salary and benefits increase so that's typical for a year 2% other expense increased 2% SSA that's State supplemental Aid and a 20 and a 20 student decline over the next 5 years and where we that 20 students was from that from that slide a little bit ago where you had 20 23 1924 whichever way it was so that's where I put in 20 so what this is telling us here FY 27 is that our unspent authorized budget if we do nothing if we just keep operating as is admiring what's happening we do nothing are unspent authorized budget here is going to be all the way down to 1.4 million and that's when that's when the state and school budget Review Committee are knocking on my door saying okay you're if you can't overspend it that's illegal also so they're going to start knocking on my door and say okay what are you doing what's your plan here saying um and so that's what we're doing right now is trying to plan ahead before the sprc is starting to knock on my door saying you've got some budget issues that you have to work through or we're going to work through them for you and so we'd rather have some choice in correcting our budget again if we do nothing FY 28 we're negative FY 29 we're way negative FY 30 5.5 million negative against the law will be in front of the fbrc and they're going to come in and tell us what to do I don't want to do that I don't have any interest in that so the other thing that's concerning in this model you see how the projection model of how we built it is this 2% SSA again this is a projection so each year the legislature sets the SSA amount um and basically that's the growth onto the the cost per pupil that that the the district gets per kid early conversations at the uh from people that are close to De Moine that report back to superintendents that can eventually report back to the board um early conversations when the session opens up in January is that SSA could be as low as zero so that's not just 1 year that we're starting to hear I hope it's I hope it's a major rumor but it could be as many as 3 years in a row what some of the people The Experience people um that are working with um people in De Moine that it could be a projected 0% for 3 years so this model if we get 1% if we get 0% this model changes even quicker okay so that that money from the the state is is not there um for us so that's something that we're monitoring we'll be talking to local legislator how important it is for SSA to be funding Schools public systems um adequately so okay yep um so this was just this is just a little hit through this came from the other night somebody asked about this the other night about remember me saying that right now we're getting 7,988 that came from a 2% increase last year to get um to get to that 7 7988 but the last few years it's been 2.5% 3% 2.5% 2.4% we we know what inflation is you know what cost of living is um getting that 2.4 2.0 is not going to keep those general fund budgets helping um it definitely if we're losing losing students and so on so zero or 1 could be a major issue or not just our district district throughout the whole state so um something to keep talking about State the state legislators about that okay um all right so this is where this is where the conversation gets a little bit difficult I know this is hard to see from from the back it's binoculars um so due to the declining enrollment over the last last 10 years or so and projected uh decline over the next 5 years or so I brought up conversations uh of closing Monroe Elementary and uh brought it up to the admin talked to the school board we're actually talking to community uh here at the moment um and I know that this building it's a nice building for for our levels I I know that I understand it's been here many years 1956 1956 building but um you know what we have to think about as we're looking at our budget is how do we rightsize that red paint bucket that general fund budget and um what we're what we're looking at is that operating costs of this building and I'll show you this in a little bit a little more specific we're we're in that 400 to 480,000 operating costs for this building so um and I know that this has been I know many of you probably went to school in this building and that's hard and what I'm what I'm asking even the board admin public to to do is to think not just with your heart but with your mind on how do we how do we make sure that PCM is a thriving District moving forward so um how do we right-size the physical buildings that were going to need and I would say I did a 10 up and 10 down like from served enrollment like a comparison um of different schools similar sized enrollment we are an wire of having 4 4 spaces 4 physical spaces and many have 3 or even 2 or 1 they're on the same the same campus they're they I don't know the history of their Church decisions anything like that but for physical spaces they've looked at efficiencies how can we become more efficient with our physical spaces in what our needs are so um what we've got here we've talked a little bit about quite a bit about a pre-k through pre-k through 8 restructure realignment over at over at Prairie City and we talked about closing this building so you can see FY 27 we're at 682 this bar students over there um we've had many conversations walkthroughs with building administrators that we can make this we can make it happen we can we can absolutely make it happen and then you just keep going down FY 28 FY 29 those numbers 664 659 631 but um with that I want you to know we're also thinking about the vision of what's next so we're we're thinking about we're talking about moving 7 and 8 over to the high school if you remember when Chuck some of those those numbers out over at the high school those numbers are are shrinking and so that's when that would create space for 7th and 8th grade to be over at over at the high school so that's to come that's not that's not ready for this year that's not probably not ready for for next year but we're we're closed and so that's that's part of this discussion also being being efficient with our physical spaces um going back to operating costs this kind of just goes back to um what it what it costs are non-instructional costs obviously that's some