School Board Meeting 04-14-2025

001It's not quite getting us the right direction. Okay. Thank you. All right. I now call this board meeting to order. Please rise for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Miss Cook, will you please take RO? Is there any new business to bring before the board? Hearing none, I would seek a motion for approval of the agenda. So move. Second. I have a motion by Mr. Welch and a second by Mr. Gist. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Same sign. Motion carries. 70. Next item on the agenda is item six, recognize the winter activity achievements with Mr. Hughes. First up is class AAA state

002girls basketball team for getting fourth place. Come on up. Come on you guys. Come on up. Don't be shy. Kurt wasn't on the court. No, it was a fact. Well, thanks for um recognizing some of our winter um accomplishments this uh at this point in time. We'll start out with the girls state qualifying basketball team. With us tonight, we have Miss Burn and Miss Shindelar. Um the girls obviously won the section championship this year. They went into the tournament seated third, ended up as champions um as state qualifiers. Unfortunately, their seed that they ended up getting in the state tournament wasn't uh to our liking. Um ended up the eighth seed out of eight teams and ended up losing to the number one team now three-time defending state champion Benil St. Margaret and then lost

003to Dell in the constellation round. But, um, I will have to say that I was up at the the g both those games and not only was, um, did our team represent our community as they always have with class and dignity and sportsmanship um, but our fans did as well. And we have we packed the house on um, the first night, the first day um, and then we did a really good job in the cancellation consolation championship game or consolation game. um our fans showed up again. So um I applaud not only our team but our community as well. A couple uh honors that uh the team brought back with them. Um of course we have all conference honors. Uh one went to Audrey here and Danica and Jaci. Uh Audrey has a a plethora

004of list of of awards for this year uh that include HBL player of the year. Uh she was the postbolin all area player of the year. Um she was named the Minnesota Girls Basketball Coaches Association class AAA all-state team. Um the team as a whole u or I'm sorry, Audrey was uh she's also earned as a junior. She is currently the all-time leading scorer uh in the girls basketball program history. So um Audrey has has a lot of accomplishments up to this point. We look for even more. to name a couple other JC Wrath. We can't forget JC. She was third team all post bulletin area. Katherine Jones and Kylie Minn were named to the academic allstate individual list. And the team itself uh had a uh they earned the gold um the gold award

005which is with a GPA of 3.76 or higher. So, um not only are they hitting it on the court, but they're getting in the in the classroom as well. Um, congratulations to uh the entire girls basketball program, especially uh these fine ladies that are with us tonight and coach Ty as well. No, uh, I just want to say thank you to everyone, community, you guys, everyone's support. Obviously, this isn't something that we just do ourselves, right? I mean, you get in the gym and that's kind of our time, but this is a community effort and it all kind of stems from what you guys do to giving us opportunities with different things with fan buses and getting everyone out to come support us. So, I appreciate everything that you guys do, appreciate everything these girls

006do because as I said at our banquet last night, they make my life enjoyable and they're they're a huge reason as to my why and why I keep doing the things that I do. So, I appreciate them and everyone that kind of has a hand in helping us be as successful as they have over the course of the last few years. So, thank you guys. Audrey, you could just stay. I could. Looks like you're on here again for next up is BPA National Qualifiers. She could just stay. Yes, she can. So, next we're going to recognize our uh BPA um accomplishments this winter. So, there were almost 30 we had uh started the year with 36 and I think we brought 32 up to state to state. So third a little over 30 people went

007up to state um and competed in in multiple categories. Um and there are uh individuals who were recognized in the uh to place high enough for nationals which will be take place May 6th through 11th in Florida. Uh Audrey Burn was in the fundamental desktop publishing. She finished fourth at state. Uh Elise Campbell was prepared speech. She was second place. Uh Satie Looney was basic office uh systems and procedures and she was third and Norah Campbell will be competing at nationals as a open category area. I would like to recognize Danielle Mullenbach. So Danielle competed in virtual media and promotion and didn't necess I think basically what took place there was from I'm understanding it kind of bypasses the state piece and they so she actually placed um in the top 20 nationally so um

008I think that's kind of how all that that those pieces work there. So, um, there were a lot of other students that obviously the others that competed in the top nine, we got Luke Heeble, uh, Lukie Nelson, Christopher Waters, uh, Luke and Pete Cheddar, Owen Buckme, and Luke Eastman. Um, we see we got Ebie Reaggers here, too. So, Audra and, uh, Sadi and Abby Langth and Anne Vester were all, uh, in the visual design that placed in the top nine at state. So, um, lots to be proud of. Again, these ladies and gentlemen that attended the state, represented our community, um, the best that they could, and we're super proud of their accomplishments this year, and best of luck in the national competition. Are you all going to nationals or who's going who's going to

009nationals? Okay, good luck. That's amazing. Fester. Oh, thank you. Okay. As doing this uh the first year I've ever done uh advisorship for BPA, it's been wonderful. Uh it's fun to work with high school students instead of um always working with middle school students. It's quite a change. Uh it's fun to see who they've grown into and what they can accomplish uh given a little direction and a lot of selfm motivation. So um thank you to everyone who has supported them. I know our community is doing a great job of supporting them and uh helping us get to nationals. So thank you. Congratulations. Good luck. You can certainly stay for the rest of the meeting or you can graciously exit when you're Thank you for being here. Thank you. Thank you guys. Okay. Next on

010the agenda is to consider item seven. Consider and approve Jessica Hansy's extended state field trip request for the ban to travel to Miami, Florida, Mexico March 29th through April 4th of 2026. And I see Mrs. Hansy's here. So we can have you come up and talk about it since it's a new field trip this year. Hi. How is everybody today? Um, so we're looking at doing something completely different this time around. Um, the band has traveled to many places in the in our country. Um, and so we decided let's try taking it from land to sea and we'll see what happens. Um, we we put out a survey and I'm sure you guys put out surveys before and sometimes you don't quite get the results you want back. That's okay. Um, but the results that

011we did get back, I would say I think it was literally all but one person and now they've changed their vote. Uh, 100% of the people that voted like what we should do. Should we go to a Nashville tour or should we go on a cruise ship and get on the water? And cruise ship won 100%. So, um, so we had a couple of opportunities or a couple of options to choose from. Um, and what we did was we kind of took a step back and looked at an option that was going to get the kids home for Easter because I felt like that was kind of an important thing. Um, so we will be arriving home um that Saturday, April 4th, so kids can be home for that holiday with their families if they

012choose to be. So what we're looking at doing um is flying into Miami on the 29th of u March, which is spring break, so they won't miss any school. And then we'll hang out in Miami. We don't know the flights yet. They're coming out soon. They're only out until the week right now before we actually fly would like need to fly out. So, we don't know the cost of that yet. Um or what times the flights will be, but our plan is to spend some time in Miami, spend a night, spend the day, um do some activities with the kids, and then board the ship, I believe, at like 4:00 or 4:30 that afternoon. Um we have two main stops. Otherwise, we're cruising on the ship um for 3 days, but in between we have

013a stop and I think you guys got the links so you could look at that stuff. I'm hoping you're able to see those ahead of time if you wanted to look. Um the first stop that we have is is an island owned by the cruise ship, so it's completely safe. Uh it's called Perfect Day at Coco K in the Bahamas. Um then we get back, we cruise on the sea, and then we go to Cosmo, Mexico. And then there's going to be a bunch of excursion opportunities for us, and we'll be selective about what what we pick so that we've got adults chaperoning every single one. Nobody's going to be like, "Hey, you go swim with the dolphins. See you. Good luck." Um so, um and then we'll get back on the cruise ship and

