Board of Education Meeting: April 22, 2025.

001person agreement report second. Any discussion? Kelly, would you call the Jones? Yes. Sho, yes. Yes. Evans, yes. Yes. Yes. At this point in time, I'd like to open up the meeting for public participation. If you wish to address the board this evening, please raise your hand at this time. When called upon, kindly state your name and address. Limit your comments to three minutes. Please refrain from mentioning specific names during your remarks and in accordance with the Illinois Open Meetings Act. The board cannot engage in deliberative discussions or take immediate action on items not listed on the agenda. However, we want to assure you that your comments are important to us and will taken into consideration. Thank you for your understanding. Is there anyone at this time who'd like to address the board? Seeing no one,

002we'll move on to old business. We have no old business. So, we'll move on to new business, uh, which is the approval of the canvas of votes conducted by the county clerks of Deal and King counties and declaration of winners. Uh, is there a motion to approve the canvas of votes conducted by the county clerks of Decal and King counties and declaration of winners? Second. Kelly, would you call the role? Yes. Evans? Yes. Yes. Jones? Yes. Yes. Shiloh? Yes. Yes. All right. This point in time, I'd like to take a few moments to recognize retiring board members. Prepared a few words here. First present this. Tonight we honor the service of two board members. The first James Shiloh took well to the challenges of the board and left an impact that we all appreciated. He

003demonstrated a commitment to thoughtful participation, concern for student success, and respect for the community. It's no small task to official with his time, energy, and bravery. James faced challenges in his time on the board and demonstrated a capability to speak his mind. This made him a powerful representative of the people. Thank you, James, for your [Music] service. The second, Eric Jones, served in his role for three terms, has been an advocate for students during his full tenure on the board. I respect his dedication to service and pleased I've been able to work alongside. He helped me most acutely as vice president over the last seven months. His assistance has been invaluable and appreciated. Thank you. I know the community is also grateful for your tireless pursuit of student success, for your thoughtful stewardship of their

004community. Eric is an inspiration to those seeking to be the change. He has cultivated strong relationships with his peers and colleagues during his time on the board. The administrators invariably speak highly of Eric. We all owe him a deep appreciation for his willingness to serve on our behalf. Please join me in thanking Eric for his service. All right. What will be the any uh comments? Any other comments before we adjourn? I'll make just a couple of comments. Um I just only because I always speak at all these darn things. Um, I just want to thank everybody in the room for for coming out and supporting the board. Whether you're here for me or whomever you're here for, thank you for being a part of this. Um, it's been 12 years. I'm estimating somewhere in like

005the 1500 hour range and for you probably 800 hours of that as well. And I'm I'm most proud to have gotten to spend the last six years with James because he's been such an inspiration to work with on the board. It really made my time very enjoyable. So, thank you, James. I have something for you as well. Thank you for that. Um, I'm proud of the things that that we accomplished. I look forward to seeing what you all can accomplish. I know that everybody that I got to work with at the district has made me better. That includes the staff that's here, the staff that's at this this table. Um, I'm a better person for having got to spend that time with you guys. So, thank you. I'll just I'll just add that, you know,

006coming into this role, I was appointed midterm um with a lot of longevity at the at the board. Um and it's not easy to come sit down when everyone knows everything that's going on and you're the person that doesn't. Um so I definitely just want to appreciate Eric because I know along the way you've been either on my right or on my left. uh willing to whisper something or lend a helping hand at times when I was clueless, especially early on. Uh so I definitely appreciate all the hours that we've got to spend together and um get a chance to get to know you a little bit through this process and um definitely appreciate just a a lot of the people that are in this room. Um administrators, teachers, anybody that I've gotten to interact

007with and get to know on a different level than just simply as a parent or as a person in the community. Um as well as all the board members here. I think there's a lot of effort and a lot of time that goes in it. Eric, you threw out a number, but I probably you probably short changed a lot of hours. Just the time on the clock, right? Yes. Okay. Um there's a lot of time that goes into it outside of here um in in regards to prepping for a meeting and all those other things. And um definitely want to appreciate just the current board um for all of your time and effort that you've done. So, thank you. Seeing no further business like to entertain a motion to adjourn any die and second. All

008in favor? All right. The board is adjourned and city at 7:08 p.m. Thank you. It's 7:09 p.m. like to call the organizational meeting of the District 427 board of education to order. The first item on the agenda uh is going to be administering well I'm going to serve the role as the president co- tempor um we're going to host an oath of office uh for the newly elected board members. So with the newly elected board members please step forward. You want me to come all the way to the seat and stand up here? Yeah. If you want to just stand like right there, guys. So yeah, I pretended it was Michael. All right. So, I'm going to administer the oath of office for you guys. Uh and then I'm going to just administer it for

009myself as well. Okay. So, uh the board member oath of office, if you would, uh we'll just recite it uh just all in a harmonious uh fashion. Okay. And I'll kick things off. All right. So I, Michael Dvito, do solemnly affirm that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of board members of the board of education, Sycamore Community School District in accordance with the Constitution of the United States, the Constitution of the State of Illinois, laws of the state of Illinois to the liability. I further affirm that I shall respect taxpayer interests by serving as a faithful protector of the school district's assets. I shall encourage and respect the free expression of opinion by my fellow board members and others who seek a hearing before the board while respecting the privacy of students

010and employees. I shall recognize that a board member has no legal authority as an individual and that decisions can be made by majority vote at public meeting. I shall abide by majority decisions of the board while retaining the right to seek changes in such decisions through ethical and instructional channels. As part of the board of education, I shall accept the responsibility for my role in equitable and quality education of every student in the school district. I shall foster the board extensive participation of the community, formulate goals, define outcomes and set the course for community school district 427. I shall assist in establishing structure in an environment designed to ensure all students have the opportunity to attain their maximum potential through a sound organizational framework. I shall strive to ensure a continuous assessment of student achievement

011and all conditions affecting the education of our children in compliance with state law. I shall serve as education's key advocate on behalf of students and schools to advance the decision for Sycamore Community School District number 427. And I shall strive to work together with the district superintendent to lead the school district to fulfilling the vision of the board has created fostering excellence for every student in areas of academic skills, knowledge, citizenship, and personal development. Wow. And if we can all say that in harmony, we can all work together really well. So great. There's a I think probably a nice photo opportunity here. If we want to turn around, we got a district photographer here doing a quick picture. Any family or friends? Welcome. Do like a Thank you. [Applause] Okay. We'll just want to sign

012those and turn them in. Yeah. Kelly, would you please call the role for the newly selected board members? Michael Devito here. Christian here. Beth Marie Evans here. Alex here. Paul Regary here. Heather Tomlinson here. Alan Du present. Present. All right. First item on the [Music] agenda is the election of the president. Nominations are now in order for the office of president. Are there any nominations? Like to nominate Mr. Devito. I'll second it. Oh yes. Are there any other nominations for the office of president? Uh all in favor? All right. Thank you. Uh, nominations are now in order for vice president. I'd like to nominate Christian CP. Accept. Are there any other nominations? All in favor? I I Congratulations. Thank you everyone. Nominations are now in order for secretary. I'd like to nominate Alex Graos. Are

013there any other nominations? All in favor? I. Congratulations. Thank you. All right. Now, the next item on the agenda is the establishment of regular meeting dates and places, approval of board of education meeting dates. Uh so you guys all should have agendas in front of you. make sure there was a little uh highlight on two items. Uh May 27th and March 24th. Uh March 24th for 2025 to 2026 of next year falls on spring break, right? Yeah. And May 27th, is there a conflict for May 27th or was that one okay? Oh yeah. So the the not a conflict on May 27th, there's potential to be able to move to the new building by May 27th. Um if that materializes, I'll notify the board and we can um we can make that change if we

014need to. There's some there's a process to follow there. That's just kind of a highlight. Um I would suggest that the board set the meeting location here at the middle school until we make that change whether it's May 27th or um June 24th. Okay. And for the March 24th Do you have do you know what the alternative is? Typically, we've just moved it up a week, so it would be March 17th. March 17th. Okay. Uh so then is there a motion to approve the board of education meeting dates with uh the amendment to the March 24th date to reflect March 17th? So moved. Second. Second. All in favor? All right. Uh, next item on the agenda, audience participation. Is there anyone who would like to address the new board at this time? All right, seeing

015no one, we'll move on to the next item on the agenda, the superintendent reports. First, so we have building and departmental updates. Uh, the memos are included in the board packet. So, a lot of good information there. Uh, see you have any other comments on building departmental updates? No. If but if you've read through those and have questions, um, please let me know. Be glad to have a follow up with principal to, uh, get answers. Okay. On to the next item on the agenda, the annual financial presentation. So, in a second, I'm going to turn it over to Mrs. Stucker, who's our assistant superintendent for business services. Um, for the last couple of years, we've made these presentations with a board subcommittee. Um, so this is the first time that we've done this, you know,

016with the entire board and and in open session like this in a board meeting. Um, I think it's valuable so the whole board gets an opportunity to see the presentation all at once and ask questions. Um, but really uh the financial piece of uh operations of the school district is overseen by Mrs. Ducker. So I'm going to turn it over to to her at this time. Just one second here. I'm just going to get her connected. There you go. This is the Wi-Fi password. All right, go right ahead. Okay, so tonight we're going to talk about the fiscal year 26 budget. This is a very tenative budget um in the fact that um our largest state revenue, our evidence-based funding is not um allocated yet to the district. So we don't know what that number

017is going to be. And then also on the expenditure side, um our staffing usually isn't finalized until August, right before school starts. So again, these are very tentative numbers. Um so I just wanted to start with that. So first we're going to talk about revenue and we have it split out by uh the various sources of revenue. So the largest source of revenue that Sycamore receives is our property taxes. So about 75% of our revenue is from local revenue. U most of that is coming from our local property taxes. Um so for the fiscal year 26 um that is from our 2024 tax levy. So we know what that is set for next year. Um that money is based on what the consumer price index was for the no for the December prior to that.

018So we know that the CPI for last December was 3.4%. So essentially that's going to be the increase that Sycamore sees for local property taxes. Um some other local revenue that we do receive are registration fees that um our families pay upon registration. Um we do collect some impact fees from uh new homes that are being built within the school district boundaries and then also transfer taxes which are um those people who are moving into uh the school district boundaries um from another um city. So then the next largest revenue that we receive is from the state and within that our largest revenue source is our evidence-based funding. Um that makes up most of the 21%. We're not sure what that number is going to be for next school year yet. Um we anticipate that

019we'll get an additional $500,000 from what we received last year um or this current year I should say. Um this year we received about $13,500,000. Um, so we're anticipating that to go up to $14 million. We also receive what's called mandated categoricals or MCATs. Those would be our transportation payments that we receive from the claim prior um the school year prior to that. Um so for FY25 claim year, we'll start to receive that money in FY26. That's based on how many students are riding our buses in our regular and vocational programs and then our special education programs. Another category um that is in our MCATs is our special education. Um that would be our private facility and our orphanage. So our private facility would be those students that um attend outplace school districts. We do

020receive a reimbursement for that. It's not 100% reimbursement. Um it's been anywhere from 40 to 70% in my tenure here. Um, so it's not a dollar for dollar dollar that we receive back from the state. We also participate in the milk program. So students that take milk um during their breakfast or lunch, we do get a small reimbursement for that. Uh driver's ed, we get a small reimbursement from the state for that program. And then our agriculture grants and then um our new lead preschool for all grant that we received um this year um and next year. And then the smallest source of revenue that we we receive is federal. Um the majority of that is our special education grants. That is the IDA flowthrough grant which is about $800,000 a year. And then our

021IDA preschool grant um and that's about $8 to $10,000 a year. We also receive title funds. Um we received title one 124 and then um next year we'll be receiving the 103A grant that is for our school that's um had a targeted designation. Um so we'll get some money to help there. We also participate in the national school lunch program. Um so those students who again eat breakfast and lunch with us and take the meal components and get a reimbursement for that. We also uh get money for Medicaid. There's two types there. There's a fee for service um that's done quarterly and also an administrative portion of that that's um received quarterly. So here are just some charts um showing our revenue allocation by fund. Um so as you can imagine our largest fund that