staffing we're not going to talk about Staffing or people or anything tonight uh claim services no removal mowing water sewer electric internet all of those things roughly 480,000 operating costs here if we were to just close it close me or S and a lot of these estimates are based off of when this building does not have staff and students in it over the summer so a lot of these uh utility costs are based off of based off of that so if you were just just to close it roughly 77,000 to close it and just see and then the the board has a conversation about what what's next okay so potential Savings of roughly $400,000 by by closing um just another another slide just came up I added this in this was a conversation from the other night uh when we met okay what does that do if you're going to restructure what does that do to class items so as we look briefly through 4 we'll be in that 18 to 20 range and grades 5 through 8 in the 21-24 range those are very respectable uh class sizes um get those grade levels so uh just another 1 that came up the other night um talking about square footage and when each building was built uh you can see uh square footage these 2 include a little bit of the link but period you know district office is using using we're using that room that room that room so some of that work footage is is not just for classroom space but Monroe Elementary built in 57 very City built in 1994 Middle School 73 and the high school 78 okay so your time you're talking about restructuring closing the building possibly what would you do what would you do with the the building so some of our options that we still have have to talk about at the board level is closed the building reduce those operating costs that I just showed you until decisions made by the the board in the in the future next thing we could do close then then lease or sell the property to a governmental entity next time we could do closed and lease or sell property to a private entity or there's still a decision on the table keep the building open and operate as is so um those are some of the things that we're we're working with um all our zoning or legal council about every making sure every step if we were to consider any of those other options that we follow those legal uh guidelines for leasing selling and so on into the the difference between those 2 okay um okay I'm I'm real close um just 1 thing that I I want to I want to share share the the the new person coming in I'm giving you all of this this information that I know is not all Rosy but it's just trying to give you the honest truth of what what we see going on at the moment and what I see the PCM is it's a great School District I know that I was drawn here many good things have been happening here in the past that I that I knew about prior prior to coming here um you know each each 1 of us we we love the small communities love Prairie City love and love Reasoner I get it it's not about Prairie City it's not about Prairie versus Monroe it's not about the Plainsman versus the Wildcats this conversation it's about PCM Mustangs and for me personally I I have zero I have zero ties for either count because I know that why would why wouldn't he closed this bill and why he must like that that uh pound more than the other had no interest in that honestly and um you know my my responsibility is is PCM and and that's thinking about making sure that we're able to be around as a flourishing district for years to come and it's making some of these hard uncomfortable decisions are now rather than maybe we can wait another year maybe we can wait 5 years as you can see from that blue document we wait for trouble I don't want to be in trouble I'll be looking for another position somewhere else and I can do my job so um another opportunity um PCM school board we talked Monday night um me on January 2nd to make a decision on grade alignment and Monroe Elementary for the 2627 school year thank you and what questions what questions might you have yep what do you have um does anyone put together like a format or anything pretend to legislators and urge them to bump that what do you call SSA reach student and then the other thing was um the buckets defined by the state correct yeah I wonder if we might also incur when we build in some flexibility somehow from 1 to another those things are being discussed it's just a matter of how much traction do they get so okay you were to use us yeah we might have more I'm telling you I'm not the only 1 having this discussion you know just in Jasper County I'm I've talked to these soups and I'm superintendent and I'm they would be fine with me sharing like Knoxville down 90 students this year Paula is down 4550 um Newton's down 45 to 50 and I know call back is down some I just don't know exact not as not as much I think they felt that a couple years ago but just Jasper pounding in itself and you just look at it as a region everybody's down but when we are down 50 we feel it more than pellet does we feel it more than Newton so I'd say maybe a month or so ago um I had 1 of the local legislators that represents PCM in my office and we talked a lot about SSA and that's um we talked about other things that our district our district struggles with and what our needs are so that's part of my responsibility as superintendent representing PCM is to be talking heavily with local legislators that SSA all like funding Equity like that has to go that has to go up I just don't know that it's going to based on what I'm hearing early I'd love to be wrong and I think everybody that's hearing it would love to be wrong so um you know it used to be 3 4 5 percent SSA it's been as you saw from that 1 graph there's no workflows anymore I was just thinking most most likely officials if they get a lot of Correspondence and constituents and other topic yep that'll that can yeah hold some power yeah if you put us to work on that yeah that might get a result yep okay others yes sir so that timeline I need to be working out all the potential buyers are doesn't get up and Scout it out but that's going to have to start by meeting know so I would say we haven't gone down that path of scouting anybody out because we I made a decision like we haven't made it the