May 28 2026
AZ Committee Meeting

▼Full Transcript Below

1. Public Comment
   ⏯️1:01:21-1:13:50

2. Review of 11 conditions in the Resolution for Postponement
   ⏯️4:40 Senior Director of School Operations Mark Pruitt reviewed the April 2026 Resolution passed by the Board to pause the MIC plan and the conditions needed to end the postponement.

3. Update on Human Resources Action Planning
   ⏯️7:54 Director of Human Resources Dr. Keenan Dorsey reported in February he met with union leaders to discuss MOU and said no staff will lose their job.
   ⏯️16:10 Dr. Dorsey answered a question from Board Member Vic Leonard on the process for staff if there was a school closure unrelated to the MIC plan.
   ⏯️16:34 Board Member Devon Hynson asked if there was a plan for school closure and Mark Pruitt answered not that he was aware of. 

4. Update on Nutrition Action Planning
   ⏯️10:06 Director of Nutrition Services Jessica Farrand reported operation needs for staffing, kitchen equipment, breakfast and lunch schedules and location of meals.

5. Update on Facilities Action Planning
   ⏯️16:50 Director of Facilities and Maintenance Marcin Michalski reported on Major Cap improvements already pre-planned and the desired outcome for facilities improvements at the Innovation Center. 

6. ⏯️35:57  Chief Operations Officer Ted Ammann presented costs and savings of the Innovation Center plan including reduction in bus fleet and EPER positions.

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⏯00:12 Mark Pruitt: Good evening. Welcome to the third Attendance Zone and Restructuring Review Committee. We started the Zoom and are recording the Zoom. Correct? If I could have a motion to call the meeting to order.

⏯00:23 Devon Hynson: So moved, Devon.

⏯00:25 Mark Pruitt: Second? 

⏯00:26 David Hogan: David Hogan second. 

⏯00:27 Mark Pruitt: All in favor?

⏯00:29 Group: Aye.

⏯00:29 Mark Pruitt: Alright, we are in session. Next slide shows the agenda which was sent out a week ago to this group and posted on the website. And at this time, does everyone have a hard copy of the minutes from last meeting in front of them? Once you do, if you would take a moment or two, take a look at those minutes. They were also sent out to the committee the day after the meeting. I'll take a motion to approve the minutes. Second?

⏯02:44 Najma Landis: Najma Landis, Second.

⏯02:49 Mark Pruitt: We have a second. Do we have any need to amend or edit? David?

⏯02:52 David Hogan: A very small uh edit of my last name. H O G A N.

⏯02:58 Beth Jefferson: I apologize.

⏯03:00 David Hogan: No problem.

⏯03:03 Mark Pruitt: Put an extra R in there. All in favor of approving the minutes?

⏯03:10 Group: Aye.

⏯03:10 Mark Pruitt: Any opposed? Minutes are approved. Okay, at this time we'll move on to public comment. This group has traditionally allowed for public comment at the beginning of the meeting or at the end of the meeting, but not both. So that way if someone's rushing can't get here on time, they still get the chance to participate in the meeting. At this time, I will first go to in-person public comment. Do we have any in-person public comment?

⏯03:42 Public Commenter: I'm going to do at the end, please. 

⏯03:42 Mark Pruitt: You’re gonna wait till the end, right? Do we have any online public comment?

⏯03:47 Beth Jefferson: I have made a request and no one has raised their hands.

⏯03:51 Mark Pruitt: This time we have no public comment at the beginning of the meeting. We will go through that again at the end of the meeting. Meeting norms are the same as they have been the previous two meetings. The charge of the committee, the school board charge of the committee is to receive progress reports from the district, provide assurance that Reimagining Secondary Education Plan is executed as approved by the board, voice perspectives and ask questions, and provide updates to the board of education. 

Next is our cadence of our meetings. We are at the third meeting tonight where you are going to hear shortly from our district operations team, finance, facility, nutrition and staffing. And before we do that, I'm going to give a brief update of recent developments as I did last meeting. 

As most of you know, not all of you know, there was a, our school board voted on April 15th to pause. There was a resolution to pause the McKean Innovation work and in fact the entire Reimagining Secondary Education Plan. Within that resolution, they gave the school district an 11 point set of conditions of which district needs to go out to complete that work, have evidence of that work completed, present it to the school board and at that time they would consider through a board vote as to whether or not they would continue with the plan. 

The six bullets there are certainly not all inclusive. Tomorrow. Well, it's already posted publicly but is also posted on our website to read in its entirety but sort of a summary of it is that we have and share a plan for current students to complete their grade band. Okay. What is meant by that is that if you are a McKean ninth or tenth grader, there'll be a plan in place to let those students complete their four-year career at McKean. 

That there be several points dealt with communications that there be an expanded and comprehensive communications plan. One of the points was to bolster student engagement efforts. That the district complete an equity analysis, that the district provide an IDEA compliance report and that the district provide a formal report of the McKean Innovation Center model. 

Any questions or comments regarding those recent developments. At this time we are going to move right into our focus is district operations and I am going to turn over for the next several minutes or majority of the meeting to Ted Ammann.

⏯06:59 Ted Ammann: Hi everybody. Wow, a year ago I think was the last time I was here. I have a couple of my colleagues to go first, and I will [inaudible] a couple different aspects cost with the plan. Keenan Dorsey is going to start from a human resource perspective, we’re going to talk about nutrition we’re hungry it’s dinner time and then Marcin's going to talk about some of the facilities which is really a lot of the onetime cost and then all those more of the the year-to-year costs or savings depending on if they are through it that would be recurring from when that program. I'll turn it over to Keenan and after each section we’ll break. So if there's questions you can ask related to that topic rather than remember the question until the end. I’ll turn it over. 

⏯07:55 Keenan Dorsey: Sure. In February of this year, we, Mr. Pruitt and myself, we met with RCEA president Steve Fackenthall and DSEA. We discussed an MOU for staffing. We also, coming back, she put there was a question that was sent over to us basically about how does the unassigned affect the least senior individual? And does the higher seniority trump those who are not changing those with less seniority? And what if someone gets unassigned and there's no more open positions available. So basically article 13 of the collective bargaining agreement actually defines that for us. So there's nothing really to think about that much except for some other things we may want to include in it. So in article 13 nothing article allows a higher seniority member to push a person out of an assignment out of a building or out of their job unless there's a situation of a RIF where some have to cut back on staffing and then that's when seniority takes place. So if someone's unassigned and there's no other open positions available, the district is committed to placing individuals in assignments, but also giving them the option and opportunity to select their own assignment because we'll let them know what assignments are available and letting them pick the assignments that they actually want to be in so they can have the job that they want in the building that they want. But at no time will any staff members lose the job. Everybody will be brought in and everybody will have a secure position for that year. So although there may be some natural vacancies such as time and resignations happen, the district may not backfill positions to make sure that budget and we're actually building right to unit counts where they should be. A lot of our buildings are currently over staffed and we're staffing more than we're supposed to and they have to be called [inaudible] conscious with that. 

⏯9:53 Mark Pruitt: Questions, comments? Alrighty.

