001Thank you. All right, we'll call the meeting to order. Um, members present, all besides Danny Olmstead and Mike Mossman, and will rise for the pledge to the flag of the United States of America and to the stands one nation, indivisible with justice for all. All right, moving on to public comment. Anyone from the public like to come up and speak on the agenda? Seeing no takers, we'll move on to the consent agenda. Is there any member want to pull anything out of the consent agenda? Hearing none, is there a motion approve as presented? >> So moved. >> Motion by Kudson. Is there a second? >> Second by Chinowski. Any discussion? All in favor say I. >> I. >> That's agenda passed. On the Tiger high or student highlights, >> ladies. >> Hi everyone. As we're
002entering a new spring trimester, it's a busy time with sports, graduation coming up, prom, and other activities. We're kicking this week off with track trials Tuesday at St. Cloud, and a speech invitational Friday against Howard Lake Waverly. It's exciting to start the spring sports soon with meets and practices varying being very weather dependent. Student council is also working on planning out prom and working to have ticket selling days, drilling the lunches at school, and also decorating days to help the spirit in the school for prom. Me and Avar are both in student council. So, if you have any questions or concerns about prom, just reach out to one of us and we'll try to bring it up at the meeting. Prom is May 2nd at the winery this year. We're moving ground March to 700
003p.m. at the high school. Tickets for the prompt dance will go on sale April 1st online, followed by ticket sales at the lunches about two weeks prior. We don't have an exact date yet, but once we do, it'll be sent out to the students. And Grand March tickets are also going to be available during those lunch sales. They will also be sold at the door, but there is a limited amount, so plan to get your tickets ahead of time. And then reminder for the students, if you're going to bring a guest, you're gonna have to fill out a form that you get from Singer Towns. And then there is going to be details to come about all of this. And students in junior and senior grades will get an email about that. Okay. Um, good
004evening everyone. I just want to go ahead and highlight a few different volunteer activities that the high schoolers been involved in. So this coming Saturday we're volunteering at the Tim Worth event. This is through both Key Club and NHS. Um, I don't know how familiar you guys are with the organization, but they support families in central Minnesota and they give money to children facing illness or injury. And so, it's really meaningful to volunteer at this event. It's great to see students get involved. We're also doing the Polar Plunge soon. And so, that's a really fun event that brings a lot of students and staff together and our business marketing class at the high school has been advertising for that. So, that's been really great. And then also, we have a busy academic stretch coming up.
005We have AP tests the first and second week of May and then the juniors are taking their ACT soon. So yeah. Um, thank you. >> Thank you. Any questions? >> Yeah, I have a couple questions about the polar plunge. Are either of you taking the plunge? >> Well, I'm signed up, but I'm not doing the plunge. >> Explain that one. >> Okay. Well, you can still like raise money for it. Okay. >> With um Oh, jumping. I'm too chicken for it. And you've informed all the people giving you money that you're not going to do it. >> Um, not exactly. >> Do we have Mr. Diet signed up for that? >> I was wondering that myself. >> I'm a good spectator. >> Got it. Well, I will admit that would never be me, so no
006judgment. >> Very good. Okay. >> Thank you. All right. On to tiger time. Good evening. >> Hi. >> Evening. >> Um, I'll do the polar plunge if it's like Saturday, if it's 80°. Um, sign me up. Um, I'm here to talk a little bit about our Park Tigers positive behavior program. I've done this for 20 years and I couldn't the I don't think I ever touched on this program. So, I've kind of running out of things to talk about, but I found this one is something that I haven't really talked much about and we kind of redid it a little bit when we broke off from Tiger and Park. So, I thought I'd share with you kind of our overall kind of our guide for behavior and what we want kids to to learn as
007they go through Park Elementary that it's not necessarily reading or math. So, but very important as they move on into uh middle school and high school and then the rest of their lives. So, uh we came up with some characteristics that we thought we want our kids to have and this was a team of teachers that we kind of looked into um just some what are the things we want kids to have and we came up with teamwork, independence, grit, everyone counts, responsible and self-control and of course it's acronym there is tiger. So um we highlight each of these positive uh character traits um each month of the year. So we start off with um teamwork. Then we go to independence in November. Jan, we do that for a couple months. January we throw in
