001I'm going to have to be >> cool. Then he's supposed to be >> then. >> All right. Good evening everyone and welcome to the board of education meeting. I would like to call this meeting to order. Please stand with me for the pledge of allegiance. >> I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you. Is there an and a motion to approve the agenda? >> So second. >> All in favor say I. >> I. >> Motion carries. Roll calls finds us all presence with the exception of Kate Robbins. Is there an Is there a motion to approve the agenda of regular board education meeting minutes of September 23rd, 2025? There
002second. >> Second. >> All in favor say I. I. >> Motion carries. >> Next we have our student representatives. Um from the north we have Kimoki. >> Kimokco. >> Kamiko. I'm sorry. Come on, Miss Lee. And then Edgar Ruiz. >> Come on up. >> Thank you. >> Kamoko. >> Kamiko. I'm sorry. >> It's okay. right there. >> You guys don't want to go first. It's rock paper scissor. >> You want to rock paper scissors? >> Go first. >> Yeah. >> Okay. [laughter] I'm gonna go first. >> Okay. >> Ready? >> Okay. So, hello everybody. My name is Kamiko Lee and I am a senior at Shabboan North High School. So, a little bit about myself is that after high school, I plan to attend a 4-year university to major in either radial technology or business.
003So, getting to our um events and stuff. In the beginning of the school year, we focused on homecoming because this year it was the earliest it has ever been. So, we began with our door painting, which is students coming together and we painted our main entrance doors to the theme of our homecoming, which was me at midnight this year. Following that, we had our pep rally and we also had our homecoming dance, which was super engaging for our students and our staff. Following that, we also had our first blood drive at North, which was super successful. And we also had our first preac of the year. Um, and in addition to that, we also had our art program or like our art department host a steamrolling print maker event for the community, which was super
004cool. I wasn't there, but I saw tons of photos and it was very unique and it was a great way to bring um the community and the students and staff together. Upcoming, we also have our parent teacher conferences because the quarter is coming up and we also have our volunteer day for our students on November 7th. Um and lastly, we have our holidays Santa breakfast coming up in December that we are planning for. Thank you for listening. Thank you. Anyone have any questions for her? >> No questions for the comment. I like your energy. I like your enthusiasm and I can't wait to hear more from you as the year goes on. >> Thank you. >> Yes. Anyone else? >> All right. Thank you. Next. >> Hello, my name is Edgar. I prepared something for
005you guys, so that right up. Um, hello. My name is Edgar Ruiz. I'm a senior at South High. I'm very honored to be in front of all of you and speaking to you all. Um, a little bit about myself about myself. Um, I attended Longfellow and Farnsworth. I'm currently attending South High. Um, so basically I'm kind of very involved in the school. I'm only here as a representative to fill in. Um, so I've been a lot I've been involved in a lot of sports just like football, track and field baseball, and some of the clubs I'm involved in are Beats and Follys, Interact Club, Latino Student Organization, uh, Club Carter, and I'm also part of the class officer executive board. Um, kind of what South High has done for me, uh, South High has been
006an amazing opportunity for students like me. The culture around South High is very diverse. It is most definitely a special place to be at. uh with South High rebranding with the new logo. I have some stickers if you guys would >> free stuff, my friend. >> I'll put those on your car later. >> Yeah. >> Um with the new logo, um as a school, we look for to change for the greater good. Um as a young student, I've always looked at South High um as a more diverse school with amazing opportunities offered to our more diverse students. Uh, it's really a great foundation for young students who I may not have had the best chance at life. As a Hispanic student, South High has really brought out the best in my capabilities. South High has
007really taught me resilience, flexibility, adaptability, and perseverance. Um, and about the new logo, uh, the logo has definitely been a big change for the school. We're very proud of it. We like to show it off wherever we go, and it's student designed. Um, so all that went into it was just based on students. Um, so about our events this year, South High has had a great start to the school year with multiple events to advocate for students. We have had a lot of success with all of our community events and then also starting off with uh homecoming. We had the powder puff movie night, powder puff, uh volleyball games, football games, and the dance on that Saturday. This was a very successful week for us. Students had very fun uh a lot of fun participating
008in all of our activities, and it was definitely one of our better weeks to remember. uh listing on some of our events that we had for the community. Um October 12th we had that North South collaborated on the printmaking. Kamiko already spoke on that. Um so to see pictures I would visit South High art department. We don't really have some uh just some on October 18th we had the fiesta spa. Uh this event was to bring the Hispanic community together as the Hispanic community struggles struggles with the real world conflicts which is no secret. So, I'm proud to say this event was a success. Festa Espana provides exposure to small Hispanic businesses and business owners and also provides a safe space for everyone to enjoy the Hispanic culture. We host this annually and it has
009grown since my freshman year, which was the first year it was held. On October 22nd, service day, this was the best one yet. We've had uh high participation for our students and served in more than 50 service activities on campus, in the district, and in the community. October 24th and the 25th, uh Interact Club held Haunted Tunnels. Um this was a fun fundraising opportunity for the Interact Club, which is a service club that plans community events with, uh the aim to create a strong school and community relationship. Uh, two big events are haunted are the haunted tunnels and our block party which is held in May. And our haunted tunnels that just happened this weekend raised $3,000. And all that will be going to our mission trip in uh Guatemala which will happen in April
01026 or April 26, 2026. And 10% of our funds will go to a polio nonprofit organization to help those with that disease. Um, and that's like basically all the events that happen kind of like our athletics postseason. Um, if you're not aware, South High, uh, for most sports is a part of a new conference. Uh, the sports not involved with the new conference are football, girls swim, and girls golf. This is because football is in a football only conference across the state. Uh, swimming and golf are co-op with North and part of the F FRCC. as a spectator for our small sports like soccer and volleyball, it felt like we were we were able to be more competitive. Um, looking forward to our winter programs starting in a few weeks, there's been a lot of
011hype around our new basketball and our basketball team with the boys and girls. Um, kind of our uh some of our highlights for our athletics are the cross country team finished in a third at sectionals. Bone Shavy finished 13 um out of sectionals out of 118 runners. And South finished third out of 17 teams, which is the highest sectional finish in over a decade. Girls tennis with a new conference, Glacier Trails Conference. Urell Roman Sanchez took over two singles and went in a 5-0 record in a conference. Um [clears throat] kind of moving on for girls swim, Olivia Nullles set the school record with 100 breath stro 100 breathstroke and the co-op team record in the same event. Uh that was just some of the achievements for our strong athletes that have accomplished um kind
012of our academic highlights. Um our preac for students in grade 9 through 11 happened on October 2nd. This is a great opportunity for kids to get practice on the ACT and get feedback on where they need to improve. Kids get to take it three years in a row and before taking the real thing in March of their junior year. Um the first ever Redwing time during homecoming week. This was the thing that North has been doing uh for a couple years now. Um it's kind of like an extended advisory for us where students are able to select a variety of uh activities and the theme for October uh at South Connection and the majority of the activities were games and hobbies. Uh I went to the Shabboan public education uh foundation presentation on scholarships. Uh
013we will be doing this once a month and at the end of the school year. Um and then we have advisory three days a week for 20 minutes. A few of the topics so far have been in September we've done school safety training. Um as a senior we've completed our secondary intention survey. Uh we've heard from JSON's about getting our cap and gowns too. Um and then in October we engaged in lessons about service day manufacturing month and overall each Monday is typically reserved for teachers to check in with students about their grades and attendance and that was just very some of some of uh South's great highlights. Thank you. >> Thank you. Anyone have any questions for them comments? I gotta say as a as a long fellow Barnsworth and selfgrad myself, [laughter] being
014able to hear from you, being able to hear not just about what's happening right now in your school, but hearing what led to you being in that moment and being here with us. >> Um, Edgar, I'm really happy that you shared your story that you shared about your school and again, um, thanks for being here. >> Yeah, thank you. Thank you. As a graduate of the first ever class of the Red Wings from South High School and um I I'm excited about the new logo. I don't want to like it and I do because I was a member of the group that designed the first one [laughter] >> back in the day when we used rock and chisel. [clears throat] [laughter] >> Congratulations. And just a comment, you never know when you'll be back here
015full circle talking about it. So [laughter] keep that keep that passion alive. >> Thank you. [applause] >> Want to stay for the rest of the night? >> No. [laughter] >> All right. Next we have community input. Is there anyone here for community input? >> Community input. All right. Dr. Conrath, you're up. >> Yeah. Always great to fall on the heels of uh greatness, right? So, we'll be brief tonight. We have a a long agenda. Uh and you heard a lot of great things from our students already. So, uh just an FYI for all of you, Veterans Day program, November 10th from 9:30 to 11:30. Uh the program begins at 10:00 a.m. and South High School will be hosting this year. So, um you are certainly encouraged to attend if able. You heard about Fiesta Hispana
016uh from Edgar. It was a great event at South High School. Um always one that we enjoy getting to as a a family. My kids love it. I'd recommend it for anyone with young kids. They walk out with bakery and a bunch of cute trinkets that they bought and everything else. So great night from the kids. Um and organized by the students and they do such an amazing job. Uh the dancing and uh food and the thoughtfulness. uh they do musical chairs with little kids and the thoughtfulness of how they they treat the kids and handle the kids is really special. So great group of kids putting that on at South High School. Jamie hosted open interviews uh October 22nd 26 applicants I believe. So a successful uh open interview day there as we continue
017to to look to fill some support staff positions. North High Musical November 7th through the 9th and 13th through the 15th is uh The Lighting Thief. So tickets are available now and u certainly hope you can attend that. Another reminder, SPF's Allin for Education Texas Holdm is Friday, November 7th at uh Pine Hills 22nd year for the event. As you heard, the North High School, South High School uh art event with steamroller printing was a hit. Uh another one for for small kids. My kids had a great time at that. Somehow ended up on the tackling dummies with Johnny Moss as well. But uh just a great great event, lots of fun. Uh and really impressive what the the kids do and we are so blessed to have such great art teachers at both schools.
