That's what I So, we can get you all that information broken down. As a parent, I just know if my kids were riding the bus, I want to make sure that they're on a safe bus that's not going to break down. So, thank you, Madame President, board members. If I may, um this is this information we're presenting, the the findings and things that we're bringing to you for briefings and stuff. This is not something that the committee has taken lightly. We've spent, and I say months, months deep diving into this, multiple meetings, lots of information to the point of almost information overload. uh the the the the cabinet has been incredible um and Jenna uh at getting us all this information. I forgot her last time, so I had to make sure I said said hi to Jenna this time and I heard about it.
So, I think you got, you know, honest conversation, uh, focused conversation from the candidates as opposed to, yeah, I mean, this is what we're about here, right? Student le, you know, making sure that your voice is uh, front and center because it is your experience and we want to make sure that we as adults are collaborating and leading in a way that your voice is the loudest one in the room. So, thank you for that. All right, we'll move on to our consent agenda. Can I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? Sorry, I adjusted my eyes there. Make a motion to approve all items under consent, including 8.1 minutes from the board of education meeting on March 17, 2025, open and close session. 8.2 to acknowledge the foyer requests received by the district. 8.3 to approve the field trips for overnight and or more than 200 miles and 8.4 to acknowledge the Casey's cash for classrooms grants.
Anyways, but I want to this is not something we don't just randomly come up here. These are needs and I and I hear what you're saying me. I do. That said, my opinion is how this information was put out, how it was handled after we made the decision, after the decision was made by the by the governing board to go out was what was the difference maker. Um, it's just it it there was misinformation. People were voting on things that weren't true. And that's the key is getting that information out there, getting the actual what we need. It does sound a little bit like a wish list. Truthfully, there's a lot of things on here that are needs that are not on here. We tried to find things to take off of here. We just can't. Everything's important. So, that said, we will bring back um I'll bring as much detail and information as I have.
Second. Are there any questions on the consent agenda? Thank you, Casey's. Yeah. Thank you, Casey's. Thank you, Casey. Mr. Gabwood, I Dr. Mario. Hi, Miss Johnson. Hi, Mr. Ser. Hi, Miss Simon. I Mr. Cloger I Miss Venmouth I motion passes 70. Okay I want to invite Mr. Omei for 9.1 our bus lease agreement and we also have some special guests tonight as well. Thank you. uh in an in an attempt to rebuild our transportation department, what we've been doing is we've been looking very carefully at the resources that we need to to perform well to give a good transportation experience to our students. And as part of the process, we identified that we need 72 buses. Some of those resulted from buses that we returned previously in the last few years that we now need to be able to run our route. And what we did there is the timing.
I want to make sure that it's a good presentation and then put it in your hands and then uh trust that you guys are going to do the right thing with that information. But the the due diligence on our side has been there from day one. Mr. Campbell, I just want to say thank you on behalf of the district to you and the committee. I know you've taken out a lot of time and um efforts and we appreciate everything you guys are doing. Thank you, sir. Ditto. And thanks for being a trooper tonight standing up there. Appreciate you. I left in the seventh inning. I don't know who won or lost. So that I've never done that as a coach in 38 years. Oh, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Campbell. Good. Thank you. All right. Next, we have item G1. Dr. Croto. Thank you, Madam President.
There's been a shortage of buses now than it used to be before the pandemic. And because of the volume of buses that we needed to buy and the timeline, we need to buy very quickly. We were not able to do an RFP, which is the preferred way for us to to buy something this big. So we enter into a uh a discussion with our current bud bus supplier Midwest Transportation and Midwest gave us a proposal on the cost of those buses and additionally they also provide us the leasing um rate for those buses. Now in the past what we'll do we'll just take the leasing rate and run with it. But this time around we didn't do that. We reached out to other finance company and tried to get some comparative pricing for the lease term and everybody sharpened their pencil. We went back and forth back and forth.
Uh, tonight we are going to have a recommendation for a retention stipen. Mr. Mattingley will take this item. U, Madam President, governing board members. Uh just briefly, this is just a recommendation again as from the interestbased uh committee uh to approve the uh retention stipen of 3% for the 25 26 school years for all employees that uh qualify for that retention stipen. And just to reiterate to add on that, it's employees who returned their contracts by the deadline or NOE by the deadline and are employed continuously through October 31st. Thank you. I move to approve the retention statement of 3% for the 2526 fiscal year for current employees. I second. Motion carries. Next we have item G2. Dr. Curto. Thank you, Madam President. Continuing on with employee compensation, uh I turn this over to Mr. Manley once again. Madame President, governing board members, uh this is a recommendation from the uh IBN committee uh to uh request approval on a 2% salary increase for all uh current staff that return next year uh which pertains to your certified, licensed, administrative, and classified employees for the 2526 school year.
