001All right, it's 6 o'c to order. Please rise in the flag to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right, let the roll call show all board members are present and our next item is going to be our referendum presentation. >> Thank you board members and our guests that are in the crowd. So um couple things. This is going to be a repetitive for a lot of you because you've seen this before, but we really want to have this on video for from our board meeting so that we can put that out to the community and they can see the presentation at any time they would like to. So to begin with uh yes
002we have a referendum on May 12th. I think uh many of you are aware of that. Um it is a real similar almost exact referendum as we had uh from last fall. The only difference is that because of interest rates the uh construction costs inflation went up interest rates I should say inflation. And so instead of 49 million it's at 51 million. And the other thing is we had one more year that we paid off the debt for um our primary school. So that one more year off the debt means that that's less money on our taxpayers for this 20-year loan. Uh so instead of it being a $15 on the average home increase for taxation, it would be $14. So it's down by $1. Um so I'll go through the presentation. I'll go through
003this pretty quickly because it's a it's repetitive to a lot of people, but I also want to make sure we we talk about each um important part of it. Um so, uh to start out with, there is a a video, it's about 2 minutes, that really explains exactly what's happening with this referendum. It's a similar video to what you might have seen last fall. All right. That video really summarizes u what we have for um for for this referendum. Um and uh like I said, it looks real familiar the last time around in the fall, but the need hasn't gone away. The need is still there. Um, if you walk into those buildings and go through and look at the classrooms, it's pretty incredible. Um, I and I know we have one of our uh
004uh CT teachers here tonight, but he could tell you could tell you that what he has to live through every day because of how crammed it is and how the spaces are. Um the one of the things I' I'd say that I I was really intrigued by um we had a middle school um uh musical last Thursday and f Friday and Saturday and the director from the musical is also a speech coach and she mentioned how she goes uh with her speech team across to many high schools in the state and she made the statement by bar the worst classroom she walks into in her competitions for speech are at Princeton High Um, we don't compare to any high school that we are out there. Our high school classes are small. They're they're run down
005and undersized. So, we know that that is happening. Let me try and get this to work. There we go. Um, and so we want to make we want to make sure that's taken care of through this referendum. Um, we have done a great job in this district of making sure our curriculum's up to date. We make sure that our teachers are are doing their best at teaching our students. Our students do a wonderful job, but our facilities do not match that quality of uh of instruction and and learning that that our teacher our students have. Um we have careermies now. It helps our students determine which career they might want to go into. But again, our facilities don't match the learning that's needed to learn in those careermies. Um, we know that this referendum is
006is pretty much the same as last time except for the 51.35 million instead of 49 million. Um, it is needed to replace those facilities we talked about. Um, one of the things that people might have overlooked a little bit last fall when we were looking at this is the tech levy of the 750 uh,000 a year for 10 years. that is to help us with all of our tech uh costs to our to our district. And right now we have a little over a million dollars that we pay out for leases and equipment and um and and some of the the support staff and so on that we have for tech needs. Well, if we were to get that 750,000 that would help take care of those expenses so that our operating cost would be
007able to be a little more stabilized. We know that our fund balance is at a point where there's not too much time we can draw on that anymore. So, if we can't draw on the fund balances, that means larger cuts. That means larger class sizes and and it impacts our district in a really negative way without having something like the 750,000 um per year for 10 years. So, that's just as as important as the facilities. And I don't know if we emphasized that enough last time. Um, how did we get here? Well, we know the referendum didn't pass last fall. Um, we knew that we have these these facilities that are still needed. They're not going away. We know that this is uh when when you look at school property, that's really the taxpayers's property.