014then we'll arrive back at port on that seventh day and then we'll get from the ship to the plane and home. Um, while we are on the ship, we are hoping to have a performance opportunity while we're there. Um, I did speak with another band director who just literally got back got his band back. Um, he's from Wilmer. His name is Todd Blazer. Um, been teaching a long time. This is not the first cruise they've taken. Um, people were actually taking cruises back when I was a student teaching at Bell Plane. I remember the band director talking to a friend of his who had just gotten back to a cruise. So, it is a it is a thing. Um there are places that bands and choirs tend to go that they like to go on

015cruise ships. They perform on the ships. Um the interesting part I think for us is to figure out and we won't know until we talk to the activities director on the actual ship once we book. Um then we'll we're allowed to have that meeting with that person about how to get um like where do we store our instruments? How do we get all the instruments on there? I don't really feel like shipping a bunch of Tony down there. So, I'm trying to figure out what's going to be on the ship. Um, there's also uh the band director I spoke with um from Wilmer said that they actually rented some instruments while they were down there and then put them on the ship. So, fundamentally like just getting all those details worked out. That's going to

016be something down the line, but it is something that we're already thinking about trying to plan for. Um we are inviting parents and and if they want to bring their families along with because it is spring break um we are encouraging them to come if they want to. Um why not? The more the marrier here. So um what we've actually we put out another survey to find out how many people want to come. Um so far it isn't complete yet. We don't have everybody's votes, but right now we are at 38 students, but we're I think at 80 plus people who have already signed on to want to go just so we kind of knew what we were looking at because I I wasn't sure. Um the cost right now we are looking we're trying

017to keep it at about 1,200. Um I thought it was interesting. Uh the Wilmer band went for seven days um with three stops and they had they paid 26.50. um they went through a company and we keep it inhouse. Uh we started doing that and it has lowered costs quite a bit. Um and actually I think the last trip we took we were able to send money back that people actually overpaid and we were able to give them money back. So um Heather Peter over here is our cruise connoisseur. She's she's even wearing the Royal Caribbean shirt tonight. um she's actually going to be going on the same cruise that we are going to go on, the same cruise ship uh in October. So, she's going to be able to kind of tell us detail

018for detail what activities there are available. Um but if you were able to look or if you um were yeah, if you had were able to look at the links that I included, you'll be able to see some of the things. But um the activities are endless on the ship cuz I was worried myself about what are kids going to do all day. Um we just had a family get back from a cruise and they were like, "Oh my gosh, they're going to be busy all day." Like they're gonna there's like a bill bajillion things you can do on the ship. It's going to take you a day just to walk around it. Um it's been 20 years since I've been on a cruise ship. I don't remember that much because this is 20 years

019ago. Um but they have mini golf water slides. They have simulated surfing, ice skating, arcade, laser tank, table tennis, pickle ball, sports court, rock climbing, swimming and hot tubs, gym and fitness classes, dance classes, karaoke, cupcake classes, sushi making classes, game shows, trivia, etc., etc., etc. Um, and then there's all types of cuisine. Um, and I think it's an exciting new adventure. Um, I said no to a cruise at least twice and I thought, "Okay, I'm just going to let you take this one and we'll see what happens." So, um, I think it's kind of an exciting idea. It's, something new, something different, something we've never done. Kids do not need passports to go because we're entering Mexico via the cruise ship. So, that's one extra thing that we don't have to ask um, families

020to to pay for or figure out. Um, so we're trying to keep cost low but activity high and try to make our stamp somewhere new and different. So any questions? What's like your minimum that you want for a chaperon? Um, we do I've always done one chaperon per eight students. Then we have like usually we have like if we do hotel rooms back in the day, you know, we do four kids and four kids and they're responsible for two rooms. This is going to be more that I think it's going to be two people per room typically. So, because the rooms are a little bit smaller, we're not going to cram them in there, but they'll just be responsible for a few more rooms. But, we also have security on all the floors, too. So,

021that's going to be really nice. It kind of looks like we're going to have more adults than we had expected. So, I think I think we'll be okay there. So, yeah. I I think you probably got it already covered for the adults. That was like one to one. It'll be real close. It be really easy to keep an eye on everybody, right? So, yeah. Great. Any other questions? It's exciting. Go do something new. You can hear about it when you get back. Does anybody else have any more questions? Okay. Thanks to Heather for taking one for the team by trying it out before she twist her arm. Yeah, she's she's good that way. She always does the difficult stuff for me and appreciate it. Well, thank you. And I would seek a motion. So move

022second. I have a motion by Mr. Ravenhorse and a second by Mr. Lowman. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. I. Same sign. Motion carries. 70. Yeah, we'll let them scoot and then we'll move on. Next item on the agenda is consent agenda items 8 A through D. Is there any thing any board any item any board member would like remove and discuss separately? Okay. Hearing none, I would seek a motion. Second. I have a motion by Mr. G and a second by Miss Kefir. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Same sign. Oh, Mr. Ravenhorse is abstaining because he's on here. Yeah. Again, as a coach. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I have the motion carries. 6 0 N one obstain. Yeah. Okay. Next item on the agenda would be we'll

023skip to 10 aim two a safe welcoming engaging learning environment and it's a would be to consider and approve eagle rock naming rights and this is presented by Mr. Hughes. All right, I see. Yes. So, thank you everybody for um having us. Um I'm here with uh Jack Buckmire, a representative from Eagle Rock Bank. Um a little bit about um this partnership that we're proposing started way back in November, probably maybe even before that. I think our first meeting was November. And um uh Josh and I had met to just to discuss some potential advertising opportunities within the school um partnership with Eagle Rock. And uh Josh, Mr. Mr. Buckmire had expressed the interest uh uh on behalf of Eagle Rock to involve in a larger scheme larger uh partnership than just a little hey

024will you want to you know donate some money for this item or this item. So um at that point we started in some preliminary talks about potential naming rights of high school of the high school gym to fund some of the renovations that we're looking for in bleachers score table and chairs. Um that idea of potential u naming rights really kind of uh stems from what other schools in our area have done. Um Cass Manorville for instance has their stadium named KMTel. They have their gym Allaris um Bank. It used to be Home Federal Arena. Now it's Arena because Home Federal sold to um Byron's gym is named after Shields for the donation that they did. their stadium accepted um an anonymous donation. Not they didn't want any naming rights, but the Veterans football soccer

025stadium that they did um also had some sort of um piece that was that was given to them at that point. So, um Josh and I kind of talked about it. Um we talked about the current situation of our gym. Um, currently when if you were to go to a basketball game, uh, we have both the home and the visiting schools that sit on our bleachers for their bench. One side, our home team side is very small because it's limited with the aisle that leads up to the bleachers. Um, and the other part side of it is the score table which takes up a big portion of it. The visitor side is a little bit bigger. Um, but what's inconvenient there is anytime a fan wants to go sit in the stands, they have to

026walk right in front of the players and the coaches and the score table and everything to get to their seats. Um, if you go to some other sta some stadiums, what they have is um they actually have a walkway behind the the uh teams uh that are sitting in chairs that's behind the score table and stuff there. And that's ultimately what the plan is. So um the problem this created was obviously um walking in front. It was an une uneasiness by the teams, an uneasiness by the spectators and really potential safety hazards um that go along with that. If a coach is is not watching and somebody's walking and he turns and then they run, you know, whatever it might be, a kid jumps off the the bench to go in the game and all

027of a sudden they they you know, whatever hit one of the spectators going to their their seats. That's just a safety hazard for everybody that we don't want to put ourselves in. So, a solution would be again to put chairs on courtside also with a new score table to put that score table courtside and have a walkway behind the the chairs and the score table but in front of the bleachers easy access to the bleachers. Um, so in order for that to happen, we would have to get new bleachers, which our current bleachers are the original when that edition was there. So, what is it 26 27 years old? Um, and basically what we would do is get nine rows on the south wall. Um, and yes, that's it's currently 11. We would make that

