School Board Meeting 4 16 25

001We'll call the meeting to order. Please rise. The flag for the pledge of allegiance. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. Um the school board will convene to open session tonight to take um consider employment promotion compensation or performance evaluation of any public employee which the governmental body has jurisdiction exercises responsibility under Wisconsin statutes 19.85 51 for NC. We consider bus maintenance, a high school, assistant varsity baseball coach, and personnel. Um, we didn't have anyone, we didn't have any guests signed to speak tonight. So, we'll move to the consent agenda as to um on the consent agenda. I just had one question on the donations from the Northern Door Rotary Club. Um, is

002this the woman that does the outdoor sessions? Okay. She's an employee. All right. Thank you. A motion. Second. Questions or discussion? All in favor say I. I opposed. Motion carried. This is a camera northern royal club $5,000 for the people lab to cover the outdoor educational programs presented by the region sanctuary and $1,300 in football equipment from Michael Laxon to the high school football team. Um we will move then to reports and begin with MRA people services. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening everyone. Thank you for the opportunity to talk a little bit more about people services specifically special education and how we've started to dip our toes a little bit into artificial intelligence. So I have this presentation for you and thanks again for having core anchors in special education for the team that

003I work with in a minute that I'll introduce you to in the presentation is we fundamentally believe that every student can learn and fundamentally believe that they want to learn. We also believe that every student wants to be good. Every student wants to make great choices for themselves. We believe that all students deserve to feel a sense of belonging in any learning environment that they're in and most importantly that every student deserves to be educated with same aged peers in general education as much as possible. They're the core beliefs that help drive the uh special education team in delivering the programming that we do every day for the students of Sebast. Overview of the presentation. I want to introduce you quickly to the special education staff and the related services staff that do the work

004to work with our with our kids with um IEPs and 504 plans. I also want to do a brief explanation of the common disability um areas that exist here in Sebast. Talk a little bit about who we serve and the data along three years of the numbers of students that we serve. um dip a little bit into academic data, really looking at the forward exam and the dynamic learning maps in regards to state averages and where our students with disabilities um come into it. Look at a little bit of data there. briefly go over some interventions, supports and approaches and then finally want to end the presentation about how AI can help um students, it can help teachers deliver powerful instruction in less time. So we have more time to do these interventions um through

005um artificial intelligence. And I want to do a quick demonstration really just to show you how easy it is for our teachers to be able to do that. Um, so next, this is our special education staff. Many of you, many of you know these uh folks already, but I have to tell you what an honor and a privilege it is to work with these teachers. They're dedicated, they're persistent, and they blow me away every day with the connections that they make with kids, the success of their IEP goals, and also the communication and the collaboration that they do have with our families, which is key to a to a healthy partnership. Kinwama and uh is the teacher for early childhood, the second grade. That's kiddos as young as three years old up to second grade.

006Cali Asher works the bulk of the uh elementary school with our three and five uh third grade and fifth grade. We have two special education teachers in the middle school for six that support sixth to eighth grade students. That's Nikki Young and Jen Ganser. Again, two stu two teachers that support the high school, Chris Corvette and Steven. Liz Fehey supports our life skills classroom. Um, and our related services are led by Kelly Orm Reichen who does occupational therapy, Danielle Hansen who does speech and language, Holly Reich who does physical therapy, and Steve Warner who is our school psychologist. That is the special education team that um works with our students with diverse needs. Here are the most common disability um areas where our students fall under. I want to take a moment to really talk

007about what crosscategorical means. Cross-categorical means that every one of the teachers that I mentioned on their case loads have students with different disabilities. Those different disabilities require different interventions, different curriculum and different services for our related services. So in the past, just for reference, special education teachers had the option to specialize in one area. Okay, that's no longer the case. Every special education teacher is a cross categorical, which means they support every student in all these disability related areas that I'm about to go over briefly. I will not read this to you verbatim. Okay, we have students with specific learning specific learning disabilities. These are psychological processes where students have a hard time understanding language spoken or written which dramatically affects their ability to read, write and do mathematical calculations. Talk about kids now too

008who have dyslexia. This also falls under students who have dyslexia, disgraphia um and dcapia. So it it it's the spectrum there. So they would be students who are specified with a specific learning disability. Other health impairments really refers to a child's ability to stay alert, stay energetic, stay focused, stay engaged in the classroom. Okay, we have a lot of students who are qualified under the um OI we call or other health impairments. It could be a medical condition that they have as well. Students with an emotional behavior disability, they have significant challenges in being able to regulate their body. Okay. Sensory regulation and also behavior. Being able to stay in the classroom and have their body regulated to be able to learn. Two other areas I'll just mention briefly. We have significant developmental delays. There

009are little ones, right? There are kiddos from 3 to 9 years old, right? We don't quite know exactly what it is that they need specific help with because they're still young. They're still developing. So those students are qualified under significant developmental delay. They have delays in their cognition. They have delays in their motor. They have delays in their communication. They have a little bit going on maybe all over the place. So if they need time to figure out they need the right interventions in place um to to see exactly where the teachers can pinpoint um what they need. And then lastly I'll mention here are intellectual disability. These are significant limitations in cognition. These are our students who um have problems um you know learning in general with cognition but also with their adaptive skills,

010their daily skills, their life skills, the skills that they need every day to be successful. We also I neglected to put up in here but there's also educational autism. We don't diagnose autism, right? But we diagnose characteristics of autism within uh the school setting. So they're primarily the majority of the disability um areas that our teachers do serve. Related services, we have speech and language therapy and we have occupational therapy. Everything from articulation to expressive and receptive language. Occupational therapy comes in very very handy. These are kids with sensory cognitive challenges. um they help with um helping recovering and maintaining skills to be able to be in the school building. Lot of social thinking, lots of self-regulation. Our occupational therapist does a lot with the fine motor, the gross motor um for the kids to

011be able to be functional in the classroom. Physical therapy and our school psychologist Holly Ray is our physical therapist. She comes in twice a week. How how are kids safe in the school? They have to make sure that they're safe um moving around the schools in all aspects. That's definitely does a lot of work in FID too, working with the FID teachers and the kids in physical education class as well. And our school psychologist is here roughly about 20 days a year. Steve Warner has been really really instrumental in help delivering testing. He's done a lot with our behavioral um intervention plans, a lot with coaching our teachers and then being a really excellent liaison between the teachers and the parents of our most difficult um not difficult kids but one cases that are a

012little bit more complicated. He brings us expertise and we really learn from him every time that he is here as well. How many students do we serve? This is over the past um three years. Our student population with students with IEPs or 504 plans fluctuates between 13% of our population up to 15%. So over the past couple of years we don't have a lot of student we're not increasing the number of students with plans. The difference is right now is the students who are eligible who do meet criteria for specialized services their needs are more complex. They have more they need more. So it's not Sebastical is not qualifying more students. You know why? Because we do an excellent job with our RTI system. The interventions that the general education teachers put in place are

013effective. So, if a student gets to a point where an IEP is appropriate, right, they've gone through a very very comprehensive program to make sure that it is they've met criteria um to be able to um to have those services that they that they need. So, again, between 13 and 15%. You might want to ask the question, why does special education become more expensive every year, too? It's because the complexity sometimes of our student needs. They're more expensive. they need more. We've seen a lot of that. There's been a lot of growth in our student mental health needs. Okay. A lot of those students are qualifying sometimes under that OI category, right? So, there's more needs in the community. I mean, in our school, we address those. Sometimes that means there's rising costs. What is

014the final for? Um, it is a plan as well. It's not a special education plan. Um it's a it's a plan for a student who has got um different needs that don't require special education. So they don't need specially designed instruction, but they need teacher accommodation to be successful. A lot of times too, occupational therapy falls under a 504 plan and that's how students can get occupational therapy. It's a civil rights plan. So, how's the 15% for us compared with state average or is it county average? Is 15% kind of normal throughout the state or is that high opening or what? I don't know. I I don't have that data in front of me. Um I would say since I've been here, it's been consistently for us for us. Yes. I don't know how it

015compares to other school districts around the state. Some districts higher, some lower 15%. Some of the cost also growing because our program is changing, evolving, so they know more now and there's more things to do where that doesn't really factor into that a little bit. Yeah, thank you because you're going to lead into the next thing that I'm going to talk about. So, not only, you know, the pupil services special education responsible for academic goals, right? getting to proficiency, meeting IEP goals. There's a host of other programming that needs to happen for some of our for some of our kids. And I've got three slides of the additional things that special education teachers, you know, think about implement. It depends on a student's disability related need. In an IEP meeting, if it's decide if it's

016a disability related need, then there needs to be specific programming that addresses that. So it's the academics that we do, it's the researchbased curriculum, it's the researchbased interventions, it's the approaches that we have. The next couple of slides, I'll just briefly show you there's some other programmings and topics that our teachers need to make sure that we are delivering to students to become a well-rounded um and lifelong learner. So let's dive into the data a little bit. Okay. All right. Over on this side is the state. Okay. Over on this side is the basketball. We have a small cell size. So you're going to see not every dis every disability is over here. We don't have students with every disability over here. But just to explain differently again I want to say this is forward

017data from last year. Okay. Um if I come over here very quickly, the blue here is advanced. Okay. Purple here is meeting the expectations. Um, that's yellow. Yellow is approaching our expectations and uh, orange is developing. When I look at this right away, I don't want to see developing. I don't like seeing orange, right? Because we're not yet now approaching mastery up to any standards. So, if I take a look over here and I look first at students with a learning disability, that specific learning disability that I told you, the state average here, 58% of students with learning disabilities are developing. They're not close yet to meeting those standards. I come over here to Sebastapool for a learning disability and I see that we have 10% of our students who have not yet met approaching.