⏯10:07 Jessica Farrand: First and foremost, you know, you always find a way to feed our kids during COVID, we somehow managed to be thousand kids off the school buses with a three-day turnaround time. So this restructuring I'm sure will be no major issue for us. You can see our action steps up on this slide. We have created our internal work group to start looking at the restructuring changes that might occur within our department. 

Number two is pretty big for us. You know our department really relies on the schedules. The breakfast and lunch, enrollment numbers, head counts so that we know therefore how many staff we need and kitchen equipment needs for each building. We also are going to be working closely with nursing on communication as our students move from building to building to make sure that things like special diets are accessible to feed them and allergies are communicated so that we can ensure students have a safe meal wherever they eat breakfast and lunch. 

Some updates from our internal work group with the predicted enrollment numbers and I'm happy to say that at this point in time we don't feel that we're going to lose any positions within our bargaining unit. We're still serving approximately the same amounts of meals, but overall, spread across the three high schools differently. We'll probably have to move some staff from McKean to AI High at present with the predicted enrollment numbers. We shouldn't lose any positions. 

Kitchen equipment similar situation where we might have to move some things from McKean to AI High versus serving more meals at that school. But most of our high schools are equipped to handle 1,200 plus students. So whether we're on the low end or the high end at each high school, we should be okay in terms of what's already on site and the states available. 

We're in coordination with the Department of Education. You know, we are separately funded by the department. We run through the USDA child program. So all of our funding is federal. We submit for reimbursement every month and we're in contact with them. So with the restructuring, they can make sure that process is smooth with our monthly claim. 

Last but not least, you know, I am on the internal logistics and scheduling committee. So I want to make sure that things about academic schedules versus about food and what time we're going to eat breakfast and lunch and the students are moving about their day that they have access to breakfast and lunch. 

Our district currently participates in the community eligibility provision for the entire district which means there's free breakfast and free lunch to all students. So regardless of where they are enrolled throughout this restructuring, they’ll still maintain at McKean, AI or Dickinson. 

⏯12:48 Mark Pruitt: Questions?

⏯12:48 Najma Landis: Yes so and I apologize if this is mentioned previously and I just didn't catch it. So, is the idea that full breakfast and lunch will be served at McKean or they'll just be at AI and Dickinson and they receive those services when they're in those buildings.

⏯13:10 Jessica Farrand: So, a lot of it will be schedule driven. From what I understand right now, all students will report to their enrolled school. So, breakfast will be served at the enrolled school and lunch at the enrolled school. However, we’ll still have meal services at McKean. They might not be the same at the enrolled schools just because it will be more of like a last chance like breakfast/lunch. We want to make sure that students have access if they're late for the bus. If they're driving themselves there, they will have food there for them. But the hope is that for forecasting purposes, we would have the majority of the meals at Dickinson and AI High. 

⏯13:53 Najma Landis: So it would be something like the packaged breakfasts or lunches that they did sometimes during Covid? Would anything be prepared at McKean?

⏯13:58 Jessica Farrand: We will still have enough staff at McKean to prepare something hot but I think given the time allotted for coming to McKean most likely will be more convenience that the students would be looking quick versus like a hot sit down but that really depends on the schedule and how much time they have on arrival. 

⏯14:16 Ted Ammann: I would say that's similar to what we currently do outside of this plan. If a student gets to school at normal time full hot breakfast but they come late to school for something it may not be the full hot breakfast but [inaudible.]

⏯14:32 Jessica Farrand: We never turn anyone away.

⏯14:35 Vic Leonard: I question but it’s for Dr. Dorsey, I'm sorry to circle back.

⏯14:39 Mark Pruitt: That's be perfectly fine.

⏯14:41 Vic Leonard: If heaven forbid we continue our trends with enrollment in some schools and we have closed the school or two, how does that work with seniority with the teachers at those schools maybe relocated on seniority?

⏯14:56 Keenan Dorsey: The teachers at…which schools? 

⏯14:58 Vic Leonard: The schools already closing. 

⏯14:59 Keenan Dorsey: The schools already closing? 

⏯15:00 Vic Leonard: Yeah, if they were closing. 

⏯15:01 Keenan Dorsey: So, if, you said if McKean closed. If students are moved from McKean?

⏯15:07 Vic Leonard: If a school closes, whatever one with with enrollment issues.

⏯15:12 Keenan Dorsey: Any school?

⏯15:12 Vic Leonard: Any school.

⏯15:12 Keenan Dorsey: Ok, yeah.

⏯15:15 Vic Leonard: What would happen to those teachers? Would there be seniority in other schools?

⏯15:20 Keenan Dorsey: So oh would they go to other schools? If they go to other schools they keep their seniority date based on their hire date.

⏯15:28 Vic Leonard: So…

⏯15:30 Keenan Dorsey: That's in the contract. That's in the collective bargaining agreement. 

⏯15:32 Vic Leonard: Okay. So that school, those teachers would be out of a job.

⏯15:36 Keenan Dorsey: They won't be out of the job. We plan on keeping everybody.

⏯15:38 Vic Leonard: If it closes.  

⏯15:40 Mark Pruitt: I think he's -  Can I take shot asking your question?

⏯15:46 Keenan Dorsey: Rephrase that for me. 

⏯15:46 Mark Pruitt: I think he's asking, not in terms of the Reimagining Secondary, not in terms of our plan. 

⏯15:52 Keenan Dorsey: Yup.

⏯15:53 Mark Pruitt: So let's say at some point down the road a school had to close. What would staffing look like for the teachers who work there? So we would reduce down lowest seniority, move them and that kind of thing. That's his question. Am I correct?

⏯16:07 Vic Leonard: That is correct.

⏯16:09 Keenan Dorsey: If a school, if it does in the future, if a school in Red Clay closed what will happen is we have to look at seniority and basically the teachers with the highest seniority in that building they get to actually they get to replace, they get to RIF the person who was last hired. 

⏯16:25 Vic Leonard: Okay. Thank you. 

⏯16:28 Keenan Dorsey: That’s a binding contract.

⏯16:33 Mark Pruitt: Other questions.

⏯16:35 Devon Hynson: Anybody talking about closing it? The schools?

⏯16:39 Mark Pruitt: Not that I know of. Any other questions? Marcin.

⏯16:50 Marcin Michalski: So, thank you Mark. What I wanted to do primarily here is kind of I during the whole process for the last couple of months I think there's a lot of rumors out there that have been floating around between what is being done and what's being done and required for the Innovation Center upgrades and what's being done for Major Cap. 

So kind of my primary goal here today is kind of provide a clarification for that. So the clarification being that there's a list of Major Cap. So that was what was approved by the community, by the taxpayers referendum, about two-three years ago. So the entire roof is slated to be replaced for McKean High School. That had nothing to do with—so everything I'm going to tell you right now has nothing to do with McKean Innovation. McKean Innovation wasn’t even a discussion at the time when this referendum was being voted on, discussed, assessed, passed, whatever other adjective I could find. 

⏯17:45 Marcin Michalski: So the entire roof is being redone. We have doors and a hardware and window replacement. So, when I say window replacement, it's not the entire building window replacement. It's just selected for like the main entrance, lobby doors that are associated with House Bill 49 with ballistic film upgrades. So, that's what that window replacement piece. Obviously, new gutters and flashing goes with the roof compartment. 