decision as you saw a number of 4 the board could still say you know what we're we're not going to we're going to keep the building open we're going to keep it as is and we'll revisit revisit conversation but um as far as scouting out the the buyer or anybody to leave I think that happened after after the board makes that final decision I don't want to put any balls impression into some entity government entity private entity but if we'll say January 2nd that happens yep um that's not something that you want to sit on forever I sit on a a closed building for 2 to 5 years it doesn't it doesn't make any doesn't make any sense right but I know what you're saying but I think we've got just a little window um of time here that I want to know what what the board would like to do so again I my job is to present information to to everybody to community help them with decision but ultimately it's it's 7 7 numbers that are looking out for the Investments of our of our history so um and obviously though you know I'm standing in front of you guys I wonder what you think what do you think if I was put in a corner I had to make a recommendation yeah I I would say that would be our best in our best interest but I'm not I'm not the people that are represent representing so they got elected by also okay so um I wouldn't be bringing this up just for fun which is something that I think we we have to think about that we see on moving forward yes sir what are all the factors that are driving down the road yeah um I would say birth rates and Jasper County 1 that's down over the last 10 years you look at Census Data um we um if you look at our data that we had to report this year has to the resident students we're down 50 resident students like you people aren't as many um children in this District but also I want to hurt anybody's feelings here but when's the last time you've seen big businesses that created 60 to 100 jobs coming to this this District um houses a huge housing boom happening here that played the part also um you know again that part of my job too moving forward is to work with the city both per city um Monroe Jasper County Economic Development Group to start thinking about how do we think outside the box to start bringing something back in yeah yeah yeah sorry I update and then upload I have a male job um so my first statement or my statement is that a couple years ago a year and a half ago I sit in front of the board and I took a lot of time to have a well thought things to say um because we're talking about great alignment and then I'm a little concerned with trusting blindly or having confidence in the school district to will be making plans like back when I didn't care which direction the kids went that it was you have a 1 year 3 year 5 year 10 year plan I'm not going to lie it doesn't really feel like we had a 1 year or 3 year plan because a year and a half later we're sitting I'm like your plan it's great I love seeing that I'm just saying are there other people do we have a big decrease in 2024 because other people did not feel confident and moved to their kids different directions because of it was kind of things just to be honest certified staff they've always been serving more than we've been certified actually has been people and opening open enrollment data just in case anybody asks so last couple years open at enrollment so open enrollment in has stayed steady the last last couple years 103 105 open enrolled out has been steady we had we lost a few more so we've had a a net a net positive open enrollment over the last the last 3 years is that anything else um no they wouldn't be part of any open enrolled open enrolled out like this is what this represents is that they've went to uh bill they want to Knoxville that that sort of thing um let's see uh private school like the esas the educational savings account we're we're at about 22 ish without having a right for me total K12 that are going to a private school um I just want to be able to have that 1 who's this guy trying to say we need to do the and I know I I was part of the interview and so so that's just a hard thing a nervous that was decently whichever it is are people going to start using confidence and sending with more students I I don't know if we want that yeah um Fair a question I have is there was just randomly 13 extra classrooms open Thursday right now so we'd have to um adjust like we would move fifth grade up to up to the the middle school section and then pre-k through 4 would be in that um in the what you would consider pce at the moment have to use a little there's a couple of rooms in what you call the link area preschool preschool rooms go go there so yeah we've we've done that we've done that study and that's where um we kind of got those classes from you my biggest thing was classes yeah I didn't even that my my young or my oldest is in within the first year last year but he didn't have that classified last year so if we can have that classified mixture that would be great I mean I love the 18 to 20 so we didn't even have that last year and this so I sure how that was going to be yeah I mean that's based on projections of what we're what we're currently seeing um you can always get infected with a couple couple kids here and there but what what we know we do not have 50 to 80 gifts for any reason that would be coming in to drastically change to change that I'd love for that to be a thing um but right at the moment as we're trying to make decisions that's not what we're not what we're seeing thank you yes sir are there any other viable options to save money like a 4 day school week so that's that's a really good question so that that is something that um schools schools have gone to I think there's roughly 18 schools in the state of Iowa that are 4 days ago a week and I think originally schools that went to that model thought it was going to be a big Stadium things if they what they found out it's it's not a big savings and what it ends up being going be positive is that it's a teacher student retention tool like it's hard to hard to patience it's hard to get patients to sit there's not tons of teacher in the pipeline anymore I'm going through University so when I talked to