City Council · 2026-04-15

It will be a time here in the first agenda item to, to do that. We're going to go ahead though. Um, do we want— do we all know each other?

Let's, let's do introductions.

Let's— okay, let's hear— we'll just go around. I'm Karen McCandless. I'm the Orem mayor.

Bren Bybee, city manager. My name is Dillick. Crystal Mules, Orem City Council. Mayor Wilson.

Joe Jensen, Superintendent of the—

Karen Carter, Executive Assistant of Timpanogos District.

Jason Sundberg, Business Administrator for—

I'm Carrie Rugg, the Deputy City Manager for—

Pete Woofley, Civic Engagement Director.

Clark, Assistant City Manager. Uh, board member.

Grace Rex, board member.

Brent Meekum, Orem City Council.

Ben Gale, Orem City Council.

Jill Climson, Orem City Council.

Sterling Hilton, Timpanoga School Board.

Jen Lyman, Timpanoga School Board. Board president.

I'm going to say the board president and vice president. Vice president. All right, let's go start back over here and just grab the— catch all the staff.

Theresa McKittrick, city recorder.

Tyler Pay, Parks and Recreation Director.

Terry McCann, Director of Community Development. DJ Robinson, I'm the Police Chief. John Hirsch, Assistant Fire Chief.

Brandon Nelson, uh, not sure which title I'm supposed to be using now, but Finance Director.

Steve Earl, City Attorney.

John Doherty, Transportation Engineer, City of Wausau.

And the only Civilian. I'm Tony Kretschmer.

Proud civilian.

I think about half of you know me.

Welcome. Thank you. Glad to have you here. All right, I'm excited. I'm really excited about having these meetings. I hope that as we— one of the, I think, the items on this for discussion was regular meeting schedule. Plan on meeting regularly as we both continue to Serve the residents of our community. All right, so we're going to start with the first scheduled item, 1.1, a discussion, general overview of current work and school boundaries. So I'm going to turn the time over to President Lyman, and then after she's finished, if there's, uh, and if there's things that you would like or your team would like to bring up about projects or what current work that we're doing, that would be—

Okay, we decided to give a little bit of a— our first 100 days, what, what we've done. We have, we have 2 sets of 100 days. So our 100 days ended March 5th for the board because we were put in November 25th. Joe's hiring date was January 28th, so his 100 days don't end till May 8th. So we feel like we've kind of extended our 100-day plan. But some of the great things that we have done is hiring our superintendent and BA. That was the job of our So that was our hiring, our main hiring decisions, and I think it was our first. And then they have in subsequent time, and we keep hiring and adding to our team. They hired— Joe hired 6 associate superintendents, assistant superintendents. Assistant superintendents. Yeah, underneath him. We call them our Super 6. So we have 6 staff members that are starting the work of of crafting our district. We have done a great job, we think, in establishing some good communication lines and keeping the public informed on what's going on with our creation of our district. That's something we've done very well. I think some of you were able to attend our kickoff that we held in March announcing the name. So we went through the naming process of naming the district, and then we announced that at our kickoff. celebration of our new district. We had wonderful feedback at that celebration. A lot of administrators and teachers and participants that said, hey, we're just— this is getting us so excited about, about being part of the new Tippendoga School District. So we're excited about that. Um, one of the things that we have done as a board, I think almost all of us have, have visited every facility not only schools but the facilities that will be within our district boundaries and, and even outside. So we're looking at a shared service agreement with Aspen for transportation. So we, we toured the bus garage, South American Fork. We've gone to see some of the things at— in the Alpine School District that we will either need to recreate in our district or or enter into discussions about doing shared service agreements with, with other districts. So we've done a great job. We were able to spend every— each, each of the 29 schools and to visit these securely. If a C's visit, we weren't going there to see all the wonderful things and other things in our school. This was just a focus on capital and the needs of each of our schools. Um, we are taking that now that we have Joe in place. He has now Spearheading an effort to hit each school to talk about our vision and our values. We have crafted that as a— come up with a draft statement for our vision and our values. And now we are taking that to each of our schools so we can get feedback from our administrators, our teachers, our parents, our students even. It's been very fun to visit at an elementary school. and present our vision to elementary school kids and get their thoughts. So that's ongoing. I don't think we'll quite hit it within the first 100 days, Joe, but we're getting close.

We'll hit 28 of the 29 before school is out.

Okay, yeah.

So we hit number 10 today, so.

All right, and then we did— I attended the legislative session to to testify before a committee to try to get the RFA money that was not— that was denied. We were not able to get the request for appropriations that we talked about at our interlocal last time, or the pass-off meeting. And we are working on creating really good relationships with our legislators that represent our district. We are also been focused. We were able to attend the US Conference in January, started creating some good relationships with other districts. And we understand we're coming from great district of Alpine School District, but we also recognize that there are other districts who are doing things differently, and we want to learn from them their best practices and be able to take what they're doing and maybe apply it in our district too. We've been focused on developing those relationships. And then Joe has crafted a district organization kind of that it looks— it's just really— I'm really excited about it because his assistant superintendents that he has hired are actually going to have supervisory experience, supervisory assignment. There's going to be, what would we say, flatter?

Much flatter.

Yes, connection between the district office and our schools. Gonna be these layers of, you know, talk to this person and talk to this person, and it's gonna be more direct. We're gonna, we're gonna be looking at our principals a lot more in our efforts to direct the work of the district. So that's kind of what we've been doing for the last 120 or 130 days. Yeah, just a few things. That's been exciting. Um, currently, they're still working on staffing, ramping up staffing. Our next major, uh, effort is going to be our— it's called the MOABs, the Mother of All Boundary Studies. So we are doing a boundary study that will be North end of the district to the south end of the district. So we'll be working on creating our process for that, on how we're going to be handling that. We want to go above and beyond what is the state requirements for boundary studies. So we want to start early, have as much input as we can from our stakeholders. Yeah, we're looking at doing focus groups. We will likely be voting on opening that boundary study. Um, our next meeting in May.

So pardon my ignorance, but what's— what is— I know in my mind I can picture what a boundary study— what is a boundary study? That would kind of— you say you're going above and beyond what the state requires.

The state requires— well, just as far as, um, there's certain timing requirements, so you have to notice and then do a certain number of public hearings and We want to start now and then we'll be making decisions until then. That gives us a full summer plus some time into the fall to be able to do that. So boundary study, what we're going to be looking at, there is some tools that have been purchased. Are they purchased, Jason, or—

Just created.

Yeah, that are going to allow us to look at different boundaries, redraw the boundaries. On, and it will calculate like how many students, how this is going to impact things. So we're going to be utilizing that, but we're also— I mean, I think the main thing is that I can say that I think we have focused on as a board information gathering, and that's not going to stop. So we're gathering as much information as we can, the numbers, but also talking to our stakeholders and constituents about their concerns, about what they would like to see. Our goal, what we've kind of crafted as a goal for our board, is to have robust elementaries. And then we want to look at the feeder situation and the configurations for our high schools. So we'll be looking at those 2. We're going to have 2 separate committees that will be dealing with each of those issues. And yeah, we just want to be transparent, but as inclusive of every person that has a stake in this as possible. So that will include our cities.