018So, uh, really a neat deal. And, um, I think I'm going to wrap it up with that tonight. >> Question. Just a calendar check. The email we got says the Veterans Day is the 11th, >> which is Veterans Day? >> Tuesday the >> 11th. Sorry, we have a typo here. >> Okay. >> Appreciate you calling that out. >> Thank you, Peter. Any other questions for Dr. Conrad? All right. Thank you, Dr. Conrad. Next, we have the North High continuous improvement update. Come on up. Just let you guys know at 6:30. If you guys aren't, then we're just going to have to pause for a little bit and then come back up. >> Okay. >> Do a quick punch. I think we'll be done by hold you to it. >> I got you. >> That's going
019to be tough. >> Cheers over there. >> Yeah, we're good. >> All right. >> Set up. >> Okay. All right. Well, we came about two weeks ago and we shared the South High School college and career readiness update around their annual goals. We're here with the North High team this afternoon and they'll share the outcomes um from their graduating class of 2025 based on the college and career readiness indicators. I will allow the team to introduce theirelves. I'll do a few grounding points and then we're going to hop right into the presentation. So, you want to go ahead and introduce? Hi, thanks for having us. Nick Collins, principal. >> Hi, I'm Jenna Worth. I'm one of the associate principles. >> I'm Alexandra Nent. I'm the other associate principal. >> I'm Alex Brick, the dean of
020students. >> Okay. So, I will move pretty quickly through this first set of slides. I shared this with you when we did the presentation for South High School just two weeks ago. Um but basically this site is here to highlight the fact that our college and career readiness work really starts with our vision as a district and that district that vision is that all students will be productive and responsible citizens in a competitive world. We are sure to embed that into our long range plan and then that drives our school processes. We have as part of our long range plan that each of our schools engage in this four-step continuous improvement process. North High School does that as well. That process starts with a leadership team coming together. This team along with some other representative
021leaders in their building coming together reflecting on the data that they have and then setting rigorous annual goals. They then work to implement those goals as part of a action plan and then report out on them after they've progress monitored them over the course of the year. And today is one of those days where they're reported out to you all as the school board. We shared two weeks ago how we pull the data. The data is pulled annually from Skyward, which is our student information system. We pull it every year at the same time on the last day of school. And we're pulling by static grade level cohorts based upon gradu graduation graduation date and enrollment status. Sorry about that. And then again they report out to you. The one takeaway and you'll see this
022in the first few data slides that are just there as a reference point is that we pull that data, we look at it for all students. So that's the first data set that we're looking at and then we push it through three filters to get subsets. um for our cohorts and that would be students who are based on the post-secary intention survey saying that they want to go directly into the workforce or military. We're looking at the data for that cohort. Students who are saying that they want to attend a two-year college and then a four-year college. And you'll see that here shortly. You may be asking where do we get the indicators? Um, as I shared two weeks ago, the indicators initially came out of a campaign called Redefining Ready, which was part of
023AASA, the National Superintendence Association really um wanting to put forth the message that our students are more than just one simple data point, right? So we should be looking at multiple indicators, multiple data sources to determine whether our students are ready for post-secary and whether we're being successful as a school. So um each of the indicators are researchbased and that is where it comes from. And then talking about those MOSFET pieces of information that we look at to just ensure that our schools are on the right track. The school report card is another one of those measures. It's part of our statewide accountability system. And we know that those report cards are issued to every publicly funded school um and district. And the report cards are looking at multiple indicators over multiple years. And then
024they're breaking it down around four priority areas which u Mr. Collins will highlight how we're doing around those four accountability areas shortly and then ultimately the school gets a rating score and then um a actual rating for the school. And with that I'll turn it over to Mr. Collins. >> Thank you Rachel. So our first slide is just showing over the last three years what our school report card 212 up to 24 uh maintained pretty even scores a slight bump up from the year prior uh but an increase in all areas and those four growth areas uh if you find at this link if you looked at I also gave a PDF of that just highlighting many of the really awesome things that go beyond the academics and beyond the classroom that our north students
025are involved in take part in our teachers lead um and that really define us and what it means to be at North and all those factors that make it a well-rounded and positive place to go to school. The first slide is looking at all students without any of those filters on our college and career readiness. We have the three-year average on the right side and then a yearbyear. Um if you look at the next four slides in a row in each of the subgroups, it'll also show that three-year and the growth year-over-year. um most in almost every category it's growing and going up in those categories for each subset. Um the only two areas we have is military industrial which we're just looking at providing a few more experiences and also how we gather those
026metrics and different data sources. But as you go through these three sets with the workforce, military, two-year college, and four-year college, as Rachel mentioned, we just tease out different things that we can really prioritize and make very specific action plans. But we always look at our entire school as a whole. We don't have these tracks like in a classroom. It's always the data after the fact. So we look at all students together and then look at what we can do in each subgroup within our building. >> And I'll just make a note that that first um set of data is really the one that's tied to the goals that we'll be reporting out today if you want to go back and reference that. >> Thank you. And then we'll be going to Alex next that
027will talk on our first goal. >> All right. So our career ready goal. This is our reflection from last year. Um the class of 2025 will show a 2% growth in overall career readiness um measured by those two outcomes. So if you look at the evidence, we had a 86.5% rate. Um so that went up from 81.5 to 86.5. Um I think overall our main goal is to just have students ready for the workforce in the future. Um, and then the new goal for this upcoming year, um, by June, the class of 2026 will show a 2% growth, um, over the three-year average, um, as compared to the class of 2025. Um, we're going to look at adding some more volunteer opportunities. So, we have November 7th coming up, and then we're exploring doing something
028in April. Um, looking at recognizing seniors who do meet these goals, um, with maybe something on their um, gown for graduation. And then like always working with the community um and employers to have those strong connections. >> I'll just say Mr. Brighter mentioned it, but I think it is worth just an added um kudos to the North High team and that the goal was 81% and they um or 83% and they exceeded that goal by almost 5 percentage points which is huge. So congratulations to you and all of your staff and students. Uh our second goal has to do with college readiness and so we wanted to move up again at 2% from the graduating class of 24 to the graduating class of 25. Uh we did meet that goal. Uh we moved up to
029from 56.3 to 61% of students being college ready as noted on those outcome measures. Um, we're really excited because we know that students can have a lot more doors open to them after they receive their north diploma with those other measures in place that they're ready to pursue whatever they'd like after. Um, some ways that we want to continue to grow on this are to, you know, um, Edgar mentioned their Redwing time. Well, we have Raider time at North and so we're focused on doing some of that college ACT prep during Raider times and intentionally using data sets from the preac to reflect changes in our general curriculum and then pull students based on their scores on the preac to assign them with specific teachers during raider time. So instead of um just improving overall,
030we're really looking at targeting those students who want to see those um goals improved. All right. And attendance is our uh third goal. So once again, reflecting on the graduating class of 24 to 25, we were going with a 2% increase again for students that attended 90% of school days or better. And we're proud to have met that goal as well. uh we grew from 78% to almost 83% with our attendance rate. Um we're proud of the culture that we that we foster at North and engagement in academics and extracurriculars and we think that's a big piece as to why that goal continues to grow. Uh this year's goal will look very similar. Uh we will continue to target that 2% growth and it'll be over a three-year average. that would take us to um
03180.9% over the three the three-year average. We're currently measuring at 81.5%. So, we're on track there. We will be doing our weekly attendance meetings. We've been more intentional with how we lead those. We have different tiers and different stakeholders who are involved in that process that help us identify who our atrisisk population is and then develop an action plan with those students. We've also updated our attendance letters that we send home. We've been very intentional with the language in those letters. uh we we identify through DPI different laws and policies. We make that very obvious for parents and then we we make them a part of the process and we have them come in and meet with us after 10 days and we can develop a more individualized plan with those students to help them
032get on track. And then lastly, we think it's important to get our students involved as well. So we work with our PBIS team to promote that attendance piece. We have different challenges and competitions and then we make sure that we're having some positive messaging as well outside to the community members >> picture there but a >> great picture. >> It's a new one uh with the new Jenna designed the shirts this year which were a hit and um we thank our staff for indulging us for a few minutes to get together and take a picture to start the year and it's just to celebrate all the wonderful things we do and being that time together. Um the last slide is our points of strength. Um continuing to grow those volunteer hours. Um modeling after South's
033great volunteer day. Those are some things we're talking about. Um looking to possibly do that in April if that works out. Um it's in my first year, but I'm the more we can do the better and I have a great team to do that with. Uh the increase in a dual credit, uh 6.4% up from the year before. Um the real big part is our kids being involved and finding all the different ways. it seems like there's a new club. Uh nobody ever wants to take one off the table. They just want to keep adding more clubs. They're like I only have so many humans to lead so many clubs and that's a great problem to have. Uh with the sports and then as well as the clubs and activities almost near 1500 kids involved.