028nine, which would push back those bleachers and save space. If you think about that, every some people have asked me, do we lose do we lose capacity of seating there? Not really for games because right now we have the teams and we have all their stuff right behind it and then we usually have a buffer of a third row because fans don't want to sit right next to the team or you know and the team doesn't want them to do that. So they're four or five bleachers up before they actually start to sit down. So actually for games and that it it gives a little bit more capacity. Um the 11 row bleachers on the north side would stay. I mean we're not going to we're get new ones but they would we'd keep it

02911. We'd uh purchase a new score table and new chairs um that would sit courtside for that. Um to help fund this project um again in talks with Josh and Eagle Rock Bank, Eagle Rock Bank has um um would get exclusive naming rights, hence the name would be Eagle Rock Arena. Um, and they are willing to provide $150,000 over a 10-year period, and it equates to $15,000 a year. Um, in return, Eagle Rock Bank would get uh the following exclusive naming rights to the high school gymnasium, advertising on the north and south walls in addition to above the two doors, um, advertising on the new score table, recognition during team introductions, and name recognition. Uh, basically on our website when we have to give locations of where the game is, it would say Eagle Rock

030Arena instead of high school gym. So that's that's kind of what a lot of these other schools are doing. They they give that to so anybody looking online can see that it's there. Um, if we continue, the bleachers themselves would look like that. That's a little rendering of what the bleachers would be on the north. This would be the um south side here. Um uh we the we can purchase bleachers in maroon and gold colors. Those at no additional cost. So the tan ones we have now would cost the same as what these would cost here as far as if they were colored, right? So there's no additional for the colors. There's no additional for the words. So this would be the north side would say tigers when they're pushed back, of course. So um

031the score table itself um I was approached by an anonymous donor saying that um I want to do something for this gym I would and has is willing to upfront the cost for the new score table at approximately $10,500. And then the chairs it the new digital table will have the capacity to scroll advertisements on it. So, it's a digital score table much like you see in some of the college and and pro arenas where it's on if it's courtside you've got a scroll of different advertiser whatever it might be. Um, and that's what the our score table would have that capability. And then the chairs itself um I thought up I think I talked with Josh about it as well. Um, just kind of a buy a chair campaign or the little advertisers that

032want to be out there um to purchase a chair. Um we're looking to purchase between 50 and 60 chairs with racks and we would do some sort of buy a chair uh fundraising campaign to purchase those chairs. So um those chairs would come at a cost of approximately $8,700. Um Eagle Rock Josh would like to uh express their support with the brief statement as well. So I'll let Josh talk to answer questions. Good evening. Thanks for having me on. Um, I know you got a ton of stuff on your agenda, so I'm not going to ramble on at all. Um, so I just appreciate the opportunity to come up here and talk. So, um, I know the majority of the folks on the board, but, uh, for for the folks that maybe don't, um, my

033name is Josh Buckmire. I'm a graduate from Stville High School in 1998. Um, my wife is also a graduate. Um, she's a little bit older than me, but I won't say how old. Um, and my daughter graduate 2023, and my son's a junior here at Circle High School. So when Eagle Rock when we built a branch in 2020, it was always my my mindset that I always wanted to do something like that. I was always jealous kind of seeing Home Federal all the time when I went over there. Um I know Kirk was my football coach back in the day and I just whenever I see him at different different events now you're a different events I always just said, you know, I I really want you to keep keep me in mind um if

034it's something comes up as far as an opportunity to to do something here for um the school. um when he reached out in November uh talking about the bleachers um the timing felt right. Um it was a great opportunity for Eagle Rock Bank to give back to the school while also getting our name, you know, potentially on the arena. Myself along with Stephanie, a graduate of 1998 as well. We went through the construction process of the whole new school, but we never got to play one game in the new gym or anything at that time. So, um, been in a lot of different events at the gym and noticed, you know, just kind of the inconvenience as far as the the bleachers and how they are. So, um, Kirk brought it up to me about,

035you know, just his idea and the thought behind the the score table and the chairs, it just made complete sense. So, um, if you guys have any questions, I'd be happy to answer anything you have, but I just, uh, like I said lastly, so I appreciate the opportunity to to be here and partner with Stville School District for for many years to come. So, if approved, when would this start? So, um, we would be able to get the chair, you know, assuming that I would start that the chair campaign as soon as I can to get the funding for that. The table can be purchased at any point according to the anonymous donor. Um, the actual bleachers uh were on a calendar for midepptember is the earliest we can get the bleachers to be put

036in. So, everything up to the bleachers can be done before we start in the fall. And 150,000 covers the bleachers for the most part. Yes. Yep. Do we have any concerns like about concerts or graduation or seating? No. Schedule. It'll start after or I mean like seating wise or you mean every loss of seating? [Music] I don't I one time a year that it gets filled up is graduation I suppose front to back. Yeah. And we have the pack though and that never fills up as overflow. Yeah. And then you know it's centered differently I suppose in a little bit too. I mean you put two extra rows of chairs if there's two less bleachers right. We would have 50 those 50 to 60 chairs that we'd be purchasing to add into what we currently

037put on the gym floor. Right. So, so those 50 to 60 chairs that would cover the reduced bleach receive partnership. Um, what are the parameters like how would it what would be the opportunities come up to where it would have to be dissolved? Like in what instances possibly like to like like let's say Eagle Rock pulls out of town? I mean, it's 10 years, so I'm just thinking long term, right? Would I'm assuming that would be a dissolution of of it or you know what I mean? I'm just trying to see if we're gonna agree to something that's 10 years out. I think Go ahead. No, I just just from the conversations that I know with folks I worked at home federal and switched over to people I know in the past, they got the

038first opportunity to renew that. Okay. Um, you know, if it didn't, then spot we do that. So, are you providing 15,000 a year or are we going to prorate this over like just like a loan over a 10-year period because 15,000 in year 1 is worth a whole lot more than 15,000 in year 10. The current contract says 15,000 a year that will be paid out on July 1st. That's probably common for those types of agreements. That's I mean like I said when I did the research on this with the others that's typically what those are. They may not be 10 years they might be seven years whatever it might be but it's typically a lump sum each year for those years. Yes. Is there any other discussion? Um, but again, being that it's a

03910-year thing, I have I don't have any seem to have any issue with Eagle Rock having a name on it or getting their thing to be honest. I mean, Josh came forward, so I mean, he's he would be the guy that I think that would be awarded to regardless. But being that it is 10 years, would there be any opportunity to renegotiate the deal? Like, like to Aaron's point too, like because you know, in the end of that on the back end, it doesn't do as much. So like in my mind, yes, you'd have naming rights for 10 years, but let's say after six or something, you could possibly talk again about, you know, not necessarily renegotiating as far as like saying, oh, we're not going to we're going to part ways, but just saying,

040hey, it's this money doesn't do as much as it used to. Didn't know if that would be it'd be a 10-year contract, right? So, we'd be committing to 10-year contract, but essentially we' be paying back money we've already spent, you know, just a one time spend. That's the exact point I was going to make. Yeah. So, you're getting it long. We're not purchasing the equipment over 10 years or or down the road. We're doing it right now and that cost of it. So, we're getting the 150 up front. We're putting it up front. Okay. And then over the course of the 10 years, that cost is being reimbured. You're paying it back. It's similar to the sandbot. Yeah. agreement that we did. They're just paying us back for the money that we spend up front,

041but the money we spend up front is not changing. It's the same. So, and I think I mean, all of us at the table could agree that Eagle Rock has been huge in the community already. I mean, they've paid for van buses. Their name is all over district activities. So, I think not only athletics, you know, they're supporting other things within the district, too. So, um, as far as them wanting to have naming rights for the gym, you know, their name's going to be on it, too. So, they want it to look nice and that's why with upgrading the bleachers and, you know, them putting the money in for us so that we can do that. Yeah, I have full trust in all that for sure. I think any community school partnerships would be beneficial