018It's a big difference. It's something to be proud of. Right. Do I like seeing orange? Absolutely no. Do we still have a way to go? Absolutely. And when you look at that, too, just to point out, we've got some work to do with our students who are approaching standards. We want our students down here where we're meeting standards. Okay. So through those specially designed instruction that we give them, through the alternate therapies, through the different interventions, we all kind of come together to make sure that we follow this data that I want to see more students in purple. So quickly going over to other health impairments. This is one that's grown over the years. Okay. state average for math 54% of our students in the state of Wisconsin are not they're in the developing range.

019They're not close to meeting our standards. I come over to Sebast 23.5% of our students are not there yet. What's an example of a future? I would say the easiest one might be a student with attention deficit disorder. Okay. So attention. All right. But we bring in a lot of some of those mental health diagnosises as well. And then we have students that have got other physical um health problems as well. So, yep. They have to Yeah. So, that's other health impairments. So, something is in their way to have the strength and vitality to get through a school day. Okay. Um I'd also like to point out our speech and language right here. Speech and language. You'll see for the state 17.9% of students aren't there yet. Sebastical does incredibly well. If you'll notice that

020all of our students are approaching, most of our students are meeting and some are achieving as well. So, um I just think that there is absolute room to grow with data. I appreciate looking at the data. We haven't dove into special education data. It's now part of the schoolwide plan and we continue to do this to see the trends to see what we can do better as a district to make sure kids needs get to the purple. Okay, next is going to be ELA. ELA is a lot the same here. I'll go over the same ones quickly. If I were to do learning disability 57.2 and you'll hear here we have no orange. So for ELA, we made some significant progress. Do we still have a lot of pro approaching? Yes, that's the opportunity. Okay,

021we need to get to meeting. I need to remind you these are the students with the most complex needs too, right? But I like to see that. That made me really uh for the students. Um OI is here again 57 sorry 51.7 and we're up here at 17.6. six. Okay. So, we still have some room that we are beating the state average um in these areas. Question. You said this is new data, but like over time, right? So, the percentages on in our school. Yep. You can actually put that to students names and then you can also track them through our school. So for instance, if an individual is staying wasn't approaching early on and it stays and approaching all the way through the school year and doesn't that would be a pledge, right? This

022data will allow you to dig into that. We just started as an admin team too is really diving into how to access Wise Dash and the data. I've played in a little bit. you know, uh there's a lot of room that we have as a district to be able to truly understand it and take advantage of the information that that gives us. But on my site, I can hover over and I can see exactly who those kids are. And it's just data, but it's more evaluating that. But it's data. It's also information to get teachers together, parents together, general ed, special ed, and say, "Hey, look at where we're at. What's the plan now? what are the IEP goals now that need to be specifically met in order for these children to continue to grow.

023So, um and then speech and language here again just a 18.7 is the state average in developing the skills. Sebast doesn't again have any students with speech and language. Okay, again really really proud of the 77.8. really really proud of the wraparound approach through speech and language and general education as well. I will bring more data in the future as I become more savvy. So how do they do it? Right? Here's all the host of programs that that the special education team do. Um there's different and again this is in addition to evidence-based curriculum, evidence-based interventions. um and strategies here. We differentiate instruction, we embed assisted technology, we do small group, we do one-on-one, we do inclusion support. Inclusion supports goes back to one of the core things that I said that every student deserves

024to be in the classroom with their same age peers, that's inclusion support. If we have a student who can be in the class and learn with their peers and their instruction is differentiated and they're supported by a special education associate or teacher in there. That's maximum. That's the maximum benefit. They're with their peers. That sense of belonging, that's what we strive for. But there's some cases where we can't do that yet. The skills aren't there yet. And that's the progression of onetoone group setting, small group to large group. So that is the path that our students are on. New explicit instruction, multi-ensory teaching, accommodate the classroom, a lot of behavioral supports. A lot of our students have behavioral intervention plans with known specific strategies that need to be implemented for them to be successful in

025the classroom, even for them to be successful to maintain the entire school day. Crisis management happens. This is a school happen, right? the team reacts and takes care of the students and the family. Collaboration, positive reinforcement, all of this, social skills training was huge. Um, and then the counseling learning too, vocational training, life skills training, executive functioning training. These are all in addition to the academic um instruction that's delivered every day. Going back again, a crosscategorical special education teacher needs to have an idea of all of these different types of interventions and supports and curriculum because they have a case with a variety of student needs. This is my last one. This mostly um is focused on our related services with speech and language and also with occupational therapy. So this focuses on those pieces.

026What's the success criteria? This is what we do. It's individualized support. Okay. We tailor IEPs. They are specific. They are detailed. They are backed with data. We have specific goals for students to be able to reach um proficiency. We accommodate. We have a coordinated approach. Our teachers work with general education. We work with parents. We work with outside service providers. We've got a related services personnel um on board as well. It truly is a collaborative approach to bring out the best in our kids. The work's complex. It's ongoing. It changes daily. This is public education. It always does. Uh we are proactive and we are reactive. So the question is how do you do all of that in the seven and a half hour school day? That's where I'd like to introduce a little bit

027of what AI has done for us. AI we're beginning our journey. We started this year with AI. We have a lot to learn on how to utilize it professionally, right? How to use it with integrity. how to use it where we're vetting what we're what we get from AI to make sure that it aligns with the state standards. Um, and it's been uh it's been a journey. So, I'd like to do a live demonstration of AI to show you how easy it is. There's two tools in particular that we use. One is Magic School and one and Magic School is for educators. Okay? And then there's Brisk, which is a Chrome um I don't want to say app application, a Chrome extension um in Chrome is called Brisk. So I'd like to demonstrate those really

028quickly for you. Okay. All right. So this here will be So the Magic School AI came from a company for education specific. Yes. So, you'll notice that check GPT doesn't come up. Some of the things our teachers use that. Okay. Oops. Oh, is this big enough? Make this big. Sorry, guys. Okay. So, this is Magic School. Okay. And you'll see as I scroll pretty slowly down all of the features that are here. I'm going to highlight two for you tonight. The ones that I'm going to highlight is academic content and DO. DO stands for depth of knowledge questions for kids. So, you can see if you go all through here, there's a variety of ways that educators can um find instruction, find work, find engaging activities for kids. What I really like about this too

029is when I go to academic content which is right here. All right. You can put in any. So a lot of times in the inclusion classroom we have students some set of context for we have students with different reading levels. Okay. We have one textbook. Okay. So if I am in a 9th grade or 10th grade biology class, okay, and we're reading about cell division from a textbook, that's not accessible for every one of our students that are there. So students who can't engage, right, we're doing a disservice to them. Okay? So we can't get variety of different textbooks. We have this as an option and it's an option that's quick. Um, so just for the sake of um I'm going to pretend I'm in a biology class. Okay, it's a 10th it's a 10th

030grade class. Okay, but I've got learners, okay, at maybe an eighth grade reading level. Okay, what I want to do here is I want to make a textbook page that's really quick for the students. All right, so I'm going to put in textbook. Okay. And I want it to be one page. And I want it to be the process of cell division. Okay. Teachers can get much more complex than this. I am not because I am not a biology teacher. Okay. So, I'm going to generate and this is how quick it comes up. It's insane. Okay. You can take this a variety of ways, right? This could be side by side with a nth grade or 10th grade textbook. Okay? It's accessible. Kids can understand it. I can take this and I can do one

031more thing with it too when I think about and I can show you how we can use brisk. I can change this for every reading level. You saw up there that it goes anywhere from kindergarten to graduate, right? I can change it. I can copy paste this one into a word document or a Google doc, go back and say, "Oh my gosh, I need a fifth grade version of this." Okay? I can have those ready instantly for kids to be able to be in an inclusion classroom with their same age peers and have the same instruction delivered in a reading level that works that that that allows them to be an active participant into the in the classroom as opposed to sitting around and not having a clue what's going on. Right. What a disservice.