022we receive revenue in is our educational fund. um that's at 73% and then you can see the various percentages throughout the other remaining seven funds. Also again our revenue by source. Our largest is our property taxes at 67%. Um then our next would be our evidence-based funding at 18%. And then um so on and so forth. Any questions on revenue? Yeah. Yeah. Um on the the offsets for state driver's ed and preschool for all is that like roughly what's the percent on those? I mean is it about is it different across program or driver's ed is a very small amount. Um I think we receive about three to $4,000 as you can imagine that doesn't cover a lot. Um the preschool for all grant um leaves out in the audience somewhere I think this year

023we got about $450,000 in reimbursement. Yeah. Um, we anticipate that same amount for next year. Again, that does not come anywhere close to covering what our costs are for that those minimal percentages. Um, I'm sorry. Minimal percentages. Yeah. Thank you. Any other questions? Is there any like revenue assumptions for the next couple of years that we can expect or how do you how do you guys tend to lay out revenue assumptions? So again, with our biggest revenue being property taxes, that's really where we're focused. Pretty much everything else we keep flat. Um, so local property taxes, we're looking at what the CBI is going to be every year. And we typically very conservatively um budget for that at 2.5 to 3%. That's historically what it's been over the last 10 years. It's usually around like

0242.7%. We had a couple years where it spiked super high after co um but it's it typically falls between 2 and a2 years like the EAD base. Do you have any idea what what we think it might be? So that's directly related um to what your property values are going up um this year. They're going up about 12%. But we know that we can only capture what that CPI is. So you're only going to go up by that 3.4% per CPI. Um unless you have a lot of new construction that's outside of the formula. So we have about $11 million in new construction for this new fiscal year. Um so for every million dollars we get about $60,000 in revenue. It's not a dollar that but that is outside of that CPI tax gap. Okay.

025Do we have like a fiveyear projected revenue somewhere that just kind of lays out what we anticipate? Yeah. So we have a 5-year program that we use that we do all of our calculations in. Yeah. So you would see it probably go up by three. Questions? Okay. So for expenditures, um again broke it down by fund, our education fund, um is where we spend the majority of our expenditures. Um and then also just looking at it by object. So we break those out by salary and benefits. Um that's our large our largest expenditures. You can see salaries at 59, benefits at 16%. Those are the board paid benefits. So what the board is paying on behalf of the individual. Um and then going on from there, we have purchase services, supplies, and then capitalized and

026non-c capitalized equipment. So the largest expenditure um that we're going to talk about first is personnel. So I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Line it. Thank you. Uh so when we sit down to talk just about um personnel on an annual basis, but also if we can project out a little bit like pipe dream if money wasn't an issue, here's some issues that or here's some uh positions we think we need or we want. These are the things we factor in. So we we look at alignment to district goals. Some of the data we may look at is MAP and because of what MAP data looks like, what are our current intervention services? What do we need? Do we have what we need? Um we look at social uh social emotional need and

027staffing um there. And then course offerings, what do we currently offer? What would we like to offer? Uh we look at student enrollments and this looks uh different at different uh levels. high school, uh, there might be less of an impact if, um, we need to add a class, you know, it might be an overload to a teacher. At the elementary level, because we have neighborhood schools, if all of a sudden one grade level pops a few students and it goes over a certain threshold, that means an entire new teacher, a new section. So, at the high school where it might just be an overload, at the elementary, we're talking about a whole another FTE. um student interest uh more of an impact at middle school and even greater at the high school. But um

028when they choose their courses and what courses they want to take, then we have to figure out staffing. Do we have the staffing based on what student interest is? We always look at the costs, the financial impact of those decisions. And then all of those things I talked about um really bring us back to if we make a change whether it's an addition or a subtraction what impact does that have on the student experience uh that our students are um some of the things that we can use to project out. So some of the knowns um the first is uh expenditures. So, salary factors. So, our custodial one right now, that's a little bit of an unknown. Um, their contract runs through the end of this year. So, we're currently negotiating with that group. So,

029we don't really know what uh that new contract is going to look like. Uh, for our teacher contract, we do know that through FY26. Um, so that goes another year and we know what those numbers are. Um, some staff will get a 2.5, others will get a five uh% raise in FY26. And then for PAR educators, their runs uh theirs runs a year longer. So through FY27. So those are the knowns um with a 3% um in FY26. The other things we can factor in are retirements. Um so what type of savings uh are maybe coming up? Nonert is a a little more difficult to predict. A little more unknowns there. Um some of those individuals let us know they're retiring maybe the year of or maybe two years out where usually with teachers we

030know four years out. Um so here's just four years. Um looking out the retirements we have coming up. Those are numbers we take into consideration. Uh with certified staff we do the same thing four years out. Um we have large groups um coming up here in a a couple years. I anticipate those that put in um this summer um for 28 29 will probably be another larger group. We're losing a lot of um veteran uh teachers, a lot of great teachers, um a lot of leaders um that have been in this district for a long time. So, um we got a lot of work to do in the next few years um to try and fill some holes. So with all those things, every year we talk about um personnel recommended additions. Um we have

031discussions that lead up to in the past it was that board finance subcommittee and now it's to the whole board. Um and we discussed the addition of or possible addition of 28.4 full-time um employees. all that I think we could argue we probably need. Um more need than want, but that's not realistic. Uh we know we can't add 30 FTE every single year. Um that just wouldn't be fiscally responsible. Um it wouldn't be sustainable. So what uh we're presenting uh based off of those 28.4 discussed um a recommended addition of 8.4 FTE. Tried to outline them a little bit for you. Um I'll go through them and and if there's questions feel free to jump in I'm gonna ask. Um so under a question before you Yeah. Yeah. Um those five that are retiring from

032the last slide or something like that. Go back. Well, yeah. Are those Yeah. Those five positions and those four positions, are those basically nine FTEEs that then you're advocating to replace like on a onetoone basis with these next positions? Like are they the same type of position? No, not necessarily. And that goes back to one of the previous slides about what student requests are and what needs are and what programming is going to look like. So it's not always person. Yeah, I had a question about that slide too. Okay. Um you want me to go back? Yeah, you can. Um so what is what does the process actually look like? Like I see your bullets, but is there like a standard operating procedure? How are you waiting those metrics? For instance, you said like it's

033more of an impact the high school than the middle school for student interest. So, like what weight does it have? You know, is there a is there a rubric? Well, so every high school student chooses their classes. They choose what classes they're going to take. Um, and then we calculate all those things to figure out what are the classes that are going to be offered and we figure out what departments they fall under. Uh, to figure out what courses we want to offer. Obviously, there's some that are electives. Uh, there's others that students have to take. Um, and then we figure out our FTE based on that. So there is like a formula. You just plug those lines into a formula and it spits out. I mean a basic spreadsheet, right? That and I don't

034know if Brian's out there. It's just going through the the sectioning at the high school level. Well, and I don't mean sorry I don't mean to say just for student interest. I mean taking together all those things like how are you waiting cost versus impact on student experience? Is there a document that you reference historically? This is how we wait cost versus student. There's not a document like that. There's not a rubric because there's some intangibles that you have to pay attention to. Um it's a conversation that we have every year. Um and and it can get pretty complicated. Every year we've averaged about 30 requests in terms of FTE. Um I don't know of one rubric that would help us sort all of that out. So it's a it's a pretty lengthy process. Starts

035in January. uh and we meet with the leadership team um who has kind of gathered input whether it's from staff or talking amongst themselves in terms of what they feel like um they could use uh to to kind of go back to to Nick's point I think we could argue that there's there's a need for everything that was requested but my commitment has always been to live within our means so um what can we afford and what are the highest priorities there just not a rubric that helps us sort all of that out K through 12 and C 12. Um, so we do our best to gather as much information as we can. We have follow-up conversations and then ultimately it's a conversation amongst the three of us in terms of what we feel are

036the best recommendations to make to the board. Uh, and that's what you see here tonight. So, I think it's a really good question. Um, and all my years I I would struggle to be able to put together a rubric with um numbers that would spit out a formula and these are the positions that you need. Again, some of the things are intangible. Um, one of the things that I'll point out here real quick, and I think Nick may touch on this of those positions, the LEAF teacher, special speech language, ABLE, um, LEAF PAR educator, ELLL PAR educator, those are all directly related to student services that are required under either federal law for special education or or the English language programming. So some of our conver our conversation always starts I should say with what

037do we have to do? What are we required to do? So multiple positions on on that list are things that we have to do because of being able to manage case loads increases in special education eligibility among students. Um there are a couple of other positions again Nick will touch on that um that we think are um our highest priority and in especially with the assistant director for student services I think kill a couple birds with one stone so to speak that provides support kind of across the district. So again to go back to your question I don't know that there's a rubric that would that would be easy to use because there are a lot of a lot of issues that we need to weigh. Sure. I guess I wouldn't think there'd be a

038one-sizefits-all rubric. But see, you've got five elementary schools. They have some with higher levels of low income, some without. So, I didn't know, you know, you might think, how are you allocating the FTS or the dollars based on say the low income or not? Like, it makes sense to have I just didn't know they could have a formula for that or something. I I don't need to get hung up here, but yeah, I think it's a really good point, really good question. um things like low-inccome do vary among schools and some schools get additional funding that other schools don't to support that. Um so that helps there. But um we could certainly look at something like that for the five elementary schools. But to your point to use something that that could be used K5

03968 and then 912 I think would be difficult. Do the people responsible for making these hiring recommendations, the collective group of principles and other directors that are responsible for that know in advance sort of what what the district can afford? For instance, hey guys, we can do half a million dollars this year, which is we're at 490 was our budget. So that way they don't spend time coming back with 30 people. I mean, there's no way you can get 30 people half a million bucks. So if they knew in advance what we as a district could afford that might help with prioritizing on their end or is it I don't I don't see it as as a huge issue. Um some of these things we we get to see every year and the value of

040telling them give us kind of your dream list. Um is that every year we see what what they would request if if funding wasn't an issue. So, one really good example of that, apologize if I'm stealing your thunder, is the uh the high school middle school counselor. It's been a request for several years, especially the high school counselor. Uh it's been a request for many years, well beyond my time, you know, before my time here. I don't know that we would have known that had we not asked them for all of their requests and um we just on a year-to-year basis, you know, we look at the resources that are available. Uh where's where's the greatest need? What can we afford? How can we live within our means? Um and and what are our priorities?

041The prioritization in full point is sort of what I'm curious about. How do we prioritize what you know I don't know if that's something you're prepared to pull out now? It wasn't it's a long it's a lengthy process. Again starts in January and and here it is April 22nd you know where we're ready to make those recommendations. It's it's a lengthy process and takes a lot of conversation and some research and a lot of followup as well. Just a quick question. So the 8.4 that's incremental to what we have this year. Is that a correct understanding? So four fts that we have today which I don't know the exact number but it's 8.4 additional. And then the other question just curious I know you mentioned that the the counselor position had come up multiple times.