042for us. Always. Always. Yeah. And like you noted, it it's it's needed. Mhm. I mean the equipment or not equipment but what we have there is probably end of life um status. Well yeah in speaking with Josh Light that there's significant improvements that need with the current bleachers we have if we were to continue to use those. So um the timing was right. Mhm. Well, I think there's been a lot of discussions at with us at the table or even with community that will say, "Well, this place has this, you know, CASM has this 500%." It's like they, you know, they have businesses coming forward saying, "We want to support the school." So, I'm thankful to Josh and Bang for doing that. So, because we have plenty of needs here, too. Is there any other

043discussion? No. All right. Hearing none, I would seek a motion. So move. Second. I have a motion by Mr. Welch and a second by Miss Kefir. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. I. Post. Same sign. Motion carries. 70. Thank you again both of you. Thank you everybody. Appreciate it. Thank you. K. Yes. The second part of this is uh we don't normally have donations at this meeting but because we want to get in line for ordering both the equipment we have these two this resolution for these two and it does have bank for the features at 150 and the anonymous for the score table at 10,450. So we're seeking approval of this resolution even though it's out of sequence with what our regular pattern is for resolutions. Sure. Sorry. Okay. So, um,

044is there any discussion or questions about the resolution? Is there is it necessary at all on that resolution to state that it's over 10 years? Okay. It's a donation in total. Okay. Okay. I would seek a motion. So, move. Second. I have a motion by Mr. Ravenhorse and a second by Miss Keeper. And this is a roll call for vote. Miss Cook. Hi, Mr. Gist. Hi. Miss Kefir. Hi, Mr. Mr. Lman. Hi, Mr. Ravenhorst. Hi, Mr. Welch. I I for myself. Resolution carries 70. Congratulations. Thank you very much. Thanks, Josh. I do. We'll let them take a picture. We'll put this there. Right there. Here. That's a good picture right in front of the eye. Sorry guys, I didn't agree to this. I said that you know, but all [Music] right. Yep. There you go.

045Thank you. All right. You guys unfortunately have to look down at me because I'm shorter. Oh jeez. You do the three thing like Mark. One, two, three. I can hear you. I heard you. Thank you very much. All right. We're moving on. Moving on to AIM3, effective and efficient operations 11A is to consider and adopt policy 522, which is just to keep up with federal um regulations that just came out. So what had happened is we had policy 522 in 2020 and um it was specific to um sex non-discrimination. Um after that there were changes to title nine during the Biden administration that have now been revoked under the Trump administration and so we have to revert back to the old policy from 2020. And so that's what this is. It doesn't require two readings.

046It's just a um mandate that we have to adopt the former policy aligning policy with legislature. Right. No. Correct. Just procedural. Yeah. And this was attached. So is there any discussion? All right. Hearing none. I would seek a motion. Second. I have a motion by Mr. Lowman and a second by Mr. Gist. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. I. Post. Same sign. Motion carries. 70. Next item on the agenda is 11B, budget alignment administrative recommendations for fiscal year 26. And this is an attachment. Is Mr. Sharter or Miss. Okay. So, you have um in front of you a narrative list. It looks like this. it does match up what the presentation will be. Um, I'll walk through this and if you have questions as we go is don't be shy about just

047jumping in and seeking clarification as needed. Um, so what we want to do is first of all I want to thank the administrative team for all the time and effort that has been invested into this process. uh we started meeting right away after our March meeting that um during which the board gave us a parameter of $800 to a million dollars in alignments. And so um it's been several weeks that we've been working on getting this put together. I'm going to go over the information looking back um not in detail but just an overview. Uh we'll talk about the tiered recommendations that we're making. There are three tiers. They do range from about 820 to 945,000. And the board, the finance committee has received this information. They'll be bringing a motion to you based on

048what they learned during that meeting, but it's still for discussion for the full board. So, if we look back to the fiscal year 24 audit, that would be the 23 24 school year. We did have our revenues exceeding our expenditures that year of 130,000. Our unassigned fund balance at the end of that year was 2.8 million in change with a 10.31% fund balance. The board's policy is that we maintain an 8% as a floor for the fund balance. Um, and that is really because we want to have at least one month of expenses in cash flow to allow us these um to weather the hills and valleys of state aid that come our direction. So we don't get a regular check from the state in the same amount every month. It goes up and then

049it goes down in which we don't have any payments at all. So we have to maintain this fund balance in order to have the cash flow. We don't have cash flow. We end up borrowing and when you borrow as a school district, there's no state aid to pay interest on a loan because you couldn't manage your finances. So it's really important that we maintain that 8%. I will mention that that $130,000 revenue over expenditures was part of the um last CO dollars that we had. So once those CO dollars went away and we expended all of those, the following year, which is this year, with no CO dollars available, our estimate is that we will exceed our revenues. Our expenditures will exceed our revenues by about $316,000. On our unassigned fund balance will drop to

050about 2.5 million and 9.12%. So anytime that we see a drop in our fund balance or an estimation that it's going to happen, we need to start to take a look at what's happening because it's geometric. It won't be 360,000 the following year. It multiplies itself geometrically. It's not linear at all. So when we look at FY26, which is the projection without alignments, we can see that our expenditures will exceed our revenues if we don't do anything by about $857,000. That's the geometric leap. So we're going from 316 in one year to 857 the next year. Our fund balance would drop to just under $1,650,000, which is 5.84%. So that's what we talked about at our March meeting and that's when the board said we need a floor of $800,000 up to a maximum of

051a million in alignments in order to make sure that we stay fiscally solvent. So what we're bringing you tonight is tier one alignments in the amount of aboutund $820,000. We will still have our expenditures exceeding our revenues by about $37,000. Our fund balance would go just under 2.5 million which is 9%. That's above your floor of 8%. However, we know that this is a projection. It's not hard rock, you know, rock hard numbers. It's a projection. And so being comfortable with that 1% buffer would be our recommendation. and that we don't just go to 8% that we actually go to nine just in case something comes up or the legislature does something really crazy and we get less funding than what we're anticipating. Tier two as alignments would be um at $915,000 approximately. Here our

052revenues do exceed our expenditures by just under 60,000. Our unassigned F balance goes over 2.5 million and our percentage is 9.38. If we include all three tiers of the alignments that we're bringing forward to you tonight, we get to $940,000. Our revenues would exceed our expenditures at just under 90,000. And our unassigned fan balance will grow to about 2.6 million, which is 950%. So even going from 816 all the way up to 945, we just gain a half percent. So it's interesting how that all comes together, but those are again projections on what we think would happen if we made that many reductions. Are there any questions on the look back? Um, can I just ask one or no? It's about the sheet you gave us. Okay, I'll wait. Okay. Uh we have enrollment here

053from 2017 to 2027-28. Um you'll notice in 2017 18 we had 279 students. Our projections for 2728 is 1890 which is a loss of about 90 students. 90 students over the course of this time period is almost a million dollars. So that partially explains our situation. Our open enrollment has been steady. It's in about 400 kids. We're projecting 400 again for next year and that has been very very stable. What is declining is the number of live births in Mstead and Mau County as residents of Steuartville. So when we look at our school district, we have 9,000 residents because it includes the city of Stewartville, Bine, High Forest, all points there and in between and the rural areas. Within those 9,000 residents, we have less than 5-year-olds, which blows my mind. Less than 100 5-year-olds