Inside the building— and we already mentioned obviously doors also inside but and I think that's where a lot of the communication was surrounding was ADA upgrades. So McKean Innovation again or not McKean and all of our buildings in Red Clay will have fully compliant ADA restrooms buildingwide. The only exception when I say the word buildingwide is if for example like nutrition and speaking nutrition they have a small little toilet stall in the kitchen and they don't have a need for the ADA stall in there because they have lock rooms and they just don't have a lot of space. So I'm kind of then taking into their kitchen space but there's an ADA bathroom down the hallway available to them if needed. It might not be every single bathroom that's ADA, but the intent is that at the end of Major Cap, McKean or any other building, we'll have fully compliant ADA bathrooms where required there. 

⏯19:11 Marcin Michalski: Corridor lift replacement. The corridor that and it's funny, it's been a topic of conversation I know with at least one parent with it being acting up an individual in the building. The lift that leads from the pool lobby down to the gymnasium that's being replaced. Interior finishes and tile that's related to the bathrooms. Mechanical HVAC upgrades throughout the building. I would say 75% of the HVAC equipment is being replaced in the building. Plumbing fixtures obviously that go with the bathroom upgrades. Emergency generator primarily for nutrition not building not for life safety the generators that we're installing. And the reason being because a lot of a lot of our buildings have battery backups on lights and the intent is not to, you know, it's not like a, I don't know, a data shop or some a data warehouse or some facility that needs to run for hours after an outage. Our primary focus is, you know, hopefully getting the kids out safely. So, it's a few hours that the batteries suffice and get out safely. You're not housed there for hours and hours hoping for the power to come back. 

So the generator replacement is primarily for nutrition for their freezers and refrigerators for the food. Electrical panel upgrades or wiring just, you know, it's time and and and such. So our overall outcome of those as you can see just, you know, safe ADA compliant HVAC wise indoor air quality comforts building lifespan that's with the roof access is the ADA plus the lift. 

So now the next slide is kind of now surrounding the McKean Innovation Center. So they're the items that would be needed to be done for the Innovation Center if the Innovation Center was to continue and go to McKean. We would want to extend the Pre-K facilities that are there. We currently have a Pre-K facility that I think that it primarily functions for the McKean staff members and it's just a small little program for, I don't know, 10 -12 students.

⏯21:15 Unknown Speaker: Three hours.

⏯21:15 Marcin Michalski: Three hours. Yes. So it's half day attendance or half day program for the students meaning the ones that are being cared for. But it's the program if the Innovation Center happened the program should grow just to be able to provide more space for that trade I guess for lack of a better word for that discipline.

⏯21:41 Unknown Speaker: Pathway.

⏯21:42 Marcin Michalski: Pathway. Thank you.  Secure entrances, toilet storage and food prep that goes with the Pre-K. They currently have minimal they have a bathroom that was when we moved the Pre-K there 10 years ago, about 10 years ago, we did one single stall in there. Kitchenette small little kitchenette and they have the two spaces one is supposed to be the kind of the hands-on learning space and the other one's the actual physical classroom I think if the programs to grow we should provide a secure entrance so it's dedicated entrance for anybody that comes in there it's not mixing with the student population. So it's I guess I would say it's on this side of the tracks. So anybody coming in, we don't have to worry about them going anywhere further. So that's the secure entrance component that we would look into potentially adding. And that's the potential program opportunities. 

⏯22:38 Marcin Michalski: Digital design, animation, full renovation of existing art room. So that's not in Major Cap. And honestly, that is probably the only space that I would say if you walked around McKean, you would go, why are we not renovating this room? It's an art room. I mean, it's an art room that probably hasn't been renovated in 40? Long time, right? In the last two major caps, so 20 plus years before my time. And it definitely has wear and tear. So, it's an art room that I think regardless in the McKean Innovation Center, it would be on our next hit list whether it's major cap or minor cap just because, you know, cabinets are falling apart, doors are falling apart off the hinges, delaminating, it's just it's an art room that's been used. It's been very well used and it just needs some love. So, I would say that digital design and animation full renovation of the existing art room is a combination. We're doing it because the design studio is going there, but we would also be doing it regardless. Maybe not in a year, but in the next year or two, just because the need's there. 

Adult education secure for your restroom needs. One of the discussions is potentially relocating GROSS to McKean. Same thing as the Pre-K, we would want to have a dedicated entrance for them so they are not mixing with the general students. And that just simply means adding a potential door in a hallway. Not a lot of cost. It's a stopping point, right? So they can't go further. They just can only go into the entrance there. The exterior entrance is already there. So we just be literally adding a second door to prevent anything happening. 

⏯24:26 Marcin Michalski: Healthcare, Renewable Energy, Biotech lab - they're all in good condition. When I actually walked the area with Mark Pruitt a couple months ago we took a look at all of the existing science labs that could be converted to be the Allied Health, could be converted to the biolabs, could be converted to any of those spaces and those are one of the better science labs in our districts as far as the science lab. They're even better I would say in condition than Conrad’s. The finishes, there's not much to do. I mean the question is a lot of the discussion was like AI High School's Allied Health that was just renovated a couple years ago, that one, the layout is because it was an old home ec room. It had walls separating which you would envision the different stations for the healthcare providers. Well, nobody says you have to have a wall between them. You could have a curtain between them. At the end of the day, it's a science lab. You got cabinets, you got water, you got everything you need. So if you put a curtain, no work really needed in those spaces to meet the needs of the healthcare and discipline such. 

⏯25:35 Marcin Michalski: Construction and Robotics program location under review. Yeah that's so that was we were discussing spaces like the library and what do we do with the space library? The library is not going to be used in McKean. Again, it's a nice space that's visually attractive to promote the school. And it's very similar if you've been to Dickinson High School, their Robotics lab, which is right when you come in off the main entrance, go down the hallway, I don't know, 30 feet, their Robotics lab has big glass windows and you can see all the feel and touch and all the activities that are happening in there. That would that that's kind of where the idea came from. Well, maybe we can put it inside the library. The library is no longer needed to be a library at McKean. It almost becomes a mirror image of what Dickinson has and again not a lot of work. You're just transferring the items from Dickinson over to McKean. 

⏯26:23 Marcin Michalski: Next slide please. So key planning decisions next steps. It's really major cap is happening to the point like I just had a pretty big meeting two days ago. I will have the big results on June 11th. Let's go June 11th. It's two weeks from two days ago. So, whatever my math works out, I will have the bid results knock on wood somewhere. Bids come in under budget or on budget and we're able to award and we're able to continue with the renovation. Nothing has to be tweaked, nothing be changed. The project is a little bit behind on schedule only in the sense that we were anticipating to already have contractors on board to already have everybody getting ready to go do the renovations for this summer, not just receiving bids. Because I'm just receiving bids, the concern is going to be how much can I accomplish this summer? I have already spoken with the principal and administration there because we're losing this summer potentially to a lot of the big renovations. What can we do during the school year? So, we're still done by the end of next summer. The renovation is summer school year summer. I still want to be done by the end of next summer. So, how can we accomplish that? And I even had a conversation with the administration yesterday that they're potentially willing to give up a pod at a time during the school year. So the renovations can happen during the school year at in a pod, finish that pod, jump to the next pod, jump to the next pod, kind of domino effect throughout the building and have the spaces that can be done during the school year done during the school year and leave all the spaces, gym, cafeteria, the ones that can't be taken away during the summer work. So again, hope and dream is we're still done by the end of next summer. Yeah, like I said, we still have to finalize that location for the Construction Robotics program if it is the library or somewhere else. Determine the front entrance security upgrades in regards to the GROSS program signage and rebranding. Yes, that would obviously change the name or change its function. We would have to do that. That's really it. We can go back to the three slides before the timeline. 