042Yeah. Um, are there are there many others that have continually been requested in that 28.4 that we had to say no to over time? These sorts of reports are nice, but it'd be really great to understand what are we missing and now not maybe we maybe we can't stay within our means to do those things and obviously you made those choices to try to understand that but it would be help might be helpful for us in the future or you know come to board meeting just to understand what are we saying no to because of course we want to say yes to everything as much as we can but but at what expense what what are we saying no to help understand good good I think just kind of echoing some of the sentiment, the

043prioritization process I think as we were going through the goal setting process is a challenge and I think really really is a challenge for this board because a big part of the board setting goals and setting district priorities is having the context. And so like to Allen's point, you know, I don't know if 8.4 four FTEES is 1% of the total FTEES if it's 10% of you know I I mean make some educated assumptions but I don't I don't know what the effect those additional FTEES will have on the levy I don't know what effect they'll have on what our expenditures will be three years from now um so from like and I think of a sensitivity table where essentially you you have scenarios like scenario A scenario B scenario C and if we have

044FTE in a particular the category that maps out over five years and has this effect on our expenditures. And again, like kind of again stepping on Allen's point a little more, the every additional FD we can only assume comes at a cost of other FTEEs and knowing that there's 30 that are being asked for and eight are kind of rising to the surface. Having some more insight into the process that led to those eight makes it more defensible to the community. um because then we can go and say this is why we have these 8.4 FTE. This is why we chose this particular um group. This is how we're making sure that it maps to this district goal. And so I think that there's a real opportunity um for the board and for the admin

045to collaborate on that prioritization process. Do you have an idea of especially again since we're in the midst of goal setting how our goal setting can overlap with the prioritization process spec specifically with personnel recommended additions? Is there a is there a bridge where you'd say, "Oh, if the district or if the the board said this goal, it would really empower us to be able to um support these personnel." uh because it it was on one of the slides for like priorities was map to district goals, right? And so I guess it's just helpful feedback. Do you do you see any particular goal that the board should focus on that would help this? Um you know, one of the things that came up with goal setting the other night, um everybody, you know, was there

046was that if the board prioritized a specific program, and I think the example was we want to expand early early childhood. If we knew that, you know, the leadership team knew that that the board wanted to and whatever it is, I'm just using early childhood as an example, right? If we knew that, that would certainly be helpful in terms of prioritizing resources, right? And and you're right, adding something comes at a cost of not being able to add something else. Um, so difficulties in a finite budget um or you're not generating additional profit to, you know, to to do more there. there's limited, you know, revenue that that Nicole talked about earlier. So, um, and as we've talked about before, the business services committee, that's going to meet throughout the year. So, I think that's

047the opportunity to have some of these conversations on an ongoing basis. But I would say if the board has a specific priority um that it wants us to to look at, whether it's to research or to factor into these decisions, absolutely that would be help. There's one and not to skip ahead, I got the slides in advance, right? Um, but the the last slide talks about our ending fund balance and our ending fund balance is projected to 26%. I know that like our board policy says 25%'s the bottom, 50%'s what healthy looks like. I think it's 412. Maybe it's a reach. Last year, I think we were at 27%, the year before we were at 30% projected ending fund balance. I think there was a 3% disparity between projected and actual. I mean 26%'s like

048like a hair above. That's really really close. Speaking just from what our current policy stipulates, I think working towards 50 is certainly a priority. Is there a way where we can see how these recommendations will spill into us getting closer to 50 over time or is that just something that we need to go back to policy on and say 50% is unachievable. we shouldn't be saying we're striving for this because we're not. I would say that there's so many factors that play in to that. You know, it's personnel and facilities. It's it's unforeseen needs, right? So, um if the board wanted to increase fund balances to 50% as opposed to to 26, we would definitely want to know that um because that would influence, you know, to get to 50%, we're probably not increasing staff.

049You know, those are those are difficult conversations to get that that big of a jump. 35% different conversation. 40% different conversation. But again, like like a specific program, if that's the board's goal is to get to 50% fund balances. I I think we're responsible to kind of mle that over. How does that impact the budget? What are those scenarios look like? Um what would that come at the expense of? And then um just some direction from the board. Good. I think we'll go over that at our next We can come back with some priorities. Tall tall tall bill to fill. Yeah, it's it's on the list. It's it's that's one of the goals on the list. So I I guess once we get that hashed out, I'd assume that would be your subsequent to FY26

050any of the goals we come up with with because I feel it would be for example, and I'm not saying it is the board's goal. We truly haven't had the conversation to raise funds to the fund balance to 50%. Reneg 8.4% FTE when we've already committed to it doesn't seem feasible, right? Or or would it be? or this would the goals we're working now just be for years in the future like FY27 and beyond is that's how I thought it was going to be but I guess I'm just curious what you all think that was my understanding is that goal setting process that the board is going through right now was for um obviously some of those goals are going to apply to FY26 but um one of the things that was discussed is a

0515-year financial plan um that goes out to FY29. Right. So, um, now as Nicole said, even though it's not part of this slide deck, you know, we're making projections a couple years out, two, three years out, um, you know, fairly solid ground, get to four or five years out, and there are so many unknowns, you know, that that that starts to impact projections that you can make. still worth going at least five years, I think. Um, but we do that already. We just didn't necessarily report that in in the presentation tonight. I I guess what I mean, it would be helpful to get some guidance from us if it's okay. And by 2030, we need XYZ personnel for XYZ project if the the board collectively has decided it's a goal. Absolutely. I think giving you

052that, yeah, it would be more for long-term planning though, not short term is is how I interpret these goals. sometime within that fivey year plan whatever it is. Yeah, very helpful. How tentative is this tenative presentation? I think you use tenative twice. So, it's tenative tenative. Tenative. That's why we don't do the tenative budget until August. Um because these numbers like the state could come back and say, "Hey, we're not giving you any evidence based funding." And that would be $14 million of our budget. So, um it's very tangible and I don't see that kind of cliff coming. Um some of you may have uh may remember that um not too many years ago the state just quit sending money to schools in about February. I think that underscores the fund balance conversation. So, um

053and it was a financial issue, right? It's a school it's a state budget issue. uh state budget's not as positive as it this year as it's been in years past. So, while we're hearing a commitment to additional, you know, an additional $350 million in in EF funding till that budget's passed in May, you know, we don't want to necessarily um guarantee that. And then there there are some other issues that that may come up over the summer, changes in staffing or personnel can impact that. But um yeah, that's why it's tenative. Is that typically when it gets burned up the on the revenue side effect? Yeah. And they'll send us allocations of what we're going to receive for the EDF and then for our daily capital being my first time through this. It's new. Um,

054so we have a budget for 25 and a tenative. I sort of sorry I went back a little but just as we're talking couple things are coming. How accurate and this is this isn't a test. I'm just trying to understand when we budget a certain expenditure, are we usually pretty accurate? Do we have some wiggle room? Do we sometimes come below, sometimes over? Do we have some sort of ideas like forecasted accuracy or budget versus actual? Yeah. So, we do that's what an AFR is. So, our annual financial report. So, that's looking at what we actually spent for the year. So, then you compare that to our budget. Um that's also in that thick book that I gave you to read through from the auditors. Um that always compares budget to actual. Um there's a

055lot of variables that go into that. Typically on the expenditure side more so revenues once we know they're set, they're pretty much set. Um that doesn't typically fluctuate. um personnel. I will say it's usually on the special education side just because there's things that pop up during the year that uh we didn't anticipate. We do always budget for a contingency also. Um usually around $300,000 some years we go right through that money. Um, so it can vary from like a gohead the budgeted actual like I was looking at the CFR for like transportation and I think last year we were budgeting I think it was like somewhere and correct me if I'm wrong but it there was like a million dollar disparity between the budget and the actual is that happen a lot in certain

056funds or is it um I'm not certain on what the variable 3 and it the actual ended up being I think less. The actual ended up being less than what the budgeted amount was which is promising. Um I will say the transportation fund does have a large fund balance in it. Um so we actually have been trying to spend that money back down. Um so we've been trying to get our fleet back up um to where it was six years ago. Um, but no, typically I wouldn't say a variable like that. It's fun. Maybe the education fund just because that's where most of our expenditures are coming from. Do we do and I don't think we've done an inter fund transfer in a long time. Do you see aside from into capital expenditures? Um that's

057there's actually case law out there for doing interfund transfers from like the transportation fund to the education fund because that money is le or the capital just any fund for them. Um well we've moved money from the on&m fund to the capital projects fund. That was the bond sale that we did. So that was specifically for working cash bonds to fund capital projects. Um there are inner fund transfers that you can do from fund to fund like transportation to ed but um like I said there's case law out there that goes against that because that money was specifically loving to be spent in that fund on those resources. So you can't push all this money into transportation and just move it to education fund to spend it on other things and vice versa. And does

058does like our revenue levy for this upcoming year kind of reflect some of those concerns to avoid acrewing like a large balance again and kind of strapping So we've actually been trying to push more money into the education fund because that fund typically does have a deficit every year. Well, I mean, capital I was just looking at it and it was like I think the allocation for the capital fund it's like capital fund we don't we don't levy for the um and it's I'm jumping ahead to the next I'll let we'll get to those slides. Sorry. It's but the 500,000 allocation that's oh for the on fun yeah form is that and I know that that's usually pretty low. So that money we received $20 million in bonds in the working cash fund and then

059we transfer that all into O and M and then you have to transfer it from there into the capital projects fund. So we will see a deficit obviously we spend that money down. We still have about $600,000 left of that bond proceed. Um so you're going to see a deficit because you're not you're not getting all that revenue in each year. It came in in 2021 and we've been spending it down over the last few years. And there's some debt service there's some bonds coming up. I think in the next couple years, I think one's like three million or$4 million bonds coming up in the next couple years and and that'll free up some available what leviable debts or something to that effect. Yes. The the the debt service fund is a different fund. So

060that is Yes. Just the debt that the district owes. So we levy for what the district owes on those funds. Is there and again I'm thinking about like in 2027 I think there's a note for like 3.2 2 million that's going to fall off of our debt service. And I know the PMA is coming in, finance company is going to give us their whole shield in a couple of weeks. I assume this will come up then. But for some of these like revenue and expense projections, does do you guys have a sort of idea of how that debt may affect that five-year tenative plan that that you have for financial forecasting? Yes, that always plays into it. But debt service, you have to remember, is completely from all of our operation accounts. So that money

061is specific to spend on capital improvement projects. Um you levy for what you owe. So you're never going to like garner more revenue in that fund or anything like that. So funding like on More than $500,000 wouldn't be wise if we knew and had the foresight that three years from now we were probably going to be issuing more debt for on M. Correct. Okay. Yes. So it's probably reason then the $500,000 is probably reasonable. Again, it's hard to tell without like having a a five-year lookout and like, hey, this is the third eye that, you know, is going, hey, we anticipate this. So, the 500,000 may right now to us look like it's underfunded and may be like, oh, we really need more, but in reality, there's just two short years going to be. Yeah,

062if we're able to issue another bond to pay for that, yes, we could do that once that debt falls off. All right, that's a nice option. Mhm. So when is the the levy per fund once it's reduced can you raise it back up? So for example one year hypothetically want to levy nothing for transportation hypothetical scenario. Could we ever levy it again? Okay. So you can adjust it every year. It's not like the big levy where one if you underlevy you're never getting that increment back. Well I think there's two different things. Are you talking about two different things? So, yeah. Like not levying the full amount because I would never suggest No, no. But it's not like that is what I'm saying. It's not the same. Okay. Good. Yeah. If we want to move

063more money into the education fund levy, we can do that. And then next year, if we need more money in the transportation fund, we can do that. Okay. Yeah. As long as it all falls within our tax account. We can only ask for the amount that we can ask for. We can't just ask for this. um this you know certain number that we wish for. Um it's all dependent on what that tax cap is. Yeah. Okay. Let's keep rolling. I don't know where we're at. Uh personal recommend. You hit on a bunch of them. Stole my thunder. Um you want me to hit on on each of these just a little bit or I think I think on personalities, right? Yeah. Okay. Do you have some things that you want to say for each one?