superintendents like the most recent 1 I talked to was um say to all superintendent and he did a presentation on it at the uh School Board Association meeting and that's what they found that it it drastically increased their I said they had an opening rapidly increased the amount of applicants that they have for position that's where they be um because they're around the Deo right right around the 1 area and so that's what they that's what they found but as far as um cost savings it's not the big cost savings and then you gotta you gotta think about okay take care all those other things you know what that ripple effect that decision now is it something that you think about think about for sure but but from the Cardinal elden's the the waas the sad else um there's a bunch of other ones they they say the same thing but it's not you're going into it to save money don't do it if you're doing it to retain staff and a new model you got to compete differently okay then that's a different conversation you know so um but yeah looks like from that is there any other options that are considered as far as yeah so obviously I have building uh Staffing levels um we're looking at everything that we out of the general fund is it a need or is it a nice to have I said to you we got to turn over every Rock and see what we're what we're doing something as small as an online subscription that maybe pay only 2 2 classrooms are using that out of the 50 classrooms then maybe that's not 1 that we use anymore so every little bit helps so that's that's exactly what we're that we're doing and um yeah it's a it's not a fun process at all I but it but it's something that we we're digging into to look at that this isn't the only thing yes sir yeah I was just lucky that your figures the the downward Trend dudes going out what do you do with this map and the teachers are in this building right now okay so some of them absolutely will be coming over to over to that over to that building but then I know I have staff here and so you know but part of my job was to get in front of them well before getting in front of you um is that there are there are positions that what absolutely go but then also there's going to be as we go through our board policy of how we reduce um costs yeah there's there I don't know if it's this building or others but somewhere along the way we have to say Staffing he said this is uh myself and administrative team and we make recommendations to the to the board thank you yep good question you would close the sound and move kids over to city they're obviously the cost for that correct like that for example right that building is math is right here 301 328 years old right yeah all the buildings are getting older right yeah playground equipment for example there I think this next to the garbage yeah so there would be cost I think right and doing that so we know what some of the it sounds like though from the budgets yeah there's money money there for infrastructure thank you probably come from but I just see your thoughts yeah so yeah there there are some unknowns yeah that even came out of the the other meeting that we would have to we still have some planning to do like what is What is the pay for 2 playground look like okay that's where some of that other funding stream comes into play all of a sudden maybe that wasn't a as we do our 5-year plan maybe it was in maybe it was 2 years from now okay now we need to readjust maybe that's a that's a next year that the next year thing that we that we do we move it up a year because it became a huge priority because there's not something for them over there so that's how I work with Rusty and Tanya um and we we look at what do our infrastructure expenses look like transportation we still have to look look at that a little bit I've been talking with our transportation director too of um what that means for uh routes for shuttles so those are things that we will go through over these next few months if the decision was made to close um but you know we have um you know the other thing within our within our plan if we were going to keep this building open as Rusty and Tanya and I worked through like we're working through the save and pebble uh in the FY 29 28 2930 we had things in the in the budget for this for this building updating and paging system uh Windows phase 3 sprinkler system um Bus Parking upgrade around asphalt playground renovation and playground renovation didn't have a number to it yet but just those other ones that's that was going to be a a estimate about 480,000 dollars over the next couple years that we were going to spend on on this bill so um and then pce would have some also like an HVAC control system um probably looking at a um a boiler FY 30 so um but those are things that we budget for you remember we get about 1 point 4 each year I can't remember what I said earlier and save and couple um but those are those are things outside of the red bucket the general fund yeah if I understood it right closing this building might save about 400,000 round numbers your projection showed like several million dollars of all that and spare funds like over over a few years yeah that's a long a lot bigger number how does that get closer is that a salary differences or where is that yeah there's yeah that and then you just you're not getting if we continue to have that the compounding of the enrollment decline and if the SSA changes like for example like we always um negotiations we salaries benefits we upgrade each year roughly the 3% window that we we agree upon but then if SSA is 2% 1 percent zero or or 3% 2% behind and that model continues the change and gets bigger and bigger each time so his closing this building going to get is again and obviously it's going to help yeah that yeah part of the problem seemed a lot worse than that I'm sorry it seemed like the budget problems allowed us from the 400,000 or it might have been it it adjusts as you as you take um occurring expenses off that that model it totally it starts to change like we can input the when we say we're going to we're going to get to um well a cold staff is that we need to get to 1.5 million that we're going to reduce our budget by for next year it's a lot so um yeah