008And they and the only way to get $50 million of work done is to ask taxpayers from your school district to help you uh go out for a bond, approve a bond so that we can actually have that kind of money to make those kind of large improvements. Um, so that's why we're back here asking again because those facility needs do not go away um until somehow we fix them or we don't have those facilities anymore and don't have those programs. So it's it's a it's going to be the taxpayers that determine um if we can continue what we have our challenges. We know that we talked about the facilities. The facilities are run down. They're they're undersized. They're poor ventilated. We have overcrowding in it. They have asbestous walls. Um, lot of uh in
009inadequate lighting. It's it's a tough learning environment. That bottom right picture, I I just every every new try when I go to a wood shop class and watch them, they're in line to cut their wood. And sometimes it takes the whole period to get that wood cut because we can only have one table saw in there because our facilities aren't big enough. and we have donation from our community that wants to help us with this, but we can't accept those donations because we don't have facilities to put them in because there's not enough room. So, this is a strong need for our school district. We know our healthcare education program, we have to send anybody that wants a certified nursing assistant uh certificate, they they need to go to Malaca right now. Um, and we
010can only send five per per try. We have over 30 to 40 students that want it every year, but we only take care of 15. Um so this would help us have the facilities for that. Uh the culinary education is one of the the fastest growing uh uh passions for kids. Um we're still uh uh teaching and cooking on uh facilities and and uh appliances that are from 1970s for the appliances. So they're outdated. Uh they would not be uh um preparing them for the culinary arts that they would be going into. Aging classrooms. Um, this one always kind of when I go through the high school, it just I I marvel at how great our kids are when they can sit that close to a to a classmate for a a full period and
011not have the the wiggles. I mean, I would want to be elbowing somebody next to me. I know uh those that kids that are doing that, they do it every day and they made it work. Our uh our um science labs, we have some science labs that uh we have uh they do the lab in the classroom, but they can't wash their hands here. there are no sinks, so they have to go find a room that has a sink to wash their hands. I mean, it's just so antiquated and outdated for what we need it for. Um, we talked a little bit about the tech levy and why it's so important. We do have tech costs and if anybody's watching the market right now, tech costs are not going down. Um, they are they are
012going up and uh it's a it's concern for our budget. So, this would help uh uh us be able to continue to maintain our curriculum. And I say our curriculum because most of our curriculum is on the technology our students are using because they have a 1:1 device building infrastructure. We know that there's some some of our infrastructure is way outdated. Uh the boiler 1964 boiler been welded put together you know duct tape and bailing wire whatever it takes to make this thing work right. Um so uh that is at its end of its life. uh we know it has to be replaced and that's costing millions of dollars which would be come out of this bond. We know that our our stairwells stairwell and hallways and our locker rooms down in the dungeon I
013call down in the basement are way old outdated and not at the right size for the population we have at that school. We know that our um middle school roof continues to leak every rain and uh teachers and students get just used to putting the waste cans out and the buckets out every time it rains. That's not how you should have a roof in the school. So, we know we need that replaced. Um so, that all becomes part of the bill, the the bond that we're talking about. Um and speaking of the room sizes, the room sizes are small for MDE standards. In a in a high school you should have about 1,00 square f feet in a high school classroom and we're running some classrooms at 650 to 750 ft which means everybody crams
014in a little tighter a little tighter. A little tighter. We know because of our budget we have to have larger class sizes because uh state has not kept up with the operating cost budget. So we and we haven't went to taxpayers for an operating levy. there's no voter approved operating levy which we're one of about 30 schools in the state that have that. Um so we're really underfunded for the operating cost and so there we have to have a larger class size than we'd like but they can't fit into the classrooms. If we have to uh go into a budget year where where where we don't have that 750 to take care of text levy tech levy, we're looking at the potential of putting standup desk in classrooms just because to fit the kids in
015there because we can't fit normal desks in to get to the larger class sizes that we'll need to match the budget with our operating cost. So, a lot of impacts to this referendum if it doesn't pass. Um, so if it's approved, we can take care of all those things. We can take care of the infrastructure. We can take care of the the the undersized classrooms. We can take care of the uh um uh the CT areas that are way outdated. Um we can have a funds for technology that can help us with our operating budget. The facility where where we'd be doing most of this construction, it is at the high school level. This is an overview. It's it's a it's a just a a conceptual drawing of where this might be. Uh the dark