032So, you just click one of those things that click one of those things. So, hit chromosome structure. Oh, no. No, I don't hit those, right? Well, no. This is just it. I would copy paste this. You could take this, Jerry. I hear what you're saying. If some of those vocabulary words, there's actually another one in here, vocabulary builder, where I can put all of those in there. This is for the teacher. This is for the student. Okay. This is for the student. So, it's a it's a 10th grade biology book that the student can't read. Okay. This is another textbook page that allows them the material that they can read at their at their level. One of the other things that teachers do with this is okay, bear with me, guys. This all work when

033I do I do this all the time, too. But of course, I'm live on TV and in front of you guys. So, I'm going to copy this. Okay. I'm going to open up a Google Doc. And I want to show you quickly how Brisk works. Okay, here's my Bris. This little icon down at the bottom is that extension that I was talking about. You add that on and this is Brisk. This is another AI tool. So, I'm going to copy my assignment in here. Okay. So, it's just simply copy pasting in here. So now I see, oh my gosh, I totally forgot that I've got two Spanish speaking students in here. Okay, because we don't have a biology book in Spanish, right? We've got newcomers that come to our school district, right? That aren't reading

034at a 10th grade level, right? So now I've just modified it to a seventh grade reading level and I can instantly translate it. So, I just go here to my brisk. I change the level. I want to put it in Spanish. And it's a sec. Incident. When I was a special education teacher, this would have taken hours to put together for every different subject area as a high school special education teacher where I was in inclusion classes for history, English, math, science. If you knew if you were proficient in Spanish, all I'm like this is, but if if you're not, you're not how do you get it done? Absolutely. How do you and the goal is to think about the students before your lesson who's in your class? But now utilizing different ways to differentiate.

035This can be a gamecher for some of our teachers. Okay? Because now when I'm giving out a biology assignment on cell division, I'm also giving it to a student. I'm giving the suit student the work who might not be at the same level as the person sitting next to them, but they're they're seen, they're understood, and there's that sense of belonging that I go back to. Okay? They don't say, "Oh, wait, wait, Melissa. I'll get yours in a second." Right? So, that's the goal. The goal is to be able to have tools in place and our staff first on how you can differentiate instruction with relative ease making sure that it's aligned to the standards. Right? That's a big piece that I want to say again. You don't just copy paste this, print it out

036and say here you go. Right? You vet it. you make sure that this is exactly, you know, what the learning target is that the teacher is trying to do. But this is where we've started. There's been some teachers, right, that are absolutely like this is this is okay. This is good. I love it. I'm embracing it. But we've got of journeys. Things that are new aren't always easy, right? So, um, as we go, um, into the schoolwide plan for next year, this is definitely a piece that we want to keep building on. We want to build staff's capacity to do this professionally, right? And to also give them a lot of tools. There's another one that I'm playing with right now that um, creates podcasts. You put in a topic, it creates a podcast. Imagine

037that for students who are auditory learners, right? I can put in a podcast and they pull from all different academic articles and they can listen to self-division, too. So, there's a lot of potential here. Uh, we're pretty excited about it. Um, and again, it goes back to um, start right here. Sorry, this one goes back to those anchors. These anchors aren't unique to special education. This is what educators do. This is what we hope to strive for. All kids can learn. All kids want to learn. All kids want to be active members of the classroom. All kids deserve that sense of belonging. and through AI and other um interventions and strategies and curricula that we have in place, our students with the most diverse needs can be included, right? It's just a process of all

038kind of we're all learning that together. I'm excited to be a part of it. Um all I have for you tonight, but if you ever have any questions um about special education, I'd love to hear from you. Please come in, look at the work that our teachers do. It's extraordinary. Okay, they blow me away every day and it's an honor to work with them. So, thank you for your time and if there's any questions, I'd love to answer. Diagnosis of the problem. Who gets involved in the diagnosis of special education? How do you diagnose that? Right. So, it depends on what area that it is. So, I'll just say the the uh if it's learning disability. Oh, go ahead. A kindergarten. I mean a 4K person child coming into school. Maybe you can't identify yet.

039I don't know. I mean there's who's involved? I would say who's involved is whatever the needs are. So if it's a student that's that young and typically um yeah, if it's a student that's young, the people that are involved are the needs that have been expressed by the family and the teachers that they see. So if it's speech and language, then the speech and language person is involved. If there's cognitive stuff, then the special education teacher gets involved. Whatever the need is, we bring those people to the table to have the conversation. And of course, there's testing that have to go along. And then there's criteria that the state has put in place where they have to meet criteria in order to receive services. Yep. So, so when you come to graduation then when I

040come to graduation that I sit on the I sit on the on the board for um Sunshine but there's no real connection between Sunshine House and the educational world. There's no referral system for Sunshine House after graduation. It depends on the student. So not all of our students can go to Sunshine House students um because we usually think here with the week on the lowest level, right? So students with intellectual disabilities, right? So a lot disabilities or other all sorts of disabilities but so so you so a student I'm just saying so a student is in the has gone through 12 years of special education and now they're at the end. Who picks up the ball? Is it what's the bridge from here into society or to take them to the We just don't dump

041them, right? No, we have transition plans, right? So, there's transition plans where we transition students typically to the next step. One of those steps could be the Sunshine House, right? Or what are the other options? Well, depends on it depends on the student. So there's a lot of students with IEPs that end up going to technical college, right? Or you know like our students, we are preparing our students through the IEP process to what their goals are after high school. So that's a part of the process, right? So they get their diploma and we've hopefully right with the best intention and prepared them through their transition plan. Every student has to have a transition plan by age 14. So, we're talking about the transition of these students at age 14. And those transition plans also

042help create the IEP for what they want to do after college, I mean after high school. Is is there an additional resource as I think maybe part of the question is as a family is starting to get ready for that transition plan. How do they become aware of the other community when because the school requirements will come to an end, right? That's a certain age. So does that transition plan help that? I understand. So if it was a student who was transitioning potentially to somewhere like the Sunshine House before that they would leave Sebastian Sunshine House would come to IEP meetings and we would transfer that information. So that has happened when we have been here as well. As far as um a student with special education who plans on going to NWTC, we have

043a transition and a graduation IEP where we share that information with the family. We write up a summary of performance. That summary of performance is a document that they take to the accommodations office at NWTC that lists where their strengths are, what their needs are, and what accommodations would be beneficial in at NWC or a technical college. Students also take their IEPs and whatever college that they would go to, there's an accommodation office for them to be able to to do that. But I feel like I'm not answering your question. And now I'm going to put my NWTC board hat on. Okay. Okay. We just but just like couple minutes yet. Okay. Cuz there seems to be a breakdown between Pep school and all these programs with with the high schools or the school systems

044and like even in TC. It doesn't seem to be an easy road where parents and everybody recognize this is where we got to go. I mean, I'm definitely interested in talking about what that is, but basketball meets its legal obligations and what we need to do. Yeah. I would add a related thing which isn't Yeah. in the school. Well, let's just say it like this, right? This is related to me is when kids transition to college, right? What is that feedback loop and have we actually successfully set them up for college or is there an education gap? And we have seen where kids jump into a program and there's an education gap. So that there's a lot of reasons for what fixes that, but we really don't have a hard requirement in public schools to

045put resources to bridge that and this is exact is is there is there a requirement or resources and we because you could have a team of people doing this but we don't have the resources right now cuz we've I felt I've had this discussion on regular education and so I think you're just translating into special ed and right now all the requirements shake out in public schools is we are satisfying our rate for both regular educ and special ed and I think you're identifying there is a gap there and but then who doesn't NWTC doesn't want to do it but the public school doesn't want to do it so who does that so that's where and our fearless leaders haven't figured it out yet so I I do want to add though in that you

046know too and just make sure that it's very clear that within the IEP process when students are ready to graduate part of those transition goals are part of it like what do you want to do next. You know, we're taking you on tours. We're meeting the accommodations office. You want to go into the military? Okay, let's go check out, let's go meet with a couple of, you know, uh we are helping bridge the gap to help them get to where they want to do. That still happens in high school, right? We still want to provide those the families and we we partner with the families for that. How can we get the next step started when they are a graduate of Sebastapool and what does that look like? Those conversations get real real intentional end