008attendance because of it's January and it's hard to get up sometimes in the cold mornings. So we talk about attendance there. Then we move back to our tigers character traits with grit in February, March, everyone counts, responsibility in April, and then self-control in May. So those kind of kind of we we we do a heavy emphasis on those months um during that time. So in each classroom and in each area, we kind of uh we we know that this is something we can't just tell kids once and and they they know it. So we um talk about teamwork in our learning areas. We talk about independence and and this would be like a classroom poster that we would have. What does grit look like in a classroom? Everyone counts. Um responsible self-control. So, we have
009that not only in the learning areas, but we have them in the, you know, even a restroom. Uh we've got Hey, you know, it's a respect privacy eye and grit, follow directions, keep space clean. It's really, you know, these are important things. We we know that kids sometimes they need to be taught these things. So um we have it in our um you uh hallways, cafeteria, buses, everything. So we have posters that outline what teamwork and independence grit everyone counts responsible looks like in each of these areas being very specific to what they can uh what or what what it looks like. So we really spell it out for the for the kids. We also in the month that we're kind of highlighting it um each of the characteristics we have a story um that
010um is read or we read it or the teacher reads or I read it to the students that kind of connects to that character trait. So here's one that's called this way Charlie and it's about everyone counts. Um, at the end of each book, we go through kind of a discussion question with kids on how once they read that, how that relates to them or how it relates to the characters and trying to find the author's author's purpose. A little bit of MCA talk in there as well. Um, but then uh we try to make it how do you how do you think that they show that uh tiger character trait? So, an example, this is a book called Whoosh and it's it's the month of grit. So like um we we would ask some
011of these questions. How did Lonnie demonstrate grit? So they're starting to learn it, apply it, identify it um in their um you know, in the in during that month and throughout the school year. So uh you know, what does grit look like in your life? Um and then we talk about grit. And that's kind of a fun one for kids to talk about because they have all kinds of experiences where they um feel like they've shown grit. Um >> last week our fourth grade >> um we also I I forgot to I was going to mute the next slide and then have the so the the other way we do is on a daily basis like during the month of whatever character trait is on our morning announcements that students help create we we talk
012about um you know what that character trait looks like and we might have examples. So in this case I'll just go ahead and play it. Um, this is a uh fourth grade girls basketball team that and then the kids talk about what I think this one was on on uh attendance, but it talks about, you know, being a team and and whatnot. So, it's a it's a good uh example for those kids to kind of see that character trait outside of school as well. >> Last week, our fourth grade girls played during halftime during the Hutchinson girls basketball game. All of these girls know how important it is to have a good good attendance during their practice. Why attendance matters in sports? Because being present is part of being a teammate. Every practice, workout, meeting,
013and game is designed to help you improve, build trust, and prepare the team for success. When you miss, you don't just fall behind, you impact the entire group. So that's daily we we try to include something about the tiger character traits um all the way throughout the year. Sometimes it's short, sometimes it's a little long. Sometimes kids volunteer their uh footage from it could be a hockey game, it could be um a swim or it could be some other kind of, you know, theater that they're in. It just um is something where they can see what the character trait looks like playing out in real life. Um, we also include this in our like here's our behavior. So, this is more me. So, when I deal with kids with behaviors, I will have them come
014in and if it's uh below the line or bottom line kind of behaviors, we talk about what what is the character trait that we that you you didn't that you that you missed here on. So, they might say, well, I wasn't being very respectful. Um, I did not I show that everyone counts because I was name calling. I was doing put downs or I wasn't responsible because I um you know didn't you know bring my work to class or whatever um or I was I I knocked a student's Chromebook on the floor or whatever. So we talk about the character trait in the moment of um when we're trying to fix the our behaviors and then we talk about it we also could write about it. So um it hopefully it it's something that sticks
015with them. So, um, we use it in our behavior fix it plans. Um, we talk about it at the beginning of the year all the different characteristics and what it looks like. So, on the left you see kids coming in when they're supposed to. So, this is hard. You know, when kids go out for resets, it's sometimes hard to come in right away and that bell is awfully fast. So, it's about, you know, being responsible, getting in on time. We have just how do we act in the hallway? We need to show self-control. Um and then maybe in the we're down um in the cafeteria lining up waiting and being patient. Everyone counts. We don't want to budge in front of others. So those are the things that we kind of talk about. Excuse me.