Can I just make just a question there? So I hear people who want to know the definition of a stakeholder, because there are people that have reached out to me that don't have children in school. They're property taxpayers.

And they're stakeholders.

So they're feeling— they're like, we have felt unheard, uninvited, and, you know, These discussions, we'd like to figure out if the new district can help us feel more included. So just kind of a note of that, of how to create that opportunity. So if someone wants to join an email list, or if someone wants to—

Yeah, you know what, that is, that is something that we have— I talked with Michelle about that earlier because we have, as far as our email lists, we have what we have from ASD. And so, and then our communication we've done mostly through Facebook because we don't have an official, you know, we haven't really created that official. We don't have a person hired yet. We don't have staff to do that yet, but that will be coming. And so we want to— You have a website, but it's, it's through Alpine School District. So it is, it is, it is being handled through them. We're not on our own yet. Makes sense.

Which is fantastic, right? You're stepping in the direction that they're asking me to ask you about.

So that's, that's what we— I mean, I think it would be awesome if we could have in each of our city's newsletters just have, you know, school district corner, and we can post some of our stuff that's happening. All of our meetings are public, so we don't say you can only come if you're a parent. So I would hope that if anybody has a concern, they would Any of our open meetings.

I, I think it's a good point because this is public education, and the whole— at least one of the foundational premises in my mind around public education is that it's, it's in place to help the entire community, not just those families who currently have children in the school system.

So, so I We welcome input and any suggestions on how to get that out too. We would— we are open to that.

2 quick questions. Can you tell us a little bit about the demographics of the district? How many students are going to be served and how many qualify for free lunch? A broad overview of demographics, that's going to happen At some point. And then did you bring that? One thing I'm not clear on is if there will be a date where suddenly push the button and Alpine shuts off and everything goes—

or if we're staggering anything along the way.

Well, it's kind of interesting. So we are— they're both— so July 1st, 2027 is when— that is the date. But let's take this We take responsibility for all the educational services for—

in our district.

But there also is this— you can't just decide on July 1st, okay, now all of a sudden. So Joe and his team have been working. We have— we've, because of our financial constraints, as far as how much— so our funding is $60 per student. per year for this transition time. So that's about $1.39 million to do all of the things you have. We have to pay our salaries, all of that. ASD has come up with this, um, plan to be able to— if we hire internally from ASD staff, then they will continue to pay the salaries for those individuals, and there will be a staggering or a rolling transition for them to work for us. So they say they would start July 1st, 2026, And they would have 1 day that they would do— they would dedicate to the Novus work, and then 4 days that they would continue, because AST is still educating our students. They have the lion's share of the work right now, so they would still be doing some of the work at AST, and then they would transition the next quarter. So he's got it worked out by quarters, Rob Smith. And so quarter 1 of the school year, and then it would transition to 2 days, and then 3 days, and then 4 days, and then they would be So, so that's, that's a benefit to us because they handle all of the salary benefits and all that for those. They're collecting the lion's share of the money for the students right now. And so that, in that respect, it's kind of rolling. There's been some, um, yeah, just dynamics deciding how to do that balancing, um, the continued work that needs to happen with ASD with also the work that needs to be happening here. And Joe can probably speak to that a little bit. But yeah, so July 1st, 2027 is that.

There's a lot of stuff that's happening that makes the handoff smoother.

And we are— another thing I didn't mention in my little brief is that Sterling and I and Joe are meeting regularly, well, twice twice, about twice a month with the other leadership and superintendents working on the negotiations with— Yeah, about the dissolution. And that's our kind of our mediation right now. It has just been us. Rob has brought in additional people now. That was in SB 188.

So, so that doesn't seem right. I mean, we're all setting up a district and we all have fixed costs. We have the lowest student count. It sounds like our district is perhaps not equally, equitably Funded. What are your thoughts? I mean, to me, that's a legislative— sure, thank you, but it is legislative.

This is a legislature, right?

And we can help you with that. Okay, I would love to help you with that. I need to know your—

we feel like this is a, this is a short-term thing. So, um, Alpine has, has bent over backwards as far as offering the staff and, and resources that I don't feel like— I'm not, I'm not too worried about it because the difference between like us and Lake Mountain Where it's, it's not that much of a difference.

It's from the students, right? So that the amount of money that they're currently having access to is that asset.

And they also did pre— they pre— I feel like we preloaded our debit card, but they gave us access to $10 million of what will come out of our eventual capital fund balance that will be coming to us anyway. They're giving us access to that ahead of time. So any of our capital, if we have capital needs before then, Um, then we can, you know, we can have access to that, those funds.

Would it make sense for me to just talk about shared school? Because that's exactly—

Let's not forget his question.

Oh yeah, that's a Jason question.

Oh yeah, demographics.

Demographics, it's just big picture.

Yeah, so the— this current school year, on October 1st, the Timpanogos School District had around 23,325 Approximately students, and that's $60 per student we're saying. So that generated $1.399,000 for on January 1st. There'll be a similar payment next January 1st. Although enrollment— so the enrollment projections for South with that 23,000 this year will be open as a school district in July. August of '27, which will be fiscal year '28. Um, so the student population at that point will be about 21,600, and the projections out for 2030, so October 1st of 2030, is 20,000, about 20,000 students. So there's been a decline, pretty rapid decline, the last 5 to 10 years. I think the max was about 26,000. 1,000, and now we're down to about 2,300 and a half, and it'll be about— big-wise, we're kind of staying between 2,000 to 2,300 for the long term. That's what we're trying to—

As in, like, just kind of an anecdotal explanation of what that is. Lincoln Elementary this year— last year— this year, they are graduating 165 6th graders that will be moving on to 7th grade, and their incoming kindergarten class is only 75 kids. So it— I think the decrease in the birth rate and the fact that a lot of the homes along here, just young families can't afford.

Another example on that is like Pleasant Grove High School. Their max of all time was in 2020 with about 22,000 or 2,200 students. Now they're about 1,800 and projected 5 years from now in the 4,000s.

So that's a substantial drop.

Any other questions? Are you getting your numbers from MAG, or are you getting your numbers for our project—

for the projections? Projections that are Alpine School District.

But where does ASD get theirs? Do you use MAG as a resource, or what are your resources?

Yeah, the resources— there's many resources that go into that. Birth rates that come from the state. So most of that is in its births by mother's address. And so, and then building data from the state, recent past on everything. It's not every school. We look at every grade and how they move up. So, like that example there, if there's a lot of the kindergartens have half the number of the 6th grade, or what they are in 3rd grade now, which in 5 years will be 7th or 8th grade, to be able to see, okay, usually when they move from these 4 elementaries to this junior high, They usually add or lose this percentage. We're able to see the system and what's happened in the past.

Reduced lunch.

Yeah, the free and reduced lunch. I'll have to find the exact— it is a higher percentage in Timpanogos than the other 2 districts. I think I have it somewhere, so I'll keep searching for it.

It's great. And then of the 29 schools, how many are high schools, junior highs, and elementaries?

So there are 4 high schools, 5 junior highs and 20 plus the special school will make 30.

2 special schools. Good evening. Thanks very much.