047of 11th grade because then we only have one year to help put a plan in place was exactly what you're saying. Well, now what? Right. To help them make the next step of what they want to do. But it is an imperfect process. I do hear what you're saying. It is an imperfect um process. I wish we could do. Thank you. Informative. Thank you. Um Mr. Hills, thank you very much. Just a couple things to highlight. Uh the first one on Monday we had our third annual fine arts night. Uh it was an outstanding event as it has been the last couple years. um didn't think it was possible, but each year seems to get better uh than it was the year before. Uh but a lot of credit goes to Carrick Kger for having

048the vision 3 years ago and put this together. Uh and then for a number of other people for getting on board and really making the event that much bigger. Uh so kudos to all of them. Uh the other thing I'd like to draw attention to is the reading challenge. Uh the students I think as I had mentioned have been able to travel to New York down to Orlando and are passing Tallahassee at this point. Uh our hope is in the next week that they can make it to Texas. Uh that would be 6 weeks of reading. As of right now uh across the elementary they have read about 80,000 minutes worth of uh books. So um talked to some students today. They were uh excited by the reading challenge and kind of the the attention

049that it's brought to being able to focus on doing some reading as a team. I think just the challenge there were a lot of art pieces. Someone told me there will be 1500 pieces of art. Sounds about right. She has I think about five per kit. Um so it's just outstanding. That's a lot of displays. It is. She's already thinking about next year. Um, Mr. Schaefer. Uh, I'd like to, uh, give a huge shout out to our destination imagination team. Uh, starting first of all with Jerry Bourbitz. I learned a lot about Jerry, but he's been servicing Staspool for over 35 years. We think it's close to 40. Uh, he was involved when it was called Odyssey of the Mind before it was actually called Destination Imagination. So, uh, just a big shout out to,

050uh, Jerry and then Annie Robach. this is her fifth year, but uh those two spearheading the teams and uh recruiting coaches and and staying on top of students and and creating all these practice opportunities that the students work incredibly hard in preparation for this and the coaches uh are for not a lot of money are really putting in a lot of effort and time to really help these students be incredibly successful. Uh my third year here, this is the first time that I can recall. Uh but all five of our teams qualified for globals. That's incredible. Uh our elementary engineering team not only won first place, but they won the Renaissance award um for just great ingenuity. Our elementary scientific team took second. our middle school level scientific team uh and um middle I'm sorry

051middle level fine arts team took second place where our middle level scientific team took first place and also won a renaissance award um for exemplary teamwork and then of course um our high school engineering team took first place um last year they lost at uh very close to an engineering school out of China to be repeat global champion so uh very excited exciting for our our uh students and our coaches. Just very proud of this program. It's one of the success most successful programs here at Sebastaple. Uh Globals takes place May 22nd through the 25th in Kansas City. And then for all community members uh where people would like to come out, the the DI uh DI showcase fundraiser is Sunday, May 8th. Uh doors open at 11:00 a.m. Um and performances start at 1:00.

05211:00 a.m. We have our pancake brunch. Uh, also to add on to what Mr. Hilts talked about with the fine arts. It was amazing. It's incredible. But I also want to give a shout out to our NHS uh crew that uh had a lot of fun. They made a lot of pancakes and and uh it served a lot of people. So really proud of our NHS and really really proud of our uh Destination Imagination program and everybody who is involved with that. Thank you. Um, how's that? How's that celebrity? How's that celebration? I mean, if this was a basketball team, it'd be all doo. We'll have a huge send off to them like we've done every single year before they had to go. So, we have everybody in the hallway. The band is playing Jack.

053We get pretty excited. It'll be good. We'll celebrate. Should invite him so he can see this cuz he always thinks that doesn't happen. Oh, we can get a chair. We can get a VIP Jerry chair. Give me a Jerry chair. Thank you. You can come ride with us, Jerry. We're driving down. So, yeah, you that's an idea. You guys My husband is the coach of the fifth grade uh VIT. My daughter is on the VIT. So, you got roofer driving a long way. Kansas City. I can give the best superintendence report. Thank you. Uh first and foremost, I want to give a shout out to Mrs. Tate. She wrote a very comprehensive proposal to WIA asking for our boys basketball team to move down a division so that we could be more competitive. Um we

054were approved for the 25 26 school year to move down a division. So we will um hopefully be a little bit more competitive due to the class sizes that we have. and um the student population that we have. Um second piece um been working with the sheriff around um identifying Sebastical School District where the hazardous route for transportation. This is due to us sitting on Highway 57. So with Highway 57, we do not have crosswalks. We do not have sidewalks for our students to walk across which allows us then to put together a proposal that has to be approved by the su um superintendent of the state. And then we are able to collect additional funds for those students that sit inside of that 2-m radius that we bust due to our hazardous route. So

055the sheriff and I met yesterday. She signed off on it and we will get that to the state. Hopefully we'll be able to collect a few additional dollars for those students that we transport. Um continuing to stay a breast of what's happening at the state and federal level round um requirements and funding. Um we're anticipating that um the budget will not be a July budget. So the good news for us is that we're not significantly impacted by those dollars um from the state level because most of our funds come from our local taxpayer. So we'll continue to be able to move forward with our budget as we have forecasted. And then the last piece I'm excited to share, um, as we've been talking, um, one of the pieces that we want to transition in our

056finance department is our accounts payable. Right now is very much a paper process. Um, teachers fill out a requisition, it goes to their supervisor, it comes to me, the order goes back to them, they put the order in, and it's all paper with multiple multiple steps. Skyward has the ability for us to make that electronic. There's some setup that has to happen on the front end and Tasha and I are working with Skyward and our goal is to have that set up for July 1. So some heavy lifting between now and then to be able to get there. The system needs to be set up with security groups so that we can all run um effectively. So very excited about that. And I just want to take a moment to say thank you to Mr.

057Thank you Ski. Can I just say that our last names are um for your service as a board member. It has been a true honor to be able to work with you for this short period of time. So, thank you. This is Dave Kinsky's last meeting. Came on the board in 2016. I don't forget that year. Um and then some great things happened after that. I was here when we had a Kyle who's a big part of the community facility um study group. I'll never forget when the group got stuck on the survey results and said I think we should go back for more information and um you gave them a permission to move forward. You told them what what more information do we need? we extended this, this, and this. And that gave the

058committee the confidence to move forward and move forward with with the um with the vote then. And um since then, we've been on several committees. Um going to miss your analytical thinking. I I hope I don't know who's going to spar with I don't know who's going to spark with Dick and Jerry now. We don't spit. But my point is my point is there's always good conversation at this table because um because people are willing to do that. So um intellectual discussion Thank you. You will um believe this. And we have a gift certificate for you, but as usual, I forgot that it I'm sure you can get it. I don't know if anybody else wants to say anything, but um Thank you. Thank you very much. Um we'll move to committee reports then in

059the finance committee meeting on April 2nd. Much of what we talked about we'll be discussing later tonight benefits and compensation that last week one day um you want to report on that? Sure. Um so we met with staff um looking for the parameters in which the board had set for us to move forward with sovereign compensation. Um we are excited to be able to present the proposal to you tonight that stays within the parameters but actually enhances benefits for our employees. So um looking at that and we'll discuss that as we go through actually. Um so Tasha and Randy had an excellent excellent PowerPoint to review with the staff that I think answered a lot of their questions unless they showed up in your office the next day. No, what thank you for that. It

060was a really good PowerPoint for And then um building and grounds met last week one day. Yeah, we'll be pretty much discussing everything that we discuss there. Did you want to tell them about the pipe that fell down that Dan has to work on? Well, there's a a seems like kind of a big deal to me. tunnels. Yeah. Yeah. A tunnel that serves the the uh the old school from school plumbing and um I don't know how it was attached, but you know the main water feed uh goes through that tunnel and they slipped off their supporter and were just hanging there. So, I mean it could have burst or anything like that. That sucks. Um, so I mean that's just does that has that been fixed already? So on Friday because um because of

061the weight of the pipes and that they're copper pipes, we want to be able to shut the water off. So Friday when there's nobody in the building because it's a holiday for everybody. Um they will be coming in and doing some of that work and then the rest of the work will be finished later. They have already raised what they what they can raise. um without you know impacting the water line. So um kudos to the maintenance department because every 5 years they go into the tunnel to clean it. If we didn't have that on a re rotation with our buildings and grounds plan, this wouldn't have been identified cuz it you know there's nothing wrong. basically the brackets broke didn't hold the um hold the water pipes and so they're replacing the brackets and