⏯28:41 Marcin Michalski: Yeah. So, we've already done walkthroughs in McKean. I've done them both with Mark Pruitt and a couple other people. The CAD drawings have been provided. We did walk Skyline. I did walk Skyline. We did walk AI High School with Sarah Celeste and her group to take a look at the Meadowood needs there. Where major cap. Yeah, as we discussed, it's currently happening. Draft McKean changes we're discussing and the rest is yet to be done. Any questions?

⏯29:22 Najma Landis: When it comes to potentially doing like shutting down a pod to do renovations so that we're on schedule to have everything done by next summer.

⏯29:33 Marcin Michalski: Yep.

⏯29:34 Najma Landis: What does that look like?

⏯29:35 Marcin Michalski: So it's kind of done almost in a lot of schools where I have to do it. So for example, I'll probably be doing that at Mote. I will probably be doing that at Lewis, McKean, Dickinson. So what that happens is all the specials. So your art, your music, your not gym obviously, but kind of the special classes go in a cart. So that teacher is able to go her or his room is able to be used as the home room. We'll call it the home room, the base classroom. So if we say in the pod there's, we'll call it English, math and science. There's more than that, but let's call it those three. Those three classrooms, those three teachers will for the duration of that renovation of that pod because it's not going to be the whole school year. That pod might take four weeks. English classroom will go to the art room. So the art teacher, I hate to say, lives on a cart, but is able to go into any classroom and teach art in any classroom. While the English is being taught out of the art room, science is being taught out of the music room, music might go on stage and the stage is utilized for music. And then once that pod is completed, the teachers return to that pod and the next set of teachers occupy it while the music, art teacher, whoever else I'm missing, kind of floats around and uses the available spaces.

⏯30:57 Najma Landis: Then are the folks that are doing the renovations doing it during school hours? Or outside of that?

⏯31:03 Marcin Michalski: Yes. During school hours. 

⏯31:04 Najma Landis: So then like what like is the process for like closing those wings off like to maintain student safety?

⏯31:13 Marcin Michalski: Well, so number one, everybody all the contractors that enter go through a background check. So they have to have a background check that's done. I actually just learned it. The process has changed from how I understood it. It's actually much more in depth. They have to work, they being the employees, the contractors have to provide all of the contractor's names to HR. HR actually does the submission of the background check to the state. The state sends all the information to HR and HR goes this person no, no. This person no, no,  or everybody's clear before they even enter on site. So once they're on site, it's a coordination with really the building depending where I'm working, depending where the renovations happen. There's a dedicated access close by from the exterior. The contractor uses that access. If I have to have him going through the main office. It's just really building by building.

⏯32:06 Brian Mattix: I can just speak to my experience at McKean going through a major cap like 15 20 years ago. There would be like a plastic tarp drop in the hallway like a construction on the other side thing. And so there would be not only this personnel security clearances and all of that, but the actual there's spaces that are completely quartered off and like you know it's no longer going down that corridor. It just, we just bypassed it. 

⏯32:36 Marcin Michalski: And again building by building because like McKean the HVAC work, all the HVAC units are in pods above the centers of the classroom. So they're actually planning to access all those pods from the roof. So the contractor is going to come into the room, close the door behind them, make a mess, and then leave. Kind of that's the intent. So hopefully they have their own facilities. They're not using student facilities. Restrooms. We're also discussing potentially taking out a set of restrooms in the building at a time just so we can get done by next summer. Finish that set of restrooms, turn it over to the school, and potentially jump to the next one. But again, behind closed doors. We have in the past major caps even built barricades down the center of a corridor just kind of separating one from the other. But again, it just depends on what is really happening. Like if there's doors that are being renovated and replaced and I need to have the contractor in the hallway, obviously I can't have the students there. So we would build a barricade. If they're inside the room, no reason for a barricade.

⏯33:42 Mark Pruitt: Other questions?

⏯33:44 David Hogan: Is there any anticipation on your part of the slowing down of some of the renovations during the winter months? I’m assuming you won’t be able to get as much of that work done December, November.

⏯33:58 Marcin Michalski: So the roof is also part of the renovations but it’s separate bids coming in as the exact same date as the renovations of all the bathrooms and doors and such. The roofer will be done by December at the latest. I’ve already talked to a couple roofers even such a late bid date, they’ll still be done before weather changes. All the other work is really interior at that point, so not weather affected. The main driving force for the schedule is usually the material. Sometimes the HVAC equipment is 16 weeks out. Even if I order it today and I don’t order any of the equipment. The district did a pre-purchase program so we ordered all the - Sorry I keep talking about this like everybody is familiar. This is why I don’t get invited to meetings. [laughter] 

The district did a pre-purchase of HVAC equipment, electrical equipment, even our plumbing fixtures. So I have the exact same standard and the entire district will have the exact same faucets in every bathroom in this entire district. The HVAC equipment, they’re all coming from one manufacturer. So even though we have the luxury of knowing which HVAC equipment I’m buying and from who, I’m not pulling the trigger on buying it and releasing it until we have a contractor on board, their schedule, and being able to award the job. Because I don’t want to all of a sudden have 5 million dollars of HVAC equipment and nobody to install it because I’ve got to cut things out. For budget and things like that. A lot of the schedule is related to the equipment being delivered.

⏯35:57 Ted Ammann: For those of you that were here about a year ago, when I was talking if you recall I didn't have one number in my presentation which I think a little surprising but I guess my role is to be a conservative so whenever anyone comes up with a new idea my first answer is it's going to cost a fortune we can't do that. I got to tell you that's my answer no matter what to start and then as you get further into it you obviously refine that, find out what's really involved and as you start from the start to finish you get more and more specific as you go. So certainly we are not at a point where the numbers are, if anyone's a betting person, we aren't at the point where the dollar amount is exact but we are getting to the point where we have scale and get a sense of how these costs will obviously gonna change and we keep updated. 

So if you go up to the next slide, there's a number of different domains where I've split these things out and these are all things that I'm looking at that are every year. Once we switch, if we switch to an innovation center, then that's a recurring either cost or a recurring savings. The things that Marcin’s talking about - the roof - that's a one-time cost. An elevator at AI High, it's a one time cost. All those types of things cost these are ongoing costs. 