016Um during the morning announcements as well, just to kind of give an overview right away at the beginning of the year what what uh all these character traits really mean. So on the bus um there's a lot of different character traits there that you can identify. um were out waiting um being responsible in the uh during a fire um drill on the left hand side waiting patiently. So just um we we we talk about these things constantly at the beginning of the year and what that looks like kind of to set up the year for um for really a a good behavior and for kids to really practice some of these really important character traits. Each week we we have a link that our staff will nominate students. So, let's say it's it's uh self-control
017uh month. They nominate students who they see are showing self-control. So, it's not necessarily like in maybe at West and Tiger, I think they they they have a sticker or something that they can they they go home and the parent will ask. We kind of do it in a different way. We we feel sometimes that it's great for the younger uh students, but as they get a little older, um we want them to do it not for a sticker, but we so we we want them to exhibit it on on, you know, during during the day all the time, no matter if anyone's looking or not. So, we have sp we call them spies. or just all staff at Park Elementary um can fill out a link that nominates students for um let's say self-control
018or responsibility. Um at the set like that we at after on the Friday of every week we nominate we pull out of a hat two students one fourth and one fifth that showed that characteristic. Um so we call them spies and then um they get to choose um lunch with Mr. drove which they rarely do. >> Just going to ask >> I wish I but they there's a lot of other fun things here that they actually enjoy doing. U but art with Mrs. Cedarstrom or playing with our bearded dragon um that Mr. Durheim has a hot one is Mrs. Waffle waffles makes waffles. They sit and eat waffles. Sometimes I get invited to go have a waffle um which is like a highlight of my Friday. And then um library with Mrs. Fairbanks could be
019you know 100 cards from Mr. Tillman morning recess with Mrs. Czech. So those are things that they can draw from if they're chosen. Um they get put in the morning announcements, their picture. We celebrate them for that. And then um at the end of the month, everyone who is nominated gets a certificate showing they like in this one, in this case, it's a G and grit um that they get a uh certificate to show their parents or put it up on their fridge or whatever they want to do at home just to show that they they uh they showed that characteristic and we celebrate that together. Our character strong is a program that our counselors come in and teach a lesson each week. Um really touches on some of the characteristics. We bring it up
020there to make it kind of fit um and and keep it in in uh in focus for them. um during our character strong which is um our SEAL uh curriculum. It talks a lot about you know focusing, organizing, goal setting, how to how to interact with each other, relationships, strategies, emotional regulation. So we work in all of our character traits um during that time as well uh with our character strong curriculum that they do. So it's a real they get it in all different areas throughout the day throughout the school year. um at the end of each trimester they rate their each characteristic on how they think they do. So kids actually have a rubric. We have a little lesson that we have um that we that students partake in and they do a self-reflection
021on how they think they're showing their teamwork, independence, grit. Everyone on the on the I didn't uh there's a one exact like this for the other three. and then they circle the area that they think that they where they land right now and then kind of make a goal of as to hope where they hope to be in the future. So, we all want them to be at that meets um at some point during their time at Park. So, there's a nice self-reflection that kids um that kids do that gets put on the actual report card um for our students at Park Elementary and Winry. So, that kind of wraps it up. It's kind of a quick uh uh view of what what really drives us at Park Elementary when it's not uh reading and
022math. Um but it's an important part. We know how important it is for when you know these character traits when kids get out into the um into our community and our or someday be our neighbors at at home that these are really important things to have. So any questions? >> No, just a comment. I I really like that because I think that you're letting the kids learn to lead themselves by um analyzing their own behaviors and then when the you've got the kids out there on the basketball team and they're talking about it, then I think that's really good because they're learning to lead the other kids and then maybe the kids who aren't as I don't know as brave can think, oh well maybe I can do a little bit of leading too. not
023just themselves but the other kids. So I think that's really great. >> Yeah, it's defin they they they definitely um will listen to their classmates um sometimes more so than their principal. It's important >> but their peers are important at this age. So >> and definitely more so than their parents >> sometimes. Sometimes >> um so who developed this curriculum? Well, this is a our we have a kind of a behavior positive PBIS team we call it um that meets um throughout the year we and then we continue to work on these things. So >> I like it. Thank you. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. >> All right. Thank you for the update. On to Mr. Diaz. >> Good evening. um administration continues to meet to make the necessary reductions to have a balanced budget
024for the 2026 2027 school year. Strategic planning continues. The hope is to be finished in May and then we would have one last session for the school board to do in June. That's been going well. We have uh one coming up on April 8th and then the school board's going to get involved in a few with their work sessions in April and May as well and June. In-person interviews for the position of activities director will be taking place this coming week at the high school and I will be involved in those along with some other people that are going to be on the committee and we have good candidates. So, we're looking forward to having them come in and do their interviews and seeing um seeing how they do. I met with Tom Gerson, uh,