Initially the initial rate that we got was close to 6%. Leases. Now when you buying 72 buses and you were talking about uh uh close to $12 million, that's a lot of money over over time. So by the time we went back and forth the winning uh amount was uh submitted by American capital and the rate that we agreed to was 4.2 million from about six uh 4.2% from about 6%. And so over the five-year term of the lease, we are going to save about $821,000, which if you think about it in terms of the number of teachers, that's about almost the salary of 12 of our teachers that we were able to save just from going back and forth and negotiating seriously. And the bigger difference that we made this time, in the past, we lease buses for five years, we give those buses back and start it over again.
I move to approve a 2% salary increase for certified, licensed, administrative, and classified employees for the 2526 school year. I second. Motion carries. All right. Next, we have item G3. Dr. Croto. Thank you, Madam President. Our last action and discussion item tonight. We bring you the student and parent handbook. And the action, a little clarification. This is to approve the discipline matrix only. We don't approve all the procedures and operations in the handbook, just the discipline matrix. We bring that to you for information, all the other things, but we're asking the governing board um to approve the discipline matrix and I will turn it over to Mr. Mui um for any other any other information. Thank you, Madam President, members of the board, Dr. Croto. uh as you will see in uh attached uh tonight for approval um the handbook the parent student parent handbook is contained in there along with uh both the the one we use for all schools and then freedom traditional as well contained within there you'll find the discipline matrix um and it's listed and the actual pages in the handbook is pages 69 through 79 um you will find the governing board policies listed on page 80 so uh there is really uh very small minor revision that's list that is more logistical within the discipline matrix from this year to next year.
And what we decided to do this time around is we lease we pay for those buses for five years, but we keeping them for an additional five years. So we keep those buses for 10 years and we own those buses after five years. We're not giving them back for them to be resold to us or to someone else. So that's another substantial way for us to save money. Thank you, Miss Oafami. Can you guys hear me? Okay. Y okay. Um this year we wanted to do something a little different with our bus leases as he indicated. Um our funding source and streams um have been tapped as you all know for the last few years and in order to save in transportation um looking at what we do from a leasing standpoint like you said we normally lease those buses for 5 years and we turn them over and we start this lease all over again.
Uh explanation of procedures and practices is contained in those pages from 49 to 68. Um and that helps for providing procedures definition and information on on how how we carry out the discipline matrix. So um with that I I will stand for questions uh related to that. All right. Um, as Dr. Cto mentioned, um, I am going to deviate just a little bit from the recommended action, um, as there was an error in the agenda. Uh, I move to approve the revisions to the student discipline procedures. I second. Motion carries. Next, we have item H1, request for future agenda items. I would like to request a future studies session prior to April 28th um to discuss the bond and the override potential um elections. We don't do we have any other requests for agenda items? Yes, I would like to add for future um not necessarily within the next two months, but a future agenda item to look at raising the grade requirements for school clubs, activities, and athletics to a C or above.
But with changing our model and leasing them for the five years, um having a buyback um or buy out at the end of that lease and then own them for an additional five years, we're going to save a lot of revenue in a district um and and not expense that out. And so we, as he said, we went back and forth with our um financial companies as well as the vendors to see what we can do. And that was a huge cost savings. Something we haven't done uh in many many years here in Asiggo. And it's time for change and transportation and savings. Love it. That's great. Excellent. Two two questions. Um the maintenance of the buses, how do we handle it now and then how will it be handled in the first five years and then the second five years? Great question. So, we do have three mechanics that we have in our department.
I would like to ask for I don't know if it's called a study or on um adding cursive writing class as a required class in all the schools. I saw it on the freedom traditional um handbook but I didn't see it in the regular one. And I would also like to request um an update or information item on our pilot program for the Spalding at Countryside. How's that going? You want me to make one up for you? Okay. You did last time. I know. All right. Um All right. At this time, um I motion to convene to an executive session. Second. I vote yes. Maybe motion carries. Okay. meeting and we'll move to item J1 with the approval of superintendent contract of employment. Are you telling me to hit refresh? Hold on. I motion to approve a three-year contract for Dr. John Croto commencing July 1st 2025 under the terms presented to the governing board.