The first one is staffing. We don't really as a result of this anticipate any changes in the number of staff in that we have the same number of students. We're moving them instead of two buildings instead of three buildings, it’s gonna be two and then move them to McKean part of the day. So there will be movement of teachers but we don't envision any change in the numbers of teachers which Keenan talked to earlier but where we will have some saving so that as many of you know teachers are earned based on the number of students, you've heard Mark say this you know numerous times, when you have a school like AI and you're trying to provide a comprehensive schedule with fewer students you don't earn the teachers that you need to do all classes. So when I talk about staffing, while we're going to have the same number of teachers that we're moving around, we will be earning the numbers of teachers that we need, meaning that we will not be funding teachers at AI that are not earned. 

As of this year, there were nine teachers at AI that are not earned. Meaning the state would not give us a division one commitment to put that teacher there. When I say, Mark, we need to pull a teacher. I look at it from a finance perspective. We need to pull a science teacher from AI High. He says, well, I can't run a high school without a science teacher. So what will happen is those nine teachers that we have at AI that are currently not funded will no longer be an expense. And when I say an expense, it's not that we're paying for that teacher we use. We're called Academic Excellence units. Every district gets a number of these excellence units to use in a variety of ways. So if we're not using them at AI High, we have two options. One is to cash them in at the state which means the state gives us a dollar amount instead of the salary for that teacher and those funds could be used for curriculum or other district expenses or we can take those teachers and move them to another facility. So if we had those known teachers at AI that were no longer using those units, those units could go to provide an extra teacher at Richey if Richey said we really, you know, they're paying for an additional reading specialist at Richey. So when you see a cost related to that staffing it doesn't necessarily mean a dollar increase in our balance but it's a value of that expenditure that could be used elsewhere. Does that make sense? So that's one aspect. 

⏯39:37 Ted Ammann: The second aspect related to staff is EPER. Any of you that are teachers you are familiar with that word. EPER stands for extra pay for extra responsibility. Everything from a football coach, soccer coach to academic competitions to guidance keeper. There's a myriad of conditions. So what I did is I looked at what our current EPER contracts and the EPER contracts are in our negotiated agreement for teachers. So if you add up the value of all those EPER contracts at our comprehensive high schools, Dickinson, AI and McKean, the value of that EPER work that gets done is $887,000. When you reconstitute that in two buildings and assume that all the students are assigned to one or two of those students the number of EPER positions that you need drops down to $682,000. And that we even included in a buffer that we may add some EPER positions for instance in the Innovation Center. Maybe there's some additional student clubs. You know, seeing some of these pathways, maybe there's additional clubs. So these numbers assume not just all the existing positions but maybe there are additional EPER positions, but that would be a yearly savings. 

⏯40:48 Ted Ammann: Again the point of this project was certainly not a financial driven one, but there are some savings that would be able to be used for other things. And that's one of the things as we get closer to the end it may be that this group and other groups say we need to add some more EPER positions and rather than saying well where are we going to get money, we don’t have money to add EPER positions there's some savings that could be be redeployed or reallocated as we go further. 

Labs and equipment would be another piece of all of the equipment you know Mark talked about the building and building the facilities he does. Lou Mingione currently is our CTE person who handles all the coordination. 

Probably the most concrete example I always think of was a computer lab. Currently we have a CTE computer lab at Dickinson, a CTE computer lab at McKean and one at AI High. They have to be replaced on a regular schedule. Typically it's about five years. But every piece of this type of program has a life cycle. Your auto shop currently at McKean has an auto shop. The lift they use has a life cycle, certainly longer than five years. But there's a point in time you have to replace all that equipment. Currently when we replace the equipment we're replacing it three times at Dickinson, McKean and AI. With this model, we would have one location where it’s constant. That doesn't mean it's directly a savings because we want to be more, right. If we have one computer lab, going back to computer lab at Dickinson, one at McKean, one at AI, it's not as simple as well, we know we’re gonna have a Dickinson lab and we’ll no longer have a AI High lab, we probably need two at McKean instead of one because we have more students concentrated there. 

⏯42:30 Ted Ammann: But certainly replacing two labs every five years is cheaper than replacing three labs every five years or whatever the pathway is. And I've listed this as a zero cost and zero savings because any savings CTE fund could be used for other CTE programs and that's one of the things that's a challenge with CTE programs is all that equipment is expensive. Renewable energy I saw listed as one portion highlighted, solar panels, all that stuff is constantly changing. So if we have a lab with solar equipment in year one two or three years later you might need new equipment so I'm not listing that as an expense or savings. It could be that CTE funding would get a combination of federal, state and local funds. We would continue that same level of funding, but we would do more with it at that location. Same questions about labs. 

Building operations is another one where there's again I started out saying projects cost a fortune and you can't do it. Then when you get into it, you start realizing that it's not just cost. There’s costs and savings. Each of our buildings has a budget and that budget is generated based on a combination of things. There are things for instance if we, with this plan, McKean would no longer have a traditional school budget because a traditional school budget, for instance, covers at a high school level a lot of that budget goes towards athletics, [inaudible], referees, scoreboards, basketball scoreboards coming up, shot clock for DIAA regulations, those things right now are covered in a Dickinson budget or a McKean budget. 

⏯44:08 Ted Ammann: So what this chart shows is if we take the formula we currently have and redo it obviously Dickinson and AI's budget would go up because a portion of that school budget their student group so if the consumer AI have more students than they had before their budget will go up. But there's a savings because the McKean budget goes away.  The things that McKean would need to spend on students are things that are covered under those budgets so there'd be, from my staff billing back and forth, that there's a cost that right now let's say McKean or Dickinson or AI spends on the CTE programs, those funds will still be covered at the AI High and Dickinson budget towards the coursework at McKean. And again that's something where it turns out to be a savings. This assumption, you have to make assumptions when you look at this. These numbers are based on the assumption that McKean students are split 50/50 between Dickinson and AI High. We don't have any real better way to do it right now because we don't have the attendance zones. 

⏯45:14 Ted Ammann: Obviously, if there's a new attendance zone plan, then we would have the draft models that we've already looked at would be fed into this. That would not be the exact number. That's one of those things. You will not see a school budget that’s $1.3 million dollars. But it would be in that range as we [inaudible] according to the number of students.  Any questions about that?

⏯45:37 Ted Ammann: So, moving on to transportation, probably the most complicated of all these in terms of looking at costs and/or savings. And I know you have the next meeting Kelly Shahan will be here and have a much larger discussion about the transportation from the logistics, what it looks like shuttle bus, how many shuttle buses,  para professionals ride on the shuttle bus or they drive or they stay.  All those types of things. This, my intent here, was just to give a real high level look at okay we need to be at this point in this project planning is it cost increase? A cost savings? Or a combination? What is the scale of that and there's two you probably heard me say this before there's two components to this work. One is we currently take them to McKean, AI or Dickinson. At the end of the day we take them back to those schools.  We pick the students up and take them to only two locations. AI High or Dickinson. So that component means estimated cost and then there's the piece of the midday shuttle where the students would get the shuttle bus and leave Dickinson or AI to go to McKean and then at the end of their time they would take that shuttle bus back. Certainly there's lots of assumptions at this point and how this would work. 