054coming into kindergarten with a 9,000 resident community school district. So what that means is back in the day we had 150 160 5-year-olds. Now we're going to be much lower than that which is less revenue, less children being born, less enrollment, less revenue. It all ties together. I wanted to make sure that we just brought these forward. These are the class side guidelines that we have used for many years. You'll notice there are not hard and fast bands. Um there's a plus sign on all of them except the 912 which caps out at 35. So these are just reminders of where we are. Any questions on these slides? Okay. So how did we get here? We know that state aid and funding have not maintained peace with inflation since 2003. So it's been over 20

055years since the last time that inflation was matched to state aid and funding for education. We also know that the COVID increases there was dramatic increases a during and after COVID COVID in labor costs, supply costs, um supply chain costs, all of those things. They've not returned to pre pandemic costs. Labor has not come down. The cost of fixing and maintaining equipment has not come down. It's stayed up. And so that inflation um has caused us to spend more money in all kinds of ways. Enrollment has declined as I mentioned due to lower birth rates and then we have these unfunded mandates that have increased both in number and in cost and the 2023 2025 bienium was noted for a large number of unfunded mandates. Unemployment for hourly wakers by workers by itself is nearly

056$90,000 that we are required to pay out of our general fund. We're not getting state aid for it. Um there is a a legislative proposal to fund it for one more year, but after that it's on the district. Uh we are not eligible to purchase unemployment insurance and we're not going to be eligible to levy for it. So it comes straight out out of our general fund. Uh the paid family medical leave, the employment tax alone is nearly $90,000 with no state aid provided. the increase in TRA is going to be tens of thousands of dollars with no state aid provided. So when you couple the unfunded mandates with our lower enrollment with the COVID increases and inflation and not maintaining pace with inflation since 2003, it has created an economic storm that many many

057districts across the state are experiencing. We are not alone. When we went through this process, we identified our foundational beliefs as a team. We value the work of all staff across the district. We acknowledge the important and necessary roles of each member of our staff. We recognize the need to provide a variety of research-based and best practice programs and opportunities for all students. And we're going to try to maintain current programming as much as we can. When we went through the process of making recommendations, we tried to review every expense area that we have. We are proposing to you alignments and operations, alignments in programs and positions. And then we also had to consider the impact of seniority and licing licensing which will result in your um approval of the recommendations we're bringing forward for

058non-renewals and discontinuation of positions. Any questions so far? Okay. I just want to finally acknowledge the challenges that are coming with this. Um education is all about people and relationships. um this these are very very difficult decisions that have been made um about these recommendations. We also have visited with all of the people that are going to be impacted by these decisions whether it's the loss of their livelihoods or impact on their programs. Um every recommendation and decision that's made has an impact and we realize this fully on staff, students, families and community members. responsibilities of the board are complicated and challenging in that you are focusing on what's best for students and at the same time trying to maintain the fiscal health of the district financially. Um ignoring this is not an option because

059of the detriment that would cause to the school's budget and the position that we would be in next year. Um, we also acknowledge that the fund balance m being maintained at 8% is a challenge, especially in difficult economic times, but it's a necessity that the board has. If you don't maintain that fund balance, if and when the board has to go out for a bond, it will affect the district's credit rating, which directly affects the interest rate that we would get on any bond that we do. And so, it's just like personal finance. If you don't have a good credit rating or a good credit history or you have shown that you can't manage your finances, they will charge more interest because you're higher risk. We want to maintain the lowest risk risk possible by

060demonstrating we can be fiscally responsible. The areas that are included in the alignments include operations, contracted services under custodial substitutes, business services and transportation, activity programming, academic programming and staffing positions. I'll get into the tier one recommendations. Tier one, remember, is going to target at about 820. Um, this is the lowest amount that we um are going to be recommending to you. Under operations, we have subscriptions. These are subscriptions to um primarily online services and software that will not be used because of other discontinuations of programs and or have not been used. So, Alex is an online program that we use for um middle school summer school and middle school summer school is going to be recommended for discontinuation. So, we would be able to drop that subscription. Schooly in grades three and four has

061very low utilization. So, we would be recommending that at just over $4,000. The Fontis and Panel ODMS. When we purchased Font Panel, we thought that this would be used by our teachers, but it's not. And so, we're going to drop that. It's just over 2,000. LL we have about 80 license that are not used at Bonner so we can drop that. Celco was our library check-in checkout system. Celco is dissolving and it's being replaced with a much cheaper system and so we're going to be able to discontinue Selco. You'll see Gold Book is $5,000 in parenthesis because that is a new software program that we are going to purchase for special education and so we wanted to make sure we didn't lose sight of that expense. So it comes off of the uh total recommendations

062of 28,841 becomes 23,841. We didn't want to have this expense and not account for it overall. Is it replacing something or updating something? Yeah, it's updating. It's going to be uh provide special ed teachers with a bank of um writing goals that are standardsbased. We're moving to standardsbased assessments and curriculum and um lesson plans. And so this will allow those special ed teachers to use standardsbased goal writing. Um it's a new skill and so to support their work, we're going to look at purchasing this for them. Any questions on the subscription? I I Well, I have one. Yeah. So, well, you you said with the middle school summer school, which is on here in a different spot, but how um how do you know how many students utilize the middle school summer school? So, it

063was not if ever it it never was at capacity. Oh. So, we would have students that would be eligible and parents would sign them up with the intent that they would attend and then they didn't go. Okay. Um, and I'll get to the summer school explain that a little bit by temp. Okay. Um, let's talk about contracted services. So, right now we have Arnolds, which is our contractor that we use for custodial services. They are cleaning here. Um, it's almost $70,000 to have them do this building. We're going to eliminate that completely and have our current crew of district staff take that over. So, it will stretch them. Um, but Mr. light feels pretty confident that we can maintain this. Um, we have uh this level and third floor cleaned regularly, which we can really

064roll back on. This probably only needs to be once or twice a month up here. I'm including the restroom. Uh, third floor can be reduced to once a week, maybe even once every other week. We're just it's just adults, you know. uh first floor where Tiger Tots and the preschool obviously needs to be every day, but we're not going to need the level of staffing that we do right now cleaning this building. Teachers on call are the permanent teacher subs that we have. We have one at Bonner, one at Bear Cave, one at the middle school, and one at the high school. They are not utilized every day. And so when they're not subbing, they're assigned to be a parah. And so it's a little bit of an expense to have them working as paras

065when they're being paid as substitute teachers. So we would cancel that contract with teachers on call. These people would still be subbing, but they'd be at the daily rate instead of the permanent sub rate, which is much higher. We'll save about $13,000. So it doesn't seem like a lot, but it is going to save us that money because we're not hiring them at that higher sub rate. We're going to hire them at the regular sub rate. School management services. I'm going to have Dan speak to this one because he has uh more uh expertise and knowledge. So on the purchase order processing piece, we have a separate contract to manage that within the business office centrally located with one staff member handling all of the POS that come in. So as staff make requisitions, it

066flows to her. She then creates the purchase order and then either it goes back to the staff for them to go ahead and order on their own or it is ordered for them. Um, so that's kind of the process. We're going to eliminate that piece of the contract and reassign that to a current staff member within the business office and increase their hours. Um, which you'll see kind of below that in parenthesis is an increase of 12,000. that is to add those hours to that staff person who is currently part-time to bring them more in line with full-time. Uh reducing that and then we're also looking to make a contract adjustment on our business support contract of $15,000. And part of that is moving some responsibility within that as well to this other um person

067to take on and then just doing an overall assessment of where our current contract is. Um, if you'll recall last year, we made some adjustments due to the HR director Sheila Gosman's retirement and US SMS picking up that half of the payroll in those pieces. So, now that we've had a full year, we'll go back and we are assessing that and looking at we can look to make a a minor adjustment to that contract part as well. So that totals up the full $33,000 um in adjustment alignments for that contract and then an increase of $12,000 to add those hours to the current staff person to fulfill those pieces that SMS will not be doing anymore. So the current staff person is a part-time staff person would become full-time is a district staff person. So