that that's part of um when we input those things in there we put 1.5 million that we've taken off the books that shows on that projection model each year and it's going to impact that unspent unspent balance each time uh when we take some yearly expenses off of there I've got a couple now income coming from property taxes and numbers are declining I'm just curious where those projections came from and coming from yeah tax rate I mean that keeps coming down so that's um as we sew this isn't really impacting this 1 up here it's just part of its part of the funding for it's just part of the part did it again stay away okay so how this it's not really impacting this unspent authorized budget but like how this is declining is how we're paying like we're paying off our debt on and our Geo bonds a little by little that tax rate can be gradually going going down so that's within that model we also have say bottom Geo bond in that model and so that impacts that that property tax rate okay then my next question is so if we do close this building and we we lease it sell it whatever where do those dollars go into the general bucket yeah yeah and so that um yeah so then we can use it to pay operating operating cost yep so when you sit when you sell sell it or lease it then you can go back and use it for for that so yeah so that's and we haven't we haven't done that that research just yet of what what the going cost is for a sale or anything like that so I want to get too far ahead of ourselves yeah okay I understand the buckets yeah can you invest major hands black probably more than that yeah so like yeah how the how it's all written in Iowa Code of how we can use how we can use those buckets yeah yeah hi I'm um my wife and I are maybe yeah um as well and um I was curious um we happen to know a renter here and they they moved here specifically because they wanted their son to go to school either rather than multiple in the morning is there a way that high school can attract more students through sports with that type of thing and does that positively impact yeah I would say yes I can but the number that we're looking at to try to get us back to 2013 14 it's not going to do that but it can impact painful or so at a time and every handful of helps right but um the only the only way to get back to where we were 20134 is that really looking at investing back in the community with you know obviously Great Schools we got to we got to do our part right but then also housing businesses and so on if not this will be per city's new normal right of of um 55 to 75 is a in a classroom type of thing maybe less yeah then yeah so um as far as the city's concerned what what types of ideas if you're considering a what you yeah and I I can't say that I've had formal conversations with with um city or econ IC development that but that's something that I talked with my the board members that I part that's that's part of my responsibility too is to just sit down and have 1-on-1 conversations city council meeting kind of know what's happening but then create those relationships and give them give them a the information of what's what's going on here too because I think what's at this again the new when I when I talked to community members about this data is I didn't know this was happening when you know that like what you love your small communities you love everything about I grew up in a a smaller Community than both of our city and then I get like I love small community but you don't always think about what's happening behind the scenes that impacts school and so um that's that's been part of the conversation community members that I've seen like hey this is good information you know I didn't know okay what can we do what can we do next for okay does our new normal we got to make the right right sizing decisions um within so yeah so um so the job for County Economic Development yeah what can they offer to be determined I I really don't I think it's more about giving like showing interest that we we want to be involved and I don't know how involved for it to be in Monroe are to Jennifer County Economic Development yet part of my job to do that um but um I think doing so businesses are looking for a location they often contact Economic Development groups and say okay where in this region has land would get filled and put put a business up or hey are there are there buildings that are vacant Jefferson you cannot build where can you direct me to come to go look at those spaces and see if if businesses have interest in those both those location and so if somebody build something new find another uh vacant spot maybe that creates 2050 jobs I really do have to treat as the problem but absolutely yeah so I'm gonna have you look in your crystal ball here I mean so I think we do nothing now saying that the right answer I mean what are some potential avenues that the state might make us go down to make all just to close this so they force us to merge Pleasantville pullbacks yeah yeah so um and that would be the state would give us some reach remediation time right they get a plan together if that plan is going to work if it doesn't work thank you for that if that plan works if it doesn't and we're continuing to leave money back when they they come in and say we're taking it over we're going to tell you what what's happen there are schools like I have a written on my notes somewhere um Russell uh there's a couple others like 2 other schools that I remembered like they just shut shut them down because their finances all right and so then they then kids had to go to surrounding schools so but um yeah there that's a legit that's a legit thing and I thought trying to avoid I want speaking have to continue the bride I view this as a hurdle I get over this hurdle or I go recurring afterward Okay so I don't want I got a large so you mentioned I know that you already have a virtual while that you had mentioned um bringing more like housing and population um I didn't want to say because I didn't want to sound dumb but we you have a lot of houses in building very good in like over the last 5 years so I find my hard to believe in the less people because of multiple housing about how to be in both hands I mean I