When it comes to, uh, communications, please view us as a resource. If there are meetings that you guys are holding that you want us to send out, like again, in our newsletter, has a lot of contacts and connections that way. Um, so please just view us as a resource in that way. You hear that, Michelle?

Michelle's on Zoom. She's our communications person.

I heard that. Thank you.

Great. And I think, I think we have— I think you guys have done a good job sharing some of our more important stuff.

So, does Michelle have to speak to those?

Yes.

Contact info.

Michelle, be your friend. All right.

I think I found that one with Percentages. Um, yes, so the Timpanogos School District, again, there was the 23,000, around 23,300 students. Percent, uh, estimated free and reduced lunch is about 30.5%, which the other 2 out in Lake Mountain's about 19%, in Aspen Peaks about 14%. So quite a bit higher in Timpanogos. Multi-language learners About 15.5% for Timpanogos compared to about 5% for the other 2. SPED students is about 12%, which is similar to the other. You said 12? 12% for SPED.

Thank you.

Okay, Brian, we'll turn it over to you.

Yeah, we've kind of been running a parallel track as we have Been there, and a couple new council members as well. But I just have to start off with, because it's tax day, I like to share with staff and show you, um, the quote that I just love. It says, taxes are what we pay for, are what we pay for a civilized society. So we, you know, get the privilege of charging taxes, keeps savagery and chaos.

Education is a big part of that. Education We all stop paying taxes, does that mean we're— I would say education.

And to that point, can I just say, these taxpayers, that, that question that I asked, individuals that have spoken to me, very invested in education and how that was our city. But I think their ask is just, we would love to help, please help us be involved. Is, you know, if you want to go out for a bond or something, we would love to support that, but we want to be involved in—

yes, yes, that's a good point.

And I too ran Lord of the Flies when I was a student. Yeah, so we're in the thick of, of budgeting, and, uh, we've gone through orientations with our council and, um, like you, went through the legislative session trying to make sure they're being mindful of our, our city's needs. Um, we, we haven't gone to our, uh, conference yet. We're going down to the Utah League of Cities and Towns conference next week. Looking forward to that. Um, A few years ago, we actually went through and made a list of all the different ways we as a city interact with— several pages through health boards and school resource officers, parks and recreation and events and communication and, and, um, traffic and safe routes and, and all of that. So we, we have met over the years with some of your— well, some of ASD's staff members to kind of make sure that we're continually coordinating. So in addition to having these meetings, and as, as board and elected officials, just know we're highly interested to continue on a staff level follow-up meeting so that we make sure that we're not letting fall through the cracks the, the things that you all discuss and, and the direction that you come to as elected bodies. We want to make sure that we're delivering on those things and that we're sharing information, coordinating, and also being transparent and upfront about the respective realities. staff to deal with. We know you've got budgets and staffing limitations and the effect of inflation just like us. So we're genuine believers in 2 heads are better than one, that get to a better result by working together and collaborating. So we hope to continue that effort on a staff level in addition to these on a— Thank you. elected level.

Right here. Yeah, thank you.

You're here. Just, um, board members, do you have any questions for us about things that we're working on?

Or are you getting to that part in the agenda? Are we, are we going to get to that later?

Because that's the hope.

Okay, I'll, I'll wait.

What is the regular meeting based on?

Well, I— we have like shared priorities, and I I definitely want to talk to— talk about that, but not before we get to it.

Yeah, I think our next 3 updates will be quick.

Yeah, those— yeah, okay. So y'all turn the time— actually, you have— I'm in for items 1.2, 1.3, and 1.4.

Okay, I'm gonna turn the time over to Jason Sundberg, our business administrator, to talk about our overall projected financial update.

Okay, thank you. So I've shared with the school board, um, first time back in December, and then kind of gone through that a few other times. So the estimated financials, what we've done at Alpine School District each year kind of leading up to this potential split, and then what's happened is every time a fiscal year closes, um, and really probably back to FY21 or '22 when there was the Prop 2 things in Orem, is look and see with each configuration if they were their own district, what would it look like operationally. So these are just the fun 10 or the operations of the district. So when we looked at this for FY25, which closed last June, the estimated revenue and the estimated expenses— we have, we have direct expenses at each school location. There's a lot at the district level that we have to figure out how much would this be to each of the districts. So our estimate that we have for the last year that's closed, that FY25, was that the Timpanogos School District would be running, if everything stayed the same, about a $19 million deficit out of a budget that's around $225 million, to kind of give percentages there. Um, and so presenting that, looking at ways to make up that— we don't want to be able to have a $19 to $25 million deficit every year, we'll run out of money. Um, but to be able to say, okay, how can that be made up? And we discussed that there's really 3 ways to do it. Keep, keep everything, the expenses the same, and just be able to increase revenue through property taxes, or be able to try and eliminate expenses to be able to match what the revenue is, or some combination of both. It's most likely going to be some combination of both. One discussion that there has been in the community is that everything's been taken care of because Alpine School District has gone through Truth in Taxation. to be able to alleviate that. And that's partially true. There is— the last 3 years, Alpine has created a building fund. The first year added 4 increments in the capital fund, but only a portion of that, about 2 and a third, was used for a building fund. The next year, another 4 increments, and then this last year, another 4 increments. So there's 10-plus increments, which for Timpanoga School District— well, for Alpine School District, that generates about $60 million a year that can be used for projects in capital of just building or buying land. For Timpanogos, the value of each one increment is about $2.1 million, um, and so that 10+ increments is about $20 to $22 million annually. So if the Timpanogos School Board decided that they wanted to keep all expenses the same estimated and just be able to cover that, they could be able to before the Tax, you know, the tax decisions are made, be able to move all of those 10 increments to the operation funds to be able to generate that $22 million to offset the $19 million or so of deficit. But then it would leave $0 in a building fund to be able to either do a lease revenue bond and make payments there, or just be able to save that up and be able to build a new elementary to replace an old one. So there's a lot of moving parts to that. The other thing we will do this September or October is when Alpine has their books closed for the fiscal year, which will end June 30th, is do another analysis. The nice thing, I won't have to do it for 3 different ones. I'll just focus on the Timpanogos District. If Timpanogos, which it will be, but if Timpanogos was its own in this current year, what would be the estimated revenue? What would be the estimated expense? How far off is that surplus or deficit? So we'll continue to do that. And then I anticipate in the fall we'll have that ramping up of employees. We'll have a finance director that will be able to work on that, assistant finance director that will work on accounting and budgets with me to be able to really— because next year this time we'll be finalizing the budget for FY28 for that first fiscal year. And we'll be able to give recommendations to the board of Hey, this is what we should move, this fund to this fund, or we may need to go through Truth in Taxation in August to be able to slightly raise the operations. So there'll be many options, but I'm, I'm feeling really comfortable that we can be able to, to make that work. Um, the board is committed to looking at those things. How can we be able to save here or be able to raise revenue here? So we'll be able to have a lot of discussions to To make sure that it all works.

And also our negotiations will inform that a little bit as well. So it's not, it's not something that we can come and say, oh yeah, this is what it's gonna look like. It's still all in a lot in flux.

Yep.

I have a question. And this might be for you, Superintendent. But when it comes to HTRZs and RDAs, Who from the school district is representing Tippinoga School District in those meetings?