064Certainly open to hearing about it. Sure. I just don't know how much how much you guys are aware or know or how much knowledge you guys want. But um some of these positions are are positions that have existed in the past. So they want to wait in budget cuts. Um and we've just been kind of over time trying to work our our way back um if there was a need to get these back. So the tech specialist would be one of those. Right now, we don't have a tech specialist at every single elementary. We have uh two individuals that split schools. Um and then a couple other that are full-time at at buildings. Um so we were able to uh we were down to three a few years back. We were able to to gain

065a fourth and we had budgeted for a fifth for a couple years and weren't able to fill. Um so then we had reallocated that to fill another need um that we prioritized at that time and feel we're finally in a position to get back um to where each elementary school would have one to where staff could be um could get the same service across the board um where right now there's not always someone available because they might be in a different building. Um so so it's one per school or there's two. This would get us to one per school. Okay. This would at the elementary level this this would get us back to where we were going back 10 years, you know. Um counselor kind of the same thing. So the high school had a

066fourth um for a time period when when I was there. Um and again that was one that went away. So for years uh Mr. Carlson was trying to get that that back. Prioritized other things. Um and then the middle school and the high school worked together. um said, "Yeah, in an ideal world, they could each use one as um social emotional needs had gone up." Um but also knowing um to be fiscally responsible kind of brought this idea of splitting um if they couldn't each have one uh to where it would be a transitional counselor, someone that's working with eighth graders and freshmen um and has two years with them to help them during that that big transition up to the high school. With a counselor, is it like a more therapist or a guidance

067counselor? Uh it would be it would be a counselor um not a social worker but they but they still provide some of those services just not usually tied to IEPs. Okay. Um so they provide those same some of those same services just to our gen population. So there would be a heavy emphasis on that. Um the and as Steve said a lot of these are tied to student services or case load numbers. Um the LEAF teacher would be at the elementary. Um, we saw, and I would have to defer it to Emily or Len if she's out there, um, or Meg, but that program grew by four, five, six, I mean, students that we just hadn't, five, um, six that we hadn't projected um, either movements or students that then qualified. Um, so we started

068the year thinking we were on solid ground and there's just this growth. So, we know going into next year, we'd be starting kind of at the max. And if there was any growth at all, we'd be searching for a teacher mid year. And I don't think that's responsible. Um because I don't think we would find one. Um speech language path. Uh kind of the same thing tied to case load. So we've been in a situation where case loads have been pretty high for for a few years and numbers have grown. Um, so we've ended up having to contract out a lot of uh SLP, so services look differently than what I think would be ideal if we had our own individuals here. Um, so this year alone, I think we ended up having to contract

069out like three. Um, so if this was approved and we moved forward with 1.4, it' still be a cost savings versus what we've had to do in contract. Um, which I would anticipate we would probably end up having to do again next year if we don't add. Yes. that 1.4 that would cover the three that we're we're sourcing out. Yeah, some are part-time and some Yeah, it's a messy this would cover the need. So, this is one of those things that we sit down with uh student services and they kind of lay it all out for us and show us the need. And that savings is part of what's in the table to the right. That that's included in that table. Yeah, that's everything. Oh, did did you not the not the contract? No, not

070the contract. So there's so it might offset some of the net new cost just to understand the uh the able teacher similar to to leave um our numbers have grown there. We've seen growth at the elementary and had to add a few years back. Um now some of those students are getting up to middle school while elementary is still growing. Um so right now there's only one teacher at uh the middle school. Um so the recommendation is to add another. Um it's also with just one it's difficult to teach all the different levels um of the students within that classroom. So this would assist in that. Um the the assistant director of student services this was something that um we talked to that and now it's completely new board I think from that time. But

071um in the in the business finance committee the subcommittee we talked about this probably four years ago. I think when I first came to the position it was kind of high in the sky. if money wasn't an issue kind of what would our organizational chart look like? Um it was something that was brought back up by the board when we replaced Lynn Riley. Um just the question of have we ever thought about an assistant director so we would have had someone in place that we were really growing to um to take over that position. Um and that along with um a lot of those um discussions around that 28.4 that aren't nec necessarily coming in that same form as recommendations. we think we can cover some of some of the needs. So, probably the biggest

072thing would be elementary support. Um, this person would help out as kind of a an elementary um special ed coordinator. Again, a position we used to have. Um, this is going back several years um but went away during budget cuts and haven't replaced it yet. So, those responsibilities have fallen on the director uh when in the past we had a director and these coordinators. Um so we think that is one of the many things this um individual could take on to assist the elementary um because right now again they go straight to the director where the principles are having to serve that role as well. Um yeah sure. Yeah. So like you said this a couple times we used to have a position then the budget cuts we lost it. During the time we lost

073the position did we notice materially worse outcomes? like does the data support yeah we lost this position and it hurt us here so we should replace it or is it just we lost it we'd like to have it back um and and I would defer to to some of the individuals out there that have been serving in these roles people have taken on more and more job responsibility so I would say we're stretching people extremely thin and I don't know that it's sustainable um I think our teachers for sure but our administrators as well we ask a lot of our principles um so I would say in just sheer workload um and the things we've asked them to do that don't traditionally fall within, I would say, the scope of that job in other districts.

074Um, but we're trying to get them to stay stay with us. Um, yeah, in terms of special ed specific data, I would definitely defer to Meg Thurman or Sarah Ward. I don't think she's here. Um, but those are the people that have served in those roles, I think, a long time that jobs have been picked. So, but your your question is a good one. So, you're in and you're out. we, you know, especially from the most veteran staff, um, who lived through those budget cuts and remember what we had and what we're doing without now. Um, I am not a fan of, well, this is what we had before, so we need to bring it back, what's the need, you know, how what's the need in terms of supporting students, what's the need in terms

075of supporting staff, uh, administration as well. And and I think with this position in specific, it's a matter of how far we've stretched everybody thin and people have just picked up the load. Um we run really lean in terms of our administrative staff. So um we cover a lot of ground, but at some point we're not doing as much as we could um because people are are are carrying a lot. So, um, in this case, you know, it's it's been on it's been on that list for a couple of years, and I think we're at a point where we can afford it, and it's become a big enough priority that, um, it's not just trying to bring it back. It's this is a need, you know, providing that elementary special education coordination. Um, we'll take

076load off of the the five principles at the at the elementary level. Um, but in the past, when Riley picked that up, currently me Thurman, the director, picks some of that stuff up, too. So, I think freeing them up will will see direct impact on students. Yeah, I would say there's plenty that have been asked for that we used to have that we've said no to as well. So, um everything hasn't been brought back and we haven't recommended everything be brought back. Um for non-certified staff, that lead parah would be it's directly connected to that lead teacher. So, if we open up a new classroom, we're going to need more PAR support as well. So, that's tied into something I had mentioned before. And then Steve had already referenced um the ELLL par educator. Um

077I'd like to say some of these things are a surprise, but these are a lot of things we predicted, I would say, coming out of the pandemic just in terms of student service support and needs that were going to probably continue to arise. So some things that kind of expected and we're kind of at that point. Is there recommendations? Yeah, I'm really happy to see the ELLL PAR educator between recent distinguished alumni Chad McGee and uh my own mom. I'm well aware of some of the ongoing ELLL program and they really need that that support. So, I know they've been asking. So, I'm happy to see that. Can you help me understand the the group or how how you do I know we talked a little somebody asked about prioritization. Do we involve the or

078who's involved I guess in that process? Assume it's not just sure yourself, but I'm sure there's a collaborative process to go from the 284 to the 84. So, I would say staff advocates for themselves to principles throughout the year. Um, principles are constantly hearing about what need is and principles are filling in some of that need when they're short staffed. Um, so I think they see firsthand, but then around budget time, we we bring the entire leadership team in um and have a discussion and that's the principles and the Yeah. and directors, principles, directors, assistant principles, um, everybody um, comes in and and we have a discussion. That that was something that used to be, I would say, isolated, like we would meet with North Grove and North Grove would tell us what they want.

079We decided to take more of a team approach. So, um, North Grove might hear from West and then they were about to ask for something and realize, you know what, that needs greater. So, um, it's become a lot more collaborative, I would say, and a team approach. Um and then based on what what we talk about that meeting, we ask them for a priority list. So based on those discussions, if you really had to narrow this down, what would it look like at each level? Um then we have another meeting um because they talk about some of those student service requests. Then we have another meeting with Meg Thurman um to ask her just talk through those even more to explain it to us. Um then we have some discussion to try and figure out

080um what we think what priorities should be and ultimately does this even fit within the budget. We could say yeah 28.4 but Nicole's going to tell us no. Nicole's really good at telling us no. Um so we really start to have Nicole crunch numbers. Um and then based on this priority list uh that you see we brought the team back together to say, "Hey, this is what um we're thinking about. Um are we thinking about this right? Are we missing something? Will this cover some of the holes? I know it's not covering everything, but will it fill some of the gaps that maybe we had this year? Great. I'm not surprised, but I'm really glad to hear and happy to hear the collaboration, a lot of team effort is great. Okay, back to budget. Okay.

081Okay. So, the next largest piece of the budget is uh the board paid benefits. Um so that's um around $11 million. Um that number has grown over the last few years. Um it's directly related to how many staff that we have also. Um so currently um for each individual they pay into a retirement fund. So on the certified side it's TRS. Um and then on the non-certified side it's IMRF. Um certified also pays into Medicare. Non-certified pays into Medicare and Social Security. So there are obligations as an employer on percentages that we are required to pay. Um for TRS you can see the percentages there. Also, um, for the teachers contract, the district also picks up the employee portion also. So, we pay 100% um, TRS costs for our certified staff. Um, also certified staff

082once they retire um, they are able to get health care through TRS. So, during their tenure while they're working, they pay into the teachers health insurance fund. Um, so again, there's an employer cost to it. And then um there's an employee cost to it. The board actually picks up um about 90% of the employed portion of the THIS. Um on the IMRF side, again, you can see what the board portion is, Medicare, Social Security. We also have a very robust health insurance plan. Um it's self-funded. Um it is a Cadillac plan for our staff. Um we have very low deductibles, which is great for them. um not so great for the board. So um our health insurance is very costly. Um and we do have a health insurance committee that um we work with our

083certified and non-certified staff. Um and it is great that we're self-funded because um you know we're able to do some things that maybe those fully funded um health health insurance plans aren't able to do. Um but it does tend to be more costly to the district. Okay. So we talked about salary and benefits which are our largest um expenditures. So then about 14% of our budget is um what we would call our operational cost. Um so that includes um some different departments here. So I'm just going to quickly go through each of these um slides that we have and so feel free to ask questions. Um, so just really fast on the health plan for the self-funded portion, how how is the health plan doing for self-funded? I think it is it at least balanced

084or is it from what I understand it is not currently balanced. Um, we have um some high cost payments. Um each year we typically have around three or four. This year we have 10 high cost payments on our plan. Um, so again, because we're self-funded, those claims come directly to us and we pay those. Um, so we do partner with a stop-loss carrier. So once claims hit a certain threshold, we're at $150,000. The district is reimbursed for that. Um, but there's a lot of claimants that don't really technically get to that 150. So the district's just district's just paying out. Um, we also have some individuals that don't meet the criteria for that high cost stop loss. Um, so they actually have a higher cost. So instead of the 150, there might be an individual

085that has to hit 400,000 before the stop-loss carrier starts to reimburse us for it. Um, so we have seen our claims go up um quite significantly in the last two, three years. That deficit balance, which I think it's right now at 1.1 million, Where does the money come from when we run an episode deficit? Like is it come from the ad fund? Yeah. Or Okay. And who and I as I imagine there's an actuary who sets the rate based on that loss. Do we expect that there will be a big change to next year's like with our stock loss, right? Um so when we go out to renewal, they do look at what what our um high cost claimments are, where our claims have been. Um, typically our renewals been coming in around 8 to

08615% increases. Um, so we do get dinged for that. We also get dinged for having a Cadillac plan because those deductibles are so low. Um, it's just unheard of really um, anywhere. So, um, we do get dinged for that. So, our remote does typically come in a little higher. the and just speaking from some experience because when my wife worked for the school district, she was on the HSA plan because it made a lot of sense to be on the HSA plan for us. Y um and like in our example, every year we would get a contribution to our HSA account that could later be converted into retirement money, whatever, right? It's treated as because HSA accounts retirement. If we would have taken the Cadillac plan, it when I did the out- of- pocket runs,

087worst case scenario, when she had our son Charlie, she maxed her out of pocket. We still were better off on the HSA plan than we would have been on the Cadillac plan. What I'm trying to understand is why we are why anyone would want to be on the Cadillac plan. Is there something I'm missing? The out of pocket maximum is lower with the HSA plan if you are super sick and if you're not you get to keep the money that's contributed to the HSA. Is there some piece and we're also running at a million plus deficit in the fund that comes straight out of the ed fund which short potentially over a fiveyear run could mean shortfalls to additional FTE in that it could affect our negotiations. Why? I can't answer that for you. Um,

088so we did implement the high deductible plan. Um, what's the participation look like on them? So, we we did negotiate um with our staff that any new individual coming to the district that is just single, so doesn't have a family with them, they have to automatically go on that high deductible in order to save the district some money. Um, and really for those individuals that that don't really utilize the health plan, like you said, they get a contribution from the district, they're able to use that money to offset other medical costs. Um, or it just goes into a savings account and that that builds up year after year. Um, but that's something that's with ACA, the Affordable Care Act, we pay a penalty by offering a Cadillac plan. Is this right? Am I understanding that?