Um, this summer they're going to go through IC training. Our buses are IC and they're going to go through a week of training at their um facility in Oklahoma um to service them. So, right now they don't do a lot of that heavy lift because they're warrantied for 5 years. So, we pretty much send that back. The other cost savings we're going to do this year is with them being properly trained on how to service those vehicles. If there's a warranty item and Midwest can't get to that repair cuz sometimes that take, you know, several weeks or a month, they're going to repair them and then we're going to send um well, we're going to charge back Midwest for that work. That's very good. So, so all of the buses that we we will have, they're going to be brand new buses for this year and then Yeah.
Second. Third Yes. Motion carries. Congratulations, Dr. Cotto. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for all that you do for DAEART. Do we have to get I'll entertain a motion to adjourn. I motion to adjourn the governing school board meeting. Second. [Music] Yes. I vote yes. Motion carries. We are adjourned.
Okay, I get it now. And the goal is to keep them for 10 years. Got it. Because uh most of the time by the time we send them back in five years, how much mileage do we normally have? Well, it's it depends. It's not that much, but again, it's something that we get strategic strategically do in our department to ensure that we're keeping it low miles. um swapping buses around depending on the routes, depending on field trips uh when we send them out um with the diesel particular filter that's in our systems. Uh we want to get them out the first year on field trips and just blow that out that carbon out of that system. Um so we're going to work on a strategic plan on what that looks like to make sure that we can maintain our buses and keep them low miles out.
I I have a couple questions just because I have people in the community that seem to like to ask me these questions. you don't have an answer, that's fine. You can get back to me. But, um, electric buses. So, um, I'll ask three questions on this. A, um, why why didn't we go the electric option? Two, if we went the electric option, could we get them for basically free through grants? And that was two. Three is um I if we were to go with electric buses, would that nullify the need for us to uh levy for CPI due to the savings from that? I'll take number three. I got one and two. Yeah, you're good. First question, um, we don't own our don't qualify. That's one of the issues and one of the things that we wanted to change. We don't qualify, right? And so why don't maintain and the other part that I want to lay on that is she's probably too modest to say that if you all have been following the story out of uh one of our neighboring school district that went all electric.
Oh yeah. the firm that actually maintained those buses went belly up. So, they were left with buses that they couldn't run. So, they had to scramble to try to find buses. And the the supply chain right now for buses is really tight. So, I don't know how they're going to get out of it. The fact of the matter is electric buses are still experimental. And based on where we're located, the infrastructure required to service those buses, I don't think it'll be prudent at this point to invest that money in electric buses because of the fact that the firms that are servicing the day they're not making money. They depending on tax credit. When those tax credit run out, the revenue is not enough to generate there to sustain the business. And that's part of the issue that they were facing. Now, regarding whether if we had electric buses, we wouldn't have to levy.
There's really no correlation between that because I just for starters, the price of a regular um diesel buses, it used to be $90,000. After the pandemic, the price that we got now is 165, 166 approximately. Now, electric buses, the last time I worked in a district where we actually got one, it was half a million dollars for an electric bus. One electric bus only the bus and not the infrastructure for it. Correct. Just the bus. Yes. And then you have to invest in charging system. You have to invest in a partnership with a firm that will repair them because the way you repair an electric bus is different from the way you require uh you repair an internal combustible engine bus. So on the front end it's going to be very expensive or something that is speculative. And as a district, we're not in the position to be speculative with the resources of our taxpayer.
We have to be efficient and manage our resources the best way possible. And and again, I I just want to reiterate like I'm I'm you know, I'm sure all of us would love for all of our buses to be electric and the infrastructure to just be there and all those things. It's just again I it's a lot of a lot of answers I kind of figured you were going to say. So I think if somebody has access to a grant that has the equivalent and relevant numbers of dollars that would actually allow us to do that I don't think anybody in this room would be by doing would would be opposed. In fact I've been a part of projects to do electric buses in other places but as Mr. Of shared the substantial cost and investment are are are challenging. The second thing I really pray and I and I and I cannot let this go, but the concept of not leving.