One example that Mark had shared is that there may be students who say has a car and drives to school. They wouldn't be on this bus. We don't know that yet. Ultimately state law requires that if you get a parking permit on school parking lot you cannot ride the bus. That's just state law. So we will go through that process once we know who the students are. If they say I'm going to drive a car too. We, to be honest, usually that's a tough thing to do because many times students have a car that maybe can afford gas for one way, or the car’s broken, so we do not know. Brian was always a very careful principal to tell us. I only have one student that drives. [inaudible] He would tell me no it's fine, that's just [inaudible] because he believed that student certainly if there's bad weather a parent may want their student to ride a bus. But I say all that to say these numbers are all based on all of the current students riding a bus. If students decided that they were going to not take a bus to Dickinson and get dropped off at McKean because their parent drives right by McKean, that might be a change down the road, but right now I'm assuming that all those students are going to ride a bus to AI or Dickinson and then take the shuttle and back. 

⏯48:16 Ted Ammann: So when you look at this first piece, this has nothing to do with the shuttle bus. This has to do with that yellow bus coming in the morning and afternoon. Currently, AI High has 15 buses, Dickinson has 21 and McKean has 26 buses. So, it's a total of 62 buses. So, this comes to what I mentioned a couple weeks ago and someone asked, do you know if there's going to be savings or not? This is the question we have to get to right now. Currently, we have 62 buses servicing those three comprehensive high schools. If we do it with this model will we have more or less than 63 buses? So what we've been looking for and certainly this is not finalized. This is a probably second or third stab at it and as we get more and more refinement we will refine it further. But currently AI High has 27. Meaning the buses that we have there have 525 empty seats. And there's all kinds of reasons you have to [inaudible.] There's all kinds of components to it, but currently AI High has 525 empty seats on their buses. Dickinson has a slightly higher ridership percentage for riders, 34%, but they have 665 empty seats. Then when you look at McKean, they have the highest percentage of ridership. They have 536 riders. And if you see, I flipped it. There's a reason for the first two schools. I mentioned how many empty seats there are. for McKean talking about how many seats are used because that's the key of this whole question is how many students that ride a bus at McKean will need to be riding a bus at Dickinson and AI High. 

So when you look at that cost and the number of seats, it ends up looking like AI would go from, we have those 15 buses, we would need nine more buses for a total of 24 buses. Dickinson would go from 21 buses to needing 29 buses. That would be eight more buses based on all those stats to get the students to those two schools. So that is a total of 53 buses. Meaning we go from 62 buses in the morning and in the afternoon to 53 buses. The cost for a bus and this is Kelly will certainly, I’m sure, want to talk more about the formulas the state provides for these buses. Buses are funded. It's called a bus contract, and it covers all the routes of that school. I don't ever want to hear about the bus contract, but it's a piece of calculation. We used to have a two-tier system. Some of you have been around for a while. Remember that we had an elementary time and a secondary time. Every bus had two schools. For a variety of reasons, we switched to a three-tier system. So that same bus and bus driver and para on that bus would cover three schools rather than just two. When you have a three-tier bus versus a two-tier bus, the average difference in the cost is $18,000. Meaning, if you have a bus that does an elementary and middle school, there's one cost. You add a third tier, it's an additional $18,000. And that comes down to whether you already paid for the bus or the state has already paid for the bus. Obviously there's mileage, there's fuel, and there's the time that there's all those different factors that go into a formula and spits out that cost. 

⏯51:30 Ted Ammann: So in terms of the cost, we're looking at going from 62 buses down to 52 at $18,000 per bus that goes in the savings comp. And I'll show you this in the chart at the end of how you merge that together. So that's that first piece. There's two buses. One is the AM and PM and two is the shuttle bus cost. So if we can go to the next slide, the shuttle pencil.

⏯52:03 Ted Ammann: The transportation shuttle that the current plan and talk with Mark and the committee is that there would be four buses needed to do that transportation to McKean and then back from McKean at the end of time at McKean. Those would be funded slightly differently and Kelly will certainly get into it, answer all the good questions next month, but they would be funded different. I know that sounds strange. If you have a bus that goes from Dickinson to McKean, why isn't the cost the same as the bus going from McKean back to Dickinson? And it has to do with the state formula that we have to work with. And certainly this entire project is something that we work with DOE on. We might have to look at this a little differently because it's a novel idea in Delaware, not other states. But the cost for those 4 AM shuttles I have targeted there is $18,000. That number comes from the same number you saw before. If we had a bus that currently does two tiers, they would then, after they finish two tiers, they would pick up students at Dickinson and drive them to McKean. Or from AI to McKean. And so for those four buses, that cost would be $18,000 per bus, which comes from $74,000. Correct. That would be $74,000 a year for that first part of that shuttle cost. Coming home in the afternoon is a different calculation. It's significantly less expensive because we would consider, like our Pre-K transportation, because we have buses that already have two tiers and then they certainly always have drivers that want to work more hours. They work more hours for a variety of reasons. They do our Pre-K run. That's in addition to their first, second, and third tier because it's midday when they would normally be working. And those are that we already have with us. So the way DOE works that is it's just an add-on piece and that cost is basically the cost for the driver. Mileage cost for a shuttle to get not significant scheme of bus contracts. It's not driving around Yorklyn to get students to a high school. It's that very targeted, marked down the mile I think what is between Dickinson McKean, and AI and McKean. But obviously there's two parts of that cost and the total of that is $98,552. Then we can move to the next slide.

And this is where I've tried to show that the net piece of this because there are costs or savings from each of these different components and we need to look at that piece as a whole. So you'll see in terms of increased cost the only one that we've identified in terms of this model would be that additional transportation cost for the midday run. And then on the third column are the safes that I've talked to the staffing the unearned units that were currently using AI High school that could be cashed into that value or could be used somewhere else. So there's certainly a value within that dollar amount. It's not that it would be actual dollars left in the budget. It would be teachers moved to serve different needs of the district. And then you work that through transportation. See that's the one domain where there's a cost in both this number both the cost and the savings that's so obviously two years from now if we get through this timeline and we implement will it be exactly $98,000 on that side and exactly $1.9 million on the other but that's the general scale we're looking at certain it is not you know there's certainly lots of thoughts about the innovation center pros and cons everyone has opinions about it cost is not reason to not consider innovation center in terms of say it's obviously not all about savings. It’s about what's best for our students but the cost factor and all this talk to us is, I would say, a positive there are more savings there are added costs. Questions. That's in a nutshell.

⏯56:00 Morgan Dukes: Two. I know that you said we're assuming that all the students that currently ride buses to McKean would be riding buses to AI or Dickinson. Are we also considering that all of the students that are car riders for McKean would still be car riders for AI and Dickinson?

⏯56:15 Ted Ammann: Yes. Certainly that's and I try you'll see I put all over all these slides assumptions at the bottom because you can't build financial models without assumptions. As we move further those assumptions will be further defined. Even to the point where ultimately once we know exactly who the students are going to AI versus Dickinson, we can say do you have a car and will you be getting parking then principals like Brian tell me nope, none of them have cars and we will route for all of them. But yes it makes an assumption that everything is just as and that could change in both directions. 