don't know like so maybe you older people are moving into the the newer houses people moving into their house so like there's a lot of new houses but in the last 10 years okay so like it's just weird there's a lot of old people living I don't know it seems interesting that they have all these housing developments well it does that in 10 years I no longer have full day yeah but then you probably moved from a different house and you know someone bought your house I think that's a lot of jobs new builds there's a lot of people established here that is building and moving into those new builds yeah and then they're more affordable to the so it's still coming how do we track people you know like my kids are getting old so say this is better than a house you know yeah person is in a unique location too you got if people want to be outside of the mo there's there's all these pulp right there and you have Newton then you have color Knoxville and I know people that that I've talked to I think we're so close to be so close to the morning there's there are some other established communities that have location for businesses that pop up in those in those areas those sort of thing doesn't mean that we can't do that we can't be the mean that we can't be just like them it's just currently it's just in a unique location where you're 15 15 20 minutes from each each 1 of those where somebody could set up shop with their business I have not know so that that's something I was just talking with Kathy the other day she's our Communications specialist and we were actually talking about developing that exit survey for people that might be leaving but okay how do we catch the people that are already open enrolled right well I I learned in this town yeah and um and I what I call it and my kids alone that's okay so but I run across because you you do when you resolve and I haven't run into oh you know maybe 4 to 7 fans that move in because Southeast folks can do it yeah okay uh but I've also run into 4 or 5 and these are people just I don't know how we could talk about school who have pulled their kids out because they don't need their kids needs yeah for whatever reason 3 of the families we had excuse intelligent children uh we just want to challenge you to give them that uh you know the future have a lot to do too but I'm just saying that is the reason they left everybody has their own family and I needed to hear that but then after the third family you know your beginning to see a kind of iron is not a stamp but I just think it would be able to beneficial to know why people are coming and yeah yeah we are just talking about that the other day Okay and then after have a tendency to watch DC and learning how to play education and see where we are and for a long time we were a little bit ahead and all the schools where I have a rank yeah intellectually yeah we are now up to half right now lots of kind of the first thing when you're going to move somewhere back here you're going to take Med schools yep and if we were like we're going to school they don't know if they're that good anymore because once they get what I want to do at school yeah just just had that exact conversation with just shared a a message with principles today you gave that same type of of reason that yep would keep pushing and our teachers be pushing themselves we've got to provide resources to them all the things so yeah good points okay we're at 715 and I know that you guys are trying to respect your time so with the let's say we closed the building 480,000 days this this does feel and we keep losing the 20s with about 150,000 a year ago this evening we're just taking this down to 2 and a half for years we're going to be here again talking about the same thing I'm like what do we do because we know the the enrollment stuff isn't changing we're still going to be good what's the plan for that yeah and that is that's part of addressing the right sizing as we go and not a like right now it's reactive in my mind like we we've got to we've got to do it right now um but seeing it seeing it out there like it's all the strategies that we've kind of been talking about but I think it goes also to that vision of the exception eighth grade over to the high school that um but those it's a situation where a district could go through budget reductions multiple times in a 5 year span but what we're trying to do right at the moment is get it within 1 year so we're not looking year you know big cuts 2 2 years in a row um and so that what is that that that hurts culture big time like I've been part of that I don't want something that administrators and I we talked about like we we could do this over a 2-year window but then you've got everybody wondering what's going to get cut is it my year this year my it creates a bad a bad Vibe across the border and so um just trying to trying to make sure that we're addressing it now but I say that it won't happen in fortify your um you know you look at that that 1 class of 93 I think it's 5 or sixth grade 5th grade and if we're kindergarten class coming in at 5560 again big chunk that's a big Miss um so yeah it's it's part of our you know from the other night uh there was a Community member that talked about okay feels like we're playing a lot of Defense right now right I love the analogy we find a lot of Defense to be interactive at the moment we've got to address the issue of how we start playing offense I for the district and so that's that's part of I'm going to need you as Community member I'm going to need all of the people all the staff here to to help let's start playing small offense and um and many different ways based on we thank you and the driving school and we wanted to pull smaller filters we were in originally in South Dakota we moved from Altera property we showed that a lot we had a lot of questions about the pool District Elementary Middle School at that time your regular transition and I made a feedback that we got we had people from honoring and all they don't like to play Elementary School it just hurts them away yeah luckily they have 2 3 9 a couple that had 1 and luckily they don't have to put their kids apart but that was a big thing when we were showing down we were having