062getting that that lifted. So Friday will be a majority of the work and then they'll come back and finish it and then the other items will be discussed tonight. Um anything on the budget? Nothing to note at this point. Um I think we've talked about quite a bit of things and we'll be addressing some of the the biggest pieces tonight. So I do want to highlight that the staff has really taken the words that we talked about is trying to be as conservative as possible with a budget that was approved with a significant deficit in the fall. Right now we are coming under budget. So that means hopefully that deficit will be less than what we had forecast it. So just I want to shout out to the staff for helping us with those efficiencies

063when those opportunities come up. Yeah. Also, shout out to the staff for asking excellent questions, staying on target, staying on task, and really hitting deadlines. It's been fantastic. Very good response this year. Thank you. Um, anything to report for facilities? No. You don't have any old business? Um, anything timing, do you need to report legislatively soon? Uh, yes. Uh at our uh WB board of directors meeting last Friday night, we met with Senator Diane Hasselbine uh from the Middleton Cross Plains area. She uh talked a lot about the 60% special ed funding and uh was herself supportive of it. She seemed to feel that there's some conversation taking place between Democrats and Republicans around that topic as well as others. She was also supportive of the free lunch for all students uh because of the

064effect that nutrition has on children's ability to learn. She was also supportive of funding for mental health care. She talked also about the budget in June 30 and uh is not feeling that we're going to have a budget by June 30 and that seems to be what's uh the sentiment is around. Uh she also talked about the act 20 money that the legislature has not released and uh there's no reason they haven't released that money but uh she did not seem very optimistic about it being released. Now this is her opinion that's one person but uh she's very supportive of it but didn't feel that there was much push in the legislature to release that money. What's in act 21? Just refreshing. What's in act 20? So it's dollars to support with the requirements that

065as a district we had to purchase a curriculum that was approved by the state. So there was a list of curriculums and sebastapool actually aligned really well. So we were in the process of curriculum review with reading. So part of that would be for those funds. The other component is for the assessment requirement. So there was um assessments that had to go into place. So looking to be able to get reimbursement for the assessment we purchased as web lab um and transitioned but that doesn't count cuz that's secondary transition to um the star assessments but we won't be able to recap dollars but be nice to get some dollars for our curriculum purchase and nice to get dollars for the assessment but DPI has set the system up um so they're ready if those dollars

066would ever get released because ideally they would have to be distributed by June 30th. So Tasha and I are staying the tube to what's happening at the state level so that we can submit that and hopefully recoup if it actually opens. And the ironic part is this is what the legislator put in place but now they don't want to release the money. So how much do we So we had to buy per kilogram for how much money about 110 or 20,000 our reading scores are the ones the best in the state and we had to spend that money on curriculum previous in fairness we were in the process of the rotation so it was the year that we were going to have to do the curriculum anyway for reading so the timing worked out perfect

067but Um, but still it would have been nice to to give us some money. Anyway, the money is nice, but we're not out any other money. This is all within our budget. And I'm just curious if our previous reading program was qualified under the requirements because of what you just said, we had very good reading scores. Do we know that it it was uh just for the record, it's just kind of a little personal talking point that our previous program was probably was if it technically it wasn't approved by the state because it was an older version. Uh we use the same curriculum now. We just have the updated version and that was approved. So the state doesn't care about the results, right? They're not they're don't don't bother us with the fact that the

068results. Well, for the good the good thing for Sebastapool is act 20 didn't change our reading program at all. No. And good for our kids that this school and his staff have been doing the right thing. And now there's a little check box that says we're certified or whatever. So, let's be perspective on being realistic about that. Good. And more money will be awesome for the school. Uh the only other thing I had to report was there will be a slight increase in dues for WSB uh membership next year of only 3% increase. So trying to keep it as low as possible. And um then I also wanted to mention that at the summer workshop in Stevens Point in July, Dr. Charles Franklin from W Marquette or from Marquette University will be the uh dinner

069speaker and he does a lot of research on how the public feels about schools and polls. Yes. Yes. Lots of lots of polling there. So, uh, and the July magazine of, uh, just a second of, uh, the school news, which by the way, this one had a nice feature on Project 180, uh, Steve Mooseley on the cover from Southern Door, but lots of mention of Sebastical in there. But this magazine in July will focus on uh, strategic planning, which is an area that we are uh, looking to move into too. So that will be helpful. Great. Thank you. Okay. So we have this HBAC bid. So you have HMI ES bids. So you have two bids in your packet. um one is from Kirkman and one is from um AES and seeking board approval for

070one of the bids. buildings and grounds committee had the conversation and we'll move forward with would like to move forward with Herman and Herman is who we currently have at this time with the majority of our agents building and grounds best and this is who um Dan is move to approve the bid of 29,000 983 Burkeman Mechanical for the HVAC public grade system. Questions or discussion? All in favor say I. I. Motion carried. Yeah. For uh we got up next we got item C and D. I would like to make a motion to define items in each for the purposes of uh discussion but to vote on each of those items separately. Second that second. All in favor say I. I motion carried. Work, you were going to speak a couple of minutes on this

071before we open for more discussion. Yeah. Yeah, I will. Um I guess I'm going to go back in time a little bit for you. Um, so I've been in this role now in five years. And so, um, when I I think it was the year before I came into this role, um, the high school gym saw some updates. The floor was kind of redone. We put in new bleachers in there. Um, it had been old wooden bleachers and now it moves to plastic/ aluminum type bleachers. Um, uh, Michigan Tech had come in and done a very minimal sound study of some sort and they installed these really tiny, you'll see them in our gym. They look decorative. They're red. They're sound panels. We're supposed to absorb sound. So, they installed those and then hanging in

072our ceiling used to be what I'm going to call mattress pads cuz that's what they look like. There was these mattress pads hanging all over our ceiling. So, um, you know, some teams in particular didn't like those up there, um, because balls would hit them, right? Come and play. It's very legit concern, right, that it's up there. So, those came down, acoustic panels went on the side. That was kind of supposed to solve some of that. Um, it didn't. So, fast forward, I don't know, probably about 3 years ago, we said the sound in our gym is terrible. we had more and more complaints when we had events um that just the sound quality you just can't hear anything coming out of the the system. Um so we looked into it. What we found at

073that time basically was we have what are called pendant speakers hanging in the um gym. Some of the pendants were shut off. The pendants were shut off on purpose because the basically the intelligibility of the sound in the gym was so bad at that time. They said, "Let's just kill some of these speakers. Maybe that will help things." That didn't help things. So, we turned them back on and the problem got worse, I guess. Um, worse and better. You could hear more, but it still wasn't clear, if that makes any sense. Um so again problems continued to happen and then we had brought in um a couple different companies to come in look at our gym and say is it the sound system is it the acoustics? What's going on? Um all of those companies

074that came in basically told us you can do everything you want to a sound system. You can get a brand new system. That's not going to fix what's happening in your gym. The problem is the acoustics that's in your gym because you have cement walls. you have a cement ceiling. Um, so all that's occurring in your gym is sound is bouncing all over, up and down. It's bouncing side to side and it's bouncing on all of these walls. And they said, "And those sound panels that you have up there, those are way too thin. They're doing nothing for you. They're merely they're just decorative. They're not thick enough. They needed to be thicker." So at that time um the committee kind of got together ref review reviewed proposals and the school had decided to go

075with what was called DHS sound. School paid DH DHS sound money to come in basically do an acoustic study to go where does Sebastical need to go. That gentleman was not good to work with for the district and eventually the district moved on from him. Um and so we were still left with the same problem. So the problem has grown. We've gotten more complaints especially um it competition always but we're getting more of it now classroom teachers other coaches that are in the gym how hard it is to hear in our gym. So the problem in our gym is reverberation which is the echo. So if I am just a classroom teacher I'm teaching fed. Okay Miss Dang, she she can't talk to you over there because there's so much vibration going on in her

076gym. have to be right here. If I'm a coach just coaching practice, it's really hard to instruct. You have to yelling louder doesn't mean it's more clear. So, it's really hard when we're just right here. If you're in the gym and you're trying to announce on the PA system, nobody can hear you. Okay? And it's not necessarily the speakers itself. Again, it's all the reverberation that's happening. So, this is what everyone has said when they come in our gym and they tell us this. So they basically said what you really need to do is address acoustics and then sound systems. Um and so that's kind of where we were back when we brought um different companies to come and give proposals again. And so um again two problems that occur in our gym. One the