068um these uh business office tasks would be assigned to that district staff person. Um the 33,000 that we would save with the contract adjustments and appeal processing once we reassign becomes a $21,000 savings. under professional development. We've been working with first educational resources in the secondary school and with Nancy Bremer in the elementary school uh for three years and they have been on site working with our staff. I we believe that next year we can move to remote support from these two um professional development consultants and so we would save quite a bit of money because we're not going to have to pay for the travel or their full day rates. So for first educational resources it'd be 8250 and Nancy Remer would be 15,900. The total under contracted services then that we're saving is

069128630. Any questions in this area? Okay. We'll get into activity and academic programming. For years, the district has paid the ACT fee for all students. We will um be having students who are not eligible for free and reduced meals under the educational benefits pay for their own ACT test. If students fill out the form and are eligible for educational benefits, they can get their ACT test paid for by the state. So we would pay the fee, we submit them to the state um that roster, they verify that yes, they are eligible for educational benefits. They reimburse us for that ACT fee. Um students who are not eligible for educational benefits would pay the fee themselves. They would be about $4,500 savings. Now we can talk about summer school. The elementary and the middle school were

070very similar in which uh we would send the letters out. We would notify the parents. they would sign the children up. Um but then when it came to sending them um not many children were willing to participate and so we were overstaffed nearly every summer with these two programs and paying teachers for very small groups. So we would look to discontinue the middle school and the elementary. The high school we have been offering it on our campus and paying our own teachers. It is available through Zed and our only cost would be transportation. So, we will transport the students to Zed and back so that they're not spending their own money on gas and that those kinds of things. Overall, the savings will be about $45,000. We're seeking to increase activity fees by $10. You

071remember that we did this last year, so it' be another $10 this year. That would raise about 7,800. We are still in the ballpark. Uh we checked with the area districts that are our size. Um, we are very much the average with this increase in our activity fees. So, we're not going to be the highest, we're not going to be the lowest, we'll be right in the middle. We're looking to discontinue the one act play at 3500 and the gymnastics program at 20,000. The total for academic and academic programs would be $80,800. Any questions on this list? How did those two activities come to be on this list? So, we looked at participation rates was one of the things that we considered um what it costs per athlete when we considered how many are participating

072and then the cost that goes with it. Um, those are probably the two primary things that we looked at when we were considering what could be put on this list. So, if we discontinue, I actually have two questions. I'll start with the top of the list for high school, summer school. Um, speaking from a parent who has a child that's gone through it um, for credit recovery, that's what worries me because if they have to transport through Zed, then they have to ride a bus over there. And a lot of these high school kids like to drive. So let's you're giving them more responsibility instead of driving a mile to the high school to make that credit recovery for let's say math to driving to Cassen to Zed for all day summer school when they

073already don't want to. It's not all day. So it's similar schedule to what we would have. Sorry for it's for four weeks and then four weeks. So it's for two months out of the summer usually. Um this I think is a three-week program. Okay. So um it's still for credit recovery. Yep. um their credits will transfer to us. We would provide transportation if they don't want to drive. Um for those that insist on driving because they might be going to work before or after, those kinds of things, uh we would have a travel waiver where they would their parents would sign a waiver and say, "Yes, my child is going to drive." Okay. Okay. Um I will say also that the high school participation is much higher because it is for credit and they're on

074track. They're using these credits to get on track for graduation. So, typically the high school students that sign up attend. I was just worried with adding this the mileage to making them go longer. And then for gymnastics, my question with that is if we discontinue the gymnastics athletic program, are we still going to have gymnastics through community ed because that generates funds? No. So the $20,000 does that all general fund. The community ed is fund four. Okay. Understand it's different funds but we would no longer have the community one either. That would be no that would be the plan that both would be discontinued. Okay. All right. Can you go over the numbers for gymnastics? Like how many are involved from Stewartville? I know we co-op with Jack. So, we have um 11 or 12

075from Steuartville, one from Chadfield. Okay. Um the coach's wages and employment tax are just over $12,000. Um it's about $8,000 in event costs. Now, whether that's the crew that setups and takes down the floor and all the equipment, we pay them. Um we have custodial before and after each meet. Um, we have judges that we pay, ticket takers, supervisors. Um, if it's an away meet, we have transportation that we pay for, and then supplies. Yeah. Is it an expensive? I mean, I know the gymnastics equipment is old, needs to be replaced. That's an additional It's It's an expensive endeavor. And then if we do discontinue, we're still compliant for Title N. Yep. Yeah. How does that work for So like the Chapfield student co-ops here. How does that work if our students want to go?

076Will there be opportunities? Yeah. Will there be an opportunity? Do we have to pursue another district or to co-op with to co-op? Yeah. How does that work? Yeah, we have to find another co-op. Okay. Okay. So, if there was interest in that, that would be something that like Kurt could look into or Right. So that would be another that'd be an increase in expenses. So we may have to consider what that impact would be. That would be financially. Okay. Sure. Okay. I didn't think about that. Okay. Generally we do not charge Chatfield for um the coaches, you know, the coaches fees, the transportation, those kinds of things. If we had a larger participation pool from Chatfield, then we might ask them for 25% of those costs. But we have not because it's been such a

077small number. So typically when you co-op you share the expenses. Any other questions? Any questions on that section? Um the second half of the tier one recommendations are staffing and positions. We'd be looking at moving kindergarten from seven sections to six, which is 1.0 FTE. You can see the savings there. Grade two would be the same. Go from seven sections to six, which is one FTE. Middle school, high school math, we would be absorbing one FTE. Middle school, high school English, and social studies, we're absorbing 8 FTE. The middle school, high school overloads, um, right now we have overloads in math, science, social studies, English, health, and you would eliminate all those overloads. is an overloaded teacher on a full-time contractor who teaches five classes, but we add a class. So, they teach six and

078we pay them for that sixth section. The employment taxes on all of this stuff is just about 87 or 85,000. So, the total between the first page and this page are 583163. Any questions on these? I'll get to some additional data on what these sections will do. Um if you want to talk a little bit about uh programs and the impact. So for summer school high school students as I mentioned would attend um the sessions offered at Zed and transportation would be provided. I will mention that all of the Zed schools use the Z summer school. We were the only one that worked. So this is this is not unusual for the Zed schools. The bags were participated at Z middle school and elementary summer school would be discontinued for the pair professionals. We would

079have three of them. Oh, I must have missed a page. Did I? I'm sorry. I did. Here it is. Sorry about that. There. Right there. Let me go back. Excuse me. I'm so sorry about that. Yeah, I kind of saw you um looking like we're beginning kindergarten. Where's skipped ahead of paragraph? Okay, I'm sorry about that. Um so pair professionals, we would absorb three FTEEs. We will follow a contract with that. Um there's specific language about how those reductions would be made. Some of their cont some of our pairs are contracted through TOC and other pairs are district staff. So we would follow the contract one administrative oh uh with those pair professionals um there'd be reassignments to the areas of greatest need one administrative assistant FTE and again the roles and responsibilities with that

080administrative assistant would be dispersed among the remaining staff for the district staff. We have one staff member that has been working in community ed for three years and we have been paying that portion of that that person's wages out of the general fund because we want community to get into the black. They're now in the black. So community ed is going to take on this employment wage for this person. So it's going to be correctly coded. Up until now it's been coded out of the general fund. We're going to move it over to fund four. It's $50,000. The health office nurse, which is the LPN position, would be reduced at almost 35,000. We will still have a licensed school nurse and we'll still have the health office aids. This is the position that was in