to communicate that with our training school district and how the schools work and how that team work so that outside thank you sure so we can do our fifth graders up to the middle school will they be considered middle school I think be determined I think that's still a conversation of what that looks like um you know there's going to be there'll be schedules made that okay seventh and eighth grade will do probably a lot of their stuff together but there's going to be there's going time where the sixth grader right in that next proposal mayor it it could end up being hey this is Middle School 538 I didn't can't say that we've made that decision yet so I and I decided from my experience I've been uh 1 of my previous districts that I was uh 7 through 12 principal um I was there for for 6 years and it was it was a K12 site everybody on 1 Campus it was the most awesome thing that I've ever been part of um that every kid remembers when they were a preschooler every kid remember and they were a kindergarten get and they just they took care of them you know and the past they passed in the hallways wasn't all the time but there was time where they passed but it was just such a cool culture when you have those those grade levels passing 1 another you set a standard for what's it like to to treat kids with respect that are younger younger than you and so on so that that my experience I can't say that that's going to be the experience when we make that prepaid through age switch but that's something that we would work work towards and so um I don't want people to be scared of that because there are so many school districts that have that model where there's a large range of grade level together and they make it happen and they love it and you also got to remember there's a reason this this trend going on for 60 70 years back you know before I was born people had 9 10 kidds there's a lot of big families so I mean when PCM and you know when Monroe and Prairie City merge together that was because of kid count right there they were already combined it because of I'm guessing yeah part of it and it's been going on for years people don't have kids like that and then the fire the fire happened to yeah but you're right there's not big families like that anymore the trend has gone down as it's going that way and just keep going that way yeah so you know but get any person I'll Reserve myself okay if we don't do this how can negatively impact the kids because I'm assuming then there won't be money or things for the kids yeah um I would say that we would we would have to be very strategic to find those dollars elsewhere because this is a a big chunk of what we're trying to get to of that 1.5 million right so it could mean that we have to go and and Stat it could be but again that's 80% of that budget but then you have to we have to think about holy cow we still have to certain bits so that's the other problem so then it becomes okay if it's not now then we're going to start stretch it over we got to stretch the budget reduction for sure over a probably not for sure but possibly over a 2 year span just to try to get try to get that but that that dollar amount increases that we have to get to because the enrollment another decline of 20 some 20 some kids so it doesn't stay at 1.5 it's they might go up to 1.6 1.7 that we've got to get to because we had that declining enrollment so that's that's another another part of it um yeah I you know we and staying with what we're stay with what we're doing that is an option that's still on we have honestly I want everybody in this room to know we have not made that decision like we're truly trying to get feedback board members are in here trying to listen and um so those are those are things that I would have to go back to the drawing board and say Okay add them we got to talk again okay so January 2nd is fairly important for us you know because we we've got other decisions that we we got to make in the month of January for um general fund reductions or 1 of your slides you highlighted how many students are served yeah and yeah that why you highlighted the high and currently work with what's the lowest rate what I what I've seen it is right here right now of what I what I've seen other than when I would say probably when Monroe and Prairie City were separate right but together right now is the lowest it's ever been walked through the building on been open for a city like kindergarten so far but why you don't see empty classrooms and you say there's right and you're not you're not in there every day right like that's where we have spaces that are being used because we can't if that makes sense so there are open rooms but we use them for uh Tech or steam or stem and things like that but there there are some that are that are empty and different different buildings and stuff so do we still find a way to use them yep we do but so that but part of the when we realigned we rethink repurpose those spaces and how we're going to put classrooms in those questions real fast like for the 7 you said 7 and 8th grade why whatever 5 year plan was going to get out to the high schools what how much room was out there to accommodate the 200 classes right so right at the moment as it's designed it's not ready for it right so you gotta really start thinking about how do we how do we repurpose that square footage that's already there and is that moving moving a couple walls adding a wall where hey this room is massive this doesn't need to be 1 massive room um looking at like the the learning that learning space that's closest to the entrance to the football field that's a wide open space okay and that become classroom space and 2 classroom spaces there but then as you think through that that that's where the um maybe save on comes in Geo Bond comes in right that's the other thing but when we think about save Bond Geo Bond in my mind we're not we're not talking about adding 8 new classrooms when we're talking about declining enrollment and we want to rightsize something you might think okay we might need to get a classroom or 2 added on to make this work or look at all that square footage you got Architects that can look at a face and say this can happen this can happen