077largest is the acoustics. Um this is the root cause of all of our issues. So standard reverberation time in a gym should be under 2 seconds ideally one. Um, we got reverberation readings of six seconds. So that's not even with a full of kids, right? So you clap, how long is that bouncing around till nothing's happening? Um, so that happens. Um, then of course the sound system. So the issue with our sound system, there's multiple. Um, the speakers are too small for our gym. They are small pendant speakers. They're not pointed correctly whenever they were installed. The direction of the sound. Um there's not enough coverage for a gym. So basically there's essentially these dead spots. Also basically in the middle of the court there's dead spots for us. Um and then there's just really

078poor functionality. So I can speak for myself as an event supervisor. The system is way over on the wall where in most gymnasiums this it's at your scores table. They're playing the music. They're moving stuff. So it it's really inconvenient to be way way over in that corner. Um so we would be looking for something different. So for us, the needs in our gym really number one by far is fixing the echo problem. Number two, FIA teachers need to be able to talk to their students and coaches and be heard in there. Um we avoid trying to have assemblies in there just because it's so loud. Um you can't be heard. So this is a much better place for us to have those things. Um of course we want our fans and athletes to be

079able to hear music on game days, hear our PA announcer, and have reliable functional equipment. We had the found the sound system part of the sound system blew on the first day of school this year. So we were without our sound system and Steven was awesome getting us equipment up there but again complaints. Um so when you look at the some of the things you had in your packet um I wanted to answer a couple questions that I've gotten because I couldn't come to the building and grounds meeting last week. Um, we had a company called Franel and that was basically through Bay Electronic. They wanted to look into this spray foam that's called Sauna Spray. Um, and see if that would be something that made more sense for our gym to put in there.

080And there's two kinds of sprays. So, it looks like it's kind of this material. I can pass it around. This is called the FC. There's a K13 and a FC. So K13 um is basically they recommend using this one when wherever you're spraying it is 15 feet or higher. Basically nobody's going to look at it, right? The aesthetics, it doesn't matter. And the material is um you know more coarse. The FC is basically when you're installing something 15 ft or lower cuz we're going to all look at it and touch it. So it needs to look prettier and so it's just looks prettier and it's um more fine so it cannot go on as heavy. So this would not be what Sebastical needs. We don't need the pretty it's going up high kind of thing.

081Um in sound quality actually the the K13 um because it's thicker material it actually has an insulation factor to it when you put it up in the ceiling for us. And so it it actually is more absorptive of the sounds. Um so one of the questions that I know that I received was um in Fentanol's um proposals that they gave they talk about the reverberation and it was two 2 seconds 2.75 2.75 seconds and they say after treatment what what's going to happen with the acoustics and how it's going to go down. So when they do this, this is a very generic thumbnail, something they're putting in their computer, which isn't necessarily according But it says they didn't test. How does it know it's 275? Because it says they didn't test. I don't explain that

082to you right now. Okay. So So I got it on the computer. So they take the measurements of your gym. Okay. Just flat. So height, length, width. They're taking that and then they can they can kind of say what kind of material is concrete surfaces concrete surface there's things in the models that you can model. Yeah. And so it gives us a very very basic um calculation for them. So that's where those numbers come from. And so the most important piece in there though is when it talks about the um percent loudness reduction, right? And so you say 28, you see 28%. And you might say to yourself, 28% is really not a lot. Well, 28% is basically a third. So if you're reducing that sound, the reverberation by a third, they would tell you

083that that is considerable. Um, and again, this isn't accounting for in our gym. Um, we will get extra square footage because there's like 10 beams that go down the middle of our gym. So that's more square footage that's being sprayed with the sound treatment, which now it's absorbing more. They can't account for that in this model that they're giving to us. So essentially what they're going to tell you is that sound reduction is actually going to increase from 28 and it's going to be very noticeable. So they're spraying the beams too, not just the flat part. Correct. Yep. It's going to go down to about the height of where the beams currently are. So, I think that was three bricks is what it was essentially. Nothing else gets sprayed. So, a much more absorptive material

084than what um CCP was recommending. They're basically recommending um absorbative panels in our entire gym, much larger to actually absorb things. So, that's more work on maintenance cuz they'll have to take down all the banners. They'll have to put them all up. I think it'll look very funky and we don't really know if we really need all of that, right? It's it seems kind of excessive. Um that material um will be impacted by tariffs. The company did tell me today. So potentially 4% stuff. Nope, not the K13. That's United States, but the stuff from um CCP, the acoustic panels where they quoted us at 69, basically 69,000. They said anticipate that price to go up. because that is impacted by tariffs. The frael stuff is not impacted by it. Um, so that's my gist on

085that. Um, the the last thing that I would really say is I've learned a lot about acoustics and I want to tell you I still don't know a lot about it, okay? But it's a lot of numbers. Um, and one thing that Bay Electronics um, gave us was a couple numbers that I thought were really important that I think speak to the acoustics piece. one they said it's the DR ratio which is the balance um from the speakers and like the reflection everything bouncing off your walls. So when this number should be at plus 6 um our gym shows a huge amount of noise when they did this. So um ours was -5.7 um with acoustical treatment. It's it still doesn't get us there but it really improves it to minus 1.7. So I think

086really that paints a picture of just how terrible the reverberation currently is. Again the sound system doesn't fix the reverberation. And then the second piece was um the STI which is the speech transmission index. I know this is a lot of stuff um but this is how clearly speech can be understood. So let's just throw athletics out and let's talk about education and instruction in a gym, right? Which is is the most important thing. So this is how clearly your speech can be understood. in the room. Ideally, this number should be 045 or higher. Um, our current number is.13, which is vastly far away from that actually. Um, so with acoustical treatments, they say this number will go to 0.54 or 58. So, yeah, it's So, so you talked I mean there you were there

087with the Bay Electronics people. Okay. And um what did you come away with from them as we you know we have two separate issues the sound system plus and then what did you come away what did you come away from uh what was their opinion as to which would be the best as far as effectiveness? Yeah. So they definitely think the spray spray is what's going to be most effective. This has more of an absorptive quality to it. more than the sound system, huh? Yeah. More than your sound system is just going to add more echo. Okay. You know, kind of like I guess um your car, right? Or your, you know, you got a you got a problem and it's really your engine, but you're fixing something else, right? It's a secondary thing. You're

088not getting I want to just support your history. I've looked at this a lot. Yeah. Without a doubt, the problem is the acoustics. That's the problem. And so a long time ago, before my time even, we went to camera corner and bought this new sound system. That that's what the school board did. Pardon me. It didn't help. Didn't help at all. So please, let's not repeat that and do the same thing. And I would point out when we hired that other guy that unfortunately didn't pan out. The the school board at the time, we approved the with an intention of fixing the acoustics. This school board went through this all the discussion. We approved the money. we go hire a guy out of Milwaukee with an intention and we we were going to implement his

089recommended plan to help the acoustics. Uh he fell through he didn't do as any work. He stopped showing up. So that sucked, right? So my only point is um just echoing what this has been looked at a lot and if you've been in our gym ever, it is a concrete box and you can model concrete walls and they they echo. We all echo in your basement, right? So some of this stuff we can kind of commonly understand just from walking around in the way. So I highly recommend if if anything is done the acoustics need to be the highest priority and if you can't do both the acoustics need to be done but you know at one point this budget line was talked about. So obvious I'm recommending you do the acoustics number one and

090then once that's complete probably do the sound system because the other one's not working and and and not the right design. So let's not be the group who selects a bad sound system again. I my question remains this which I cuz I don't understand sorry one company measured and they said that was 6%. Was that segments? How long? Yep. So the the company with the spray says, "Oh, it's 2.75." That's a big difference. They didn't measure anything. Okay. But so $7,000. Why Why can't they put the six into their paying the $7,000? Why didn't they measure Why didn't they measure and not just do the computer model? Do which one? So, do we know which one is? What is that computer model? Yeah, I don't think you know problem. I think the problem's the same

091as it been for 60 years. And and maybe worse with the new features, maybe a little worse. But 60 years ago, what's effective for if you That's what I'm talking about. I'm saying why didn't the company that wants $70,000 measure like the uh like like the electronics did which isn't even the company doing the spray. They're proposing a sound system. Why are they just giving us a model and those two numbers are so different? 6% 2.75% are way different. Well, but they're explained. So if we want them to model our room, that can be a question possibly to me. That's just this is here's what I'll tell you from modeling for 30 years of modeling. All models are wrong. But models help make decisions. That's it. So we can change numbers. It'll still be somewhat

092wrong. But the fact is it's going to improve the acoustics in this gym, which everyone agrees the acoustics in this gym are not good. my smartwatch goes off every time I'm at an event that it's too loud for the average person every time. I mean, so there's real data. I mean, so if you want to remodel some stuff, but we've had the Michigan Tech guy, I mean, we've had so many people come in here, people, and this is remember the discussion you just brought up about CPAC. I'm trying to do that here. We don't need more data. We can waste more time and we're not going to find out anything new. Let's make a reasonable investment in a building we're going to be using for many many many years to come. I I would I