016orange is where the uh new construction would be and the light orange is where the renovations would be. Um the renovation is really in the old 1966 classrooms. Um if we look at uh this picture, you can see uh a little better of of where those classrooms actually exist. This is the first floor. The blue is new construction. Actually, any hash mark is new construction. Um the bottom left green box, that's where the pole barns sit right now for the industrial tech. Put up in 1970 to be temporary. They'd be tore down and we'd put new construction there. Um the other green areas are the CT areas and and the green and the purple would be uh um um it would be renovation at a higher level where the the uh the um yellow is
017more of a light renovation area for or building. This is the upstairs and this where a lot of the small classrooms are. So that purple you'd be knocking down walls and putting uh lighting into the hallways that doesn't have light coming through right now. Um you have the red boxes which would widen the stairwells. Uh again a light renovation in the yellow but uh little more major renovation in the in the purple. So you can see with that much renovation, that much work to bring our 1966 classrooms up to 2026 so that they can handle a high school that now has a thousand student in it when it used to have in 1966 500 students. So we've doubled the size. We don't have the size of the classrooms that needed to handle the population that's
018there. So this would take care of that. So tax impact, we talked about it. It went down a dollar a month on average home from last fall and I talked a little bit about how that happens. Um there is some tax relief out there and I I expressed my uh uh to anybody listening that you would want to check that out. Um there is uh um some tax credits. Uh there's um the homestead credit for those that uh have a household that makes under 140,000. I think it's 142,000 a year now. Um you would get some tax relief. So, go to the tax uh calculator area of our website, look around and read about where your tax release would be because it does affect a lot of our voters and it'll be important that you
019know that it may not be $14 a month increase and might be less because you actually um some have asked how does this finance work? How can $14 an increase on an average home actually pay off 51 million? uh the bottom right hand corner of this this chart. It's also on our website. Um if you go to the review and comment from the resource uh link on our website, there's about a 38 page document that we send to the state that has to be approved for us to go out for this referendum. Gives all the details. It'll give you the detail of what it costs to put in a sidewalk or or the upper stairs uh stairway and so on. It breaks it down to almost every little detail. So if you're in the details,
020you can find it in the review comment, but it also shows this bonding uh way that we handle uh bonding bonding our debt. And if you look in the bottom right hand corner of this chart, um in the chart itself, the black square boxes, that's the primary school that was approved back in 2014. It'll be paid off here in about eight years. You can see what's happening with the blue then. The blue is where we fill up that $14 to get to the higher level of taxation. Um, it's not doubling your tax. It just raises it by that $14 and then a month. And then what happens is then once we have the primary school bill paid off, we have all that tax base to pay off the the the remaining 12 years of this
021bond. So that's where most of the payment will be taken care of for this bond. And that allows us to keep a more neutral taxation on our taxpayers so that we're not increasing it and doing a yo-yo up and down. Um referendum doesn't pass. We talked a little bit about it. We're going to limit the opportunities. Um some of our classes we may not be able to run anymore. Um we know that the size of our classes are going to be tough on our students. Um we know that our career and tech education is going to be jeopardized. we we have to limit how many kids can actually go in there and be in the program. Um redux reduces the uh access to technology. We may have to lose some of our one to one
022that we have right now which that's where most of our curriculum lies is in the devices. Um few fewer tools uh for the future. We know that students need to modernize to be ready for the the the world that they're going to go out and work on and go into college and so on and and careers and career tech eds. Um we got to be modernized for that. We can't be working with things that are way outdated. And the last thing, like I said before, if we don't have the extra um um little relief to our operating uh uh budget, there will be larger class classes and bigger cuts to staff. and and that is something that none of us want, but we know that's our realities. So, how can you vote? Um, it's already
023started. March 27th was early voting. Um, I really encourage people if they're too busy to to uh go and find the links on our website. Some of you have been to other presentations. We have this little QR code that you can use to um fill out an application for an absentee ballot to be sent to your house. You can vote right from home, send it back. Um, it's a it's a process that's very secure and it's one that uh you need a witness there and you need to have all your credentials so that you can actually show that you're that person that's voting. But, uh, for those that are extremely busy, this is a way that you can be heard. So, we encourage you to do that. Um, I would say if you're going to