025the police chief, and we are finalizing the 2026 2027 SRO contract. Um, that should be ready no later than May for us to look at that. I will be doing an all building visit, all day building visit in the middle school. I know that sounds strange because I'm already in the middle school, but I actually pick up and go somewhere else. Otherwise, it looks like I'm still in the district office. So, I'll be going there, sending something out tomorrow. And then hopefully I can uh see some classrooms and and do some visits that way. And then also, I'll be going to Park Elementary on April 1st. In April, I will be meeting with Minnesota Senator Glenn Gruinhagen and House of Representative Don Gilman, and we'll be discussing issues that are affecting our public schools. So,
026I'm looking forward to that and connecting with them and having that opportunity to have a discussion. I want to thank Greg Euing for stepping in as our interim activities director. He'll be there until June 30th, 2026. And he's perfectly fine with us finding his replacement because that he does not want that as a permanent job. So that was a great opportunity for us to have him come in and step in and he is doing a a really good job and then giving us time to find somebody for a legislative update. Uh there's not a whole lot to report other than uh the governor's supplemental budget came out and you might have noticed that he added an extra $50 million of reductions to the $250 million that needs to be reduced from our special ed um
027programs in the state. This is not for next year. This is for uh the year after. And so instead of um the committee that is selected in the state trying to cut 250 million, they're now if they were to follow his budget, they'd be cutting 300 million. But that has to also be agreed to by the legislature. But it was not it was not a um an addition or a good thing for the for our budgets in Minnesota. Um but he did recommend an extra 50 million to be reduced. We'll have to see where that all ends up coming through. For negotiations, I'm happy to report that HESP has a TA from our March 12th mediation session and I believe they were doing uh they were doingformational sessions last week and I think they're going
028to be uh voting this week and maybe by next Monday we'll have the results of their contract of their vote. if they do vote it through, then we would bring it to you on April 27th at our schoolboard meeting. And then I'm also happy to report that local 284 has a TA as well. And that was done last week on on March 20th during our negotiation. Uh meaning we hadn't met for over three months because uh they had there um there were just some medical things going on with one of with one of their state people that helps them. So, it had been some time before we had sat down, but once we did, we were able to get to a TA and they will be reviewing their draft over the next uh contract over
029the next three weeks and then if they pass it, we'll also bring that one on April 27th. So, good news on that. Any questions? >> Thank you, >> Mr. Scott. Thank you, Dan. >> All right, a few uh district highlights. Uh, one of them was from the middle school, the Minnesota Honor Band 2026 South Central Region. Congratulations to these three students, Dominic Johnson, who's a seventh grade tuba player, and Berkeley Platicia as eighth grade trumpet player, and Jasper von Gorham as an eighth grade clarinet player for being selected to play in the 20 2026 middle school honors band that was hosted at Chaza High School um on Saturday, February 28th. So, congratulations to those musicians for being selected to be part of that honor band. Few more things from middle school students participated in the
030sixth grade regional math masters of Minnesota competition on March 5th and that took place here in Hutchinson at Peace Lutheran. Uh Kaden Anderson, Sto Becker, Carson Dew, Amelia Machado, Isaiah Modino, Darby Nelson, uh Bennett Oberg, Graham Smith, Coloulton Topro, and Owen Whitam. And they stu these students competed in three different competitions. There was fact drill, individual round, and a team round. And fiveminute fact drill competition. Owen Owen Wickham uh tied for first place and Ben and Bberg finished third place. Uh there was also an individual problem solving round. Uh Ben and Oberg took fourth and Sofbecker took seventh. And then um that was out of 93 competitors for both of those those categories. Um and then out of 20 teams uh the team of Becker, Modino, Nelson, Oberg, and Wickham took fourth place in the
031team competition. And then Anderson, Dew, Machado, Smith, and to Pero took seventh. So congratulations to all of those students um who took place. And uh thanks to coach Taylor McInton for um coaching. And there's a picture of all happy uh students on there. I checked to make sure all of them were smiling and in the picture and they all look happy their competition. They should be. So, congratulations. Um, and food service um Ann Hstrom, our outreach coordinator sent in a on behalf of the food service a contest to the Minnesota Department of Education and they were um awarded school breakfast champion. Just based on this next picture, you can see it's probably something you want to hang up in your house. It looks like you shouldn't even touch it. The way everything is placed so
032well and looks very nice. So, uh, that was also recognized in the Minnesota Department of Education bulletin that goes out on their nutrition bulletin. So, I know that our food service definitely has a lot of pride and a lot of hard work. Um, that's been ongoing for many, many years. Um, especially with farm to school, we've had a lot of accolades. So, just another showcase of talents for food service. >> We should put that on Facebook. >> Could we could do that. Um MCAs are going to be starting up here in April. We'll be we'll be be training uh we did start some already at the high school uh which again we continue to revisit our strategic plan. Um we've tried to incorporate some more incentives um as well especially at the secondary levels in
033terms of how things might affect uh their grading based on how they they can they perform. So, uh, families, it's important to be looking for, um, any communication that's coming forward from schools about, uh, talking to your children about doing the best and taking them seriously. And it's a, um, not only for themselves, but also, um, it's not the end all beall of tests, but it is one gauge of our school district. And, um, we do take it seriously and important. So, uh, best to our spring activities. I know they're beginning a lot of their seasons already and practices and, um, looks like the weather's going to be cooperating. So, good luck to all of our our students. I know Dan spoke about the AD um process. Um in terms of job other job openings,
034we have 35 individual or um I guess unique categorical job openings. Um that doesn't mean that there's only 35 positions open there. Um you know, if there's a posting for special education assistance, I know we have 17 of those. So, there's probably more like around over 50 individual job openings. um everything from substitutes to things in our activities um teachers, cooks, cook substitutes, etc. So, um continue the community to be looking at our um job postings that our located on our website and if there's any um any availability at all to keep that in mind or share that out for the people that might mention um wanting to work for the school district. Um and then finally our comprehensive achievement civic readiness formerly known as road workforce meetings is tomorrow night. Uh this time we're