089Which just goes to the federal government to the powers of be. Do we know about what that penalty is? It's a percentage of the total cost of the offerings, right? Yeah. Is there Sorry, go ahead. Again, you know, I work in group health insurance. Um, so it when you see stuff like this, it just begs so many questions. I just I hope that because like you mentioned, when we have new staff, they come, they they're on the high deductible plan. But again, you run the numbers on it. High deductible, low deductible. You're always better on the high deductible. Am I miss like I don't know that there the care is the same. It's the same network. So is there something else that's driving incentive to the low deductible plan any I mean is it just

090a misunderstanding because it's from what I understand I mean I don't know if there's a trend that we can map out the amount of cost because that I'm almost wondering if the board would be remiss if they didn't take that savings and then increase the HSA contribution. I mean, it's like it shouldn't it could just everyone could win. I don't that was the purpose behind it um when we did that as part of the negotiations. Um but the way the contracts are right now, the the family plans are still on that low deductible. Are we going to bid that renewal, you think, for a different stop-loss carrier? Is that possible? Or we because I know we're these captives. Yeah, we do every year. We bit out our staff office. It's with Gallagher right now, right?

091Um the staff office is with Sunlight. Sunlight. But Gallagher is the administrator of the third party. Okay. Yeah. And Okay. All right. That's interesting. Thank you. Sorry. Got a little specific. So are these is all of this tied to the current SEA contract. So we're we're locked at least through FY26, but then it's on the table for Yeah. Um Okay. So, O andM operations and maintenance fund. Um, these dollars are allocated specifically for our buildings. Um, so again, we have to balance what we can afford uh without deficit spending because we know that's important to us. Um, so we allocate about $500,000 every year in capital improvement projects. I work with our director of building and grounds. We have a a five-year internal plan that we use and then we know we also have a

092facility plan that we work with our architects on. And then we also have a 10-year healthife safety plan that we're required to have for the state. Um again, that's done every 10 years for each building. Uh so they all coincide with each other, but the lists are a little different. Um, so Scott, our director of building and grounds, he works with each of our buildings on what their priorities are in their building. Um, and again, we have to sit down and kind of walk through what we can afford and and what we prioritize from the district level, too. So, these are just some examples of um the capital improvement projects that are on the docket for next school year. Some of these will actually start this summer um as we transition into July 1. um

093painting, um resurfacing our the main gym at the high school, um we have some seal coating projects that we need to do, uh boiler replacement at the middle school, um and things of that nature. So, that's what those dollars are spent on each year. Transportation would would probably be our next largest expenditures that we have. Um, transportation, we're really focused on looking at our vehicle fleet. So, Mrs. Lance, our director of transportation, does a really good job at what we have and what we need for uh the next school year. Um, one thing that she's done um, immensely over the last two years is try to bring back all of our um, routes that we utilize for our outplace students. So, our kids that go to other places um, we've had to outsource that those

094to other transportation um, companies. U, we think we're going to start the school year with everyone back with us with our own drivers. Great. because outsourcing um costs us probably at least double of what it would cost to use our own drivers. So with that we have to look at what our vehicle rotation is um three years ago, three four years ago we had a really old fleet. I mean, we had um buses that went back to like 2008. Um which kudos to our staff for keeping them in great shape. Um but we know that those need to be rotated out. And so for next school year, we're looking at purchasing three new um full-size passenger buses. Uh we need to get a new van um again to help with our out um outplace students.

095and then looking at either getting a mini bus that can work for our wheelchair kiddos or then just getting another mini um yellow bus. Um so those are the vehicles that we'd like to purchase for next school year. Oh, go ahead. The Honda Odyssey, I mean, is it is that something that we're looking specifically at? Uh like a Honda Odyssey for is there any specific reason we're looking for that? That's really all that we can get vanwise, honestly. Anybody have you back there? Hi. Um, we have Dodge right now. They don't make them anymore. Um, our outpost, some of them, um, say we go to Chy Park. They're backing up almost 200 miles every couple days. So, the Honda Odyssey have um, drivability up to 300,000 miles. There's a service center here. So, if you

096buy them, use a super low mileage, they still have a warranty. We can take them there to get warranty service. Um, so we look at those factors. Um, spacewise, they are able to We have one um group that's in the Odyssey we bought last year. Um there's six kids in there and it accommodates them with space, six adult size students. So um it allows some more flexible um transportation. So we're not sending full size buses down 8. Um so that's kind of why we looked at those. Um we looked at the Kia, they were a little bit um less expensive. There's they're not able to be serviced locally, so we have to find the staff to get them to and from which is those factors that we use when we open those. Excellent advocating. I

097answered all my questions. Yeah, Lacy's done a really good job researching these. Um, we have with our outplay students, you know, sometimes there's kids that can sit next to each other. So, we want to make sure that we have space in those vehicles. Um, so what what is what is the serviceable life for a bus? I for a what? For a bus. depends um or generally what do we how often do we for us we have to factor in um you know it depends if it's a country route or an route how many miles put on it ours are all stored outside as you know so obviously you know the wear and tear just weather in general um we implemented a couple years ago where we have a company come in they detail the exterior

098where they'll spray down a couple times a year to knock the salt off which runs so it really depend on what we're utilizing them for. Um we have some buses right now in our older rotation that are, you know, 100,000 plus miles. Um the preventative maintenance on them is um happening every every day, you know, every year. We we work on that. We have two mechanics now which we did not have in the past. So to have that then, you know, the oil changes are being done regularly, parts are being changed appropriately, that kind of stuff. So um oldest buses are in that 10 year range. We have about seven to eight that are in that 10 year range. So, um you know, we're trying to cycle them out. But if we can do the

099preventative maintenance that we need to, which we have been able to do with the increase in fleets, so you know, we can spread things out. Um 10 years is probably an appropriate length of time to keep them um now that we've replenished our last couple years. So, we're getting kind of back to a schedule where we're replacing certain number each year or every other year. We do about three to four depending on the year. Um, our outlings because we took some of those back, our district students, they can transport and vans. Um, we looked at some transit XL with flexible seating. Um, so three to four and then if we keep up with the preventative maintenance. Right now, we're not trading anything in. We're just rebuilding our fleet back. Um the older buses we can

100use in town for local trips, for athletics, field trips, that kind of stuff. Um we rotate buses out for their mileage. So the country route with a lot of miles on a bus one year, we'll move that to an in town route and then give them something lower mileage. So we look at all of those things each year and we can to lengthen them as long as possible. Buses, do we typically buy them new or one or two years off lease? Is there we buy them least? Yeah. You buy them new, you have to bid them out. So you buy them used, you have a little bit more control over price. We've always purchased one year buses. There's been an occasion that we purchased like a two-year bus. Yeah. These turnins. Um you know, sometimes

101there's years that are easier to work on mechanically than others. So we sometimes flex towards that depending on what that looks like each year. So we collaborate with our mechanics and um you know our vendors and that kind of stuff and we try to purchase the best options at the cheapest cost as possible so that we can get more for the district and replenish those that we lost during CO. I have a question with the um with the minibus. Why are we willing to forego the wheelchair accessibility? It's not a forgo. So, the wheelchair mini buses are super hard to come by, especially used and they're um the new ones are around $124,000 to buy brand new. So, um what we have seen from a trend perspective is that most people are hanging on to

102those until the mileage doesn't make sense to purchase for us. Um, we have a couple students in district who utilize the wheelchair buses, but most of them are out of district, which means if we buy something with 100,000 miles, we're going to exceed its life quicker. Um, so we have to be pretty specific about that. Um, right now we have enough wheelchair buses to function in the district. If one goes down, we have alternate solutions that we can do. We've kind of ran on that business model for now. Um, it's really just finding the right fit. They're that are just hard to come by. Um we have some of our students that are aging that need here shortly. So it's really just kind of looking at that trajectory and trying to figure out what is

103most cost effective. The mini buses are utilized mostly for out of district students if they exceed what the demand can hold. So um sometimes you know um if we are functioning you know the way that we need to and and all of our restrictions needs are being met. We'll sometimes buy alternate mini because it's more flexible. It really just depends on the year and what students we have ready. Just a quick question for I guess Lacy and hi. Uh so number of students transported in 23 was 2500 22 16 29 so it kind of makes sense like postco 2024 though is down to 158 students I think is the lowest in 10 years um number of transportation staff that same changeover was 30 to 37 um is there a reason why there's a drop in

104students transported such a huge drop from 23 to for logistics, location, trends, and grade levels. I mean, if they fall outside of that mileage requirement, then they become walkers or um high school kids get their driver's license. Um it really just depends on the year. Um that's almost a 50% drop in students transported in a single year. Some of that data was pre Well, this is just 23 to 24. Like literally 23 was 2500 students and then 24 was 1508. Do we know what 25 is trending to be? Like when did those numbers come in for I assume they sign up to be on a bus route or something like that. Get that data. Part of registration part of registration. I don't have that. Okay. We did a lot we changed transportation a little bit

105too for capacity reasons. So if we see a lot of what we've seen is students will sign up for the bus and they'll never ride and numbers affect capacity where it looks like we have x amount of students riding on the bus but they don't actually ride. Um so keep our numbers as accurate as possible. We started making phone calls, reaching out to parents more frequently. How do you put your kids on the bus? Are they actually riding? Um so that has affected some of the data as well. Previously they would put them on the bus. We would never reach back out. We've started to change that process as well just so that we have as the most accurate numbers as possible. to that you know if we do end up having available capacity and

106we have the uptick in like the first part oh sorry if we do have the available capacity like in the case of 2024 we're 50% down in number of students transported do we have the ability to lease out to other neighboring districts who may have shortages and need assistance and can we charge them per mile and generate additional revenue to do that. Um what's that? They've never c nobody's ever asked us to help facilitate those things. Um but our capacity is capacity is kind of a loose number. The bus can fit 71 passengers. Um obviously that's not a realistic number when you have adults sitting next to each other. So really our capacity for high school middle school tends to be maybe 55 students to a seat. Otherwise, they get to that freedom of seat

107range. They're sitting on the floor by choice because they don't sit with people and they don't know. So, it really just depends on a lot of those factors. Also, the bus can hold 70 more people. Should it hold 71 more people? Not not always. Depends on the year, the grade level, the size of the student. So, we have to look at that as well. But there is an opportunity we could look at doing something like that. Is that something that I highly doubt it with our current structure, but um potentially they asked for it. It would be more geared towards like a St. that they needed assistance for transportation versus you know the kelp or well because like the kelp subs out to first student and I think that you were wrong Nicole when you

108said it's like twice as much to sub out so it seems like we have the available capacity from these numbers in the caffer I'm just wondering and we have the staff and they're just sitting we don't have we don't have like empty buses that are just sitting around or not not rolling I mean I would say most of our buses are are full and We're running twice a day because we're doing high school, middle school route, and then the elementary route. Where does the comprehensive annual financial report pull the average student transported daily numbers from? We pull that directly from Versa Trans, which is our transportation software. Okay. Do we know what it's going to look like for this year? Is it going to be close to 158 again? Like that big drop? Because again,

109it's like a 50% drop from every other year. Yeah, we don't we don't do the transportation report until August. Okay. Thanks. That's all I got. Maybe a priority for the board. Okay. Um the next department that we want to talk about um is our learning and teaching department. Um so this is where um all the curriculum materials derive from. Um so actually going to talk about math tonight. Um the for K8. Um so we've been piloting um a new math curriculum this year. So looking to implement implement it for next year. um you will see most of that uh budget is going to come out of the instructional technology budget and not the learning and teaching budget because it is online tool. Um then looking forward um to our ELA um curriculum for K12 looking