⏯56:47 Morgan Dukes: My second question on the previous slide, it looks like we have the shuttle buses for the morning and the very afternoon, but I was also under the impression that there would be like a midday, like lunchtimeish shuttle run to take students back to their home school and back to the innovation center. So, it sounded like there would be three shuttle bus runs, not just the morning.  

⏯57:10 Mark Pruitt: You're considering the AM and the PM, both round trips, correct?

⏯57:14 Ted Ammann: Yes. Yes. 

⏯57:14 Committee Member: That was my question, too.

⏯57:15 Committee Member: Okay.

⏯57:15 Ted Ammann: Sorry, I didn't make that correction. What this doesn't include I don't add against card but not to add but your question about what assumptions are there could be addition we've talked about what happens miss right if they don't get the Dickinson for whatever reason they miss that shuttle obviously we need to figure out how we're going to get so it may be that there are some vans and there's some to tell driver you got to go back and pick up driver, that isn’t in here, but that’s something we deal with anyway. Homeless transportation that we would have to account, but this is in terms of scale, that's the bulk of the transportation cost and then the other stuff we'll keep an eye on and certainly if you like to have back in some period, six months from now, we'll have more refinement up until March.

⏯58:14 Najma Landis: So is the assumption that like say they have a doctor's appointment that no matter what they always go to their home school and or is there if they know that when their appointment's done that they should be at the innovation center. Are they able to be dropped off at the innovation center?

⏯58:36 Ted Ammann: I think Mark and I've talked a little bit about this. I would imagine I've just had two kids that are out of high school right now. But if I took one of them to a doctor’s appointment, they would know probably better than me and say, "Dad, you got to take me to McKean because it’s after 8."

⏯58:50 Najma Landis: So, it would be possible to be dropped off there.

⏯58:53 Ted Ammann: It would be more efficient, right? Certainly, than getting to Dickinson.

⏯58:58 Mark Pruitt: Anyone late via car rider would go to to McKean if it's that one day, but that's the alternating day that they're there. That would be the but certainly we're working with McKean innovation center workgroup, David's on it where that's one of the miscellaneous items that we're working on you know can we have a band, student advisor, because there's always going to be as there always is in high schools these oneoffs like things that you know we just got to make work. That's what we do. So there's a group of about 18 teachers and one of the items that work got kind of a miscellaneous group, and that's one of the items that we'll take a look at.

⏯59:44 Vic Leonard: Based on student body at McKean being split up between AI or  Dickinson. Suppose that doesn't happen. Is there a plan B in terms of not using McKean as the innovation center?

⏯59:59 Mark Pruitt: For finance you mean?

⏯1:00:00 Vic Leonard: or anything? Do we have a plan? Because it's all based on low enrollment at two schools. So if this doesn't go through with McKean, what's the other option?

⏯1:00:13 Ted Ammann: There would be like another set of slides that would have to be developed and these were developed based on the current direction which was to cost out the innovation center as it currently is. If there were to be any other plan, you mentioned closing a school, if that was a plan, obviously this would be put aside and we go through that same process. I’d start out saying, "Oh, that's expensive. No matter what. And then as we refine that goal, then we would look at all those same components for any scenario.

⏯1:00:54 Mark Pruitt: Other questions? Okay, thank you very much. I appreciate it. This time we are going to move on to our second public comment and we'll start off with a public comment in person and we could just have signed up in room. Yes, you just have to make sure we get your name to reflect it. Yeah, we'll go with the first row and work our way back.

⏯1:01:21 Brenda Steffon: Hi, my name is Brenda Steffon. I am an '88 class of '88 AI duPont High School. I'm also a representative of the alumni advocacy group Friends of AI and a board member on that group. We have been advocacy minded since Mr. Parets passed away in October of 2024 and several of us came up to rally in his cause and in his shoes. We have been a part of this process. You probably have seen us more at the board meetings and only on Zoom calls here since the A to Z committee meetings were formulated and in January. There are concerns. I'm going to be real and be transparent on it. There is a pause right now for the innovation center. This plan does not include a backup for AI High School. If the enrollment continues to decline, which it is, what is the plan? And this is something that is the board's responsibility. It is something that's the district's responsibility. There has to be thought into what happens to AI High School. And I feel very passionate about this because it has been 2015 since we saw these enrollment numbers declining. If you're talking about removing nine unearned credits, Academic Excellence units, what is that doing to the current student body? And if any of you have ever gone into that high school when the kids are present, I went to their band concert this last week. To see the pride that they had of people who are not attending their school and to say, "Good job. You're doing it. You're a band of 20 and now their band director has to reapply for a position. That position is being combined with the choir director's position. So, there are collapsing positions that influence the trust and the stability of those kids. When I look at this plan and I say like having people dropped off that they have a doctor's appointment, do people understand some city kids or even some suburban kids do not have access to a parent or transportation to get them there? This is something we have to really talk about. We have to expand this into a community that has some serious needs. It is a Title I school in theory. We need to address those. And when we're talking about these EPER contracts, there's stuff that I have to, you know, familiarize myself. If you don't have access to a computer lab at AI High School, how are those city kids if they're using their Chromebooks or I'm '88, so I had paper, right? But I'm a Nido Montessori kid. So, I want to have this conversation where you guys have a voice being said to you that has some feet in the ground here, right? These kids need our support. Thank you.

⏯1:04:27 Mark Pruitt: Are you both going to be in person?

⏯1:04:32 Talia Morris: I mean, yeah, sure. and I have a computer. So, yeah, I mean I really didn't. My name is Talia. I'm not going to share what class I am because that will share my age. But I'm currently the acting alumni chair, Friends of AI. So happy to be here with Brenda. I actually found out yesterday there was an in-person component. So I'm happy to be here. Been super busy the past few months. I'm actually taking on a position where I work with 85 schools in Pennsylvania and New Jersey for quality care and things like that. So I'm happy that I can be a part of this meeting. So again I haven't really prepared much to say other than, you know, Friends of AI is here right the past few weeks, the past month, with everything going on I know that McKean has been this you know kind of this persistent voice and advocacy and we support McKean we're here for the community we're here for whatever is best for the children right whatever is best for the next generation right. Politics aside okay. As Brenda said, a lot of this originated, including this committee, when Friends of AI brought about concerns about the decline in enrollment of AI, brought about from a celebration of Paul Parets, who was our former band director. We all attended homecoming. We're all there. We're supported. And then the next day, what the heck has happened to AI? We are, you know, close to 2,000 strong. We had trailers outside. We have this strong legacy and student body and pride and 300 plus band which we're both a part of. We're both members of the alumni band and it's kind of like the ball dropped at that point two years ago. We attended board meetings. That was my first time I made a public comment. Just kind of asking for transparency amongst the board. How could such a decline happen? and nobody knew about it. Nobody brought about concerns. There was no talk about it, you know, other than when it was all the way down to 700 students. So, all that aside, you know, we're still here. Maybe, you know, not in the past few weeks when I think, you know, McKean was strong and heavy. And again, we support McKean, but Friends of AI is here. We're here to be a part of this. We're here to be supportive. We're just here. Hi. Hello. I hope everybody's had a great day. I hope that we're able to continue having transparency. We're continuing to think outside the box. We're continuing to ask those deep questions. Is this best for this students? Why are we deciding upon these answers? Is it because this community came out stronger or is it because of politics? Right? Let's be real. Why are we all here? Is it for the students? Is it for the community? Is it for underserved families that don't have a voice? So, that's really why I'm here. I haven't looked at my notes, but again, high five.