034Um dual credit pathway very similar to South um continuing to show strong numbers there. Our collegebound students 97.9 of them um going through that as well. and then students earning college credit on campus 787. And a lot of these things come from our North profile if you want to dig in deeper. These are just some of those highlights um that we're really proud of and just it's been a wonderful start for me this year at North and I'm starting to understand day by day why everyone enjoys being there so much. So other questions for us? >> Well, we can come back for that because it is now 6:30. >> So don't leave. I'm pretty sure someone has a question. That's okay. >> Thank you. Stick around. There might be questions. So, >> thank you. [laughter]
035>> All right. The next item right now is the public hearing on proposed 2025 2026 budget. >> Mark Great. Thanks. Um, so as you know, you know, we do the bulk of the budget work uh with the board administration April through June. We passed that preliminary budget uh in the month of June. We did that this year before the state budget uh was finalized. So, we go in knowing that we're going to have to make some changes. Uh we did come back to the board. We had made a a health plan change uh recently to uh just get the budget back uh to balance. But so really the all we're waiting for after that is on the state to determine how much uh state aid the districts are going to receive so we know what
036our tax levy will be. That's the main thing we wait for. And then the other thing is the third Friday enrollment uh count because that plays a part in our budget too. So, uh, really tonight during the budget hearing, I really use this as an opportunity, uh, learning opportunity for both the community and the board. It's just to try to, uh, help people understand how school finance works, what's what's the, uh, uh, factors that determine tax levy and, uh, all of those types of things. So, I'll start up. If you have any questions, just please um, ask along the way. Um the first thing uh we'd like to talk about is uh revenue caps. So the state does impose revenue caps on all the public school districts. And what the cap is, it's it's a
037cap on how much you can receive in revenue from two sources and that's general state aid and local tax levy. So that's what it's controlling. Um, the only way to go above that revenue cap is you can go out for an operational referendum and the community can uh vote on that to see if you know you can exceed that revenue cap and and um increase your taxes for that. Our district has never gone out for referendum referendo um on operational budget. Um we've been able to keep our budgets, you know, balanced without doing that. you know, we have used referendum for only for major capital type projects that we need for the district. Um, revenue cap is pretty simple. It's just calculated by a three-year average of your uh enrollment and then it's it's multiplied
038by a per pupil revenue amount. Um, so that revenue amount increased $325 in the in the budget, state budget this year. and our three-year enrollment [snorts] average is 9,469. Um, so we talk about resident enrollment during this presentation. Later, Rachel will talk about enrollment in the district and the number she uses is is headcount. So, kids actually in our schools, the number that's used for revenue caps is res is resident enrollment. So that includes uh kids that live in the district whether they go to school here or whether they go to school at another public school district through open enrollment. Uh resident enrollment does not include homeschool kids or kids that attend uh private schools. So it's just kids attending public schools uh but live in our our area districts. So uh the state does
039allow a declining enrollment exemption in the revenue uh limit. So if uh your average is three-year average goes down from the previous year, they do um fill that in. So there's not quite the impact for declining enrollment for districts. So here's the numbers from our third Friday count. Um you can see the the resident enrollment is a combination of both um the regular school year and the summer school. So u third Friday account for the regular school year was down 218 students. It's a 2.3% decrease. Summer school was up for FTE uh for an increase of 6.9. So the total FTE was down 214. And then for the revenue limit, they use the three-year average. So our three-year average went down 111 students. So again, because we were in declining enrollment, uh the enroll the
040revenue um is brought back up to it gives you an exemption for that 111. So uh it doesn't affect you quite as bad. The next year that exemption goes away. So it does have some long-term effects. Uh the revenue per member is uh two calculations. One is the revenue per member under [clears throat] the revenue limit. That's the $325 increase this year. That's a 2.8% increase from last year. And then the state also gives some categorical aid per student that's outside the revenue cap. That number remains the same at 742. So the two combined is about a 2.7% increase in our revenue cap and once again that's below the the CPI index which was 2.95%. So this is an ongoing trend where revenue uh increases do not keep up with the CPI and this has
041been something we've uh rallied and tried to advocate for is that you know can the revenue limit somehow be tied to CPI because every time we're below CPI it means we have to cut to do the same things we were doing the previous year. So, um, when we talk about levy increases, tax levy, it's not tied into our revenue, and we'll explain that later why that's the case. This is just showing the the three-year averages over the last two years. So, you can see we're in a slow decline uh of the three-year average, and that's pretty common throughout the state. I think when we look at comparables, we're probably doing better than a number of districts our size, but it's a trend statewide and it's just demographics uh with the number of kids coming into
042the K4 grades. So, we talk about general state aid and uh how that's determined and that's really a key factor is the property value per student is how is one of the key factors and how much state aid you're going to get. So, our equalized property value in our district went up uh 9.7%. Uh and that's slightly ahead of the statewide average 8.1% but our general state aid went down uh 2.8%. 8% and that's a significant amount. It's $2.6 million we lost in general state aid from last year. So that is an incredible shift of the tax burden from the state to our local property tax owners. Um so we're going to bring that that theme and point that out again as we go through the presentation. But uh in past state budgets, there's always
043been an increase in general state aid to offset uh property tax increases and and this year there there was no extra dollars put into state aid. So all these increases are now shifted to the local property tax owners. >> Mark, yes, >> the 325 is that paid by local property tax? >> Yes. >> It's not paid from the state. >> Well, it's a combination. So when we say we're increasing 325, uh 75% of that comes from state aid because we're 75% funded of state aid and 25% comes from property tax increase and 71% of the districts in the state saw a decrease in state aid. So, we're not alone there, but because we have a high amount of state aid in our district, it it uh does affect us quite a bit more. So, here
044you can just see the history of our property value trend. Uh, as we all know, property values have been going up quite a bit um statewide. Um it's looks like it's slowing down a little bit the last few years, but still 9.7% is historically very high for uh property tax. Uh valuations of property going up does not uh really help the tax base. Uh but new construction will uh help the tax base because that levy is spread out then to new new construction too. So, uh, but the bulk of this increase is just property values rising. Home owners home prices have gone up. Um, so our property value per student is below the state average. Um, so that means we are funded more through general state aid than we are property tax. So for this
045year, um, when we talk about the revenue cap and the money we get from the two sources, 75% of our funding comes from state aid and 25% comes from property tax through the tax levy. You can see that's a considerable change from last year where we were 79% state aid and 21% from local tax levy. So, it's a 4% shift basically from the state paying for the funding over to local taxpayers paying for that funding. Um, so changes in state aid up or down do not change our budget. Okay. So, it's important to understand the concept of uh revenue cap. So, we talked about revenue cap. You can see our total revenue cap there is 120,000 120,87,000. So that's the total we get from property tax and state aid. So the first number we always
046plug in to figure out tax levies. How much state aid are we getting? And you can see that's the 75% we're getting 90.6 million in state aid. And then we fill up to the revenue cap with property tax. So, the more state aid, the less property tax. Um, but no matter if that money is coming from state aid or local property tax, the the revenue cap is a constant for us. That's not going to go up or down. Some years when we get an increase in state aid, people think we get more money. That's not the case. It just goes towards tax relief. And this year, when state aid went down, doesn't mean we get less money. It just is shifting that funding over to the local property tax owners. So when we talk about
047our tax levy uh that we'll look at today, um I do separate out that we we not only levy for our uh spoken area school district budget, but we also levy for the private school voucher program. Um, so I always separate those out because I think it's important to know that that is part of the levy that you're passing uh tonight. Um, so for this year we have a uh 4,376,000 increase in the levy for SASD and a $712,68 increase for the levy for our the voucher program. So you can see combined it's over a $5 million increase. So the increase is larger than we've experienced for a long time and it's again it's because of this uh shift at the state level from state aid over to local property tax. Uh the equalized mill
048rate was $5.44 last year. It's going up to $5.70 per thousand property value. Um, I looked today just at other county districts um to see who had already passed their levies. There were a number that did. There were two that are still out there, but um as we advertised during the referendum when we went out and advertised that we had the lowest mill rate in the county, that will probably still be the case. So, even with uh the larger increase in levy for us this year, um we'll still have uh the lowest or one of the lowest bill rates in the county. >> Just to clarify, >> yes. >> Um the 7.2 million that is given to the private schools, um there is no transparency of where that money goes to like where we have
049to do for line item for light item. Correct. in on the tax bill. Are you talking about? >> Correct. Yeah. So, um we've advocated for uh that to be changed to have two separate lines on the tax bill so taxpayers can see where the money is going. Um we don't know if that'll be the case for this year, but uh certainly in the past it's always been one one levy amount. They don't see the separation there. And that's why I like to show it in the board report here just so people understand that it is it is coming out of that same tax levy and it's significant that's you know that 712,000 is like 18% of our levy. So I think that's going to be important to keep in mind when we look at the
050third Friday report as well as to where students are. Uh sometimes you'll you'll hear the kind of that pro voucher side say, well, if we didn't do vouchers, all those kids would come back into the schools and you'd be paying for them anyhow. That's not the case. Um those the vast majority of voucher students uh when the program started were already in those schools. Um there would be no reason to imagine that they'd all come back when they were never here in the first place. So the state decided that they wanted to take on the additional cost of those students that were already in the voucher schools. That's I don't need to go political there. They can do that if they want to and we can discuss that at a different level. But like you
051say, the transparency through the taxes and having it flow through our schools makes no sense and is not the transparency that we hear strive for so often. >> Who makes the determination on those two line items on the bill? Is that per entity? That's through the city. That's through the county. The state mandate. >> I think it's the city that there have been some cities in the state that have separated it out, but I think it would take, if I'm right, Jake council would have to have to vote. Correct. >> We should also note that county prints the tax bills. They're responsible for the amount that they're responsible for how that tax bill looks. And so it is it it is even more complicated. The city of Green Bay, as I understand it, has in