024ask for one to be sent to you, you probably want to count some mailing time. So mail in and mail back out or mail out, mail back in is probably a good week. So you might want to have ask for that early voting um absentee ballot by the end of um end of April so that you get your vote in by by May 12th. Um other options is you can come to the district office. We have early voting happening right here. Um and if you do, I would say download this sheet, which is a sheet that uh fills out the application for absentee ballot. If not, you fill it out when you get here. Uh, but this is the longest part of your time when you come here. If you have it filled out, it
025probably takes you about 3 minutes to vote and you're done. Um, and that is from 8:00 to 4:00 every day except for Wednesdays. We go till 6:00 p.m. and it's right here in the district office um at the right family center. So, um, early childhood center. So, come here if you want to vote early. Have not, you have May 12th. And then the two precincts. And some have asked why do you have only two precincts? Some of it's staffing it, some of it's cost. Um, but there's only two precincts. One's at Princeton and one's at um at Princeton Depot and one's at Baldwin Town Hall. So, make sure you look to see where you vote if you decide to vote May 12th from 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Um, so that's the presentation. It's a
026it's a referendum we knew about from last fall. Um, some other people have asked why. Again, now um a little bit is the the turnout. Uh, one is the need's not going away and the need continues to not go away until something like this would happen. The other one is the turnout last time was 22%. Um, so you're less than a quarter of the people are determining the value or the the uh the quality of your school moving forward. And actually, if you look at the percent of the people of your taxes of your 15 people, percent of the 15,000 voters that actually were the no voters that were more than the yes with,900 no voters, that's 13% of your community is determining your quality of your school moving forward. And I feel like there
027needs to be a larger percent telling you how you want your school moving forward. So hopefully we're getting this information out to everybody to say vote, vote, and vote. No matter what your vote is, we want to have a bigger voice at this referendum on May 12th. So that's what I have. Any questions from the board? As you can see, it's a it's a high priority for our school district and u and it's something that without it uh we're going to see a different looking school moving forward. We've been have a lot of pride in our school. We do a lot of great work, but we're kind of hanging on right now to keep that moving. So, we want to make sure we get this so we continue that great great work that we do
028here at Princeton Schools. So, thank you. >> All right. Thank you very much, Pat. Uh we will move on um to citizen comments. Um there anybody on the sheet there? >> Nope. All right. So we will move on then to uh board member committee reports. And um how about if we start with Jen? >> Um let's see. I attended the middle school. the middle school musical a couple of times. Um, finished the schoolboard phase three training. Um, attended the Baldwin open house for the referendum. Um, and then was able to listen in on one of the referendum check-in meetings, the weekly Wednesday meetings. >> Um, I also attended the musical. It was very well done. Nice work, kids. Um, we have a garage sale for the primary school um for the playground committee for the
029um all-incclusive playground. It is not like an open to the public garage sale, but it's our primary kids and they go in and they bring their quarters and they live their best lives like for like you know garage selling in the gym. So, we are in desperate need of donations for that because they buy everything. Um I will gladly take them or drop them off. Oh yeah. I mean it's great you send them look like a bag, but we do put a limit on, you know, how many things they get. Um but those all we need those by Thursday. I know it's a little last minute, but if you have anything and can bring it to me somehow or the primary school, that would be awesome. Um I did a couple of our communication meetings,
030uh staff meeting, an open house. Um, I got to bring some of my baby chicks to visit the third graders, uh, the Spanish immersion third graders on Sunday last week and it was so fun. Um, I get to visit some kindergarters when my next batch hatch is here soon. Have a problem. Um, our PTO still needs volunteers and I have plans. >> Thank you, Eric. >> I had finance tonight. Okay. >> Uh, agenda planning. I had a resource and training solutions meeting. Um, and one of the things that kind of stuck out with me there is they have a CTE portion now where they'll help get teachers certified in whatever area in the CTE and they also are giving out grants for equipment. Big Lake equipment here in the last month. So, I didn't know
031that they were doing that stuff. So, that was kind of interesting. And then the other thing is I don't know if you guys have noticed like on Facebook but Venture Upward they're really advertising open houses and doing a lot of open houses and it's fun to see the Princeton online and so it'll be interesting to see what gets up for the online side. >> Scott, I don't think I have anything to report. >> Okay. >> I also have anything to report. >> Right. Um, I also attended uh one of the referendum communication check-ins, uh, the Baldwin open house, agenda planning, and then I was also at finance uh before this meeting. So, um, student council. >> All right. For the preschoolers, I couldn't find anything to report. >> Um, for the primary school kindergarteners have