081between. So, they right now are a team of six. They would go to a team of five. We have some teacher leadership positions. Um the PLC team leaders make about 2200. There's two of them. Um what we would do is they oversee 10 PLC facilitators each. So those PLC facilitators will meet directly with the curriculum instruction uh director. Instead of having a layer in between, she'll just meet directly with them. Um back when we had Holly Clark in our director position, we had Courtney Gaying in our assistant director position for special ed. Uh when uh Miss Clark left, we moved or Courtney was hired as the director, but we didn't replace the assistant position. So we created these leaison to help ease some of the pressure of the workload. Uh Courtney believes that she could

082take on what the layers must be doing so she would absorb the the position work and the 4200 savings. Okay, that puts us on this page which we've already reviewed. I apologize for the being out of order here. Um if I go back, we talked about summer school already. the three FTEES for pair of professionals would be reassigning to the greatest need and then the one F1.0 OFT if they had been assistant again we would reassign those roles and duties um so that the the primary roles and duties would be absorbed or completed um by remaining staff for the district staff position again we're going to code that one position to community ed to reflect the accuracy of the assignment the health office nurse duties that will be assigned to the LSN and the health

083office aids PLC directors leaders will meet directly with the director curriculum instruction and special ed director will take on the leaison duties. We're increasing participation fees by $10 and then the one act play and gymnastics would be discontinued. Any questions on those two slides? Okay. Um I'm listing all of the um grade levels and uh projecting class sizes for sections and class sizes so that you get a sense of where we would be. In kindergarten we would in kindergarten grades one and two we would have six sections at Bonner. The reductions at kinder they are at seven this year and grade two is at seven this year. Class size projections for kindergarten would be 2017, grade 1 2317, and grade 2 2217. At Bear Cave, all sections are at six this year. We'd keep all

084of them at six under tier one recommendations. You can see the class size projections. Grade 3 is at 25, grade four at 22.83, and grade grade three is at 25 grade four 22.83, and grade five at 25.5. middle school, high school. They're currently in grades six, seven, and eight at six sections each. We're proposing reduction to five sections at each grade level in the areas of English, math, social studies, and health by ed. That would put grade 6 at 31.4, grade 7 at 31.8, and grade 8 at 33.4. In grades 9 through 12, the reduction is in English, math, and social studies. And those class sizes will range from 28 to 32. If these alignments are approved, we would be uh right after that closing open enrollment, making the recommendation to close open enrollment for

085kindergarten, grade 1, and grades six, seven, and eight for next year. for next year. questions, comments, 34 eighth graders in a class. 33 34 is that's rough. and middle schooler is a lot of times where you see the behaviors and the aggression and the I would say that's where I struggle the most. Um we did talk at length about that. Um it is just for the sake of scheduling and utilization of staff to keep the sections similar across the grade levels. Um, we did do the calculations of putting grade eight at six sections which would create the overloads and we will not get to 800. We'll be below your range of 800 to a million. We won't make it to 800,000. Are there any other questions on this section? Should I have to move on?

086Did you're good? Yeah, I can move on. Okay. So when we look at this, we always look at what comprises our overall budget and operating costs comprise about 20% of our overall budget, which would amount to $163,285 of the tier one alignments. When we consider operations, contracted services, the acts, and the activity fees, we're at 164771, which is about $1,500 above our target. So we got very, very close to our target in this area. Um, we want to try to maintain that 20% 80% between operating costs and then staffing and programs. When we look at the next page, staffing and program costs are 80% of our overall all budget, which would be $653,50 of our tier one alignments. When we look at the staffing costs across the district, Bonner Bear Cave, middle school, high school,

087and the employment taxes were at 651 663, which is 1500 under our target of 80%. So operations was over by 1500 and staffing and program are under by 1500. So that's how we get to the 816. On the next page, I just list the operations are 164771. Programs and positions 651 663. Our total for tier 1 is 816434. And if you remember from the first page, that will have us our expenditures be above our revenue projections by about $37,000. When you look at the overall scheme of things, 37 is really really close to net zero in a in a budget of our size. Um, but that's where we are with tier one. Any questions on tier one before I go to tier two? Okay, keep going. Here are tier 2 recommendations. So, um, the first

088thing that we have on the list is under operations. Here we would have an open enrollment transportation fee of a dollar a day which would generate approximately $33,000. The way that this uh would possibly work is families who are open enrolled and want to utilize district provided transportation would sign a contract at the beginning of the year. They would pay the full amount upfront. School cancellations, student absences, all those kinds of things would not modify the total cost. So you ride, you pay is how that would be set up. Um, other districts in our area do charge for open enrollment transportation. So this would not be a novel idea. We just have never pursued it. What if they can't pay? Like what if they want to open enroll here? We had not considered whether or

089not we would do a free and reduced fee. Um, if that were something that the board wanted us to pursue, it would just decrease the amount of what we would generate. And is that based on pretty much every person that is busing right now or current current ridership? So like that, you know, with proposed that could dip like they could just decide to drive themselves or we have several that are parent driven now. We did not include them. Oh, right. Okay. This is current, right? This is what you're getting, what you could be getting if it was in place today and and they didn't alter any transportation plans. Okay. I was just curious like if they like I like this idea because I do know other districts do it. I like the idea on tier

090three if the next one you're going to say with $2. But I just the only thing that worried me is if they come and they want to open enroll here and then they say, "Oh, you know, we're not able to afford that." then we risk losing the student over a transportation fee. But I do I do like this um concept of generating some money. I just I worry about losing a student over a cost. And if that is if the board adopts this part of tier 2 um and you give us the direction that uh we have a sliding fee scale for free and reduced or those who fill out the educational benefits form, we will follow through with your direction. I feel more comfortable with that. It doesn't like discriminating against people that can't

091that. I mean, at least it's an option cuz I just think about Okay, so I like the fact too about having the money up up front before the year starts because I roll back in my head about, you know, lunches and how we just don't want people to be in the rears, you know, either. So I um and part of that is just the management of Oh, for sure. Yeah, for sure. It's already going to be, you know, adding this if we added it, if we added in tier two or tier three, adding something like this is already going to be more of a job for somebody to collect. Yeah. Um, but I do like the idea. That's why I just worried about if somebody couldn't pay, I don't want to lose a student. So,

092if if we went to tier two or tier three writing something, so the motion would need to include something to the effect of with a sliding fee scale or something. Okay. All right. I'll write that down just in case we get to that. Okay. One question I just came up with. We'll take Nicole's kids. Well, some of her kids are graduated now. I used to pick them up and marry him. Next week they were at your house. How do you handle that? It'd be one fee. Divorce parents. Yeah. One fee. Okay. Everybody pays the same. Okay. That is a really good question. Thank you for that question. Any other questions on the tier two? The intent here is not to create a full-time job to track these fees. No, I know. That's why I was

093worried about too. Yeah, for sure. But I like the I like the idea. Um, another uh tier 2 recommendation would be a grade level section change in grade four from six sections to five. Class size projection would be 27.4. There are concerns with this proposal because um the other two grade levels in that school would still be at six sections. So it becomes a scheduling concern. Um just the way that they rotate through their day. Um and then also um 27 fourth graders was also why this particular grade? It was the next lowest enrollment. Okay. Um it puts us at $63,68. The total for tier 2 is just over 96,000 which puts us nearly at 913 as a total. This would generate revenues over expenditures at almost $58,000 and our fund balance would be at

0949.38. If you did all of this, tier three is just to increase that open enrollment transportation fee to $2 a day. It won't be 665 because of an additional 33250 on top of tier 2. So now the tier 1 2 and three total is 946 and change. On the next page I just have the three tiers with the fund balance uh um with the amounts of the reductions or the alignments and the fund balance projections. So tier 1's at 816434 with a fund balance projected at 9%. Tiers one and two combined would be 912752 with a fund balance of 9.38. Tiers 1, 2, and three would be 946 and $2 with a fund balance projection of 9.5. The next steps would be for the board to approve recommended budget alignments. will have a lot of