052fact on its next tax bill has a separate line item for for school vouchers. But it's going to be a more and and there is some move of foot to try to do this in Shuen County, but it's going to be probably a little bit more complicated. Um, but you know, I think that's still that's still in the in the mix. So, it's it's just a measure of transparency so the taxpayers really know, you know, just exactly what it is they're paying for. My question was, is this still a big surprise? >> I mean, I thought we had like a really positive outcome in the budget process and did we just miss that or did I miss that? >> Yeah, there were two things that hurt us in the budget that we didn't expect. One
053was um the increase in open enrollment tuition. So we we count a resident that goes to another district. We get to count them and we get that revenue limit for them, but then we have to pass on uh a percentage of that money, large portion of that to the district that they went to. That that tuition amount usually increases pretty similar to the the per pupil revenue amount, which was 325. That's what we were anticipating. They raised that $1,000 [clears throat] this year which was extremely significant. They've never done that before. Um that hurts urban it hurt urban districts throughout the state. So um and then the state aid amount we knew that there was no increase but with the same pot of money. There's some districts because of spending they did if if you're
054a low uh valued district and we are low but there's there's ones that are much lower than us. Uh the more money they spend the more state aid they get get the next year. So some big districts had uh referend operational referendums and their spending went way up. So their aid uh increased at the cost of some other districts 71% you know in the state. So it's it's uh it's a difficult formula to understand but uh basically we didn't spend enough money compared to what other districts were. So we didn't expect that big of a loss in general state doesn't affect the budget but it affects the tax levy. Um here you can see a history of our our levy history and you can see throughout uh the levies really been controlled well by the
055district. It's gone up very little or decreased o over the the last 10 years but that 14.98% is an outlier certainly because of of of that no increase to state aid. So, I did calculate if if we did not uh if we would have got the same state aid as last year, so 2.6 more in state aid to put us where we were last year and we didn't have the additional $700,000 additional uh voucher, our uh tax rate would have gone up 5.2%. So, that's the difference. It's almost a 10% difference because of those two factors. Just just understand no state aid increase and notches. It's those two things that really caught us here. Um those are conscious decisions in the state budget, especially the no state aid. And and we'll you'll hear from us
056throughout the night, but what's really hard is to see these numbers and to see that shift when the state is touting a 4 billion plus surplus. Um, so their coffers are full. Instead of giving that back to the taxpayers through state aid, they decided not to do that for the first time since the great recession, leaving all the local school districts to have to pick up that slack and make tough decisions. And and Mark can explain, there was no levers for us to pull in this budget. uh the only thing you can do is defend your fund balance and put your district in a in a bad position by spending uh fund downs to buy down a tax increase for one year and then next year you're you're right back where you were. So um
057not a lot of options here. You'll see a school like Manitwalk, they were out for operational referendum, I think three million. They ended up saying, "Oh, we're only going to take a million and buy it down." So, you know, they had a little bit of a lever to play with there. We don't go out for operational referendum. So, not only do we not have that money, we don't get aided on that extra spending, right? Uh you see schools like MPS, which great for them that they passed the referendum, but they got an extra 100 million in state 800 million plus out of a pot that didn't get any bigger. Um so, we're finding ourselves in a in a difficult position here. This slide, uh to speak bluntly, makes me sit to my stomach. But it's
058it's where we are and it's not it's not ending in a place where we have more revenue to spend on our kids. We're still trailing inflation. Uh so even with these increases, we're still trailing inflation. That's really hard to stomach. One other thing I want to note on this slide is that uh with the larger tax increase uh you may hear from people that you know you went out for referendum you said this you know minimal tax increase and now is a big tax increase. So um it's just important to understand the tax increase did not come from referendum debt. As you can see in that debt service column, our debt service uh levy actually went down from last year. So, as you hear that uh out there, um it's just a good talking point
059that this was not related to referendum. And we can show that by what the debt service levy uh is compared to last year. >> This Yes. Um, so Mark, I'm looking at the private school voucher like in looking at that column. So in 2016 it went from 445,000 nine years later to 7,285. Is it a how big of an increase in the number of students taking the vouchers is that? >> Yeah, it's yeartoyear the the voucher increases have far outpaced enrollment. And we'll show specifically what happened this year. And it's pretty typical every year. It's pretty much the same. Um the voucher uh school enrollments have not gone up in our area, >> but the number of voucher students have gone up. >> So the same amount of students are at the schools, but more
060of them are taking the voucher or claiming the voucher. >> So >> and the amount they're getting per student is going >> had to with that kind of jump. It's >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> Do you have questions? >> Yeah. And this is across high school, middle school, and elementary, right? It's just not high school, >> right? So, this next slide kind of shows uh what Heidi was talking about. So, you look back to 1718, the voucher levy for us was about $800,000. Um, and as our our levy was, you know, mostly going down, right? It went from 35 in 17. It's went way down to 27 back up to 31, but still 3 million lower than what it was just in 2020. And in that same time, you can see the increases, annual increases
061to the voucher program. It's just exploded um with not an explosion of of kids in these schools. It's just an explosion in the voucher um that are given out in the dollar amount of the voucher. So, uh, amazing. It's 800,000 now up to 7.2 million. So, it's it's been very significant. Use that tax levy trend. Um, you can see we're right about where [clears throat] we were 10 years ago. Um, but the levy is just kind of an inverse graph of what the state gives out in state aid. So, there's not a lot districts can do with that. This just illustrates revenue limit increases. Uh, and then where that money is coming from. So, our levy there in blue, you know, going from 24 to 29.5. Um, you know, the the increase is only 2.7%
062though on the revenue limit. So, it's a very small revenue limit increase. Um, but it's just a matter of where how much aid and where is that money coming from. And you can see we just um you know state aid that on this graph includes some other things. We get some um property value aid from industry and stuff like that too. And there's not just general state aid but um but the revenue limits been a really slow. You can see some of those years 3.8 eight. And those are all years with, you know, pretty good inflation numbers behind them. And then a couple years ago when inflation was eight, you know, and we're getting a 1.9%, those were some pretty tough years to try to uh balance those budgets. Our mill rate uh with the
063property values going up uh continues to go down. This year it bumped up a little bit, but you can see again historically it's it's at a very low point and more importantly it's uh like I said I it was the lowest in the county with two schools yet to report for this year. Uh right now we're sitting still as the lowest uh in the county. So uh so that's a positive for homeowners in our district. And I just like to talk about all the different funds and how those um funds are funded either through levy or they're self- sustaining. Um you can see our total budget 193 million this year. Um and then uh the next boxes down are all the different funds within our budget. So the general and special education fund uh that's
064where the bulk of our levy goes to support that fund. uh special projects funds, that's simply donated monies to the schools. We keep that in a separate fund. Um there's no levy associated with that. Uh debt service, uh that's to pay interest and principal on our debts and uh we do levy for that. Uh capital projects funds um that includes uh fund 41 which uh Joe uses to fix roofs, tuck pointing, things like that. Uh but it also includes now the money we have uh from the first borrow of the referendum. So um that levy um is just the capital fund. So we don't we didn't have to levy for the referendum money. That was debt service that comes through debt service. So um and there's a $23 million budget in capital projects funds. We
065know that we only give Joe like 1.5 million. So the rest of that is all money that we expect to spend on the two middle school projects this next fiscal year. And then community service funds are both our community recreation and uh theater company. Uh we don't levy for the theater company, but we do levy for uh the recreation community services fund there. And then food service fund, that's a separate fund that's self-sufficient, no no tax levy for that fund. Uh this just shows what we're spending our money for and what we're spending it on. So uh the pi on the left there, the expense expenses by uh function. So that just mean uh you know what are we what are we spending it for? And you can see that a bulk of the expenditures
066are for instruction. And the way DPI defines that function is inclassroom instruction. So that's teachers in the classrooms, textbooks we buy in the classrooms. Um other things like guidance, uh psychology, social workers, library media, uh principles, administrators, that all falls under support. And then non-program transactions, that's like I mentioned that money that goes out to other schools for open enrollment. It goes money is paid out to our non-instrumentality charter schools. Those are all under nonprogram transactions and uh the money we give back for the voucher program. So we levy for it, we get it and we give it back. So that's all part of that uh nonprogram. And then expense budget by object is like not what we're spending it for, but what are we spending it on? And typical of school districts. Uh the
067bulk of the money is going towards salaries and benefits for teachers and other support employees. Uh spend 21% on purchase services. Um so that is uh could be uh mechanical contractors, things like that that we have service contracts with. A lot of it is uh software programs that we're paying for. Um and then actually we spend very little 4% on things supplies and equipment. It's just not a big huge part of our budget. And 1% other that's mostly um liability property insurance cost. Mark, real quick, did the um the increase in special education reimbursement, are we seeing that primarily in fund 27 as an increase or is that kind of spread out throughout all the different categories that are impacted? >> Yeah, so um it it it helped the budget because you know we about
06814 million about 14 million short when we balance [clears throat] our fund 27 fund. meaning uh if you if you take away IDA and some of the other grants we have, we pay for 14 million of for special education cost through fund 27 and then fund 10 um has to fill that in. So the amount we fill in, we get reimbursed at a rate for that from the state. And that has been hovering around 30% for a long time. And as special ed costs continue to increase every year, districts fell further and further behind and had to plug a much bigger hole. So getting 10% more reimbursement uh does help. We advocated in all districts, I think, very heavily to increase that amount. it was uh quite a bit less than what we had anticipated.