093agree with you. So I think $70,000 for just a 28% improvement. They say, "Oh, that's going to be a lot more than 28%." That's not a very big improvement for the sound. So the sound people will tell you that that's huge. It's a third. And that's that's a lot of in acoustics. That's that's a big deal. Don't think about it as a bucket of water. I'm taking 20%. I still got all this water left in the bucket. Acoustics is a whole whole different world. If you made the sound in your hat, I say 50%. We' probably have a hard time talking to each other. Yeah. I mean, I think about your TV, right? If your TV's on volume 66 or 99 versus 66 verse 33, I mean, you're noticing a huge reduction. I I think

094one one thing I think your pathway you're going down is the right way to do it and you know and I hate to say this the real solution is down the road Jim but I never thought I'd say that that's 20 years Jerry I I don't think you have to look 20 years even 10 but but still we're using this I'm don't let me finish it's 15 million7 okay but you know you go around to all these relation I my eyes are open when the girls basketball team was going around playing all here and there. Every place they played was, "Wow, isn't this nice? It's not like the dump they're playing in back home, you know." So, and that's a hard decision. It's got to be made by this board. I won't be hard. I

095probably maybe 12 months still alive, but it's a very hard decision, but it's a decision that's got to be made. Okay, that that is old. I have this editorial my high school class 1965. Okay. I was in we my high school team played in a gym that was designed in 55 vastly superior than this. Okay. And that's a long time ago. So the only thing I suggest is before you finally make a decision okay when you when you're into areas which you really don't know anything about. I don't know anything about this and this is a whole different world than any of his experts. say, "Okay, can you give me some examples of where you did something very similar to this?" And contact those places and say, "Did it work?" Yep. So, we did that.

096They provided a list and then there were two schools in our area, actually three. There's Suriring, Denmark, and Luxembourg Casco. I reached out to all three of those districts. I heard back from Saring. They have a gym like us. They had this done. They were very pleased with what had happened. The only thing that they mentioned was some a ball's going to hit it. Well, little white particles, you know, maybe you're going to have that, right? But, right, like back in the day when you had a popcorn ceiling in your basement and you hit it. I don't know. I'm kind of old. I don't We just had rafters, but whatever. Okay. So, you're satisfied with it. I I guess if we were going to do something, it makes sense to first do the acoustics and

097see what that does before. I'm still not totally sold on that, but it would seem like we should see what that would do before we invest also. I think it's I think it's pretty self it's acoustics first because no sense building a whole bunch of money and putting it into a an acoustic system acoustical area looks crappy, you know, it's like putting a brand new big screen TV into your little 14 by 4T closet to watch TV, you know. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, but it's not going to fix everything, but it's kind of where you It'll be an improvement. Tell us we have to start. It's an improvement. It should be. Don't say should. It will. It will be. So, in the bid here, they have independent testing $1,000. So, are they saying they'll do

098independent testing for $1,000 before they do it? They can if we want them to, probably. repeat that she talk about the independent testing. Yeah. So they they they will charge an extra $1,000 to come out and do acoustic testing to uh determine the seriousness of the uh reverberation. Uh, and I don't know if they would change their price codes or Well, see, that's why why didn't they how could they? So, basically, it's a salesman, right? The owner of the company that shows up. He looks at your gym. He gets the measurements and numbers, right? He sends this back to I forget the name of it, but it's a different company. Okay, here's your number based on what we found. So, an actual didn't come from their company to do acoustics. They were trying to give

099us a general It's a before and after from their company. Oh, it's a before and after. That would be my guess on why it's independent testing. So, they might claim some liability if uh the before and after are the same. Not so effective. I don't know. So, what the what the gentleman will tell what he said in all his years of business, he's had one, right? Of course, he's salesman, but he's only had one place that is not satisfied with this. So, they do pools, they do libraries, they do gyms, they do stadiums. They've done everything for the Green Bay Packers. Um, they do offices, they did Tackle. I mean, they've done a lot of things. This isn't a new product that's not been tested and it's kind of a gamble. Should you It is

100acoustics. I know we aren't experts. People have been man managing and handling acoustics for a long time and we if you put more material, put a curtain up in your house, it's going to stop the sound perveration. It's it's a it's a no no fact, right? Buy a brand new house, it's empty. You walk in, it goes. You hang all your pictures and you put a carpet on the ground, it changes. And so I think what my my points here are I believe this group, majority of this group in some way have already agreed and know that the gym needs something done and and to the point where we've had it budgeted in our budget line in our in the school's budget. So I mean, this isn't some brand new hoo-ha thing, right? There's been

101years of research and I think it's time to move forward. Do they repair done the work they sell only that doesn't do a right I'm sorry sorry I was wondering um how long the product lasts what's the lifespan on the product and then the other thing I was wondering is how does it handle humidity because we know our gym does not have AC it gets very hot and sticky in there in August September um so just how does it obviously they've done it in pools so it handles humidity somewhere Yeah, they said that it handles that. Um, as far as the longevity of it, basically this should last us for the life of this gym. It's not something that we got to go back and we have to respray it all. Cleaning it, they recommend

102basically people take a a leaf blower. That's basically how you got to clean it up, which is kind of how we clean some of our duct systems now, cuz you're not going to go up there and start scratching scrubbing on it. So, that's a little bit different. So the HVAC HVAC hid sets us up for air conditioning in the gym, but it doesn't provide it. Right. So we can add that later. Luckily, we have a 10-year plan. Y it's in the It's in the 10-year plan just a couple years down the road. Okay. Are there any other questions? I would only add if you're making a decision on this today and you were deciding on the spray um the K13 is essentially what they're recommending to us and then there's different thicknesses. So they have

103the 1 in which was 72 and they have the 1.5. Their recommendation would be the 1.5 um because that takes your the reverberation down um under one second. You can see that if you have it takes it to 0.91, right? I know it's computer model. Um it's a thumbnail. So, yeah, it's an extra $10,000 though. But I don't know if we have the what the proposal price I'm looking at is/ in 3/4 in and 1. That's the That's the go next. Yeah, you're on the phone. So, right. You have to go farther down. Our front. We're talking about the K13. Okay, thank you. This does cause our gym to be down, you know, for a while. So, it's not something that we can just do whenever really. We try to do it when the gym

104is least active. So, the goal would be to start this project August one to try and have it done for the start of the high school fall seasons, right? So they tell us this needs probably plan for 3 weeks because much of the this project is basically taking everything off. Um spray is very fast itself you could use it take out. What's your Okay. So um we were going to take these we were going to take these separately. Um who's this first? is I would I would add I guess on the um sound system piece itself too. Bay Electronic has continued they're continuing to find ways to bring that cost down. They were just one of our last ones and we had to get you the information for your board packet. So they still believe

105that they can find ways to reduce that. There's also some people that are on staff that are alumni of this that are willing to come and do some of the labor just for free so they can help reduce that costs that are vested in this. Thank you. So does anyone is there a motion on the acoustic gym bids? And no motion will need no action. Move to approve the K13 acoustical treatment at the 1.5 inch code. Second questions or discussion. All in favor say I. Opposed. Motion carried. I move that we table the sound system bid until after installation of the acoustic material and see the result it has questions and discussion all favor say I I opposed motion carried okay the seventh school board district representative to school board the school board convention so

106because we want to do that again. Would someone like to make a motion to approve Sue as the CIS? I'll make a motion to approve CS on the CO. Do you have all that? Yeah, I have it. Questions or discussion? All in favor say I. I. Motion carried. Um, and we have the Johnson Control Service contract. So, uh, Sebast has had an annual contract with Johnson's people to come in and ensure that our inspector assists and fix or troubleshoot anything that's identified at that time. We have historically used the dates. This is something that we will continue to monitor monitor, but I would ask for approval for this next year for that contract. I I'm there's nobody else in the business there. Has there been some discussion in this pack by the way? Um is

107there some improved uh uh requests to coordinate with our new building versus the old building? Is it bold because the John's control and Dan made a comment that John's Control could help with the new building. We just didn't put them in the contract. So we put that in the contract. We could possibly amend the contract. We'd have to have that conversation. My recommendation, what I'd like to do is propose it as it has been and have asked Dan to work with the two systems to see how we can create efficiencies because the systems don't talk well to each other. That's our biggest issue. I'm okay with approving this now, but it really makes a lot of sense and we talked about it at the building grounds and dad's like, "Well, they would do it, but