and we open things up with our current square footage that's how and that that opens up as those bigger your classes are graduating and some of these smaller classes are coming up to create those kids okay talk about offense and so I'm thinking rather than are there have your opportunities so say like instructional support about nervy matching that out yeah those kinds of things do we have value added services that we can provide in charge for to bring students into the district yeah I believe we maxing out the instructional support loading um but as far as other Revenue streams for the general fund it's so that formula student-based is a student-based Formula the the keep generate generating that funding source for that red paint bucket fundraisers or stuff like that you can't do that with the general yeah no okay ready to go whenever I guess all the options I haven't heard brought up and maybe it's like peaceful I mean is there any thought into partitioning this building into 2 separate spaces like having an architect command divided up and we least half of it and then use the other half of our school or is viable I don't I don't think so based on what our enrollment what our enrollment is is that we have we have the space over there to make make it happen and we're the you know to be honest the first year the next the next year and the next year and the next year it's not going to be so I think if we were to do anything with this building I I I wouldn't put School programming back that into building when we have or it could have great great great through 8 all on 1 side you're basically you have 2 sites that you're dealing with so efficiencies are starting to really happen when we have just 2 main sites that you're working with um you know as far as like you can start sharing some stuff you can start sharing other resources um all of those things start to you can start to think about that a little bit more when you have 2 sites that deal with but I don't my thought is community there's some board members that can think differently right so um yeah good time okay my last question then I want to get you guys out of here yep because I've got a story the numbers tell you a lot about the information right here from 1973 to now to actually your last year you have right there yep and I think it's interesting when we look at the numbers how the state invests in education so let's take you back off of Mr angles kind of these talking about what can you say is your legislature legislators yeah okay so let's start off with Robert D Ray's term he was so it was from 1973 only that I have up to 1982 there was only 1 year where it was less than 5% increase so the cost for people during his term yeah so those passwords go to grandson during that first run from let's see it would be 1983 to 1999 he was below 3% 1 to 3 times then we go to Bill sack gives 441224 then go over those 44 across the board then brand Sac get selected for a second run from 2011 to win Reynolds took over it was over 3% 1 time then you get to Reynolds it has never been totally 3% to the increases in something like I brought this up to our state senator a few years back and the School Board review and he was like well it's not physically responsible inflation is outpatient what we spend in school well you know I mean let's look at 1980 for example there was a 9.48 increase and a 13.59 increase in 81 so let's kind of talk about fiscal responsibility then we decided to pass the esas with then in terms of money loose to private schools who you go to Christian anybody have a kid that or know what the tuition is it's more than a job so they get 8,000 attributed to that and they charge tuition above to be able to find that school Mr rosenboom mentioned he's like well there's think it just helps out our poor kids get to school and I'm just saying anything has like it's not the principal I'm talking about but like you know let's think about the the message that this sense now 300 million dollars later that they decided to spend on education that has went to private schools specifically does that sound like fiscal responsibility now they're talking about 0% increases for 4 years I hope that's false I don't know I mean people can hear me shaking in my voice speaking I am p and frankly y'all should be too and if you want to write a letter to your legislature that's what you need in the conversation you have the 80s was a dark time in Iowa and we're investing 13997 across the board to education there's an election coming up in the year I'm not going to tell you to vote for it but I think know who needs to speak to yeah but I tell everybody no matter no matter who talk to them I know the huge topic Public Funding public school funding yeah no matter your validation is doesn't matter if it's an important topic okay big topic big decision I greatly appreciate every single 1 of you showing up here and I know there's a bunch more online watching is being recorded so people can't make it they have an opportunity to hear it the slides have been shared also with people um online so I want you to know that I I respect people that have been here 1 year like me a couple months not quite 1 year um but everybody that has been here up to 70 80 years I know this is important I know a school building is important and I know all of those things and I respect everything about it um my as being the the new superintendent here is I have to make sure that PCM is thriving for years to come and we can get there and I honestly feel like we can this is 1 thing that it's big it's a hard topic but I think we can get to let's start thriving again and okay really good schools but we have some we have some adjustments to make but I respect everything about what you what you um been through as a as a community member here at the corner of PCM schools and I I look forward to getting to know all of you a ton better over the next few months in the year and uh that we can do this together so thank you for your time reach out to me anytime you want and I'll I'll have a conversation yeah okay thank you

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Grade Alignment Public Forum - 12/17/2025

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