069So it helped uh but there still needs to be a lot done there. Uh but basically it just helped our revenue overall for the the operational fund. Um so without that 10% you know it it would have been very difficult to balance the budget this year uh because like I said the revenue limit didn't keep up with inflation. Um unfortunately the second year of the banual budget that special ed increase ed increase increase will only go up 4%. So um compared to 10% it went up this year. So keep that in mind. Right. It took 10% to get to balance budget this year. Next year we get four. Another reason why under isn't an option. Um so it's just a few highlights out out of the budget. um that we worked through um and passed
070uh basically in June. But um you know we have done a good job of right sizing uh our employees. So as enrollment has slowly decreased we have uh made sure that we're we're uh making those adjustments with employee positions. Uh we had a reduction at [clears throat] 3.2 FTE teacher positions for this year due to enrollment. Um, you know, we're always fortunate. We're we haven't had to lay anybody off. We do that through attrition with number of retirements we get. We can usually uh find positions for those teachers elsewhere in the district. Um, and then we've had we had no medical insurance premium increase for 2026. So, this is a result of moving to that uh Nexus accomp platform that we talked about previous board meeting. So, our premium was going up 11%. Um, created
071a deficit because we had 9% in the budget and then I talked about we had this additional $1,000 to pay out for open enrollment. So, um, we had a pretty large deficit and this program uh has brought us down to a 0% premium increase and and balanced budget. Uh this is the same program that the city and the county use. And uh if you remember had about 15% uh disruption with um employees that were uh seeing what will now be tier 2 same deductible but a higher out-of- pocket cost potentially or maximum out-of- pocket cost for them potentially in a year. So uh we were very fortunate to get that big of a a decrease in health cost with a minimal effect on our employees. So that was a major part of this budget. Uh
072teacher group, administrator, support staff, all increases were equal to the 2.95% CPI. Uh we added $125,000 increase to the capital projects fund 41. uh we found out that we are falling behind on uh roof replacements mostly because of inflation the the cost of replacing those roofs I won't say it they went through the roof all right I said it but um so we just had to do something because we just can't fall behind on things like that it just not be good to keep up with the rough schedule that Joe has so uh that that'll help it a little bit for him for this next year. And then our total uh education fund budget increased 3.5%. So I talked about the increase for the uh per pupil went up, you know, less than 2.95. So
073you know, why is our budget increase 35? Well, part of that is the 10% additional special ed brought us up to a 3.5% increase. So that was a help. Uh they're going to state so special ed reimbursement up 10%. Next year it will be four. Revenue cap increase 2.7. Um and again you know the budget state budget included no increase to general state aid. So it really shifted the tax burden to local property tax owners. And they did this at a time like Jake mentioned when they ended the 2025 fiscal year with a 4.6 6 billion surplus. U so money that came from taxpayers but was not going back out to try to lower property taxes this year. Um just a couple things we're doing to control benefit cost. Uh we talked about the change
074in platform uh but basically we've done really well with our premium increases um over the last several years. We've been consistently 4% lower than medical inflation and I think a lot of that is due to the uh wellness program we have in the district district. Uh we have the inalth clinic that we share with the city and the county to control cost and that's really been a model program that um other districts are recognizing and trying to copy in in their districts too. Um so we've done a really good job containing those cost. Uh we've done a good job with OPED. We were one of the first districts in the state to completely fund our OPED obligations. uh debt service. So, we currently have four uh uh bonds. The schedules go out to 2044 and
075we have 108.3 million remaining on that debt. So, the state allows uh for debt up to 10% of the equalized value of the district. So, you can see our debt capacity there is uh 685 million. Uh thankfully we're only using 16% of that. Um you you don't want to get close to the debt capacity be be some uh type debt service you would have. So but this just shows you that we're we're uh very responsible with the debt that we do have. It's it's u when we do our Moody rating call that's one of the things they they look at how much how much debt do we have. So, and that Moody Moody rating of course went from AA2 to AA1 for this last borrow that we did. Um, and Moody attributed that to strong
076our strong financial position and budgeting practices. Uh, there's only 12 other districts in the state that are double A1 or better and a lot of those come from much more affluent uh communities than ours. So, that's um really good. And so, what does that mean? going from a two to a one. Well, V figured it out and on our first borrow, it says they figured that it reduced the taxpayer cost by $16 million over the life of the loan. So, that was a huge savings for our taxpayers. And um we just had our rating call for the next borrow, which you'll hear about in November as we uh continue. We have three more borrows we're going for the referendum. So, we're going to do one here in December and Baron will be here next board
077meeting to uh put a resolution forward for that borrow. And then a little bit more on the state uh private voucher program. So, um again 10% increase from last year. Um, and that levy amount, I think I mentioned it, it it makes up 18.7% of our levy is for the voucher program program because there's no state aid for the voucher program, right? Like our our levy is offset by state aid, but the voucher program, they don't state's not putting in extra dollars towards that. So last year, if we looked at the local private schools that participated in the voucher program, they had a total enrollment of,45 students. 717 of those or 51% of those students received a voucher. In 2526, those same schools, uh, their enrollment is down 14 students from last year, but they've
078added 40 more vouchers. So now 54% of their students are receiving vouchers. So it's not that students are in mass leaving public schools to go to voucher schools. It's kids that were there. Uh they're, you know, they're making the eligibility uh requirements. They're, you know, loosening those as as it goes on. there and then they're adding to the actual uh voucher amount too over the years. So, >> and you meet that eligibility one time is all. Uh once you meet it, they don't ask again. You get it for uh the rest of the time that you spend at that voucher school. If you hit it in 4K, maybe when u families are younger and haven't hit their stride as far as earnings or where of one parent may be a stay-at-home as a result of
079young kids year in for for Flynn. So, >> and to be clear, these 145 students are in these schools by parent or guardian choice. These are not students that our district has turned away. Yeah, we can't turn kids away. They can't, you know, and that's a that's another big difference, right? Especially when we're not getting when we ask for 60% uh special ed reimbursement and and we get considerably less than that. Um they're getting essentially $15,000 per uh special ed student. If it goes over $15,000, they're getting something like a 92% reimbursement. [clears throat] And they don't have to take those students if they don't want to. If a student less than $15,000 to educate. Uh maybe they need an hour of speech a week, they get the 15,000. Doesn't matter. Um if we played
080by that type of rule, uh we would be doing very well financially. Just as >> is there any conversation about auditing the the nuts and of the students that are receiving this? How many are getting reimbursed for what types of services at what? just the accountability, you know, load burden. >> I mean, I think we talk about that a lot. [clears throat] Again, I don't whether you believe in vouchers or not, that's not necessarily the conversation here. [clears throat] Uh or or to me, it's more of if you're going to compare the schools and the systems and have the dollars flow through our schools that that accountability should look similar, right? So the IEP process and you know we still played a role in that as well. U you know there's flow through funds for
081transportation and things of that nature. They're not having to take all students. They don't have to do open records requests. Um you know I just even the the teacher licensing thing that's going on right now with DPI which I do think is problematic but uh again where are the vouchers in that as far as transparency [clears throat] goes? um they don't have elected boards. It's just a very different system than what we have. Um and it's hard to understand what's going on when they don't have that type of uh accountability or transparency. We see students, right, that are part of the open enrollment program. There's a state software program that tracks that. It's called Opal. You know where the kids [clears throat] go. The kid leaves, you have to release them on your end. uh
082say Choan Falls takes them. So they accept them on their end. If they send them back, they come back. The money comes back immediately. We know what's going on with those kids um at all times. So the system's there. They could use that. They choose not to. That's the that's the stuff I think that we have a hard time with. Like it wouldn't even cost anything. The system's already there. Why don't we want to use it? Why don't we want transparency not happening? >> And for all intents and purposes, you could interchange the word voucher for scholarship. >> Yeah. I mean, however you want to to phrase it, I think scholarship [clears throat] vouchers, it's just flowth through dollars. It's just dollar for dollar and it's at 100% uh reimbursement from our almost 100% reimbursement
083from our local taxpayer. It's not a scholarship. That's just taxpayer dollars going to pay for that were never in public schools in the first place. And again, that's fine, but we have to say that. We have to say that we decided to pay for 18% of kids who were never in public schools in the first place to subsidize their their private education. And that money has to come from somewhere. Uh if we are having that conversation openly and honestly, I feel better about it. >> And then I have one last slide on the voucher program. So this is just again [clears throat] for a little perspective. So um the tax levy for our operations the 31.7 that's basically for the 9,111 kids were serving this year. So that equates to about we're leving $3,500 per
084student to the taxpayer. Uh the 7.2 2 million that we're leving for uh 618 private school voucher students that are charged to us. Uh so we're levying $11,790 for each one of those students. Um so that's why that that levy makes up such a [clears throat] large portion of our total levy. So, um, so again, just talking points. I think with the levy increase this year, uh, taxpayers haven't really seen that here for a long time. Um, so you know, just wanted to have some talking points that you can have with people if they, you know, I think the main thing is it [clears throat] was an intentional shift by the state budget to shift dollars from the state to property property owners. It wasn't anything districts did or didn't do. U, this was through
085the state budget. So, we're just kind of caught in the middle. I will say as I talk with colleagues around the state, but specifically uh locally, it's been very interesting, I think, to see districts that um would be considered very conservative districts have the same conversation that you're having uh tonight and say we're not going to take from kids because of what the state did to us in this budget. Um, and I've seen some superintendents and business managers come forward with plans to uh maybe play that game of of smoothing out the the tax increases and fund balance or whatnot. And conservative boards saying, "No, no, no. We're not doing that. Don't do that to kids." Um, move forward with the budget [clears throat] as as we should in the best interest of our district.