110to pilot that next school year with an implementation year of FY27. So we'll see an expense for that in 27. Um, and then also the two areas that we look at are social studies and science. We don't have years for those yet, but just to to keep that on everyone's horizon. So then on the technology side, um technology is twofold. So it includes our instructional technology um and then also our network side. Um, so from an instructional tech standpoint, um, we have a student Chromebook rotation, uh, that we work closely with, um, Mrs. Valentine. She's back there. Um, so for next school year, we're looking at getting new Chromebooks for our fifth graders and our 9th graders, and then we rotate those Chromebooks um to other classes. Um, also, we're looking at purchasing a new

111MTSS software. um which is our data warehouse uh for student data. Um and then also like I just mentioned our math curriculum. Um so the uh it is a web-based curriculum. So that's coming out of the instructional tech budget and not the learning and teaching budget. Uh we currently have approximately 55 yearly maintenance agreements with different vendors. So that would be like our um our um our different curriculum, our different online curriculum um vendors that we use. On the network side, we also have maintenance agreements. That would be like our student information system, our financial software system, um things of those natures. Um Phoebe does a really good job negotiating with all those vendors um to try to get the best price um and so to try to keep those costs down um each year

112and then maybe sign multi-year contracts with some of those vendors to further reduce those costs. Um we are looking to replace some switches um throughout the district for our network. Uh that is also um reimburseable through a a federal It's a federal program, but it comes as a local revenue. It's called E-Rate. Um, so we're able to get a 50% reimbursement for purchasing those switches. So, we're looking to do that next school year. What is What do you mean by switch? What is that? A switch for your network. Part of the network. Okay. I don't know anything about network. So, okay. these web- based um curriculums for math are are these II generated programs like how what kind of web based are we looking at? I don't know that acronym. So, I'm going to look

113at I don't know that acronym either. So, I don't think they but what we're talking about here more for a math curriculum would be like the accompaniment to the program. They're written curricula and I'll talk more about this in a moment if you have questions. But these would be like supplements to them. So, some of our students for example can go on and do like self-paced activities or they might take an assessment and it matches their uh what they're working on to kind of their skill level. So, that's more kind of what I would believe that's speaking to. Yeah. And it's also like so K5 we are not looking at a digital resource. So you'll notice that's not listed as a budget item here. But the resource being digital doesn't change what the resource is.

114The positive to that is that if they make any changes to the textbook or anything like that. It is now web- based. They still have this virtual textbook that they can go take a look at for additional help. And sometimes it also offers even I don't want to say better but but more opportunities for like our our high school math curriculum has on their homework problems tools where they can get extra help or see an example or watch a video. So some of those things wouldn't be possible with a paper pencil curriculum. But that's just um why part of it is in this budget and part of it is in the uh I don't know what your budget's called. Sorry. Learning and teaching. Learning and teaching budget. I know it's on the next slide, but

115this relates to technology. So, year-over-year, it's about a 30% increase, 500,000. Is that is that a trend that we're looking at or is that implementation of uh the new math curriculum that we're going to talk about or is there should we expect those increases to be similar year-over-year? No. So, there's a couple different factors that one of them would be purchasing switches. That's not something we necessarily do every year. Another piece that Nicole alluded to was that some of our contracts are a certain number of years. So, for example, the math curriculum that the high school is renewing, they purchased that six years ago, we get a significant discount for purchasing it in a six-year increment. Uh, so that's just a decision when the budget makes it work to happen, it ends up saving the

116district a significant amount of money. So with that math curriculum coming up and needing it for middle school, needing it for high school, that is a significant cost now, but then later next year we might see a drop off on it. So there's some um fluctuation year just due to those longer term contracts for vendors that we know that we're going to stick with. We're obviously not math curriculum every year. So that's where we can save some money by purchasing a longer term. The Chromebook that the Chromebook rotation comes into factor two depending on how much we're purchasing each year also. And we can't we don't acrue those. We we take those hits in the year when they occur. No, we take Yeah. Yeah. When same thing the curriculum even though it's a year it's

117not acred. Okay. Yeah. So, uh, just to kind of recap what that 14% covers, um, it would cover our building budgets, um, our learning and teaching budget, our on&m, transportation, and technology. So, it's about $8.7 million on a $60 million budget. Um, that's what we would spend in each of those um, different departments. And then so just as a summary um we've been very committed to having a balanced budget um since we had to do our deficit reduction plan. Um so 26 will be balanced. Again we are projecting the fund balance to be about 26% which you know Michael talked about board policy. Um so yeah that's the end of the presentation if anyone has any questions any other questions. So at this rate of like fund balance projection like 5 years from now I

118mean we we were at 30 27 or 26 it's like it's like going like this right? What's how do we how do we make it go like this? Well, there's only two ways to make it go up. Either to receive a significant amount of revenue um or there'd have to be um some reductions. The 55 contracts you mentioned like software contracts, things like that, how are those reviewed annually? What's that process like from a cost standpoint? So, Phoebe has a very detailed, colorful spreadsheet um that her and I review every year. not joking. Um, like I said, she legitimately speaks with each of those vendors every year. Um, and we need to negotiate um, you know, a renewal with them. She's talking with them on the phone trying to get us the best cost. If

119there are certain softwares that feel that we feel like we don't utilize anymore, we have dropped some of those. Um, just ballpark like what's the spend on that? 55 instructional programs. Are you pulling it out to me or you want me to? Not an exact. I'm just curious. I think it's 8% of that fund or something, right? Something like that. It's over a million dollars, right? For tech instructional materials, just the 55 like how much the yearly maintenance agreements are. Techn what's instructional software is for next year $482,719.50 and our um techn that would be our maintenance programs that she was referring to is $727,37580. Is that up from the prior year then in cost or Yeah, it is up by uh technt is up by 68,84.92. Again, it has to do with some of

120those renewals. Last year, it was down considerably, so there's there's always going to be some fluctuation there. Uh, and then the tech instructional materials is up almost 200,000. Again, a significant portion of that is um renewing the curriculum, but then next year we'll be re renewing ELA. So, it will just look different, but likely be lower next year. How do we measure like the efficacy of those programs? Like the dollars spent per student if it's like is there a way that that we track that for curriculum? That wouldn't necessarily be in my realm. Um but when we're look when I look each year at the software programs we have. I look at usage. I get statistics on that from our vendors. Um, again, as Nicole said, there have been times where we've said, "This just

121isn't being utilized enough or can we utilize it in a different way." There's been programs where we realized, hey, we're using this a ton, grades 6 through 12. So, we are going to K5 offer individual licenses so people who might be using that don't have to get rid of it, but it's going to present a significant savings for us. Do you know ballpark what our diligent software costs for our school board? Just curious. She wouldn't know that. I think it's Oh, you do have that. You're supposed 12,000 $12,600. I've seen some school boards use a Google Drive folder. So, we get something to think. 6,000. Kelly negotiated with that and half. Nice. Wow. Is it so those those 55 programs you described does that span into other curric like recurring costs that you might pay

122for resources or is that just the tech centric subscription costs because I think you mentioned any subscription that the district has all run all all subscription all software all software are there other curricular costs like to publishers that maybe with paper books yeah so so when We sometimes this actually we have to work with publishers to say hey I need you to separate these these pieces come out of our learning and teaching budget if it's manipulatives if it's um workbooks if it's textbooks all of that would come from if it's paper if it's a digital component of in some sort of digital component software component that would come out of are those contracts up the same time every years different times throughout the year so It all depends on that particular software. And again, some

123of them are maybe a couple of years. Some of them might be, hey, we we know we're going to use this one. We're going to do a three-year commitment to save money, but they're going to allow us to pay every year. Some of them, like the curriculum, might be an upfront payment. So, like the ELA pilot that we're talking about, it's a two-year pilot, right? One year pilot. that is that does that carry with it cost that you would see fever or is that just what Mike sees at the moment? It it all goes through I mean he has a committee that he's working with they're looking at different resources if it ends up that they go with after the committee spends time piloting and they do a lot of work on that end. But

124once they've made a selection if it has digital components it would come out of my budget. If it has paper components that would come out in and then you just last thing sorry utilization. Do we have a way to track the utilization of those software programs? It depends on which software but yes and I I do go through those reports with our vendors to make those decisions every year um on whether it's it's going to be worth the cost. They have all different costs per student. You've got to look at you know it's kind of like what we talked about with um There's a lot of different factors we're looking at. There's not a specific rubric, but we do now have a district uh technology committee and and we've been working on coming up with

125a tool to make some of those decisions. So, there is, you know, we've come up with all the different factors we're considering when deciding whether to purchase something and also whether to it and continue using it. So, that will be that's available um once you finish and the information here guides some of those choices that you're making the information in this like financial this the tenative tenative yes thank you okay that concludes uh the first part of the the superintendent report um just Quick thing. I'm just going to make a motion second part actually to refer the proposals and recommendations presented upon the business services committee. Require that no recommendations or proposals be acted on until the committee reviews them and full board approves. So move seconded. Is there any discussion from the board? All

126in favor? Okay. So just so just so we can plan when's the business services committee meeting? May 13th. So hold off on any personnel until May 13th. You wanted this was you wanted an approval of this. I thought this was just this is well you approval direction support. Yeah. If we need to wait until May 13th um so the finance facility and board will give us direction on this. I mean there's no recommended action on this. So, so what I board doesn't approve um until employment. Sure. So, in the past what we've done is is kind of explain what we're recommending to do, get some direction from the board. Um things are changing. I I get that. Um I just need to know so I can talk with the leadership team that we're holding off

127until May 13th. Yes, please. Thank you. But the board but the intent is for the board to make a decision that night. No, but we'll review and then they'll bring it back to the board as a whole at the regular meeting because we can't in a subcommittee make a decision. So probably May 27th actually no action no moving forward until May 27th. Correct. I guess define moving forward. I mean I think yeah I think from Yeah. Do not post any position. Yeah. From a staffing standpoint, that would put us to where we're not even posting until June, which means we're interviewing probably mid to late June, which means we're not hiring until middle of July probably. Just the candidate the candidate pool changes quite a bit. I mean, that's all, you know, just And is

128that just for staffing or is that any purchases? Any purchases from this. All right. Uh, next item on the agenda is board reports. Uh, for your report, any comments? Board district, non-district committee reports, anything? Yes. Um, I got all of the comments from the board individually on the intentions and expectations. Um, but it sounds like we might need a meeting in midday. is just what I've what I've gathered based on where we're at. We're a little behind the the agenda we had for for what April. We had it in April, right? Yeah, it it was April. Um so we're going to need to probably try to schedule something else in May if that's okay. We could work on that now or I could just send everyone an individual email or text to try to get

129some dates out there. I think I think a special meeting in May would be fine. I guess the logistics schedule on that. Yeah, I think send out three dates, Alex, and then um we'll pick the one that's most popular and just reply individually. Don't reply all and just pick the one that most gets the most votes. Anything else? Any other board reports? Um give to Cal is coming up. It's ongoing. Um and North Grove School Association is part of the uh organization that's part of that. So if you are participating, if you are donating, consider North Grove School Association. That's the schoolhouse that we we have here in our community. If you ever want to come visit it, just let me know. I can set up a meeting and we can do do it. Thanks.