108we don't I don't know why we didn't roll that in there, but that's fine. I understand it's baby steps and we have to do this anyways, but we need a technical expert that bridges to ask Dan to be the expert to bridge two HVAC systems. Probably should have been discussed way back when we designed the building with I was there was there a motion on that? I move it to go with your questions or discussion. All in favor say I. I motion carried so we don't lose it and I'm still on table for this item. And I would move to do what you just suggested to bring those two together. Why did you so that just one company run the whole system then you don't get in something goes wrong. It's their fault the buck

109stops with John. Do you want a motion on that or you're thinking that? No. Well, this has come up in the ground building ground meeting in the past. I missed the last meeting. Sorry. Um, so Dan's kind of working it. I just kind of encouraging Randy to help Dan just so we don't lose. Yeah. Well, so buildings and crowd grounds committee will continue to have those conversations, but we don't need a motion. We will recognize that and place it on the buildings and grounds committee agenda to continue those conversations to talk about what those next steps would be. So there is a motion. If there's no second, the motion would just die. Dave Dave second. Oh, you did second. Oh, wait. There was two. Oh, Jerry. Oh, sorry. I would second it because I kind

110of agree, but I'm okay with what Randy said. I think either way it'll be addressed. What you're saying is valid and it will be addressed. and it carries more weight to building through grounds. We want a solution to this as opposed to just continue to study and study and study. So the motion is to get feedback from building grounds and how this will be addressed. Begin taking action, make a proposal to bring do it all under one. There was discussion to have new eyes look at this and there are companies out there that would qualify as new eyes to look at the I would second that because I think what he asked for is a plan, right? Not not a direction but is so we're just what do you have as the motion Kaylee? Well

111right now the motion stands that Jerry had said to approve Johnson control service contact and Dave had had second that. So that's the only motion I have. Oh we haven't voted on that one. No one voted on that one. No we're going to vote on approving Johnson Controls the Johnson full service contract. All in favor say I. I motion carried. So my make motion would be to direct our buildings and ground committee come back within 6 months or something with a proposal of bringing the whole what do you call all this stuff control Hback control HVAC controls under one system I would I would meant under one under one technical support. One technical support. Thank you. I would second that. Kaylin. [Music] Okay. I have um to direct buildings and grounds to bring proposal for

112HVAC controls under one technical support. Questions or discussion? Contract question. No questions or discussion. All in favor say I. I. Opposed. Motion carried. Um then we have a snow day to dispose of. Okay. Thank you. So, um, being extremely optimistic with our spring weather, um, I would ask that the board would amend the current contract. We had four snow days built into the calendar. We've only used three. I'm very optimistic that we won't have to use another one between now and the end of the school year. So, our current end of the school year is June 6th for staff, June 5th for students, adjusting to June 5th for staff, June 4th for students. And then we can get that message out. Is there a motion to approve? I would move to approve the U snow

113day allocation uh plan as presented. Second questions or discussion? All in favor say I. I. Oppos. Motion carried. Don't we have service medical services contract? Yeah, DCMC got Oh, I I skipped D County Memorial Services contract. That's okay. So, um last year the district um renewed its agreement with Dor County Medical Center. In that renewal, there was the um ability for D County Medical to increase the rates for the services that we contract, nursing and physical therapy, at 3%. And so that's basically the contract that you have in front of you is with their increased cost, they're asking us to um shoulder that increased cost for those services. I would seek approval for that because motion to approve DCMC service as presented. Second. Questions or discussion? All in favor say I. I. post. Um then

114we have the compensation for certified and support staff. So um per the board directive and the um finance committee of the whole um staying within the 2.9% what we have proposed is that all staff um both support staff certified staff and administration would receive a 2% increase on their salary. Along with that, we were able to work with our health insurance and be able to offer an additional option for staff to buy down on a plan. That buy down plan is a lower premium which is a cost savings to the district which allows us in turn to offer an HSA to staff members that purchase that or that we go with that buy down plan of 3,000 and 6,000 per the um committee meeting that we had with our staff around this plan. It was

115also recommended for the um employees. We have about 18 that currently don't take our health insurance and that we would offer a $500 um for them and strongly encourage um but we can't require for it to go into a 403b for them. The same thing with the HSA as a district. We can't require them to t to take those funds and put it into an HSA but again financially because it's a tax deferred dollar amount um that would be our recommendation. And so if the board approves this plan, we're going to roll it out on uh April 30th to staff. And then on May 5th, we have our insurance providers coming in to ask the specific questions. Along with this, these two pieces, we are looking at some additional options for staff to purchase. Um

116short-term disability. So, if if a staff member has, you know, um a tragedy, if a staff member is pregnant, um really those are the two pieces, but it fills the gap between our current long-term disability, but that would be employee costs, not employer costs. The same thing is we're looking to offer additional um life insurance to our staff. That would be employee costs. We need 20 people to be able to offer some of these packages. And then the last one is pet insurance. So um adding additional benefits to our comprehensive package for our staff. So summarize 2% for all employees with the HSA benefit on the 36,000 deductible and 500 for those that opt out of the district insurance. So So go ahead, Dick. Okay. So the option of the H I mean it's an

117option that the employee has to exercise to accept the HSA payment. What if they don't want I mean what so the payment the benefit is provided to them right and the payment is still made to them right if they don't want it in a pre-tax account then they will be responsible for the taxes on that. Oh, okay. Clearly, the financial advice we should give them is the smart thing is to put it in HSA, right? HSA or 403b is they get the the payment regardless, but they're they're liable for the tax. Okay. So, there's the buy down. Mhm. But you don't but everybody gets the,00 or the 2200. You have to take the buy now to get the video. Yep. That's the incentive because it reduces the premium to the incentive. Got it. And then

118those that do not take our health insurance have it through somebody else, they are they get 500,000 500. Okay. So if an employee comes in, if a new employee comes and chooses, elects not to take the health insurance and then four years later decide to take a health insurance. Yep. If they have a qualifying life event or enment every year, you have a choice. Every year they have a choice. That's why it says open enrollment. You can't just come on any open enrollment. Open enrollment. Yeah. only. So every year they have a choice but they choose to Oh yeah every year. Yes. That's rather generous. It's okay. Are there other questions on this on the compensation or is there a motion? I I Okay. We were given a lot of information here on a compensation

119model. I just have just you know um for instance support staff. Okay. So we have step one, step two and step three. What do the steps represent? Oh I'm sorry I didn't include that. That is in our employee handbook. But step one is the first 6 months. Step two is their 6 to 18 months of actual work. So it can be two years if you're not a full year employee, right? That follows the employee handbook. Yes, that follows the employee handbook. In teachers compensation, we have base, min, and high. Is that going to take place of our ladder system right now? No, I just chose rather than showing you the entire ladder. I just pulled the mid-range, the base salary, and the highest. Is um is the compensation sal the plan to review that? Yes,

120the plan is to continue to to look at that in the coming year, but it was just a little too much to tackle. Right. But theoretically, this could replace the ladder system. Yes, we're correct. This year, we won't move people off the ladder. What we'll do is put 10% 2% on the ladder. So, every step will go up at 2%. So if you were on a step five this year, you're going to stay on a step five, but your salary will increase 2%. So to answer your question, yes, our goal is to review that. Um, but I could like that's very approved the compensation proposal for 2025 2026 as presented. A second. Further questions or discussion? All in favor say I. I carried. Um and then we have the 2526 employee handbook benefits. We already

121just addressed that inside of the compensation. I will be bringing back the legal language that was recommended to us for a full employee benefit approval. Yeah. In June, but that's not the salary is the component that we need to address with the contracts. Um Randy, you did have some language in here. Correct. But that's we need it's we need to continue to tweak and make sure we have it. Okay. That concludes our regular business. So I can take a motion to convene to executive session. Second. Roll call. I I I I I. Motion carried at 7:48 p.m. I'll make a motion to motion. Make a motion to approve Luke Pierre as a mechanic/ bus driver. Second. Questions or discussion? All in favor say I. Assistant coach. Move to approve the hiring of Drew Tank as

122varsity baseball assistant coach. Second. Questions or discussion? All in favor say I. I. Opposed. Motion carry. Um, policy committee meets April 28th. Jerry, I got on my calendar. Um, we have the AI presentation on April 30th, which will be real interesting. And again, we'll be meeting at 4:45 for What time is the uh AI presentation? 5:00. 5:00. Yeah. And the regular board meeting is um the 21st of May. And next week is the National Honor Society. Not sure if anybody's next week. Is there a motion to adjourn? I'd make a motion to adjourn. Second. All in favor? I opposed. Motion carries.