It's a great— I haven't been contacted about that.

Yeah, we haven't been contacted about that. Study session this afternoon is actually partially about that. So Jason has been looking at that really closely because right now we don't have any representation on that.

We're not a taxing entity yet.

Yeah, kind of in this.

Okay, so who with Alpine School District is representing on ones that have already in place, or for new ones that may be proposed?

Already in place ones, because as I understand it, the superintendent is in charge of appointing 2 people from the school district to represent the school district in those HCRZ and RTA.

In the past, that's been the board president.

Board president has. Okay, I've spoken with Julie and she doesn't She said they haven't been going to those. So I'm just wondering what the representation is there, because I feel like there's some lost monies maybe in HCRZs and RDAs that you guys have the opportunity to do some negotiation there, possibly.

Once those are set, they're set. I mean, they have those meetings, but most of those proposals for RDAs that I've seen is When it's set up where the board— the school district has a say in whether they participate or not. It's the full board that decides whether they want to participate.

And then don't they have to do a yearly meeting of them?

Yearly meetings is the responsibility of city when they set up their development agency to have those and to invite those in there. It's not— the school district has no responsibility over those, but we'll go to those when they're invited.

But they don't change the terms.

So you guys don't hold ones like Woodbury, the mall?

That would be Orem City.

We do. We do every year. The school district does not.

You should be invited.

You can be invited to attend, but each city sets up their—

the Vineyard one should be set up by Vineyard. You should be invited. Have they been holding those yearly? I think Zach is working on getting that all figured out.

I have reached out to him to He made indication that we would have information on that and be involved in that. And I told him we would very much like to be. So, so yeah, we were— I, I know that he's got a lot happening just as you guys are setting things up new. I think he is too. So I'm— that's on my list to do actually this week is reach out to him again.

Yeah, just to be clear, the purpose of those meetings is not to reset any terms.

The terms have been agreed upon.

And I think it's the purpose of the meetings, which is to be— to ensure that the terms are being met.

Right. But there are disputes about the Vineyard HTRZ. So that's— I think Crystal and I have been involved and wanted to involve you, offer to help in whatever we need to do as a city and Vineyard needs to do as a city. I think capture more revenues for our students.

And I think possible— I think there's been some controversy about some recent legislation that was passed which allowed the extension of an RQA without the vote. 27-9. Yeah, and, and I agree there. It is a—

So I, I just feel like there's an opportunity for the school district to fight that a little bit.

Until we're a taxing entity. I don't know.

Yeah, yeah, it is really— we're kind of in this really interesting limbo where we are not—

we're not a taxing entity at this point. So we are, we are at the will of Alpine School District right now. So, and maybe we're trying— I mean, our goal right now is developing those relationships with those individuals so that when that comes up, that we are looked to and respected and want to be at—

they want us to be at the table when they have those discussions. So I think that's been our focus.

And, and to that point, from our perspective, and, and, you know, this could have changed, we had an election, but the last 4 years, you know, the forum perspective has been, um, we are a thriving community. We have a lot of businesses who want to come here. We don't feel that we need to offer HDRZs, TIFs, those tax-deferred— there, I don't— never say never, right? There might be something that comes up. But because we see the value, I mean, our portion is this, right? But it's our students that have this portion that are missing out. Because, you know, we want to be very, very careful as an entity here, as a city, in accepting those. Because we see the impact that it has on the education in our community, on your need to then go back and tax our residents for your needs. That's kind of backwards, right? Because we're not really saving that much anyway. So that's kind of my question along with that is, you know, we want to work with you, we want to support you in helping you get those revenues.

Like I said, what, what we're trying to do right now is a lot of information gathering, helping all of our board understand them and And so we can speak to them, and when we go to those meetings, we'll be able to, to be an intelligent and informed participant.

I think the pushback has been, Linnea, that at least in the case of Vineyard, that we're talking about land reclamation, and that requires some expense that we really do want that done correctly.

Groundfill, right?

Yeah, we want that absolutely to be done correctly, and I think that's been the pushback.

So I think this action— Can I piggyback off that for just a second, just to talk about another legislative issue in this last legislative session that I kind of wanted to have you guys think about, and I see as a valuable issue for our students? Is last legislative session, I think it was Senator McKay ran a bill to try to walk back a little bit the primary The residential primary exemption, the 45% property tax exemption, which, you know, 20 years ago, almost 15 years ago, it was at 30%. And after the Great Recession, they upped it to 45% in hopes of making housing more affordability— more affordable. Didn't really, in my opinion, and with different people that I've spoken with, didn't achieve that purpose. It pretty much just gave a tax break to investors on their So I'm very interested in having more conversations with legislators about maybe trying to run that again. I didn't really like the bill. I felt like it penalized businesses, but maybe we can figure out a way to capture more revenues for our schools there too, because that 45%, just to educate who's listening, but that's— it's supposed to— it's called a primary residence exemption. But it doesn't mean owner-occupied. It doesn't mean that all of the apartments— all of them are getting that exemption. All of the— Every resident. Every resident. So these huge high-density housing units, the owner of those units, that entity is getting 45% tax reduction. So that's a lot from our schools. And I think we've seen that when you talk about, you know, funding, how it's gone down. I personally feel like that's a big thing that's happened since 2009, 2010, when they took it from 30 to 45. That's 15%. So anyway, just an issue, and that's probably down here when we talk about legislation too, but that's just something that I would like to see put on your radar. So maybe we can partner with that the next legislative session. Thank you. get more money for our kids.

That'd be great. Thank you, Lenny. Yeah, 1.3, we'll move to Sterling. Hilton is going to talk about our update, guys, on our Sharon Schools.

Yeah, we thought it'd be relevant to talk about our, our decision to choose the Sharon Schools to house our specialized After all, it's an 18 to 22-year-old.

Uh, we have—

we're going to be up and operating hopefully, um, this office so that it will be Alpine School District who is doing it and who is opening it, and it will serve all of the students who now are currently being served in our district at A-TECH. in American Fork or at Dan Peterson. And we went through a fair bit of conversations, looked at all the different options that we had, and really are quite comfortable and really actually excited about the shared site and the space that it affords. Had the principals at A-TECH as well as at Dan Peterson walk through with us, give us their input, help us understand how it could be what kind of changes might need to happen in order to bring students in there. And, and we felt really good about pulling the trigger, which we've done. And this $10 million preloaded debit card from our capital expenses is what we were able to draw upon to, to bring that about. We've also hired principals for those 2 schools as well. And the idea that they're gonna step in and take charge in August so that we then have a year of overlap where they can learn from and collaborate with the other 2, the other 2 pools that are open this year. Um, then we'll be ready to go with that in 2027 when we take over for that. I think it's worth also noting that we see this as a great option to serve our students' needs at this point in time, but that we see it being a temporary step that we, we want to seriously consider within 3 to 5 years, building— then building something that is completely and solely dedicated to that in conjunction with some other priorities.

Is this a Dan Peterson equivalent?

It's a Dan Peterson and an ATEC. They're going to share the, share the building, but be on different sides. And Sharon is configured sufficiently well that that should work, would have different start and stop times so that there won't be overlap of students coming and going, because there really are quite different populations, right? You've got 18 to 22-year-olds with her.