032a field trip um this week. some some of the teachers went today and then another group is going off Thursday and last Friday the kindergarteners had grandparent day as well. For the intermediate I couldn't find anything as well. Uh for the middle school this month middle schoolers are exploring advocacy the art of speaking up for yourself and standing up for others. They are focusing on being assertive rather than aggressive. Being direct, stating clearly, firmly, and politely what their needs are, asking questions, taking time to listen to others, respecting their points of views, and acknowledging their own mistakes. For the high school there, there's a mass jazz concert, the 24th, the seventh, eighth, jazz lab, and the jazz one. They will all perform there. And there's, I remember correctly, there's a big combined piece at the
033end. There's also prom next Saturday. The high school choir concert is May 4th. FFA went to state today and yesterday. They're coming back tomorrow. Speech has states this Saturday, Thursday the 23rd. It's a student variety showcase. It's in the pack that starts at 6 p.m. There's a variety of talent from singing, guitar, comedy, and even a unique vocal performance. And something that is coming up for the all-inclusive playground is the walk and walk, run, and roll, which is basically an activity where anyone of all of any age is able to I think it starts at the primary school and ends at the primary school. So, the entry fee is $25 and all every donation is towards the all-inclusive play. >> It starts at the primary, ends at the intermediate, and then you have till May
0341st to sign up to get your t-shirt, which obviously everybody wants their merch, so sign up. >> Obviously, thank you very much. Uh, superintendence report. >> Yeah, just a few things here, I guess. um start out with it is the spring of the year which means there's a lot of energy in the buildings. Um I love getting out to the buildings but uh I'm sure those that are teaching and trying to keep the lid on the buildings a little tougher for them but I enjoy it. Kids are fun to see and being out and about. Um we had pretty much in the last two weeks our regular kind of scheduled meetings our executive meeting the meeting admin teams meeting. We really do a lot of planning for next year and making sure that we're sticking
035to a budget and having the right people in the right places and so on. So, a lot of that work's happening right now. Um had our have our weekly uh referendum uh check-in with our communication team and last couple weeks we've been working a lot on the on the Tiger Roar uh referendum edition. I think some of those have hit the mailboxes already. So, um hopefully that's getting out there. There's a lot of detailed information about the referendum. So our voters are getting that. Um had our agenda planning which is a normal meeting for us before the board meetings. Um couple of uh additional kind of meetings our run river executive and and uh governance meetings. Um but we we our superintendent group meets first and then all the the same information goes to the
036governance and I know you're on that and we talk about kind of the issues going on at run river if anything's happening. They do have a a uh ribbon cutting or groundbreaking I should say groundbreaking ceremony May 7th we think. >> Yeah, I think it's >> Yeah. So I think that's at 4:00 up in Malacus. So they are building a level four program up there. Should be good. Um also another kind of additional meeting is ECME. We we meet there. It's kind of interesting because they service 50 or 60 schools in the state who are all member of the board. So it's have a huge port and we vote on things. So um all that's um good to you know to be at those meetings so we know what's going on with that. Um and
037for those that don't know ECME is our is our consortium that handles all of our computers uh work and we they they maintain our servers that maintain a lot of our information. So they're important to us. Um, also I think since our last meeting, the next day afterwards, uh, Jason and I and Jessica were able to take have an interview with our last two finalists of our intermediate school principal and we were able to do the reference checks and call around and we have one on the uh, personnel tonight and that's uh, Blake uh, Caris and Blake will be joining us here July 1. He comes from Menowaska as a principal and um really rose to the top of a really really good pool of candidates. So pretty excited to have him join us in
038the school district and you'll get to meet him when when he joins us. Um other things that happened, we had the Baldwin open house uh for the referendum. We also had our open house here for the referendum. U Baldwin uh we had some really good questions uh here. We had one gentleman that came in with good questions. So, that was good to be able to, you know, we want to give those opportunities to our voters to be able to ask these questions. >> Um, did one presentation with the civic uh referendum presentation with the civic betterment uh group in town and I don't know if you've ever met them, but I that was such a pleasure for me to meet them. And this group uh started as the longest uh civic group in our community.