086So, um, one thing that we're working on within this county and and we'll see how comfortable boards feel with it, but it it was not our, um, our thought or our our idea. Uh but county superintendents coming together and saying let's put a communication out um to all of our parents, to all of our citizens, to all of our residents, explaining that the state budget had a decrease in in state aid and increase in vouchers. And as a group of school boards, we'd like to communicate that out in a very [clears throat] >> blessing in a very nonpartisan manner. Uh just the facts, just the numbers. So Mark and I and Heidi said at that meeting uh last week, I don't know if you have anything to add, but it was an interesting conversation. >>
087I really appreciated at that meeting that the districts are so different size-wise, um demographically, and to a person, people were saying this people need to know, our residents need to know that the burden has been shifted to property owners. And I just appreciated that there was just so much um agreement that we need to be transparent that we have the opportunity to be transparent with our property owners. >> All right. Is there any questions for Mark? [clears throat] >> Any further questions? All right. Thank you so much for your detailed report, Mark. It's always good to to have that um brought down to our low so that we can understand more better. So, thank you. >> Yeah. >> Next on the agenda is the community input for the budget. Is there anyone here who would
088like to speak on the budget? >> Community input on the budget. All right. The next item will be the adoption of the 2025 2026 original budget. and certification of tax levy. Um, I'm seeking a motion to approve the administration's recommendations to adopt the 2025 2020 2026 original budget in the amount of 193 million51,82.94 and certification of the pro property tax levy in the amount of 39,65,700. >> So, Second. >> All right. Any further discussion? All in favor say I. >> I. >> Motion carries. Thank you. >> All right. We will circle back now to North High School. >> Thank you for waiting so patiently. Um, are there any questions from the board for North? Somebody has to have >> you made them stay. You better wait. I'm so sorry. >> All right. Presentation very [laughter]
089very >> I mean you guys are very succinct and very on point and I really appreciate that. So thank you. >> I think while Nick's here I just want to say uh obviously a leadership transition. So, um, a lot of the data, a lot of the good things happening at North [clears throat] happened before Nick got there. So, [laughter] >> we don't give him any credit. >> We should have brought John Mache in just >> to give them a big hug. [laughter] We should zoom him in right now. >> He might be watching. >> But the other John, >> but the other three were in the building. Uh, so maybe they get some credit. And uh John did a great job at North. Uh Nick had [clears throat] big shoes to fill and uh there
090you see a lot of qualitative and quantitative uh evidence, but if you just go walk around North High School, you talk with staff, you talk with kids, they are having a heck of a year over there doing a lot of great things and transitions are hard. Uh so I give a lot of credit to the four individuals that are at this table because they've made that happen this year. It's been [clears throat] a great transition. They've supported Nick well and Nick's done a great job of throwing himself and pouring himself into North as well. So, we're really happy with what's going on. >> I'm very grateful for the team I have and uh they make me look good every day. So, thank you. Uh and it's just been very welcoming and it's been exciting. Most
091people ask me how you doing in high school. I was like, well, I did 20 years in middle school, so one year in high school was doing pretty good. >> [laughter] >> I must say too, we have full confidence in Nick's um ability to continue to work with this team and continue to see the level of success we've seen so far. Not only did NOR meet their goals, but they exceeded each of their goals. Thank you [clears throat] for all your work. >> Thank you. Go ahead. One thing that I noticed, well, I'm thinking back to when Kamiko came and was telling us all about the opportunities at North and then I sit here and look at the four of you and I see the youth, the optimism, the energy and it is no wonder
092that you have students that have that level of enthusiasm because you all do and it's paying off. The success is there. So, thank you all very much for what you do. >> Thank you. >> Thanks. >> Thank you. >> I'll just add that Well, I don't want to speak for Heidi, but uh we both have experienced the students part of the year youth apprenticeship um in our roles outside of the board and have had a really pleasant experience and think that that program is I love hearing about those different pathways. It's always hard when we look at the data and that workmilitary is actually also like job training and so many other things that don't just fit into, you [clears throat] know, going to go into manufacturing right away. Definitely going to military. Um and
093I'd love to to just know more about how you're bringing that to life as we move into that college career and community ready. But I I know it's there and I just I love to see more of it. I don't know. >> All right. Well, thank you North and thank you. >> Yeah. Thank you. >> Have a good day. Thank you. >> The next we have on the agenda is the 26 27 proposed year calendar. Um >> yeah. No, I'm talking to Rachel telling her she can just stay. [laughter] >> Calendar's there for your review. Rachel checks the minutes to make sure we're good from a DPI standpoint. Uh Jamie works with meet and confer to ensure the days make sense and uh work for our staff and and for our teachers in a way
094that best gets the needs of our kids. And we think we have a a good calendar here. The one thing um always will take this opportunity just to inform you of is the graduation. So as remember last year we had to make that change because the WIA calendar um shifted after COVID and and there were going to be conflicts. So if we would have had graduation on that Saturday, the North High girls soccer team ended up with a game. We had kids uh qualifying in track and other events as well. So we went back to that Sunday date for graduation. Um we looked again if there was any way to get that Saturday rain in and there just isn't. So we're sticking with the Sunday um for graduation with the ability to shift up and
095and down uh the times like we did last year. We always want to have it I know that's a big deal to families, but just no way to get a Saturday or anything in there. So, [clears throat] >> all right. Thank you, Dr. Conrad. Any questions on that? >> All right, moving along. >> Oh, sorry. >> I'm sorry. I thought it just said information. Thank you. I'm seeking a motion to approve the 2026 2027 proposed school year calendar. Um >> so move >> second. >> All in favor say I. >> Motion carries. >> All right. Next we have the alternative graduation pathways. Rachel Adam >> and Josh. >> All right. So I'll let Adam and Josh just quickly introduce themselves. I want to share a little bit of information about this agenda item and then
096we'll open it up for any questions. >> Hi everyone, Adam Broton, uh, uh, coordinator of student instructional services, uh, working with the charter schools amongst a few other things in the district. Hello, Josh principal at Central High School. >> Okay, so last spring we provided an update. You may remember we had all of the high school principles here back in April and we shared an update around our graduation rate improvement plan work. We affectionately called that a grip work. Um and while we were proud of that increase in our graduation rate from 84.3% to 87.3% we knew that there was still work to do. Um so we've been engaging in that work around looking at additional graduation pathways for a very small percentage of students. is actually about um less than 1% of our overall
097graduating class that needed more options. So [clears throat] tonight, the memo that you see as part of your board packet is about doing what's right for that 1% of students um who we know are at serious risk for not graduating. Um we take the obligation really serious around making sure that each of our students has a pathway towards graduation here in the SASD. So over really that work started last year as part of our grit work and then we really focused in on Central High School looking at developing alternative pathways for that small percentage of students just to level the playing ground. We know that the options that are being [clears throat] presented as part of that board memo are that competency based option as well as that reduced credit option are our allowable under
098state law as well as board policy. So we wanted to make sure that you all were aware of that but also many of our peer districts are offering these options. So school districts like Braine, FondeLac, Oaklair and Walka already have similar models in place. Um, so we're providing this memo really as information for you all and as an update around that grip work. Josh has had an opportunity on October second, I believe, to take that to your governing board, have them um become aware of these pathways that we're we're offering and um to weigh in on that and they are in full support of us moving forward with this. So tonight we're really here to present this as information and answer any questions that you have. >> Keep in mind uh board policy for alternative
099programming states and and within charter schools as well that they have uh the right to do this. We have the right to do this. I have the right uh per policy um to create alternative graduation pathways. So we're not asking uh for approval. However, if you have reservations or something that you need us to look at, we are more than happy to do that. We certainly don't go ahead with things without general support. >> The other thing that I'll add is that we've been working closely with a DPI consultant that really um supports schools like Central High School around making sure that these pathways are embedded in their programming so that every student has a pathway towards graduation. So that has been um someone we've been working with to gather information about are we making
100sure that this is rigorous for the students that need this? Are we creating the pathways um intentionally? Do we have the right requirements on the front end [clears throat] and just making sure that we have a system to um make sure this is the appropriate option for students. So that has been really helpful. Um, and also her just weighing in on what state law requires, what other districts are doing. >> A question. I would imagine that student population you're talking about here does have some overlap with truency. >> Yeah. >> Is there any issues that you have in doing this and setting things up in in staying compliant with outside of education rules that [clears throat] to that effect whether there's county or state or other things regarding truency or is that all baked in?