Can you tell us just a little bit more about those programs?

Yeah, yes. So, so the, so the Dan Peterson Life, uh, school, specialized school, is a school that is dedicated to meet students who have severe physical and/or Um, this is 1822.

No, that's K-12.

Pre-K to 12. That's actually pre-K. Um, and we, uh, how many students will we be getting? 75. Yeah, 75 students that will be served to the Sharon K-12 site.

Are we taking students from Aspen as well, or is it—

No, it's just those.

Just our district students?

Just our district students.

I think, I think you'll find that as we— this will be a step up from facilities-wise. Facilities-wise, they're excited about this facility, and, uh, for a minimum investment, we'll be able to, uh, renovate Um, and I think that you'll find that as parents and families look at services rendered, some will actually move to this area to be in this.

That's what we see with special needs families especially. They, they are willing to make moves for the education of their students.

So we hope to offer top-notch.

And, and we've hired, we've hired the principals for both of those schools. Uh, one for the 18 to 22, it's going to be Melanie Adams, who's the Current. Some of you might know her from Lake Ridge. She's an assistant principal. She's got a great background and preparation for this. And then for the Dan Peterson portion, or the Sharon School, it's Dan Heaps, who has actually been the principal of King's Horizon West, which is the same school out in the west. So he's also got great experience and excited to come back. He lived in Oakland for a long time. Thank you.

They both taught at Dan Peterson, so they, they've taught in a special needs school as well as other, um, special ed assignments and where they are now.

So we're excited about who's going to be running these 2 schools.

It's been, it's been really neat as we've run through this process because we have some very— like Sterling's daughter was at A-TECH and David's daughter— I mean, son is at Dan Peterson currently. So to have their perspectives has really been great and valuable.

And one thing I didn't know before, when we were going through this process, I thought that the ATEC or the transition was from Dan Peterson to that, but it's not. It's more of students from the high school in life skills that then go to the tech, the transition part, 18 to 22.

Yeah, so to answer your other question about what's referred to as ATEC, that transition day.

Alpine Additional Education Center. So that's another— we're gonna—

we're gonna— we're calling it T-TECH, but we don't know if it's really gonna be T-TECH, but it helps us know what we're talking about.

You want to touch on that? This is just kind of a—

right, in terms— this is an interim, guys, determined, and I am too, quite honestly.

We're going to have something permanent before he's done.

How many students in the T-TECH part, and, and what's the difference in the mission?

Yeah, so yeah, let me address that. Well, number of students is about 100.

Uh, 125? Yeah, I think it was higher.

25.

Um, someone texted me that. Let me see if I can—

oh gosh, I thought that's what I was— that's—

we'll find out. I would be— oh, I can look. I could be— yeah, look, look, I could be completely wrong, but 125 sounds like an awful lot. I— because I think the total amount at ATEC right now is more like 160. 170, and we don't have that proportion of it in our district. Maybe we do. Doesn't matter. A number is a number. But it is a very different, in some ways, a very different program. Students who are— those students with the most highest needs, both physically and cognitively, are the ones who are served by our specialized school, the special needs school. And they can continue.

He says 5 classrooms of about 20.

That's more than I thought. And, and, and so they go there because their needs are— they need that kind of specialized services. There's a lot of other students, however, who have either physical and/or cognitive disabilities but don't necessarily need that high level, and they are attending schools, programs in the schools that are provided. And there are— every high school, every high school, every junior high, that's life skills. Every junior high has it. Usually elementaries are more of a magnet, so you're drawing upon 3 or 4 elementary areas for the life skills class. Those students are the ones who are then by state law Required to have opportunity for continued educational services from 18 to 22, and that's the transition period of time. So those are the students that are being serviced by ATEC or TTEC. So kind of, you wouldn't have Dan Pearson students go to ATEC?

Sometimes.

Sometimes. Occasionally.

It depends on their situation.

Yeah, it kind of depends.

So for instance, my son So he's at Dan Peterson until we decided to do this. He was staying at Dan Peterson. He wasn't going to go to ATEC, but he would probably go to ATEC and visit maybe for 2 hours a week. They have a van that could take him over there and he'd participate in some of their stuff, but he's so low functioning cognitively and his physical disabilities as well that he wouldn't be served well by that. So he would stay at Dan Peterson. Now we'll have them right next to each other so he can participate more in the TTEC, but really the services he's getting are more like a traditional, uh, school for someone who has severe disabilities.

Can you speak to the Giant Steps program, how you're going to handle that in the new—

Giant Steps?

Giant Steps.

Separate.

Separate. Separate option. It's not related to Alpine in my understanding.

Don't you— doesn't— I mean, My understanding was, like, at Foothill, Alpine gives 2 or 3 rooms. They provide an occupational therapist and a speech therapist. But, um, mental health pays for the program, right? So all this— all the district does is provide a space and a couple of therapists. So the thing that I've— people have reached out to me in hopes of— I guess there's a very long waiting list on Giant Steps. It's a— it's an autism preschool program. Maybe I need to identify that. To people in the room. So, um, and it's very difficult to get your child in. It's a very small window, but they have found that it makes an incredible difference down the line for the education of children with autism. So the ask that has come to me is, if Wasatch Mental Health is paying for this through grants, through whatever funding they get federally, is there a way that we could get our new district to open up to, to give some classrooms, maybe therapists, maybe not, depending on funding, right? But to give building space in our schools so the kids can stay in their neighborhoods and, um, provide more of this opportunity to preschool children. Because frankly, a lot of these parents have come to me. It's pretty devastating at a year and a half to 2 years is when the kids are typically diagnosed. And then the parents find out and they try to get them in the Giant Steps. They're told we have 500 on our waiting list. You're not going to be able to get in that program for a few years, and then your kid ages out. So, and the findings, the data shows that having that early intervention makes a huge difference in the services at ATEC or wherever the— Not that Peterson, but in your normal life skills classes, right? So just a thought, just to, just to pass that along, to see maybe in your boundary study if there's a way to consider that demographic a little more.

What I'm hearing you say is that because it's autistic— autism, they aren't necessarily going to be in the Dan Peterson. They're not, right? So you're just suggesting that there's maybe another Set of or group of students.

Well, and that's one of the things that we're going to be working on over the next year. Now I feel like as we were getting our staff and we're getting staff set up, less of the management stuff is falling to us. So those are the things that we want to look at is those community partnerships.

So I'm hearing that one doesn't really cost money. It just costs space.

But we need— we also need to have communication happening between May I ask a question? Because they— even if we gave them a whole school, they might not have the grant funding to be able to provide enough teachers to handle, you know, to make a difference. Yeah. And what people are actually—

I— this has been a couple years, but when I talked to the Wasatch Mental Health, they were like, we would open up as many as we could find space for. We can find the funding. Now, you know, they're telling the truth, but I love that positivity. I love that. Um, there's a possibility there.

So that's Wasatch Mental Health.

How much space is being used this year, and would it be a possibility of opening some of those classes or having those classes there, not in conjunction with, but in the same building as Dan Peterson? Um, will there be room there that perhaps this could be— this could just happen at that facility?

As of right now, it appears there would be some space Right.