130My son loves that slide. Yeah, it's dangerous. It's very hard and fun. It's old school. Yeah, we are going to continue uh as scheduled for May for the recognition and work with Steve a little bit. Maybe we'll get back together to discuss that person or somehow we'll have overview of that, but that is still planned for the main. So, more to come. Anything else? I I I did want to go back to what we voted on just a minute ago to understand at least from the personnel standpoint what are the implications of that. I mean I understand that we're behind but we certainly don't want to miss out on at least the ones that there are certain things that sounds like it's mandatory required by law. Did I understand that correctly? Yeah. Tied to case

131loads for student services. So I I just from a candidate standpoint you know people were probably already behind um at this point. So, I would just I don't know how we could if the but just in the future if we could move this entire timeline somehow to where we could be posting some of these, it'd be extremely helpful. But I just don't know if it's tied to everything else how realistic that is. But it would be tough. I mean, to to post the positions that that we've recommended in the summer and hope to get the best candidates or get them filled, I I don't know. It's a daunting task, but but that's what we got to do to do it. When do you see the um the widest like I guess when would it be

132now in June when you would see most candidates who are looking to come into these sort of votes? Yeah. You know, administrative probably probably sooner. Um if we get too in the summer, we run the risk of people not being able to get out of their contracts, you know, with their districts. Um but that's, you know, that's in July. So, if we can move on to June, that's not necessarily an issue. But, um, yeah, it's this time or monthly, you know. Well, I I guess I'm just not understanding why there wasn't any recommended action then if you wanted action tonight. We needed direction. We didn't necessarily need action. We haven't We haven't saw action for this in the past, so it's just a change. Okay. All good. I if we have to hire three, I'd

133be okay that whatever you think's needed as far as the people that are in need, the personnel that are required under statute. I'd be comfortable giving direction to look for them. Could you bring that to the May 27th meeting just with the must people are? I mean, couldn't the business services give some direction but just not take action? Sure. the required we've already talked about um special education ELLL so leaf teacher special speech language pathologists um able teacher leaf parah eel parah so those are absolutes those are absolutely those are required because of case loads and and increases in numbers in special education and e point of order sorry where are we at in the agenda I did go backwards okay are we that's good with that I don't know. I I might have jumped

134in. Is there Is there a motion on the table from the board on this at all? For what? Committee report. I mean, do we need a motion to We're just planning on find a date. So, the next item on the agenda is item 6.01, board committee assignments. So, I've got here some committee assignments for everybody. Pass them out. Here we go. Thank you. Oh, no problem. Steve. So for the uh TBD uh we'll see how those inaugural subcommittee meetings go and then I think the ideal outcome would be that we can uh vet applicants from the community at large and pick two to sit on business service, two to sit on teaching and learning, one to sit on parent teacher advisory, one to sit on behavioral intervention at a time to be determined, but I'd

135like to be able to coordinate with the individual committee chairs to discuss what that process looks like. Um, board policy 2150 talks about the appointment process. So, I want to make sure that we recognize that. But, I think there's going to be a great opportunity with these subcommittees to bring in um just general stakeholders uh to sit and review. So, if you guys have questions um let me know. Love to coordinate with you all on your respective committees. So, just reach out if you have individually any questions. is is the first person on every committee the chairperson we should contact in ter or we should expect to get agendas for and things like that for now I think so I'd like to see them selforganize so I think at this point tenatively anticipate those first

136persons to be the pseudo chair but again at the will of the chair or at the will of the subcommittee I'm content recognizing whatever self-organization you guys see best fit yeah so for PTA and behavioral prevention if you you have anything happy to talk about. I know we were talking about possibly having somebody else chair those just given that yeah just when you're ready get an agenda whatever you need. So with the PEK and behavior interventions, we would just be one appointee. Um I guess it's inherently the parent teacher advisory. So I feel like we at least need two, one parent, one teacher. So that was that question too. And I think that we were talking about we were weighing a town hall option. Um behavioral intervention can get wrapped into PTAC. So I think

137there may be some opportunity there to have um even a more community centric parent teacher advisory committee where maybe the the formality of it is looser. I know we're still waiting on legal guidance for how PTAC um operates and how behavioral intervention operates. So for now I think structuring it this open-ended way is fine, but by no means is this a confining set of appointments. We can add more people. It's again not lost on me. Parent teacher that's two appointees. Um so definitely something to look at and how behavioral intervention works with parent teacher advisory. Those are the dot dot dots that hopefully we'll get some clarification on soon. Uh other questions on board committee assessments. All right. So the next item on the agenda is approval of elementary math resource adoption. I'm going to

138turn this over. Well, actually this is a this is presented in memo. This is a little bit different. We have a presentation for this. Um I discussed with Mr. Veto felt like a memo would be sufficient. So that's in the board packet. We're recommending um Bridges math curriculum K. Mike, correct me if I'm wrong. Correct me if I misstep. Um two-year process. Um lots of teacher involvement and and feedback. Um so teachers voted on it. Um and we support that recommendation based on the work. Um one of the additional pieces is that this curriculum we think will allow us to uh provide advanced math instruction to our students a little bit differently than we have. We've done walk to learn. Uh it's pretty disruptive to scheduling. Um it ties all of the buildings together to

139some extent in terms of scheduling. So, we think this curriculum can um help us avoid doing that to free up scheduling a little bit in some of those confines. Um we're already starting to hear and I don't want to put words in Mr. Rice's mouth. I'll let him take over here in a second, but we're already starting to hear from some teachers and some parents that um they feel like their advanced math students are maybe falling a little bit behind in classes where Bridges has been piloted. Do I have that right to an extent? Yeah. Yeah. Um, so I I think there's a real opportunity to do that as well. But, um, if there are questions, Mr. Rice and maybe some of the staff here are better able to answer those than I am. Any

140questions about the math grade from adoption? Are these fees recurring annually or once you pay the 1650 per kid to get the kit for there's a kit? There's a kit cost up front and then there will be replacing workbooks throughout the course, it'll be much less than this. It's not in that because I think the majority of our staff will end up using the workbooks, but year one of the adoption. I just want to kind of get from them what works, what doesn't work before we commit to anything longterm with the company. I I I just wanted to say I spoke to a few of the teachers that have piloted it and I could hear some really positive things. Um some really great things actually. I our staff rocked it. I mean Lisa Wyers is

141here. I can't take credit for any of this. I think like my job is to empower staff and they have rocked this. like what they've been able to do in their classroom is amazing. I mean I can speak from a bit of experience only because my son piloted it but his words to me were if we don't do this next year he wants to move. Like I didn't make this choice. So our staff chose this but that was kind of nice to hear from him just to know that our students are going to enjoy. So I our our staff everybody's there's going to be challenge of course it's a new thing. Well we there'll be some hiccups but I think our staff is excited. Our students are excited and I'm excited. Yeah. There was a

142tenure teacher who's been around some time said, "I've never thought to teach math this way and I'll never do it any differently." So that was what said a lot to me. I thought that was really really nice. Um a question that was a new topic about the higher achievers potentially. Is there is it built within bridges or are there options for how do we adjust if that ends up being So this I think this is a bigger conversation than bridges just so everybody knows the walk to learn piece. Uh they don't hinge on each other. I think walk tole learn is more it's more feasible now to maybe look at that structure because we have such a high quality resource like bridges. Um but it's not like we have to have one to do the

143other. I think what we started to see and you can see some in your u memo and I can come back and talk more about this if you'd like me to talk longer but just the the the separation that it's causing whether it's between our high and low whether it's between our our socially emotionally competent students who may be less competent. Um we're creating these gaps in our students and not for every single one. This does work for some students, but I think more often what we're hearing from teachers, from parents, is that there's these gaps that exist in some of these foundational math lessons and units. And when they they sometimes don't even become a parent until students are older. Um, and so that's one thing that we're really trying to address with that

144piece within bridges. there. One of the things I think our staff and I, anybody that wants to chime in, feel free because I I didn't actually get to teach this, but I think one of the things our staff really enjoys is just you can teach a lesson and there's an entry level for a student that struggles, but it can also challenge a student who's I can't use my son. I didn't tell him I would, but he's barely smart in math and he's coming home challenged and he's not in want to learn. And I think just the ability of that um that curriculum to support all those different types of learners. This hasn't been there in the past and it's really have been something our teachers had to come up with completely on their own. And

145they still can and they still will do some of that. But I think this tool just gives them so and and a lot of the resources we have over in the district. This gives them a lot I guess more resources to fall back into and really tap into their expertise. It's not I have to send this student off to somebody else now. It's I know this student. I work with them every single day. I know what makes them tick. I know what I can challenge them with and I'll have the tool to do it as opposed to well I hope I can tell the teacher down the hall enough about them and it's not I don't mean to paint it in a bad light but we want our teachers with the students they're with every

146day. Did Did I misunderstand? Did you say some of the students that were kind of higher achievers anecdotally maybe were not in? Yeah, anecdotally we've heard some of that. I think less it's I wouldn't ever like put that out as here's the the end all be all but anecdotally it's come back that I think some of our students that are in a walk around classroom and come back to a bridges classroom just don't have that conceptual depth that some of the other students in the classroom might have. It's not that they can't necessarily do the math, but when they're explaining it or why they just can't speak to it like these other students that have had such a robust, I guess conversational exposure to it where they really understand the the background and the foundation

147as opposed again myself like I can do long division. I know the standard algorithm. I don't know why it works. I just know it works. Some of these students can talk to me about here's what's happening and I still can't follow them because this is not how I learned it. But that's I think really what we're seeing less that they can't do the math just they don't maybe understand it as well and and that's not a a criticism of the teachers not at all please the the classes where the bridges has been piloted it's just a it's a new resource and it allows teachers like Mike said to teach in a in a different way we're still learning for sure those of you that watch for news know I love to talk so it's hard

148for me so if you ever want me back is there a motion to approve the curriculum this proposed I just had a couple other questions. Is it okay? Yeah. Oh. Um might be sad. Uh where was I going to ask? Oh, so how do we implement I'm just curious on how we implement this since we have you here? Yeah. As far as training goes, is it the teachers that that have piloted become the experts or do people from Lisa feel free to jump in if I missed anything. Um but I think that was a huge part of we had a really robust pilot. This was one of the strongest pilots I've ever been a part of. Um we have I would say probably more than 20 just in Bridges um 20 experts in our build

149or not I shouldn't say experts but budding experts in our district that can now talk to their teachers or their colleagues about this is what it looked like in Sycamore in my classroom. So that'll be a huge part of it. Um but we'll also bring in training from the publishers um throughout the year. We've got plans already for August, September, and October. And there'll be things that extend beyond that. Um but what we talk to our staff about a lot too is grace. I mean this is the very first year that we're doing this. Um the first goal of a new curriculum is fidelity and you can't do that day one. You're going to go through it. You're going to make some mistakes. You're going to decide something wrong or spend an extra day and

150that's okay. We have to work towards that idea of fidelity. So that'll be the major focus of what we're working on is how do we do this? Um how do we teach it the way we're supposed to? Uh especially this is a bit of a shift from what we have done. Um we taught Eureka in the past which I would say and again I'm not the expert. I'm not in the classroom every day, but it's a little bit more linear than than what we have now. Um, so that's just another change for our staff is how do we support students in a more cyclical structure when we're used to having it more linear. And honestly, I think some of our systems are set up for that to for students to hit a problem and then

151we come in and support it. Hit a problem, come in and support. We're going have to think about that a little bit differently. So, a lot of PD around it, but also just some knowing that we're going to be learning a little bit as we go, too. Something too that I want you to know is that on our March 21st SIP day, um I spent a lot of time prior to that SIP day in classrooms that were piloting bridges and videotaping our own teachers in action. And so when we came into those SIP days, our teachers broke out into grade level bands. We had a kindergarten through first grade session, a second and third grade session, as well as a fourth and fifth grade session. And within those sessions, our own teachers had opportunities to

152view their colleagues in action with this resource. Um, the past two weeks and now moving forward, I've been providing coverage in teachers classrooms that are interested in actually going into these bridges pilot classrooms to observe in person. So I take over their classroom so that they then have the ability to go in and actually see what this resource looks like here in Sycamore with our students and that's been really helpful. Yeah, I understand the there's a little bit more prep maybe on a daily basis and especially I think just for that first time through you know we've had Eureka for quite some time. Um so teachers are used to it. They know what to expect. Uh, Bridges is I think it would it's fair to say it's got more preparation than I think a Eureka

153lesson does, but some of that will come with time also after you go through it that first year and kind of get it under your belt and kind of know what to expect. So, yeah, but I I do think it's fair to say that even after that first year, probably a little more time goes into the bridges lessons. Not a ton, but more. I I'm I know I'm going to participate in the teaching and learning committee, which I'm excited about, and I think it'll be really great to go through these journeys as a committee with with you all all the work that you do. Um is there any concern and this maybe we'll talk about this later but so if we're going to implement bridges potentially assuming likely um if you're if you're implementing bridges

154and you happen to be one of those pilots for the ELA next year is that a concern or it is yes so we do get a choice to that so we we actually talks as an ELA committee as a group just is this even something we're ready to take on I think and again this is a little more history than you probably need to know right now but here so I'm going to share it. Um before I even came on in this role our ELA was up for review but that was right when CO hit so it's kind of been delayed delayed um then I came I started looking at the process but it wasn't too shortly after that then that kind of the landscape shifted around what literacy instruction should look like. Um we

155have used Lucy Caukins for a really long time and that's kind of like this right now with a lot of people and Illinois's got its uh its new literacy plan. Um, and so we want to take the good from that, from what we've been doing, follow the literacy plan and kind of move forward. So that's coming. Um, but I think so many of our teachers have been exposed to that. Like I know better. I want to do better. They're already trying things. And so some of those teachers really want to pilot. Um, and I'm not going to stand in their way. I I I want to support them. I want to make sure that they know like this is a lot, but who am I if they want to do that to tell them no.