101>> Yeah, I would say that it's baked baked in, right? Because when we are dealing with students that are chronically truent, right? Um typically they've went through all those steps, right? like we went through the step of informing the parents, engaging them in developing um a student attendance improvement plan. If there was any court process or any um you know municipal process or even ticketing, which we rarely do, but if that happened, that would happen, right? And it doesn't mean that we still don't have this obligation to educate the student and engage the student. So, I'm saying that it it would if if it's necessary that would happen, but we're still going to make sure that we're providing that education for them. >> And not to identify anybody, but in general, are some of these
102people going to be 18 anyway? >> Um, eventually, yeah, we're talking about senior level kids. This [laughter] is really really at that point. Um, I would say in my two years working with alternative education with with Central High, I've learned a lot. I've learned what's you know, some of the things that we have been doing in the D from other schools. Um, one of the things that I've also learned is that sometimes kids need a light at the end of the tunnel. >> They can do the basic math and these are kids that are at risk of dropping out and when they don't see it any sort of light at the end, more likely that they're just going to fade away and we're going to lose them. Um, likelihood of them coming back, we certainly
103can for a fifth or sixth year is pretty slim. Um, and so if we can give them a carrot and give them some some, you know, focus on career readiness or some sort of pathway that'll be rigorous but yet give them some steps to to show that they can get to the finish line. I think we can keep them engaged. >> And I'll just kind [laughter] of piggy back to your question around that chuency piece of things, right? In many ways, this is an opportunity to re-engage some students that have tapped out because they felt like it's just not an option anymore. >> Yeah, it's a good that's a good question and we run into this just in a lot of our different programming where we'll do a modified schedule for a kid because essentially
104that's not at school then, right? Uh and there are laws and problems with that. So, we work through that. That's that's perfectly legal when done correctly. Um you know, virtual options for kids, etc. So, that's all there, but we're cognizant of that. And and we work through those those situations. That's a good question. Thank you. >> Oh, that's it. I thought you thought you want to say something. I'm sorry. All right. Is there any further questions? >> Thank you. >> Thanks. >> Next, we have the third Friday enrollment report. Rachel, All right. Um, so it's that time of year to provide the third Friday enrollment report. So tonight, what I'll do is share an update for the 2025 2026 school year. This report will give a snapshot and that's really what it is. this point
105in time around our enrollment um and who's in our schools as well as how that has shifted over time. So with that, just a reminder that we are looking to count all students attending our school district on Friday, September the 19th of this school year or students who who have attended um before or after that date, so by Monday. So that is really what we're going to be presenting tonight. So for this slide, this slide is really showing our enrollment trend over the past five years. So zeroing in on 2025 to 2024, you can see that our enrollment was 9,323 students for this year is 9,111 students. So that's a decline of 212 students for this year based on third Friday. And that 212 is made up of 67 students being down at the elementary
106level, 70 students being down at the middle school level, and 75 students being down at the high school level. And you can kind of see the trend in that graph graph as well. Moving ahead, um what we do here is we take a look at our county schools just to see what the percentage changes over a course of five years. A few takeaways related to this. We heard earlier with Mark's report that we're seeing a trend statewide in declining enrollment as well as in our county schools. So nearly 80% of the county schools experience some type of decline. So eight out of the 10 that are listed on this table and the larger declines are in Random Lake and Manito. And then you're seeing only two school schools show growth and that would be Elkcart
107Lake and Coler. Um and we're in the middle of the pack at 3.5%. So we're not seeing as much decline as some of the school districts in our county. Um we're about at that midpoint there. >> This is last year data, right? We don't have their 25 26 yet. >> That's a good point. And we'll bring that next year. So we're typically working a year behind here. Same thing for looking at um large school districts in the state of Wisconsin. So we have 13 school districts listed here including our own school districts and all of the school districts are showing a decline in enrollment over the past five years except for one and that's some prairie um right outside of ma the Madison area. So you're seeing when we compare our decline of being down
1083.5% over that fiveyear period, you can compare that to school districts like Green Bay at 4.1, Appleton at 4.8 and then Waka Shaw seeing a much larger decrease at 11.5 and then Racing at 2.9. So what we're seeing in that countywide data as well as a large district data is that this trend is mirroring the statewide population and birth rate declines. Let's talk about that a little bit. Um, so what this table shows is just our county population from the 2010 census and the 2020 census is showing our number of students under the age of five and our number of students under the age of 18. So essentially what we're seeing is that decrease of our under five and under 18 um population. And this is the same slide as last year, right? because we
109haven't had a new census. But it's just highlighting that a point again that we're seeing that decline within our county for school age students. All right. And then this table is just a breakdown of all our schools and then grade levels. Just up and down. You can see the number of students at each school by grade level. And then you see the totals off to the far right. So we had a total of 9,10011 students enrolled in the district. That's basically students in the seats when we did that third Friday count. And this is simply a comparison from last [clears throat] year to this year. And in that far bottom right hand hand corner, you can see the overall decrease of 212 students. Looking at our elementary schools, this is where we're down that net
110of 67 students. Where are we seeing the decline? We're seeing um 27 students down at the ELC. We're seeing the next largest decline would be at Grant with 18 students down and then Cooper with 17. Just highlighting a few. And then as far as increases, we've seen some of some of our schools with increases. We've seen Lake Country increase by 24 students, Wilson and Longfellow by 11 students. Rachel, are you able to do you have the data that shows those decreases for Cooper and Grant? Are they choicing to other schools in the district or are we just down the number of students? >> Yeah, I would say that typically we're seeing movement within the district. Um, so what are the major contributing factors? It's a little bit of just overall we have fewer students, right,
111to enroll based on that decline, but then we're seeing some movement. We haven't done a deep dive on that yet. We've been working to try to just get this initial data review completed in in front of you. But that is something that we will continue to explore. >> Yeah, I I look at that, Denise. Essentially, the only the only numbers on here that I have any concerns with um are the 4K numbers, right? So, when we look up there and we see the ELC's down 27 kids, the full story there and we can put together a deep dive if if you guys want to see it at some point. But the full story is we're down 20 at the 27 at the ELC, but what you see at Lincoln Erdman or yeah, Lincoln Erdman, um,
112Cleveland, etc. places that have 4K as well is they were always full, right? And now they're not full. So now you have movement maybe out of Egarant to Cooper, uh, going there for 4K and then, um, staying there. So you're just you're starting to see different pockets of movement. It used to be that Lake Country Academy was had a a long long waiting list. That's not the case anymore, right? So um there just aren't kids. Um and and you'll see it when when Rachel gets to the open enrollment piece, too. Uh no one is filling up with open enrollment. Uh used to be that cool filled up, they got empty spots. Um so it's that's really what's happening is a lot of movement. Um, and a lot of choices opening up that maybe weren't there
113in the past. >> Does that mean that there are four or five years old, 5 year olds that could be going, but they're just not opting in into that? >> No, I they're opting in. We We used to see that, which was really fascinating always is we'd see a large jump um from 4K to 5K because kids just didn't go to 4K. We're not seeing that anymore at all. Mark and I used to I think we used to average in like 30 kids a year or something. Um that's not there at all anymore, but we're and you'll see it kind of as she goes along and and and does it by grade level, but we're just seeing movement within grade levels really early as families pick where they want to be and they have the
114option to Lincoln Irving used to be full, but you come choice in there for 4K. Now you can because there just aren't that many 4Kers around. Uh the same thing is true at SLA and LCA and um everywhere else. So, it's just birth rates are down. Uh we're watching that decline of about two two and a half% across the state. Again, Wisconsin policy form does really good stuff on this if you're looking to read about it. Um and we're replacing this is she'll show a separate slide as to what our total 4K is, but you're you look at what you're replacing in 4K with what you're graduating in 12th grade. And there's your problem. Yeah. So to Jake's point, like what are the major contributing factors? As he's already said, it's really about the small
115incoming class cohorts, right? And then the graduating class cohorts. So I'll just give a quick number. I went back and reviewed this third Friday reports over a number of years. um historically. So we used to see those graduating class cohorts of about 750 to 800 and then now we're seeing the incoming um ELC and kindergarten groups of about 550 to 600. So we're seeing some shift. All right, let's talk about middle school. Um so for middle school we're down um 70 students from the previous year and we saw some of those declines at 82 down 24 um students there and then as far as increases we've seen or horsemen increase in Lake Country slightly up for students and then our total enrollment at the middle school is 1900 for this third Friday in comparison to
1161970 last Do you anticipate as the new buildings are done that some of those numbers balance out in terms of capacity like physical capacity? >> Um so physical capac there's capacity at those schools. I think school choice um you're going to be more apt not to choice the horse man which is a school choice winner right now. um especially urban uh students. I think you see a movement there. I think I think we'll see a change there for sure. >> Thank you. >> You could potentially draw in some additional families through open enrollment too with the new facility and um some enhancements in the program in that we'll be talking about at some point next year with you all around our middle school. So that's always possible too. All right. So, for high school, we're
117down from last year's 75 students. And where are we seeing the shift? We're seeing um South at at South High School and Central High School mostly. And then we saw North go up eight students. So, a slight increase, but an increase. And then when it comes to ethnicity, we're just continuing to see our our our district be and maintain its diversity with our students of color representing 56% of the total enrollment. So you can see those numbers there over the past five years and then the breakdown based on ethnicity over to the right in that pie. All right. And then economically disadvantaged. We have these numbers here. You can see that it's a slight increase from last year with it being um 2 percentage points shifting from 63 64.3 excuse me to 64.5% for economically