And Sharon, I think until we know, until we have more people actually there, I think we could—

generally, we could say it's not going to be using every classroom yet, but we don't know for sure yet.

So, yeah, we already have a number. I don't know exactly about the number.

Yeah, what do we have? I just had heard of Foothill. You know, there's more.

Is there more in our current district? I need to look.

Okay, that'd be good. One thing I also want to mention about with T-TECH that I learned, because I'm learning in this process, they have— they needed a full kitchen and like a laundry facility. So with T-TECH, they're teaching, continuing those life skills lessons where they're teaching these kids to transition and living. Yeah, they're transitioning them. So, so, what's fun at Sharon, they're like, oh yeah, we could see we could do this here and And they create kind of almost like an apartment.

Another thing that you should be aware of, similar thing, they're trying to get them out in the community getting jobs. And you've probably seen some of these kids at whether it be McDonald's or wherever doing jobs that they're capable of doing. But that requires transportation. It requires public transportation.

That segues into 1.4.

Yeah, which is 1.4.

Yeah, I think on that.

Yeah, it's on there.

I thought we were at 1.4 when we started talking transition school. I'll just pause.

No, no, I'm saying, go ahead.

Right on point.

No, no, no, no, we're done. Although, Jen, I noticed you had a question earlier, and I don't know if it was addressed.

Oh, that's super important. I just was interested to know if we were talking about how great the space is for what you're using it for, but then we're saying it's temporary, we're gonna do something else. I just wonder what the thinking is there.

Yeah, because the systems are old. We've talked with Frank Pulley. He's the facilities guru at ASD, and the facilities are such that when you get aging systems, you know that it costs more money to repair them. And so it just comes a point when it just makes more financial sense to do something.

Yeah. And I think I would add to that is that there— yeah, we were— I don't think there's a plan at this point, for example, for any kind of a therapy. But because that would cost a whole lot of money. And again, in an aging school, is that really a smart sense? But in reality, having a therapy— having a therapy pool at the school for a lot of those students with those physical disabilities would actually be really, really helpful and beneficial. So it's kind of thinking about, okay, what will work and what can be really good right now, but that we can then really move forward and meet their needs in a And long-term ongoing.

And another way of explaining that is, well, another idea that we've had is we thought about, let's just build, let's just build a new one. But we know we need it. Let's just do it. And so these people said, okay, to build a school, it's 18 months. So last February, so 2 months ago, they said, pick your site and we'll start working on it, and it'll be ready for August of 2027. And we're like, well, We're not ready to commit $30 million to a site that we don't know if that's the best site. Let us— let's push this down the road a little bit in a site that works great and say, okay, now where's the best place to put this? Do we want them together still? Do we want them separate? How do we want this? It buys us some time without $30 million.

And I would add that it— that conversation, or those conversations, also gave us opportunity to recognize and think, you know, Some of the best things that might happen is if there was closer proximity to general ed schools so that there's greater opportunity for inclusion and interaction between a specialized school and the transition school. And so, so that's coming into our thinking as well in terms of where might we then be able to situate this specialized school and the transition school so that there are more opportunities than what are currently available to our students. So we're trying to think long-term to benefit the educational needs of, of those students.

I love how you're thinking about that.

It's fun to hear.

So thank you for sharing that.

Kind of to your point, I mean, think about Canyons and Jordan, the Carrie Sue facility. I mean, wasn't there like a million-dollar community donation? So I think our community would love to support special ed and special ed facility and, and be the blue ribbon facility here in this area. Be the best.

That's what our plan is. Our plan is to be the best so people want to come.

Yeah, one of the, one of the elements of that decision as well as Jen mentioned, the MOHABs, those boundary studies, right? That it's important to not make a decision in a hurry to get this built. So that it really fits into a master plan instead of it gets built and then it didn't.

Is that really where we wanted it? Or is that really what we need? Or that? And it's like, let's—

I don't want to do anything. Nothing like—

I didn't want to be a $30 million—

Yes, just, just know that I can confidently say that Orem is the best as you're looking at all of them.

You know, Guy, can agree to disagree. You're at our house, Guy. Come on.

So, 1.4 is short but related to Sharon. So I've got Dave Maurer, who's my assistant that will be over operations and logistics. He's been communicating with UTA to see about getting some service to the 400 East area for specifically Fort Sharon, because a lot of our ATEC students, that 18 to 22 group, they actually need that public transportation to get to that. And so he's been in contact with them. He said it's been a little bit difficult. And so I was curious, is there someone—

Guy? Yeah. Are you the transportation guy?

Name and number, because I'll give it to Dave, because you could probably mentor him significantly. I know that. Perfect. I'll take it right down and send it to—

truthfully, I have a 12-passenger van if that helps. No, we need— they've got their own vans, but no, it's— we need, we need UTA.

We've been assured by the new UTA director he's interested in giving kind of direct help and service and coordination to ORF.

The new head Like, who is that?

Ryan J. Fox.

J. Fox, yeah.

He's the whole— he's the executive director.

That's that point. All right. Now we can move on to the—

We've got some other discussion as time allows. We've got about a little over 20 minutes. Let's see if we get through as much as we can. Communication and intergovernmental coordination. Is this an order we want, or is there somebody— Some particular— these 3 that we really want to make sure we cover?

Yes, I definitely want to make sure that we cover something about a regular meeting and just—

Okay, so let's just go in the order.

I think that's really good because we appreciate your interest and willingness to interact with us. We are interested in— we want to— we want to be partners.

All right, so Regular meeting schedule or liaison roles.

Mayor, one, one thing that we've just kind of brainstormed amongst staff is, uh, you know, there's 4 cities now in, in the district, and so, uh, maybe for your TSD's calendaring purposes, one city a month. So then we would each see you 3 times a year, and we could just build out a calendar to that end. That makes—

you could always talk to us too. Right. That's what a more formal setting— would that work?

I feel good with that. Once every quarter. That sounds awesome.

That sounds great, actually.

3 times a year.

Right. Okay, for you guys, we could do—

we could do once a month for you.

Yeah, if there was— I mean, I could just see with, with Orem being a large city, I could be doing quarterly if you guys felt that was necessary. That's what were kind of thinking, but we're happy to prove we're the best.

I'm happy to be quarterly. It's just you've got— I, I don't want to impose on you because we have so— you have so many other cities. So quarterly's fine.

Back in— I'll call it the good old days— we met with ORM every month.

Oh, really?

And did you find that helpful, Guy? Oh, yes.

Well, was it the full board though?

Was the main player in the district.

Because, I mean, I think we can I think we can do this a little differently. I mean, I don't think it needs to be all of us every time. I think we can have— 3. We can have 3, you can have 3 come, that we could have more regular meetings and not have to have it be a public meeting that's noticed. But I think that that's important that we have these regularly. I'm not saying that, I'm just saying nuts and bolts stuff. Maybe there is, there might be some value to meeting More frequently, like, but is it— was it full boards or was it just—

It was just— there was a— it was just 3 members.

So when I was on the council, we would meet with the Alpine School Board every other month. Like, we had— we met with the school board and then we meet with Provo City Council and just kind of did every other.