156So I think that that's good on them. They've been really work. And again, that's another committee I help facilitate, but I cannot take credit for any of that work. That's um that's our instructional coaches at both the K5 and 612 level and all those teachers that push so hard because they care so much. That's great. Yeah. Well, I I I'll just say that that I'm just I've not been through a pilot and a review in this regard before, but um I'm quite impressed by how overwhelmingly positive. I assumed that I'd come across somebody who was like I don't know, and there might be out there. I'm sure they are, but I was quite impressed by how positive. So were we. And nothing's perfect, but this this was darn close. So I move to approve the

157file or this whatever I have to say. Sounds great. Is there a second? Second. Move and seconded. Any board discussion? I think just a an added point to what Alan said earlier about teaching and learning. I think there's going to be a real great opportunity to be able to to sing the praises of these kind of pilot successes. um with that public committee and I think even a post reporting of how it's being rolled out to the the general you know student body outside of the pilot is going to be really useful. So I commend you Mike for the work you've you've done and put in this and your team. So it's uh and the memo is very thoughtfully put together. So thank you and I do understand the nuance of this because I don't

158believe our board has approved a pilot in uh many decades. So this is exciting. We're uh really branching out. Um there's a motion. There's a second. All in favor? I I All right. Can Can This is part of the budget, right? So, I just want to be make sure that I'm clear. Can we move forward with the purchase plan in the PD? Everybody okay with that? Wasn't this by 25 or is this 26? This falls on 26. 26. Yeah. I think Cole or do we have a second? What was the motion? Kelly. Yeah. Was to approve the This was your motion was to approve the curriculum as Okay, we can make another motion for the financial help. I move to purchase the curriculum as presented. Is there a second? Any discussion? It's all you. It's

159okay. Um, I would like to bring up that the teachers that are most needed, we should probably enter those into a motion to go forward with uh posting those teachers to this motion, but we can talk about that. Yeah. So, any other discussion related to this motion? All right. All in favor? I I All right. So, I wrote a motion that we could wait till we get to the through the rest of the agenda then. So, all right. Thank you. Thank you, Mike. Yes. Thank you. So, the next item on the agenda is the approval of the 2025 2026 student handbooks. I'll just host a motion, a second, and then we'll have some discussion about it. Um, so is there a motion to approve the 2025 2026 student handbooks? So, moved. Second. Moved and seconded.

160All right. Is there any discussion? I'm not personally prepared to vote on this tonight just because I have an outstanding question about the SMS handbook and I really would have liked to see PTAC um review the behavioral procedures as outlined under policy. But if that's absolutely not feasible, I I guess I is it feasible at all to try to expedite some sort of PTAC like meeting? I I don't know if PTAC is going to be in a position to the recommendations because one, it's never met. Two, it's not the formation of that committee is not yet flushed out fully. We're still waiting for some guidance on legal. I think moving forward at this stage might be the best course of action. Um, since these have been reviewed, a lot of the updates have already been

161explained. Um, and we need them to move forward. I think the parents are going to be better served, the students are going to be better served if we move forward with approving them now. Uh, and then reviewing them later on after we've gotten PETA established. What's your what's your question specifically about the behavioral section of the handbook? Well, the one specific in the SMS is the the cell phone usage. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Um, is that I guess do we have the we have an SMS at least assistant principal here. Is is the current practice that the phones are okay. So, is the current practice that the students have their phones in the locker for the duration of the school day? That is correct. Yeah, that's what it is here. We put it in this year.

162Okay. Yeah. Sorry, my I Yeah, old. Sorry. So, that that's a new addition to the handbook. No, that that's been in place for a couple years. That's been in place for a couple of years. Um, I just wanted to add that we're also dealing with a time constraint, so that we probably should go forward and approve them and then updates needed later. And it sounds like we're not nothing's being changed anyway. So, there were some changes being made, but those would explain. Yeah, I mean, slight changes, but I wouldn't say anything significant, right? Significant cycle. The hard the hard part is that we're again kind of in the 11th hour on this, right? Pushed into a corner to make a decision without being able to adequately review it, which is a seemingly a pattern that

163we really need to break as a board, wouldn't you say? So, is there any other discussion on this? All right. All in favor? I. All opposed? All right. Any abstensions? Okay. All right. So, the eyes have it. We'll move forward. Next item on the agenda, approval of resolution authorizing the public sale of 245 West Exchange Street. Again, we'll have discussion. I'm just going to solicit a motion. Is there a motion to approve the resolution authorizing the public sale at 245 West Exchange Street? Sorry. Move and second. Any discussion? The second. Sorry. Sorry. I always second. Thanks. When is the um new building going to be in use? What's the estimated time frame for that? Uh we're planning to move in the week of June 9th. Okay. So about a month. The administration's not going to

164sell in a month. So this is this is just to publish bids to start the process. It we're a couple months off from actually closing on it at the earliest. This is just to start the process. We have to publish bids in in newspaper and receive bids. Um, and the only difference, correct me if I'm wrong, Nicole, is that there's no minimum bid in in this go around. So that um anybody can submit whatever bid they want. Um we don't have to take any of them. The court still has the right right to refuse all of them in your all. So this is just to start the process. We're still a ways out from actually closing and selling. Okay. Any other discussion? All right. All in favor? Any opposed? Actually, Kelly, do we need a

165roll call on this for authoriz authorization of public bid? No. Spending money here. That'll be okay. Okay. So, we'll take that. Thanks. Uh, so the next item on the agenda is review of board calendar for location in March 2026, which we already really covered this. um with the amended calendar. Uh Steve made a comment about the location. I'm not going to solicit a motion on this unless anybody has a motion on this particular item. Okay. Uh just open discussion. Any other comments related to any items on the agenda before we go into executive session? Um, I wanted to mention that we should probably, if it's going to make it more difficult for the staff and hiring, uh, mandatory required staff, we should probably consider a motion to allow for the posting of those positions. So,

166either hold up uh, you know, admin from being able to hire people. I think that's my concern with our previous motion. You think a future agenda item would be appropriate so that way we get it on the time table? As long as it's going to be you're going to be able to post them in time to be to ensure that you can hire good people. But do you need it now or what? Guess I don't know the the timeline future agenda item would just be the timeline you already mentioned right so it wouldn't really change anything. Would expediting it would approval today give you more wiggle room? Would it be better or would it Yeah, I mean sooner the better. Yeah. I just don't know if that fits with All right. I'd like to under

167a motion to allow for the uh posting of the positions that are mandatory or required. And just for clarity, just so everybody else knows that that would be the leaf teacher, speech language pathologists, able teacher, leaf pair educator, and e pair par educator. Yes, those five. Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? I would personally think that we could expedite it to May 13th, you know, and get some decision done with business services and then have a regular have a special meeting of the whole board after to do it. However, if the board feels it's best to do it now, I'd be amendable to that, too. Just throwing out there. I think that we could get an accelerated timetable and still have it by May 13th, but also um doing tonight if people think that's

168wise. I'm there. Is that three weeks super helpful for those positions or or not? I guess. Yeah. But also May 13th's better than the end of May. So, okay. The sooner the better. Whatever that is that fits within what you guys want to do or need to do. I think the big concern that I have is not the positions but the process by which we approve the positions. And I think that as a forward, we need to take a collective stance on how we go through this process to approve new positions. Not to say that they're not important and not to say that we won't fill them, but to continually have our board be in situations where we do have to make time-sensitive decisions like these without a lot of preliminary prep and the packet

169itself. I get the drawbacks and constraints. The board has self-imposed. on nobody other than the board. Um, but I just think that we set a dangerous precedent by advancing timets on things like this. I think that the board should think very carefully about setting that precedent. I understand that, but I worry about the teachers and administrators that are being stretched too thin and having to take on more responsibility than they should have to. So I don't want to risk them not being able to get good people because then the staff suffers and the students suffer and there will always be a risk. I think to your point that and I'd argue that the risk not knowing the consequence to having those additional staff sooner or not having more detailed information about the ramifications of them

170is the other side of the argument to me. So while I don't know that 3 weeks is going to make all the difference if it is particular comfort you know sure but I I would be more amendable to seeing it happen on the 13th rather than on the 27th rather than saying now based on this information to move forward. That's just my general opinion. So I intend to vote no and I would entertain a motion for the 13th but not as soon as possible. That's my personal we still get 3.4 for the non required ones business services. I think in general we could be talking about all of but you want to talk about all of them. Okay. Yeah. Any other discussion? I am of the mind that these positions have been requested numerous times.

171Um these are very needed. The need isn't just um something we can push off at this stage. I understand the dialogue does need to occur to change the procedure through which we're following. Um, and that can happen. But for these positions, I think it is crucial to the district to make um, a decision now and move forward because they are required. They've been requested. And these aren't just random things we're filling. These are serious needs our district has. And I think putting the best people in those positions is the best thing we can do for our district. expanding the time frame in which we're able to um gather applicants is going to help us better off in the future. But like I said, I do think addressing this policy or this procedure that we are

172following in the future is going to be important. And I think um obviously everybody's on notice now. So it's just a matter of moving forward and um stopping the bleeding at this point. But I'd like to move forward. And I do agree that even though um you know it's not part of our um policy procedure, these are non-negotiable physicians and no matter how many meetings we have to talk about them, these non-negotiable non-negotiable positions are not going to change. Is that true? Will these are these positions legally required? We have no choice if we could or couldn't offer these. These student service ones are tied to case load. So I believe for example I think I mentioned like we would be starting the year at the max um to where if we gained another student

173we would have to look for a teacher mid year but we won't be legally uncompliant if we don't fill these positions. No, that that one specifically. Like I said, we just be starting at any of the other positions. We wouldn't be legally in complant. Uh speech language pathologist. Yes, we would just have to contract out. Um able teacher again, I think we'd be starting at the max and then the pair educators are tied tied to those. Uh the LEAF one ELLL. Yes, we we have our numbers based on some ELLL changes. So So one position is legally required. the rest are not required based on what you're saying saying they will be um if trends continue it you know after the start of the year. So okay any other discussion how difficult is it to

174get a teacher mid year it could be extremely difficult because they're if they need to work they're going to already have a job mostly yeah these are specialized positions right right how long is the hiring process is it typically fast as it needs to be. But no, no, no. If you were to start today or three month, three weeks from now or a month from now. Well, if we got applicants right away, we could move on it pretty quick, but usually a posting you want up at least a week to to let applicants um you know, apply and then we'd get our interview team together, go through that process. Um if it's clearcut, we can move on it quicker obviously. Um then we make an offer, they take the time that they need. Um, so

175I think the fastest you could probably do it is two to three weeks from start to finish. And if you posted it tomorrow, for example, would you expect to get applicants that quickly or is it because of the time of the year you wouldn't you wouldn't assume to get some until May? Typically speaking, no, I think people are looking for next year positions and and have that already. Any other discussion? All right, there's a motion in the second. Call a roll call vote. Evans, yes. Yes. Gregory, no. Tomlinson, yes. Zantu, yes. No. Motion carried. All right, we've reached the end of our agenda. I want to host a motion to Where's my motion here? I'd like to move that we enter into executive session to discuss matters related to employment uh compensation dismissal of specific

176employees in the district. So second I'll second roll call I'll take and then be second. Yes. Yes Are we good? We're now in open session. Uh we've reached the end of our agenda. This meeting stands. All right. All right. Please.