118disadvantaged. >> When was the determination changed? Like the formula for what counts as economically disadvantaged? Wasn't that updated in the last four years? >> Yeah, that is a good point. So, um, prior to this, we were using in our slides a free and reduced number. Economically, disadvantage is more holistic and that it's taking into account free and reduced is also taking into account um, families that are identified using alternate mechanisms and this is the percentage that you see on the school report card. So, we wanted to make sure that this was more reflective of that. So, I just want to point that out because it's a little bit of a shift from last year, but we do have a historical data. Okay. Um, total open enrollment. This is open enrollment in. So, you can see
119the public school districts that our students are coming from. You can see it by grade level and then total. So for open enrollment in, we have 256 students coming in from other districts. And then this is open enrollment out. Same breakdown of the table. Where are the students going to? What are the grade levels? And then what is the total out? Um and that would be 648 students out based on this year's third Friday. The good news here is when we're looking at our net new open enrollment, you can see that we have 45 students net um going out. So that is about half of what it was last year, indicating that students are, you know, opting to stay in our district. >> Yeah, that that that's a an interesting number. Uh to only be
120down 45 was surprising. Um to me, especially with a couple districts in the area really [clears throat] opening up a number of slots. I think it opened up like 180 slots or something. Um it didn't fill them all, but um obviously really interesting to see how that played out. I think we were net positive this year with Falls, Plymouth, Howard's Grove. >> Yes. Um and then kind of that negative with um CER and Goober. So you don't usually see that one. Again, when I talk with kind of the large district caucus and what they see in their districts from open enrollment trends, they're losing to all the surrounding districts. Um so it's nice to see that we're we're attracting at a higher level than we're losing from some districts in the area. We obviously like
121that to be all districts. We have to do there. But I think we have a pretty compelling story and pretty compelling options in schools for for parents to choose from. See where that plays out, especially at the high school level. We see even when we get the open enrollment forms and you talk with parents, elementary, middle is a it's a difficult cell uh just because people like what's near their house, people like what's near their work um etc. about the high school. We really hear parents saying, "We want the larger high schools. We want the options. Uh we want all the different activities and clubs and things of that nature." And that's where I think our district really shines. >> Yes. So, moving ahead to open enrollment in history, you can see that um open
122enrollment in increased from 219 students last year to 256. So, that means that 37 more students are coming in. And as Jake just mentioned, we're seeing that lar largest largest growth from Shboen Falls and Howard's Grove. And then looking at open enrollment out history, um we see that it moved from 622 last year to 648 this year. And um most notable growth is Coler as Jake just mentioned. special education. Um, this is basically showing our county and it's showing the percentage of students with IEPs within the county based on the school district. You can see that we're at 18.2 up from 17.7. [clears throat] The statewide average um hovers between about 15 to 17%. And I'll just note that we have one of the highest percentages in our county as you can see. >> So
123keep Yeah, keep in mind here there's there's a few things with this one. One, um, our open enrollment gap continues to get larger and I've been in this district a while now. We used to take open enrollment, special ed kids through open enrollment. We had a lot of families that wanted to come to the SAS because we offer so many great services for special ed students compared to the surrounding districts. Uh when they started messing with the funding formula on on what that looked like and when special education staff became so difficult um to procure, we pulled back on that and uh we we now hit our special education caps every single year. So we're not taking um special education kids generally through open enrollment. So that hurts us in our net numbers. Um what
124you're seeing here as well, you'll hear WBO talk about it. When voucher schools and other districts aren't taking special ed kids as well through school choice, you're going to see these numbers rise. So DPI may say you're disproportional if you're above 15%. That means very little to me because if we just think about the Longfellow neighborhood and Longfellow Elementary School, we have no idea how many kids in that attendant are in that attendance boundary, right? So the they could be at 20% special ed at Longfellow. Uh but there could be 200 Longfellow kids in voucher schools, school choicing, and at different schools in our district that aren't special ed. So maybe they're, you know, maybe it is 15% of their population. Uh, so these numbers get really weird really fast. And WBO's done a nice
125job of kind of pointing out that as a result of declining enrollment, open enrollment voucher schools, you're going to see these special ed numbers rise in in public, especially urban districts. >> Thank you, J. All right. Um, and then this is non public enrollment. So, voucher schools, as we've been talking about, you can see that it is 1,358 students this year, down four students from last year. But overall, um, our private school enrollment has remained stable and you don't see any migration shifts away from the public schools here in the SASD to the private schools. But what you do see if you kind of look at the numbers over time is you see migration within the non-public schools. So um for example looking at Lutheran High you see that that's declining over the five years
126but then Shabboan Christian is increasing over the five years. So that was the one um observation we had there and that is the third Friday report for this year. Thank you, Rachel. Are there any questions further questions? >> I just wonder about how we're tracking like are we able to track as Denise mentioned within district transfers, out of district transfers, but then how many kind of unknowns or just off the grid um if you will transfers we are seeing and if that's >> Yeah, that's a really good question. Um, I think what we saw this year was, um, when when Rachel first brought these numbers to me, we didn't think we were going to be down more than 150 kids, >> right? Based on what we were seeing the first couple days of school, by
127the time Third Friday hit, we were down 200 some kids. Uh, and we don't know where some of those kids are. And when they just stop coming, uh, the state says we're still responsible until they register somewhere else. But if they don't, you know, if they're gone and we do home visits and and all those things, we go knock on doors. If they're if they're not around, there isn't much we can we can do about it obviously. Um, but that concerns us. It's not good for kids. >> Thank you. Any other questions? All right. Thank you, Rachel. Thank you, Dr. Conrad. >> Thanks, Rachel. >> Thank you. >> So, next we have the second readings. Um, is there any objections to take items E, F, and G together? >> Objection. >> All right. I'm seeking
128a motion to approve the second reading of revised board of education policy numbers 1100, the district organization. Um 1241 nonremployment of the district administrator and policy number 5335 cure student with chronic health conditions. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> Any discussion? All in favor say I. >> I. >> Motion carries. >> Next we have the report out of the committees curriculum and instruction from Allie. I'd like to take items one and two together. Um, both field trips, one to Guatemala, one to Luxembourg. And I'd like to move to approve both field trips. >> Second. >> Any discussion? All in favor say I. >> I. Motion carries. >> Item three is for information. We have an excellent report of summer school participation um offerings and outcomes from Miss Forester. That is in your packet
129for information. And for item four, I'd like to move to approve the new science courses at South forensic science microbiology and a science intern course as recommended by administration and the committee. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> Any discussion? All in favor say I. >> I. >> Motion carries. Thank you. Next, we have the human resources committee. I'm Leah. >> Thank you. I would like to group together um item number one, which is appointments and item number three which is retirements and I would move approval of both those >> second discussion. All in favor say I. >> I motion carries >> and then number two is separations and that is for your information in your traffic. >> Thank you. Uh next we have facilities recreation theater committee Peter. All of the items in
130the recreation theater committee are for information. Very informative committee meeting about the insert and success of getting effective programs out there and they're being attended and uh because I'm waiting for the audit to financial. Nothing to >> Thank you, sir. >> Next, we have the finance and budget committee. Um, madam vice president, >> thank you. Um, you'll see that number one through number five are all for information only and that is mostly due to audit process that they are still in. Um, number six, the introduction to the first reading, we are not moving forward with tonight because there were some seeming contradictions in the way that policy was written. So Jenny has asked for uh Niola for um clarity. So that'll go back to the committee next month. Um number seven, um I would like
131to move to accept our gifts. >> Second. >> Any discussion? All in favor say I. >> I. Motion carries. >> Before I move on, I added them all up. This time it was $62,000 from these 22 donors. And um I just want to acknowledge the beautiful generosity of our community for public education. >> You're here. >> Yes. Yes. Thank you. >> Um next we have the committee of the whole >> um for information. Um yeah information purposes. Thank you. >> Thank you. Next we have the special board committees and assignments legislative round table. Dr. continued discussion right along the state budget what this meant uh for taxpayers and um I think probably the best question asked uh at breakfast was you know we're obviously going to direct taxpayers who are upset about this back to
132their legislators and what is your planned response and um what we heard from our legislators is we know the system broken, but we don't know what to do about it. Um, so that was kind of the the response there. Uh, Joe and Lindy are rookies, so they to some extent. Um, I think that's true. I think they're locked into something that they weren't they weren't part of, they didn't vote for. Um, but it's where they find themselves. So, um, I would say good conversations with both of those individuals. Um, let me he was not there but good conversation [clears throat] just not a lot of answers I think everyone's just kind of looking around the table like how did this happen and that's frustrating again frustrating for taxpayers >> yes thank you Dr. Conrad next
133we have the public education foundation >> is on their fall uh campaign of education um with counselors, seniors both at North and South um talking about scholarships and deadlines and the new digital process. Um they are gearing up for their all-in for education fundraiser uh which takes place in the next few weeks. And um the fall teacher, just a note, uh particularly the fall teacher grant deadline is um is Friday, November 1st, which is not true. That is a Saturday. So, [laughter] Friday, October 31st, I would assume is what they will expect, um, as I'm looking at these notes. So, um, lots of good things and getting information out for new streamlined processes for students and their, um, seniors and their scholarship process. >> Thank you. >> Next on the agenda is the future meeting
134dates of November 11th and November 25th. Next, I'm seeking a motion to close to adj session per Wisconsin statute state statute section 19 um 35 section 1 section C to discuss the annual performance evaluation of the superintendent in accordance with policy 1240. >> Second. >> All right. Roll call. I >> I thank you. [snorts] >> Thank you guys. >> No, that's okay. Right. [laughter] >> I offered my open bag of [laughter] my lips so lipstick, but I can't find my phone. So >> everything >> um yeah I have to shut this and make the exit