But I just want to say, I like your plan. I like your suggestion. I think you'll find that you'll have staff that will be meeting with all of these ladies and gentlemen on a regular basis, and it doesn't always have to be at the board level. Anyway, I like the 3 times a year suggestion, especially as we develop relationships with PG and Lyndon and Vineyard. It's important.

Can I just ask a question about the different things that— because I have never been on a committee like that—

that we could discuss? Can we do things like, for instance, Centennial Elementary, the entryway to Centennial has— I mean, it's a great school, but it wasn't made quite wide enough. So pickup time, parents will park along the drop-off lane and then nobody can get into the school and they end up going into that outlane, and it's really a safety hazard. And in talking to the district, the land right next to it actually is city property.

That's the kind of thing that, that we would discuss. Yeah, absolutely.

Hey, can we broaden that a little bit so that we can have a little safety here? Or— That's a lot.

If I could add, we have—

excuse me, we have a meeting Something in my throat. Excuse me. Oh, thanks. Literally, right? We meet once a month with Frank Pulley.

That's what I'm talking about.

2 of our directors, and these are the types of issues that we discuss. So to save all of your time, you're welcome to send those and funnel those down. We'd like to keep those meetings going, but we can get into the nuts and bolts types of things to free up your schedules as well.

Another issue, but is— which is actually happening right now, that I would like some engagement with is our transportation. So, and maybe Aiden knows more about this because you're on the current board, but our transportation, our engineer, traffic engineer, is working with Alpine right now because there have been conversations about shutting down our junior high bus routes. And we, as the city, have a responsibility to coordinate with the schools for safe routes. So John is trying to coordinate those safe routes. In some of those cases with these buses, especially the ones that are south of 8th, northwest of— for Canyon View, west of State Street for Oak Canyon, you know, we have quite a challenge. Because we're, we're needing HAWK signals, which are $150,000 to $180,000 each, which the district pays half for, um, and/or crossing guards. And I'm sorry, but to have a— do you want to be the crossing guard working on 8th North to help kids cross 6 lanes of traffic? You know, to me, I would really love to, um, because I've met with your transportation Department. And to that point, there are other meetings happening in smaller groups. So that is kind of a concern that we're having right now, is if that is still being considered to shut down the junior high bus routes that are within the— is it 1.2 miles? So, so the non— the unfunded, right? But there are safety routes. So that's just a conversation.

Right now, the legislation does not— it doesn't make any allowance for safe routes. And I think that that's kind of the negotiation that Jen and the other superintendents and presidents will be talking about, that that is a proposal, because we do have some flexibility built into the law, which says whatever you agree on is okay. So a lot— all the districts have safe routes. We just— I think we're ineligible.

Well, and I heard that the West, whatever they're called now, yeah, they have— they proposed that, and then they pulled them— Alpine pulled them off the table because the parents came out and were vocal against them because of the safety of the children crossing Redwood Road, I think was the issue there. So I guess I'm just kind of wanting to put that on your radar. See if we can work with you, work with John. I know he's tried to get into some of the junior highs and wondering what's going on. What is Orem doing? Why are you calling us? So maybe help them understand that that's a joint responsibility that we as a city have with it, with the schools, to get these safe routes on paper and get them all certified. Um, we're required by law to do that. And so we would really appreciate any cooperation, messaging of cooperation. On that and messaging of safety concerns.

Yeah, I'll try to work on that because I think the problem is in defining safe route exceptions. We need to take out the subjective judgment on that and make it more kind of a rubric so that there's a measurable way to say this is a necessity.

So I think as we do that, we can And in these negotiations right now with the other 2 districts, I mean, I don't— I can't speak for Pleasant Grove. I'm not as familiar with your junior high over there. You do have a main street in front of it. Um, in Linden is the Oak Canyon, which is State Street. So, but Orem, we have 4 freeway exits, have significant traffic on 4 main thoroughfares where the junior highs are crossing University Parkway for Lakeridge.

So, one exception that could be added to this decision matrix could be state arterials cross State Street, 8th North, University Parkway, Center Street.

Not quite state, but they want it because where I live, kids would have to cross like at 8th North and 8th West. And Yeah, yeah.

Who we've been talking to?

Joe Hayes.

Joe Hayes. Yeah, Joe Hayes. Even 1600 North, we had a fatality there 10 years ago of a boy.

It's a state road, a state road at least partially.

So yeah, we appreciate some help there. I mean, I think we could work together, I guess.

So I'm wondering if in talking kind of back to our scheduled scheduling meetings Are there specific areas that you guys would want small groups meeting to talk about things like transportation or safe routes or those? I think the one that stands out in my mind is legislative. I mean, to have like, we can have 3 board, but we do have a quasi-legislative committee set up already that would be nice to meet if you guys have someone that's— I'm just thinking less operations, more Board, because operations is going to be under Joe. I'm thinking for the board, what, what decisions we're going to be making and what we're going to be—

So I'm, I'm wondering if we should then schedule some regular— and especially this may change over time as you guys get up and running, but—

But I'm going to say we don't know what we don't know. Exactly.

You guys are getting set up and figuring it out. If you need more time with us, great, let's schedule quarterly or every 3 months or 4 months or whatever it is. Or, and let's schedule some smaller 3-on-3 meetings or whatever for some issues that maybe need more attention.

I think it could be an and, and. We could have— we can have every 4-month meetings as full boards. We'll continue to have staff level every month. And you could have liaison ad hoc or subject-specific meetings.

I know that Friday, um, the state school board representatives are meeting what's called a JLC, or the Joint Legislative Committee, to set priorities. I mean, we're trying to get ahead of the game. Nice. So that will be happening, and maybe after that would be a good time to meet with you and see where we have shared.

Uh, and to your legislative point, um, even I sat in on a meeting with John in the Alpine School District counterparts. When was that, a couple years ago? Year and a half?

Time last year. This time last year. Joe Hayes. Joe Hayes.

Yeah, there was Joe Hayes and one other transportation person.

Eagle Mountain and PG, some people. Yeah, very— I think it would be wise to have a board member One person in these meetings with our cities, um, just so we can help legislatively when we go to these other meetings, trying to advocate for our district, is to understand the needs. Because we could do things different, right, politically and legislatively, than maybe our staff or your staff can support each other.

Yeah.

Can I give an example?

Please.

Just this week I had 2. So I understand that there's a Safe Routes to School coordinator for every school. I was given that list for all the schools in Orem. They're sending out their safe route maps now, and they're asking everybody to review it. I reviewed it and said, you know that you're missing 17 stops on south of 8th. We didn't know those were going away. So all these new safe route plans that are being submitted now for next— this next August, 2 out of the 13 that I've seen did not know that their bus routes would be closed. And so they haven't accommodated a safe route. Yes, they haven't in that area. So that just happened today and yesterday. So yeah.

And can I, can I just say that what's happening is Alpine is being compared to other school districts, and in comparison, we spend much more on bus routes than other school districts. I'm just—

but let's have that made at this level. I think you guys should be involved in that decision-making right now. You're planning, you're looking into the future. So really, that should be— should have a seat at the table.

The new district, we have to decide, are we going to maintain the— that Alpine has had in the past?

Well, and it seems sensible to do that, especially if in creating a safe route it requires substantial investment of capital in terms of the term was for those.