⏯1:07:42 Mark Pruitt: Thank you very much. We'll now move to online public comment. All right. Greg Wilson, could you please unmute for public comment?

⏯1:07:52 Greg Wilson: Yes. Thank you very much. My name is Greg Wilson. I graduated from AI many years ago and was one of the founding members of Friends of AI with Paul Parets and we really appreciate the new generation of Friends of AI group that's come up to carry the banner for this cause. The past couple years was really educational for me as a person here living in New Castle County in the city of Wilmington to see how so many things have changed over the last 15 years. When I came back home back in 2009 2010 AI had over 1,400 students and granted it was too many but then over the years it just dropped down and now it's down less than 600. When we were able to get good data from the school board on the drop, we saw how there are certain external factors that played a role in that decline in enrollment. And you know, one of the issues that is most concerning is that there's nothing done on the part of the district to mitigate those challenges, whether it be additional magnet schools, additional charter schools, what have you. But we are where we're at. And we would like to see the attendance zone issue to be revisited by the board. We believe in strong comprehensive schools. Dickinson High School, McKean High School, Alexis I. duPont High School. When I was going to school back in the '70s and and for a lot of folks in the '80s and '90s, those were strong public schools and we believe that they should be moving forward. And we understand that there's been a decline in enrollment. We understand that we're in a tough situation right now. We'd like to see the innovation center be built somewhere. We want to see more programming at some of the schools to serve those kids that aren't going to go to college. There's a lot of trades out there that need young workers of tomorrow. And we believe that the high schools are in a perfect position to provide those types of skill sets or at least preparedness. The ask that we have most of all is to balance the attendance zones for all the comprehensive schools. When we first got going the data showed that the attendance zone for Dickinson was 1100 for AI it was 640 and for McKean it was 1,247. So, right off the bat, Alexis I. duPont High School was kind of behind the curve. And if you even add in all these other private schools, and charter schools, the overall enrollment or the overall attendance zone, still had that disparity that was putting Alexis I. duPont High School in a compromised position that was on the back foot. We have a history. We have a lot of pride and we believe in comprehensive high schools for McKean, Dickinson, and AI. and we hope that the school district can re- evaluate balancing out the attendance zones. Thank you very much,

⏯1:10:56 Mark Pruitt: Mr. Wilson. And Tanya, please unmute for public comment.

⏯1:11:06 Tanya Standarowski: Hi, my name is Tanya Standarowski. I am a proud class of 1992 grad from AI High School. I've also been a Red Clay kid since 1979, attending Red Clay schools from kindergarten through high school. But most importantly, I am a 20-year teacher at the high school that I graduated from. I have seen AI go from 1,400 kids when I started in the building in 2006 down to the under 550 that we currently have. And it's way more depressing than I ever thought it could be. I encounter kids on the daily who talk about going to other schools either in the district or outside of the district because they want to do auto repair or they want to do cosmetology or they just want to do a pathway that we don't offer at AI. And while I don't necessarily think that the innovation center was solving all of our problems, there are quite a few kids at AI that are a little bit bummed that they're not going to get this opportunity that they thought might be out there for them to get to do pathways that they're more interested in. But I do agree with the other three commenters tonight. In the end, what are we going to do to save AI to give the kids who are attending a comprehensive high school education where they're getting to participate in sports and extracurriculars and be a part of the band and the drama play? And I feel like at the end of the day, that's what lots of these kids are losing out on. And while I don't know that we'll ever be what we once were, it would be nice to be able to offer our students the things that they're looking for in high school that they aren't currently getting with our current population numbers. And on another note, based on what Mr. or what Ted and Keenan Dorsey said about counting units. I found myself sitting here trying to think what nine people that I work with would not be in the building next year. And I just can't even imagine how our building would function with nine less teachers. I understand how unit count works. I understand how we earn them. But the population we have is an extremely needy population and taking teachers from us isn't in the best interests of the students. Thank you. Good night, everybody.

⏯1:13:49 Mark Pruitt: That is everyone. Thank you very much, Ms. Standarowski. Okay, that is the end of public comment. Our next meeting is currently scheduled for 8/25, August 25th. The areas of focus that evening will be professional learning, the plan for professional learning. Dr. Tawanda Bond. The middle years program to Skyline, which, you know, innovation center gets a lot of the attention, but there's also the transition of that program that's also Dr. Bond working with a committee of teachers, transportation. Kelly Shahan will be here to talk about the logistics of transporting students via a shuttle bus and the impact of the route changes, and state and community support, the work that Dr. Green is doing to garner business postsecondary support and the Department of Education support. Questions, comments? Hearing none, I will now take a motion to adjourn the meeting. 

⏯1:15:00 Brian Mattix: Motion to adjourn.

⏯1:15:01 Mark Pruitt: Mr. Mattix. Second?

⏯1:15:03 David Hogan: Second, David Hogan.

⏯1:15:05 Mark Pruitt: Second, Mr. Hogan. All in favor? Aye. Thank you very much.

🌐Attendance Zone Restructuring & Review Committee Webpage

📁Attendance Zone Restructuring & Review Committee Rolling Slides page 63

📹 Attendance Zone & Restructuring Review Committee May 28, 2026 Recording

📋 Attendance Zone & Restructuring Review Committee May 28, 2026 Meeting Minutes (draft)

For convenience, the full text of the document is typed below. 

Red Clay Consolidated School District Attendance-Zone & Restructuring Review Committee Meeting Minutes(DRAFT) 

May 28, 2026 6:00 PM / RCCSD Board Rm, 1502 Spruce Ave, Wilmington, DE 19805 Attendance/Welcome/Call to Order
Anthony Gray Boulden, Morgan Dukes, Heather Godwin, David Hogan, Devon Hynson, Najma Landis, Vic Leonard, Sr.(alt) Brian Mattix, Mark Pruitt, Doreen Wojciechowski 

Meeting called to order with a motion made by Devon Hynson and seconded by David Hogan. Motion passed. 

Agenda Items 

● Approve Minutes-Heather Godwin made a motion to approve the minutes as amended. It was seconded by Najma Landis and the motion passed. 

● Public Comment- None 

● Meeting Norms - Mark Pruitt 

● The Committee’s Charge - Mark Pruitt 

● Meeting Calendar & Topics - Mark Pruitt 

● District Updates - Mark Pruitt 

● Action Planning Overview - Mark Pruitt 

● Focus Area Updates 

○ Staffing - Keenan Dorsey
○ Nutrition - Jessica Farrand
○ Facilities - Marcin Michalski
○ Finance - Ted Ammand 

● Public Comment Brenda Steffon, Talia Morris, Greg Wilson, Tanya Standarowski 

● Adjourn - Brian Mattix made a motion to adjourn, seconded by David Hogan and approved. 

Next Meeting August 25, 2026- 6:00 PM / RCCSD Board Rm, 1502 Spruce Ave, Wilmington, DE 19805