039Uh 1914 they were established. um a a lot of the the ladies in there, the mainly uh ladies that are in retirement that are in it and uh fantastic uh um people that care about our community. So, it's really fun to meet them and had a really good presentation with them. Um finished up I didn't I have one more to finish up my chamber leadership series. Um so, we had that this last week and then also with the the the student events that I was at. Sixth grade choir was really good last week. Then we had this the middle school musical. They did a wonderful job. Been able to get out to watch some of the athletes in tennis and you know track. We got great track uh competitors. One might be in this room
040but you know a lot of good things happening there. Um but uh overall our spring sports are off and running doing well. Um and then uh we had sixth grade band sign up last night. So that was good to see that had a good turnout for that too. Um and then uh uh it's kind of a specialized meeting but uh we've been talking a lot about how uh we want to move forward with our Spanish immersion program and uh really uh did a lot of work here in the last four to five months and we're in a really good spot right now and we met I met with the entire Spanish immersion team and everybody feels really good where we're at and we're you know at the right size right students right Um and then
041I had my Lions meeting last night. Uh other than that, just some of the reports from the students, you know, FFA was at state. We know that robotics and archery state now. Some are on the world to nationals and and then uh we had a couple speech uh impactors that made uh made it to are going to state. So um our kids continue to perform well. So I want to congratulate them. That's my report. >> Great. Thank you. Um we will move on to item number seven, approve the agenda. Um with the note that we did, um actually move the referendum presentation up be right after I roll. So >> move. >> Motion's been made by Eric Minkx. Is there a second? >> Second by Eric Stramber. Uh any comments or questions on the agenda
042hearing? None. All in favor say I. Opposed. All right, agenda is approved. Uh, discuss and act on previous board meeting minutes. Is there a motion to approve those minutes as presented? >> So moved. >> Motion's been made by >> Okay. >> Is there a second? >> Second by Scott. Uh, any comments or questions on the minutes? Hearing none. All in favor say I. >> I. Opposed. >> All right. The minutes are approved. Item number nine, consent agenda. Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented? >> So moved. >> Motion's been made by Eric Strandberg. Is there a second? >> Second by Jen. Any comments or questions on the consent agenda? Hearing none. All in favor say I. >> Opposed. >> All right. Consent agenda is approved. Item number 10, resolution for the
043acceptance of gifts. Um, is there a motion to approve uh that as presented? >> I move to accept the following donations or gifts as identified in the resolution as presented. >> All right. Uh, there's been a motion made by Melissa. Is there a second? >> Second by Don. Any comments or questions? Hearing none. All in favor say I. >> Opposed. >> All right. Those gifts are approved. We will go to item uh the staff uh the only information item now is the staffing adjustments. >> Hi, we um we're going to have our staffing adjustments here tonight, but because of some internal work that we needed to do, we will have that all at the next board meeting. Okay. >> Um Jason and Pat have been meeting with the high school, not all principles, not just
044the high school, all principles. um regarding our right sizing um finance tonight. We went through quite a bit of it. Um and I'll let Jason and Pat comments. >> Yeah. I guess the only thing I'd say is to to Michelle's point um as you look at any year, you always look at how many students are at each grade level and then you know the the board and I know Jason always shows this to me. he's probably the one to help create it, but it's you have the parameters for how you what what you should have for each section at each grade level. So, we look at those parameters, make sure that we're in those parameters, and if we're not, we have to make adjustments to make sure that our section numbers are meet and divide
045out so that we get inside that parameter for what the class size should be. And what we've done is worked pretty diligent with our principles to make sure that that's all lined up and that all of our section numbers will give us the right class size, if you will, so it meets inside the parameters for each one. Um, we'll have like we like Michelle said, there's more work to be done um because there's people we need to notify and talk to about what that means for them. And until we have that information, we want to make sure that we just uh um wait and put a pause on that for the board. >> Yeah. Yeah. The only thing I would say is we've looked at our class sizes over the last few years and our