The hot— I mean, it's like, because the idea was we might need 3 of those on 8th North at $180,000 each. We as a city have to budget for that.

Well, then we would have to budget for us. Well, that's not in our budget.

Oh, it's going to be one of that?

Well, 8th is so big, the one bus lane road. So a 6-lane road is going to be more.

So— oh my gosh.

Yeah, so we've got to have these—

Pull those bus routes You know, all right, so I'm looking at the time here and I want to be respectful of that. Um, what other things do we want to make of this, of this group? Do we want to make sure we cover? So we're going to be meeting quarterly, my understanding, and we could have— we'll have some small groups every 4 months. Excuse me, every 4 months. Why did I write quarterly?

4 and 4.

Okay.

Yes.

Okay. 2 times a year. Excuse me. Sorry. And then what else? I know we— you said you wanted to— did you— was it legislative? You want to talk about legislative priorities?

Yeah. Ad hoc, meaning as, you know, as needed.

So more often, maybe. More often as we— but really, I mean, They're doing stuff now.

It's the interims where it actually never ends.

Well, and I'll say during the session is not the time to talk to legislators about what you want to happen. What you want to happen now is the time to do that. That's right. The time we should be talking about legislative priorities.

Exactly.

For they are in what they're doing.

And I think if we can have a representative of our legislative committee and your— I don't know how you organize legislative committee. We can have this energy. Yes, yes, we could do that. Do that. Um, suppose that one of our common priorities is local control. Am I right?

Yes, yes, I agree.

One size misfits all.

Yes.

Yeah, so putting something together, let's just A small, smaller committee, working group, to meet more regularly, especially I think during the interim session. Okay, what else? Is anything else on this list that we've got to make sure— we want to make sure we cover? Because I don't know if we're going to have enough time to do that or everything.

Oh, partnerships with local businesses. Um, that is something that we— I think one of our next round of hires will have a foundation director, and we're going to combine that with our communications director. So, um, we're looking forward to doing some outreach. So any businesses you feel like would make good partners for us, we'd love that information.

How's the Alpine Foundation being divided?

Um, it is being divided by, um, help me— Anything that is designated to schools or district or districts or students. Yeah.

Everything, all that, and then anything that's undesignated, they're going to split up by student, student percentage.

So if someone identified Dan Peterson, could you guys effectively lobby for part of that because you're doing a new special needs?

I don't think there was only— I don't think we'll dial down that far.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, but if somebody now said we want it to go to that school for Alpine, it would stay with that school.

Okay. And we— so, and yeah, once we get that, we just felt that was a good marriage of responsibilities because we don't— because we are going to be smaller, so we can hopefully combine some, some job descriptions. We thought that would work well, you know, having communications, getting out our information, also getting that information out to the people who might want to partner with us and support us.

We've been going through the process of hiring an economic development director for the city and looking to—

Does the city have a similar thing, a foundation? Yeah, we do. Okay.

So, yeah, once that's announced, then I'll be happy to have that person coordinate on these efforts.

Yeah, that'd be awesome.

I think another important step going along with that is On the agenda here, the advocacy for education funding and municipal support. I mean, I think that's going to be an important step through this process and something to tackle another day. But, uh, I think that's going to be—

Well, and that's to your point of saying doing a lease revenue bond and you'll be at general obligation bonds. our neighbor, right? So, um, and I think, uh, when I was— see, we were there, Joe, if it was there— and but at Timpanogos 2016 bond, um, yeah, the School Community Council— I was school community council chair— we went out to our community and we communicated the benefits of the bond versus the lease revenue, and we formed support for that. Yes. So I think as the council, we would love to interested in that also because it's cheaper funding, right?

It's cheaper where we know it's all going to be within our district.

We get a lot of support for general obligation bond, which is way better. Better, much better. And I think especially marketing it appropriately and doing it in conjunction with the 4 cities and help you market that, there's great opportunities to make that look Not just look like, but be a joint effort by all of us that we want to support education and support our local school district.

Time for another question.

Yep, 2 minutes.

This is more of a high-level question maybe for you, Joe, and also for the full board. What keeps you up at night?

I've been sleeping really good once we got these folks hired.

I've been sleeping way better since we got these 2. Right now you're looking at the entire payroll of Tippanogga School.

There are more coming. It's just mind-boggling in a very real way.

I sleep much better at night after we got our Super 6, and we just had another wave of hiring today, including the Mountain View principal. For those of you who know Dave Rowe, he's going to come back and be the Mountain View principal.

I know, I know a Dave Rowe from—

I was gonna say, he's Matt Rowe.

Matt Rowe.

Sorry, wrong Rowe. Um, and, and so I— for me, every time we add new people who are awesome, the team gets better and more complete, and we're going to be in great shape. That helps me sleep at night.

You know, Quinn, I, I honestly can say that nothing about this keeps me up at night, not because I don't have— I, I There's a lot of things and questions that I have, I don't have answers for. But one thing I have observed and experienced in the past is we've got good processes, we've got good people at the table, we'll figure things out moving forward. And I've got utmost confidence in addressing those concerns. And so I'm going to let it play out. We'll tackle them as they come. Thank you. And sitting here at this table, you know, just reinforces that for me, is that, hey, we, we've got cities who can be collaborative partners with us as well. So we're going to make a great school district.

When I just add, um, I sleep well at night too.

This is amazing.

You guys are all sleeping better than I am. Since January 28th, I have not slept as well, but I'm sleeping better each time we are.

But however, I, I've been through some trainings, um, on the national level that, um, AI needs to be on our radar, and we need to be responsive as an education entity to the needs of our, um, kid— our students, our kids, um, because their world is going to be much different and have just a— just a— we don't really understand the ways it's going to be different. But I think that Dr. Jensen has the capacity and the vision that will put us in the right place in relation to AI. And I think we can be hopeful rather than doomsday. I think that's right. We think it's right.

You might also have some amazing research papers coming out of 2nd grade.

Or 1st grade. And then we have— before we end, we do have some gifts for the council and mayor. Um, we have our t-shirts, so we have different sizes here. So if you want to come and grab your size—

Sharon, do we have any extra copies of our draft of vision and values? I think that'd be really great.

That's a great—

they're in my bag in the office.

We met earlier this morning at Lake Ridge. had them up.

Teresa, what's your last name? Teresa.

Thank you. Oh, I'm sorry.

Yes, could that be good to just share it with you and solicit your feedback?

And now on the bottom of that draft is a QR code, and the first question is, are you a teacher, parent, student, school leader, or other?

Just put other, and we'd love your feedback.

Love where I think this is something that maybe perhaps we could ask Peter if we could include on Orem City information with the QR code too.

Oh, yeah. Thanks, Michelle. Okay. Any— yeah, I think we're good with that.

So we'll meet in 4 months.

As a group, and I'm sure we'll be in contact during— in between. So thank you all.

Thank you.

And we eventually have a place to host you, but there are still—

eventually—

3 schools, and we have 3 offices.

We are so excited about this new building. You can come here anytime.

Yeah, this works. This is great. Awesome.

This is a lot of space.

Look at that mountain. The blinds up for you. Good.

Thank you for taking time.