035going to have a number of curricular um purchases coming forward. Uh we have got areas of language arts, social studies because not only because of the new standards uh but because we haven't ordered uh curriculum for many number of years. So, thanks to our, you know, finance committee. I know it's been talked to, Dan and Becky have both talked about uh how we can uh make commit um because we have not probably in some of these areas for a number number of years um over a dozen or more years um ordered um updated resources and we've tried to follow the process with the new standards to not only line it up to that but pace it out budgetarily as well. So there's been a lot of work that has happened with our um departments. Um
036it's been a goal of mine as we started with the standards. Um I think it started with FIAD and health where we started to look at those um processes all the way through and we'll be starting over again with them because those standards uh we'll probably we'll be starting over again here in a few years. But uh that's been the the cycle the process and a lot of hard work that our um teachers and uh have looked at to find the right resources that they feel that they would like to use line up to the standards and then there'll be a lot of work coming forward uh with implementing it and working through um using the new resource. So some more to come on that tomorrow night. >> Thanks. I do have a question about
037the MCA incentives. >> Yes. >> At the secondary level. >> You have ideas on that or >> Yes. We're um looking at uh for example the science has has started and um whether that if u meeting um that standard or or meeting because we do get the results back preliminary results back within 60 minutes and if they are um if they meet it or exceed um that benchmark then uh would potentially not have to take their final test in the class if they don't choose to. Um and it's not going to count against them or count for them. students still could could choose to do that based on whether they want to or not or whether they want to continue to improve their grade, but uh trying to have a little more incentive uh stake
038in the game to see how it might matter to to students. So, >> all right. Thank you. something that some other school districts have have talked about doing and uh how and um can't really talk about how it's gone so far, but um we'll we'll be able to speak more to that as it as we go forward just to not release any type of hints at all of how students are doing. >> So, we don't get the full results until then next year, but you do get preliminary results. do get preliminary results in the in the testing system within about 60 minutes after students and we can tell students those results. >> Uh we can talk about them internally. We just can't hint at all publicly about them. >> Thank you. >> Thanks, Mike. Miss
039Bowl, >> my report tonight is the revised budget update. >> All right. All right. Dan, back to you. >> Yep. Um, if you take a look at the achievement and integration, uh, this is something that we started out, um, three years ago, if you remember, with Gleno Silver Lake. Um, there's a formula that the state uses to look at, um, disparities in students and their race and that type of thing. Um, at that time, Glen Co. uh, did qualify and once you qualify, initially, you qualify for three years. So we we were their partners. Um you can have more than one, but it was just them and us. Um they they are not going to qualify after this year. And so um for us it's about well you'll see in the budget it's about $214,000.
040So either we found another partner or we made $214,000 worth of reductions on top of what we're already reducing. So, um, I reached out to Lester Prairie, the superintendent there, and they do qualify for next year still, and they're with Howard Lake, Waverly, Winstead, and I asked if we could jump on as a um, we don't join them because we're not we don't touch their district, but we can be invited, and they said yes. And so, we have I have gotten this um, plan together and this budget together in time. I had to be in on March um, 15th. So, I told her that we'd be coming tonight though to do the signature piece if it goes through and she was fine with that. And so, the plan itself has to be um has to
041be approved by the school board. Basically, the plan allows us to fund what we call success coaches in all our buildings. And so, we take our counselors and our interventionists who aren't being already paid by another source of money. And this can pay for them to work with kids to work on reading, math, social skills, that kind of thing. Mostly reading though is what this plan is all about. And then we have to come up with targets to try to reduce like the the achievement gap or um other kinds of targets that we want to see the buildings achieve. Uh and then I have to get that into the plan and give strategies and things. It also uh it also funds Andrea Moore and her salary and benefits over at the high school for being
042a being the Tiger path coach because that is a big program for our kids to be successful and so they allow that also to be funded. So basically, uh it's basically paying for our success coaches, um Andrew Moore, and then also you have to do some activities with the other school districts that you're with. So maybe like some field trips, maybe an art day, something. We haven't quite come up with it yet, but that's in there. And so there's the plan right now that's uh that I've got done in here. And then there's the budget. The budget doesn't have to actually be approved by you guys because it's in our bigger budget, but I put it in there so you could see just how the money kind of plays out. But basically, it's 100% going
043to students. >> So, any questions? >> Do the amount of partners you have change what your >> It's all the same. So, you could have four partners, five, >> you could. Yep. Um the only difference is the district that qualifies gets more money than the others because they are the they're called the isolated districts and they have to do some more things by being that district that qualifies. But everybody it's a per student amount. So it doesn't matter if you have six or I know that when I was in Minnota we had like seven. It was YME and Renville and and Monteido and us and Ivanho. I mean there was like seven of us. It didn't matter. You still got the same per student. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> So, the coaches get in on this.
044Do the um principles have input on the uh the goals that they're working for, too. >> Well, the goals are very specific. I don't have a lot of latitude. They have to be MCA goals. And so, what I do is I go in and look at the data from last year and where the gaps are. And basically, those are my goals because that's kind of it has to be based on some of that. Um, but they do get the goals now after this is approved because they, you know, just to make them aware of what we're trying to do. Yeah. >> Okay. >> Yep. >> Thank you. >> Yep. >> Question, Dan. >> Yes. >> What happens to Gleno? >> Gleno jump onto somebody else. >> They have to also decide to go out and
045find somebody else or they just won't get the funding anymore. I'm not sure how they're handling it. I know he was working on that over there, too. Um, and so you can be you can be invited into any. It's just that you want the drive time to be close enough if you're going to do stuff together. >> Um, but he could also go out. Sibly has one. Um, yeah, there's others. There's Renville, but he they had the same issue, >> but they couldn't hop on to this one. >> They could have hopped onto this one. I'm not sure he tried on that. Yeah. >> All right. Any other questions on this? All right. Is there a motion to approve the achievement and integration plan is presented? >> So moved. >> Motion by Miss Pullman. Is
046there a second? >> Second. >> Diane. The second. Any further discussion? All in favor say I. >> All right. The plan is passed. Back to Miss Bowl. >> Okay. Good evening. For board approval tonight, we have a revised current year 2025 2026 budget. Um, if you walk back in time to the summer, um, under statute, we had to have a preliminary budget in place before July 1. So, we did that business in June. Now, we've been tracking, um, all of the various expenses and revenues throughout the district for the past six, seven months. And now, we are bringing forward um, a revised estimate. So, it remains a spending plan. It's subject to change. We're going to continue to monitor staffing, enrollment, legislative activity at the state, federal level. um any executive pieces that may come
047our way. And then we're going to continue to make revisions between now and the end of the school year as well. But this is considered our major revision for this school year. Um with respect to the main drivers of the budget, as you know, enrollment um and personnel costs are the key drivers for both sides of the equation. Um we are budgeting for 2562 students um at the end of this school year. You can see on the chart that we're a district with gradually declining enrollment. We've lost 307 students since 2011. Um we've been proactive and we've looked to rightsize our budget as we go. Um towards the end of the presentation, we'll reflect on the five and a half million that we've cut um over the last 10 years and we'll talk about what
048we're planning for for next year in light of this revision as well. We always like to reflect to at this point in the year, how did we do with respect to our projections on a grade level by grade level basis? Um we have more students than we anticipated in 11th and 12th grade. Um, as we've discussed in the last few months, we integrated a voluntary pre kindergarten program in our early childhood department. Um, in December, um, we were notified about that funding. So, you can see that we have a new category to track up on the chart. Um, similar to last year, we had weaker than anticipated enrollment in sixth and seventh grade and then 10th grade. Um the rest of the grade levels were were pretty close and are tracking um pretty close to
049what we had anticipated. Spend most of our time this evening on the general fund um which is our largest operating fund. We are anticipating 38.4 million in revised revenues. This is up 626,000 um from what we anticipated in June. The key revisions have to do with special education aid. Um when we recalculated, we're estimating that to be 263,000. And with respect to special education, you know, that's a reimbursement formula. So the majority of that has expenses to match. And then of course with the revised enrollment, um we're still anticipating a 42 student decline, but that is improved from what we thought would happen in the summer. So we are factoring in 263,000 additional I'm sorry 315,000 additional in general education aid by revising those estimates up. Then on the flip side um with respect to
050general fund expenses um we are anticipating 38.642 million um this is 25,000 fewer um relative to what we were anticipating last summer. There is a lot of moving parts. I'm going to highlight the key pieces um just so that you guys can see the story of the school year kind of behind the numbers. So, we modeled a decline of 144,000 in special education assistance based on vacancies that were not able to fill. In addition to that though, we've reallocated 56,000 of those dollars into health insurance benefits for the special education assistants who have been willing to take on more hours to try to cover for some of those vacancies that we have. Um, and so we wanted to make sure that we put money then into the health insurance area. Non-special education personnel costs came
051in $46,000 lower than anticipated. One thing I want to note there is we still have assumptions in the budget for our hourly staff. That's half the district um approximately in bodies. You did hear tonight that we have tenative agreements, but when this went to press a couple of weeks ago, we didn't have that information and then it'll take um the month of April to run through the process with the voting and the ratification. We'll run retro in May. By the time we run retro, I don't think it's going to make sense in June to do another budget revision because we're going to be in the thick of setting up next year's budget. So, for the sake of this fiscal year, we're using assumptions the entire year for those hourly um personnel costs. Um, also in
052the general fund, we're generating 143,000 in benefit cost savings because we have employees leaving the health insurance plan during open enrollment and then at the halfway point through the fiscal year because a lot of spouses, partners, family members are enrolling in benefits November, December time frame. So, where did we put that money? We put that money into subs. Um the new state programs for ESST and paid leave um have required additional licensed subs. It's very difficult to find non-licensed, but we are able to locate for the most part license subs. I know not every day um looks looks that way, but we do have a better fill rate with those. And then we have a lot more long-term subs which are direct hired versus coming to us through Kelly Services. So we needed to increase
053the budget to cover those leads. We also added $87,000 for special education transportation routes related to new students or new student needs throughout the district. And then we added $86,000 in contracted service providers in various locations throughout the district. So the slide here is the um compliance piece where we need to show our projected fund balances as of June 30th. Um, in the unassigned fund balance, which is truly the piece of our funding that is under board control, we are projecting a $260,000 deficit, which for all intents and purposes is a break even budget. Um, it's slightly better than what we were anticipating in the summer. Um, when you take a look at the line above that in the general fund, you're seeing a deficit of 960,000. But I just want to be very very
054clear that that number includes the operating capital spendown where we're earmarking reserve funds for the curriculum adoptions you heard about earlier today and then the technology replacements that we talk about um frequently. There were very minor calculation adjustments in transportation, community service, um building construction, debt service, trust, student activities. However, I want to make two comments. Um one on food service and one on the self- insurance fund. In food service, as you know, we're running the universal meals program again this school year and it is been a very expense. It's a very, very good program, but it is expensive. And we are increasing our revenue and expense projections by about $200,000. We are setting a goal, like we do with all of our funds, to run a break even budget. What that's meaning for food
055service right now though is we need to moderate our reinvestment in equipment and facility projects in the kitchens because we have a really significant pace of inflation with food and supplies that we factored into the budget. Um, second comment I'd like to make is on the self- insurance fund. You notice an $800,000 spendown to 2.2 million. That's for year two of the self-insurance allocations to employees based on theus we have in place to reallocate those dollars to staff during the past few years when we've had really high insurance renewals. We're in the process of working through the renewal for next year. Insurance committee is going to be meeting this week on Wednesday and there is a little bit of relief in sight. So, I just wanted to share that as well. Um, let's see. This
056is all in accordance with our fund balance policy and a natural follow-up question is what impact does this have on projections for next year and the budget reduction target that the board set um at the end of January. The change is not enough to move the needle on needing to reduce more or less. So, we continue to work as an administrative team to put together a $375,000 reduction package since expenses continue to outpace revenues in our district. Um, the range is going to be re-evaluated though as we work through the legislative session at the state level. So, that we'll factor those things in as we plan as an admin team. Um, we're going to shift gears here after the adoption tonight to be working on all of the details of the operational budgets for next
057year. We've already spent quite a bit of time, I think seven or eight meetings administratively to put together a staffing plan for next year that would include the cost containment. And as we talked about previously, it's been increasingly challenging to find a package that will work considering the class size targets we've set and the special education needs that we've um established and reviewed. So, it's really important that we keep the dialogue going about revenue generation as well. And so, it's appreciated that we'll continue that discussion at the end of the month. Um, with that I can take any questions you might have and then we can move towards adoption. >> You've got that um decrease in funding that the governor has already projected, right? The 350 million or whatever. >> So, my understanding with that
058is that will start to impact school districts in 2028 and 2029. So right now um tonight we're talking solely about the current year budget and then in the next couple months we'll talk about 27 for next year we're watching compensatory very closely. >> Good. >> Well Miss Bo I'd like to just say thank you to the admin team for hitting a very close target on the budget there. So, please let everyone know. I know 200 and some thousand sounds like a lot, but 100% that's pretty tight. So, congratulations to all of you guys. >> Well, hopefully we can deliver it. It's a spending plan. We'll keep allocating and reallocating. Thank you. >> All right. If there's no other questions, does somebody would like to make a motion to approve the revised budget as presented? >>
059So moved. >> Motion by Sarah Palma. Is there a second? >> Second by Aaron Kudson. Any further discussion? Hearing none. All in favor say I. I. >> I. >> All same. The budget revised or accepted. >> Thank you. >> Thanks, Miss Will. >> All right. On to board member topics. Resolution accepting donations. Aaron or Sarah, do you guys like to do the thank you for the community speech? >> It's a very important one. This is >> I would love to. I would love to thank the community. all of the donations um that they've made to our district within the last quarter. Um as everyone who's watching, everyone in this room is aware by now, every quarter we have the privilege of reviewing all of the donations have been made to our district um over that
060period of time. And obviously we are appreciative for any donations um to the district. And this quarter we are at $27,240.31 bringing it to a grand total of $141,48612 which is amazing when you think about a community of our size that gives that much back to us. So very grateful for the continued support. Thank you. >> I would also like to add this is this is year to date >> not the full year. So, um, we can anticipate there'd be more generosity over the rest of the year and that number will look bigger. So, it's pretty impressive. >> Thank you. >> All right. This is >> motion. Oh, >> I'm working on it. >> I mean, a motion to approve the donations. I would love to. >> All right. >> Thank you. >> There's a
061motion by Aaron Kudson. Is there a second? >> Sarah did that. Second >> second by Sarah Pullman. Any discussion? This is a roll call vote. So Miss Gudson >> I. >> Garrett Luan's eye. >> Iki Pullman >> I. >> All right. Resolution has passed. Thank you to the community. >> Yes. >> Under the committee reports facilities. Who's >> okay? There's a lot going on in the facilities. Um most of the things are have been ongoing for a while. I know everybody's heard about the windows that need repair. There's still there's still some windows that were work the facilities uh group is working on. Um the roofs uh that's a that's a concern coming up too. There's been some repairs, but going forward we will have to look at replacing roofs on different buildings. Um going
062forward they just wear out. You know, some of these are getting close to 30 years old. When that happens, that's pretty much about all it's going to, you know, all it is. The roof doesn't last forever. Um, let me see. The auto shop lift had failed, but that's replaced. So, the the young folks over at the high school are using it again. U, they saved $500 on the auto shop lift, which I was quite happy with. Um the stage curtains, um those are a newer style. It will cost us, but it's worth it because they have to be fire rated. Um so let's see. Uh the tennis court, there was a pole that broke that's in the works to get fixed. Um let me see. Uh let's see. Uh, so that one too is it's
063an older pole. There's not much on the insurance on that left. It is what it is. Let's see. The pool still needs some work. We're probably not going to be starting on that till the end of April, beginning of May, just because the pool is going to be pretty busy. Um, let me see. Summer projects coming up. We've got West the kitchen. There's some updates in there. Um, and I think that's about it. So, thank you. >> Thank you. On finance, Miss Woman. >> The only thing I have to report is that um, our revenues are at 61%, our expenses are at 60% right now and that is on track. All other things that we discussed were mentioned by Dan, Mike, and Rebecca. Thank you. >> Thanks, Sarah. on parks and wreck. Miss Kudson, >>
064we met earlier this month and spent a good chunk of the meeting uh with Lynn Newman giving a report about all of the wonderful ongoing activities at the senior center in town. Um we do that annually just to review new programming and usage of that um facility, but it is um heavily um utilized by our seniors in the community and a project that in a place that we hope can keep going for many years to come. And then I think um probably the more uh maybe pertinent um information for the community to know is that the parks, recreation, and community education brochure is online and available for viewing for summer activities. The paper version is due to be mailed this week or at the end of this week, beginning of next week. And then um
065registration will open on April 8th at 900 a.m. That is all. >> Thank you. >> If I can just send my own message over to um PRCE. Um it is appreciated that we get those paper copies. Um I think there are a lot of people within the community that sign up for things because it actually shows up at our home. Yes, we have to remember that the brochure goes to all different ages and ranges and uh people with in different internet activity connectability. So, it's nice that there is that option still appreciative. >> Yeah. And I think a lot of people don't realize when they say community education, it it is uh from birth to death, we are we have our community >> um is being supported and that's pretty awesome. Very good. Uh we're
066going to move past technologies for reports. We have our upcoming board meetings and committee meetings. And if there's nothing else, I'll entertain a motion for adjournment. >> So moved. >> Motion by Miss Kudson. Is there a second? >> Second by Diane. All in favor say I. >> I. Meeting adjourned. I need you to gap. Thank you.