095discussion. Um the finance committee has some things that they want to share as well u from our meeting prior to the board meeting. After the alignments are approved, our very next motion will be to close open enrollment. And after that, we will have resolutions for non-renewal and discontinuation of positions. The district leadership will need to determine staff assignments. Um the deadline for that is May 15th. uh we have to contractually notify every staff member what they'll be doing for next year. We'll need to get our students schedules done and then we are going to monitor enrollment very very closely in particular open enrollment for those grades that are still going to remain open. So um it's open for discussion at this point and I'll turn this back over to you Chair Raker. Uh does the

096finance team go ahead? So we met with uh Mr. suppers and Mr. Schroeder before the meeting and the finance committee meeting and just want to appreciate your guys' time and your efforts in this and the administrative team and getting pulling all this together. Know it's a hard job deals with lives. So with the considerations and the tiers uh the finance committee uh would come forward with recommendation of accepting the tier one and the tier two modifying it to drop the grade level four section and just going with the the the busing fee. Um up for discussion though you guys brought up the sliding scale and we want to add that into a recommendation also. Um but that was the recommendation from the finance committee. So what was the total for that? Uh the total for

097that was 849,684. So you fall in between somewhere between that 9% and that 9. We got to get 849 849 684. Thank you. So, just to clarify, the finance team is recommending that the board go with tier one and tier two, but we delete the cutting the fourth grade, fourth grade section, correct? So, would wouldn't it make more sense logistically to just do tier three and cut the with the $2 a day for the bus then? So our rationale on that was it's kind of a let's see what happens with the $1 how if we lose students over it. Okay. Right. Okay. Let's not hit them with the full you know upfront. Let's see how it the open enroll kids. I understand. I understand. So that was that was rational because we had that discussion

098also. But okay. So, um would the board like to discuss um that option tier two with keeping the fourth grade teacher just doing the dollar a day for the bus with uh if somebody wanted to make a motion for a sliding scale? I have a lot of things that I want I have questions on or whatever too before we I'll just throw I like that was leaning towards that. The only thing that I would change I would make would be either to accept that, you know, the tier one, accept the tier 2 open enrollment busing or possibly even the tier three one on top of it. And with that, I would like to keep the gymnastics and have hopefully the open enrollment to offset those costs by getting the money for the open enroll. My

099reasoning is I'm not a real big fan of trying to say that these few kids are costing this place this much money. And I know that once that program goes, it's almost gone. It's like it's so hard to get a discontinued activity back. I I mean, maybe it's personal because it happened to me when I went to school and um one of the programs went was after school programs was taken away. And I mean, now granted, I should have had a better head on my shoulders, but it kind of laid idle hands or the devil's work with me. And so, I don't know. I just if some if there's a group of kids that are pretty passionate about something, I worry that when you take it away, you know, what are they left to do?

100school. But that would only just to just to go off of what you're saying, if you keep gymnastics and go to tier two and add the dollar a day, then that's third. If you keep gymnastics, which is 20,000, and then dollar a day, then that's just really 13,000, right? It's I know it's almost a wash. I know. Yeah, I'm aware. That's why I said I would do go to the $2 a day. But like I said, we're having a discussion here. So, I got you. I'm just writing down what you're saying. So, I Yeah. Okay. So, first I wanted to kind of put it out there that we did hear about some of this stuff what Friday just so that I know there's been some people that are like how can you make a decision

101in an hour or whatever. So, we have had some time to think about it. Um although I any going forward if this happens next year I do think it should be out to the public before that which we have talked about on Thursday just so they have time to process too. I kindergarten if we if the numbers magically jumped like I think didn't it last year we were like we had this section and we added one or is that two years ago? Two years. Okay. So I doubt it but we could evaluate like if more were coming in we could add back in kindergarten if that were to happen which I don't but we have we feel both last year and this year very much on target on who is okay in the community. What

102would be there? Okay, I maybe up for discussion. Just I'm struggling with the eighth grade and I know that's it's really hard. I taught middle school for years. I had 32 one year and that that was rough. Um 33 34 and that's not a guarantee. Like I I've been in the middle school where it's like you go in this class. I know that you said they're going to try as hard as I can, but with schedules it doesn't work out easily to always have 33 or 34. Some classes have five more than the different like I don't going easily a class is going to have 36 37. I mean there's I really struggle with that. I don't know what the fix is. and fourth grade teachers might kill me uh when I volunteer there next.

103But I feel like 27 fourth graders is maybe more doable than potentially 35 36 eighth graders. But I also know that's not the same because eighth graders have teachers that are specialized. So it's not an easy flip-flop um for comparison. Yeah. I mean, you need a math teacher for eighth grade and a social teacher. So, I know it's not like, oh, well, let's go with the fourth and not the eighth. That's it. It would obviously you'd have to think differently. Um, that's the piece I am very hung up on. That's a that's a lot of middle schoolers. And I mean, even 32 in seventh grade is a lot, but getting up to I mean, you're going to have classes with 34 and there's no way that scheduling it will equal everybody has that. That's rough.

104and the admin was comfortable with I mean obviously none of this none of it's comfortable for anybody and I feel like we've had we've had years of that many in fourth grade but again I know it's not we can't just flip-flop but I I don't know but just that's my biggest like oh I have a hard time with that How how are you going to manage because you also have to work six and seven in there too. So if you go to six sections on eighth grade doesn't work for six and seven though. Well it would it just would be different scheduling. Yeah you can you can I special I thought it didn't quite work out that way. Yeah it'll be it's hard it's hard to Yeah, I get that. because I asked that question.

105So, can I ask about the fourth grade? If we kept if we kept if we kept tier 2 written the way that it was with the fourth grade teacher, um because we currently have fourth grade teacher retiring. Oh, we've accounted for all the positions. So, oh, we're not going to talk about who gets what and where that goes. All of that is accounted for in this. I was just trying to figure out a way to keep [Music] gymnastics if that teacher was retiring. Okay. I'm just playing devil's advocate here. What's making gymnastics special? Aren't you fighting for the one at play? the am well the amount of dollars. I my reasoning was did we not even have a a coach for one last year? We couldn't even put one together. I thought that's why my

106thing I'm like there was But I'm playing devil's ad. No, I I and I and I was I was should have said something, but I was I guess should have anticipated that there's you're right. There's no like hierarchy difference between the two, but I just know that in the past it's been hard to put put one together. Fair enough. Well, and mine would be for that would be um to be honest with you, um gymnastics uh fills I know it's a different fund, but if we lose the community ed too that those little kids fill up those classes plus all of the high school kids that are in the program is what I was thinking. But how does anybody know the number? How many how much how many through community ed Well, those classes max

107out every time. Yeah, I don't know the number, but I mean Dan could attest those classes max out every time. Yeah, I don't know what we're running currently to what we've run in the past because anymore difficult. So, I think it's I think it's not quite where it maybe used to be, right? But I can't put a number on it right now. I understand. So, so the finance committee consists of you3, right? Okay. Do you have anything else you want to say? Well, the one thing I would say is that again, I'm not an educator and this is the proposals that our administration brought to us. And so, I don't think us cutting it apart, I mean, if we're going to do that, that's us telling them to go back to the drawing, right? So,

108and these are the their recommendations and they've spent months doing it. So, I'm guessing this is the best recommendations they have for the situation we're in. I agree. Thank you. I think um I was told best by educator from a different school today. It just becomes a little bit more difficult when you put names to positions. It just makes it more emotional for all of us. So, um do you have anything else? No. