So >> well can't you reach out to these entities? I mean you got the University of Hawaii already P20 I mean you I just bothers me every time we need a law when you can do it or if you're already doing it why why you got to wait for a law to create a working group? >> Uh we appreciate that and uh yes we we um have been doing that uh even uh international partners and national partners as well. uh there is appropriation in there which we understand in these uh uh austere times that >> so so but we will continue to work uh because it is important for our students so we could do that. >> Who what partners are you working with? >> Uh we've worked with the University of Hawaii. We've also worked with some of the members of the um ISTY, International Society of Technology and Educ uh Education uh National Association of Secondary School Principles and then there's a couple work groups uh with Canada and the United States as well.
You guys are the heartbeat of what we do, and we couldn't do it without you. Thank you. Okay. Before we open the floor for comments, I just want to make a few of my own if that's okay. >> Yes. >> Okay. So, um I think it's important to note that uh the state's funding formula, you know, typically referred to as S2 at this point, has fully matured. Uh I thought it was really interesting to see that in the governor's budget address, she's adopted some boundaries. So one of the common complaints from school districts who were on the other side of the formula where money was being taken away were complaining about how much funding they were losing from year to year. And so with this budget, the governor has introduced um a cap on no more than a 3% decrease in equalization aid for a given year, but then also a cap that says no district will get more than a 6% increase in equalization aid in a given year.
Um, and we have uh our team tonight. I'm going to invite Dr. Dubiel to introduce our our guests and uh or our our folks who are here as part of that leadership work. So, um presentation 5.2 diverse learners comprehensive review. >> Sorry. You got to get the time stamp. There's a whole session over there too. Um, good evening board. We are really excited to present a overview of the comprehensive review. Um, first I'd like to ask the team to please introduce themselves. >> Hi, I'm Sarah Fischer, director of special education for high school and non-traditional programming. Katie Wren, uh, director of special education, K8 on the orange team, as well as I oversee the deaf and heart of hearing program. Teresa Anderson, special education coordinator. I support 504's curriculum and assist of technology for our district. Nicole Peronzi, I'm the director of special education for the silver team and I also support homebound.
High School students were sent 20 out of the 100. That's pretty impressive. So, thank you to all those high school students that went over there. And Diana Bowman from the guidance office who chaperoned the uh those kids as they went and assisted. So, that's all I've got for you this evening. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Kewa. 7.07, Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Reese. Thank you, Mr. President, members of the board. On March 10th, we received notification from State Board of Accounts. Uh nine of our buildings, the extracurricular accounts at nine of our buildings were audited over the course of the last 30 to 45 days. Uh this does not include the high school. They were included part of the corporation audit that was held at the end of 2025. I'm happy to report that uh in all seven elementaries and both middle schools, uh there were found no issues of non-compliance throughout the corporation.
Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Bremberry. Yeah, and just one more comment, too. I know I made it during the work session, but I think it's something that we need to continue to have the conversations with. With the state picking up textbook uh rental fees now for us and giving uh free textbooks to the students, which I think is a tremendous service to this community and everything we're doing that, they have not been funding it, but because they also have paused it. I think it's very important anytime we interact now with any of our state uh legislative bodies to remind them that now that they're going into the next biennium of their budget, that if they're going to open these up, they need to make sure and help us fund that, because while we have some funds that's set aside, other corporations don't, and I think we would not be the only ones, and I think it's just good policy and good governance that when we have a chance to have that and advocate for our students, that we want to have, you know, good material from them and be able to afford it and be able to do that.
>> Okay. Because according to this, we're talking about representatives from University of Hawaii, Department of Education, teacher and employee unions, charter school, independent school representatives, state chief information officer, and possibly Native Hawaiian education specialist. So, is this people that you've been all working with already >> in in different forms? We've worked with some of the private schools recently. We've uh provided some training. >> Can you formalize that into a working group without this measure? >> That is possible. Yes. >> Okay. So, we're authorizing you right now to >> Thank you very much. Appreciate it. >> To put this group together so we don't need to make more paper and have more bills with that. >> Yep. Thank you. >> And you're going to come back and report to us, right? Next year. >> Yeah, we will definitely share all the good things that are happening in our schools with the >> We're going to hold you to that.
So I think this is the first budget where we're really forced to come to terms with an adjustment in the strategy that we've used for the past few years. Correct. I think we've done a great job and a very responsible job as a board of using the incoming state equalization aid to reduce the tax burden and not apply the types of adjustments that you were talking about regarding insurance. Uh but I also think it's important to note that those costs are exploding across the board. I think the work that our business team has done and our operations committee has contributed to to look for alternatives to help us beat the average uh have been phenomenal. Right? we've been right on the leading edge of that to keep those costs down, but still they're doubledigit percentage increases for us. Um, and so with the state aid leveling out and those costs continuing to increase, I think it was the appropriate time for us to change our posture about where and how we share.
>> Maria Lopez, director of multilingual learners, all teams, >> every color. Kelly Waldrin. I'm the ML program coach, blue team. >> Hi, Erin Gleason. I am the multilingual learner curriculum coach. >> Dr. What what is the different color teams? Just if you're listening. Yes. >> Sure. So, um we have developed a system of orange, silver, and blue. These schools that are elementary that are orange and uh junior high feed into Asiggo High School. The silver schools that feed in the elementary and junior high feed into um as we go east and blue team represents high schools. >> Thank you. >> Okay. So we have two major objectives with the comprehensive to review tonight to provide some initial information and identify steps for the comprehensive review. I need to highlight this. I'm going to say it multiple times. This is an overview. This is an overview of the comprehensive review.
I'd like to thank those uh nine treasurers for the work that they've done in those buildings and producing solid uh financial reports uh that could be used by the state following all the state statutes and policies. So, I want to recommend recommend them for a job well done. It's always great news. Thank you, Mr. Reese. Uh 7.08, Superintendent of Schools, Dr. Terrell. First, just wanted to remind board members of the ISBA spring regional meeting that is April 7th. If you're planning on going, if you can let Diana know that tonight so she can get everybody registered. Um state basketball championship was mentioned and Mark uh brought up. I I want to thank uh our fans especially that continue to support our kids and drove the 90 minutes to get to Elkhart. Great turnout by our fans. Um really want to recognize our student section though.
So, just I want to call that out for us. Thank you, Mr. Wall. Anything further before we vote? Let's vote on the motion. The motion passes 7-0. Move on to G1 through 16 minus number 14, the consent agenda. Mr. Bremberry. Board action item tonight for your consideration. Um I'll draw attention to a couple of the items. Uh field trip request, the Huntington North FFA livestock judging team is headed to Central Illinois on April 10th. I understand uh Mr. Peters is always looking for chaperones, so I know that's right up your your expertise alley. Uh draw attention, as well, to donations. Um want to thank the Knights of Columbus, $597.20 to Huntington North Special Education Department. And uh Verizon, $400 donation, as well. Uh I believe to Lincoln. And the rest of it uh I know you've seen on your executive content. So, for your action item, Mr.
>> Thank you members. Any other questions? Okay. Hearing none. I think that's the end of our joint bills decision making. Recess. >> Recess real quick. Recess. Call back to order the joint committee on education and labor. We are in decision making. Uh chair for labor for the first item. >> Okay. Members, uh first item is House Bill 1890, House draft 3. Chairs having conferred. Recommendation here is we're going to pass with amendments. We're going to add language to include the annual salary step increases for public charter school teachers. Members, we had this in our companion Senate draft bill. So, thank you for the testimony from Mr. No. Um, we're also going to accept and adopt the AG's proposed amendments in their testimony. Further, we're also in in addition to that, we're going to strike language as it relates to teacher retention bonuses. Um and members that's because as from one of the line of questionings while we appreciate all the teachers and staff has done in BU5 and all that being that it wasn't in their collective bargaining agreements in that contract and the annual step increases is uh we are going to strike that language and that language came over from the house and then further we're going to change the effective date to July 1st 2077.
Um, and I was happy to see that included in this budget version. Um, I want to give some extra kudos to the operations committee. Um, and again to the administrative team. Um, when Christine says that the budget process starts in October, that includes the need to provide multiple different iterations and contingency plans. And so the last operations committee, we actually reviewed a version of this budget that was, let's say, pessimistic in the sense that, you know, if our state aid went down, what would that look like and how would the administration respond? And I think it's a it's a fantastic exercise to go through with the board because it really stress tests our commitment to different parts of the strategic plan and our goals. And so gaining having that conversation and gaining alignment on the worst possible outcome was a a great way to go about it, but also being prepared to react with in the span of what a week or 10 days to different news that comes out of the governor's office and really be prudent and responsible with how we apply those monies to the budget version.
There's a lot of information um that came out of the comprehensive review, but more importantly, we're not done. We are not done. There's a lot of work. This has been quite comprehensive, and we feel like we've only um chiseled a little away at um the work that is ahead of us. This is not a one-time effort. This is part of our strategic plan. And as a matter of fact, for year one, it is to begin the comprehensive review. Um, as you're all familiar with the strategic plan, year two and year three is to implement and to continue the work. This just allowed us to obtain some quantitative and qualitative data and then really roll up our sleeves for multi-year work that we know we can do towards um building our multilingual special education programs. So for the comprehensive review itself, it is part of a fivephase process.
After the game, uh if you were there the morning session, the opponent that we had, their fan student fans were chanting some things that were absolutely inappropriate. Um our administrators do a great job of working with our kids and making sure that we're going to be good sportsmen, uh show good sportsmanship at the games. At the end of the game though, when our administrators went down at the championship uh Saturday night game, two of the Elkhart security officers came to our administrators and said, "I just We just want to let you know that your kids have been a delight to be with tonight. They with They represented themselves, their parents, their families, our school district, our community." Um just thank you to all of our our students and what they do there. As we go down to the state basketball championship game though on Saturday, there are so many things that go into this.
Allen and board. Thank you, Mr. Bremberry. I'll entertain a motion. I'll reference the consent agenda. Motion to approve the consent agenda as presented. Thank you, Mr. Melcher. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Mr. McLellan.
Any further discussion, questions, comments or concerns? Okay. If not for the committee on labor and technology, vice chair lamas for the vote to pass with amendments. Chair votes I. >> Okay. Members voting on HB1890HD3. Recommendation of the chair is to pass with amendments. Chair votes I. Vice chair also votes I. Senator Yhara is excused. Senator Moriwalki is also excused. Senator Pavlla. >> Oh shar. Okay. >> She's hiding. >> All right. Sure. Recommendation is adopted. >> Okay. Thank you. uh same recommendation for the committee on education to pass with an SD1 noting the explanation by the uh labor chair and also to note that you know we're very supportive of our teachers and certainly have to make some hard decisions and um hopefully this measure will do that for all the current teachers and into the future.
Uh I think is an understated part of the process and I just want to make sure that you guys um acknowledge and get some credit for that. So well done. That's it from me. Roger. As operations committee chair, would you like to make any comments? >> Yes. I would first of all, uh, phenomenal job to everybody. I don't think that what you've done today resonates here tonight, but will resonate into the future because of the incredible job you've done. This is a team effort. Uh there's tremendous accolades to go all around, but Miss Lee and your team, I want to take my hat off of being an educator for 33 years. I've seen budgets come and go and uh I have to say I think this is a exemplary uh uh budget and I I it's a wonderful it's really an example of teamwork, right?
We developed a five-phase process to ensure we have structure in place. So for the phase one, we had a preparation. This occurred last summer. It involved identifying the structure that you see in front of us as well as developing the work plan which is aligned with every objective in the strategic plan. We consulted with our leadership both in our union's OEA and OESPA and then the team worked together to build our internal capacity. For phase two, we launched console groups. What do we want to ask the people that are participating in focus groups? So, we conducted with um consultation of our OEA and OESPA partners some uh semifocus groups in a sense of we wanted to know what should we ask the public. So, we had multiple sessions of special education and multilingual staff and community members. They were provided with a menu of questions, but they weren't limited to those questions.
Um we just think, "Well, we won, we're going." The amount of donations and things that are already coming in from different groups to help our team as they get there, as they stay overnight, that all the different things that are happening there. I just want to thank our community. Um championship game tickets are will be available if they're not already. Uh we encourage people to make that trip down for something that we hope will be repeated, but you never know. Um both teams are first time ever in their corporations have been there. So, kind of a really cool thing. Want to thank those that are retiring. Each year we have significant people who retire. Obviously, this year there's it just feels like there's a a bigger group and I think there's a lot of reasons that play into that, but thank you to all of those.
Any questions or discussion before we vote? Hearing none, let's vote on the consent agenda. I do have one quick question on on the consent agenda. The request to approve to hire three summer interns. Is there what's the age limit on that? Pardon? There's a request to hire three summer interns for the technology department. What is the Do you know the age limit? Um Yeah. The item that was removed, is that the one you're at requesting item 14? Yeah. Yeah, each year, and you'll bring it back on the 27th, but each year we hire at around $15 an hour summer interns that will uh do a multitude of things with device collection and um What ages? I'm going to guess high school uh has been in the past. I'll bring the details back then on the 27th. You bet. The motion passes 7-0. Moving on to H1, HCCS exterior building maintenance award of bid.