046fifth through 12th grade we're holding, you know, in those 230s 220 range, unfortunately with our our first through or K through fourth grade, we're we're 219, 204, 195, 181. and we're kind of projecting about 170 kindergarteners this fall. So, our seatbased programming is the enrollment is declining. Whether that's because people are having less children, um that could be the case or maybe they're just not moving here yet. Um, but that is obviously a concern that we have and so when we're when we're looking at our parameters and we're looking at our staffing patterns, uh, as Pat mentioned, we'll have some movement because obviously we'll need less elementary staff, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it doesn't impact others across the the buildings. So, uh, we always look for efficiencies as much as possible. Take advantage
047of, uh, retirements that we do have or open positions so that we're, um, keeping as many of our quality staff as possible. >> I think a couple things with this is not a a Princeton thing. This is a statewide and even a national thing. You know, the enrollments of schools are going down and it's, you know, there's a couple reasons. there's less less kids and um you know home home school starting to be a little more popular than it has been in the past and it keeps growing. So those two things affect public schools. So then we have to react to make sure that we stick within our budget constraints because uh all those decisions are affect budget and we know that's important for us to be fiscally responsible to our to our residents of
048the community. >> All right. So stay tuned until our next meeting in May. Our first meeting in May. >> All right. So we have a few action items tonight. Um the first one is the notice of scan system. >> That's I'm assuming for bullying. >> It is. Yeah. >> Um >> I don't know if you do that, but that's >> Yes. We we test the machines in here prior to sending them out to the voting sites. >> Oh, okay. So, the county actually will come here. I believe it's on my calendar for Wednesday the 6th and uh we will actually run test ballots for them to make sure that they are working correctly. >> So, the county test the machines >> Yeah, they come here >> and our head judges go through that with them.
049>> Okay, good. Okay. Uh so we have uh is there a motion to approve then to accept the notice of testing the optical stance scan system for the special election as presented? >> So motion's been made by Eric MS. Is there a second? >> Second by Jen. Any comments or questions on that? >> I didn't notice this earlier, but the document is blank. What day did you say it was? >> Uh it's on my calendar I believe for that Wednesday prior. So, uh, Wednesday, May 6th. >> Wednesday, May 6th. >> Thank you. Sorry, I didn't catch that earlier. >> Look, I'm sure it's on my clipboard here, so we'll make sure that's on there. So, all right. Um, any other questions or comments on that hearing? None. All in favor say I. >> I opposed.
050>> All right. Motion is approved. Notice of exact counting center. So we have to put this is the notice that indicates that the ballots will be counted at Baldwin, the city of Baldwin and at Princeton Depot and early voting will be counted here at the district center. Anybody who would like and come and watch the should. >> Okay. >> All right. So, is there a motion to accept um the notice of exact counting center for the May 12th, 2026 special election has presented? >> So, moved. >> Motion's been made by Scott. Is there a second? >> Second by Don. Any comments or questions on that one? >> Hearing none. All in favor say I. >> I. Opposed. >> All right, that is approved. Thank you. Our last um action item is Rome River specialed um
051co-op joint powers agreement. So this is a new one. >> Yeah, this so this is a new one that uh um Rem River um legal has advising that you need to have a new joint power agreement because um they are um looking at bringing associate members into Round River. So we have our governance m so all of us who have voting powers and so on are the rum river consortium but but when you bring an associate they they get some rights but they don't get voting rights and they want to make sure that's clarified in this period >> and right now St. Francis would like to be associate. Usually what happens with associate it's almost like a trial period. Do you work for us? Do we work? Did it fit well? Does it not fit
052well? And then they could become a full member. >> Well, they used to be part of the rumor. >> St. Francis used to way back and then they I think they want they went out on their own. >> Yeah. It sound like they went independent >> very long. Well, it sounds like they want back in, but Rum River is using this associate model to test drive them >> and then the legal says you have to have that on your joint powers and so all the other >> Rum River districts need to at their board level. >> This is the new joint powers agreement. Okay. >> And the language is all about the associate. That's the only changes. Oh, >> okay. >> All right. Any questions at all on that? Otherwise, I would entertain a motion
053to accept uh the amended and restated joint powers agreement with Rome River Special Ed Cooperative as presented. So moved. >> Motion made by Melissa. Is there a second? >> Second by Eric MS. Any comments or questions on that? >> All right. All in favor say I. >> Opposed. >> All right. That agreement is approved. We have no additions to the agenda. Um, is there a motion to adjurnn? So, motion made by Don. Is there a second? Second. Second by Scott. All in favor say I. Oppos.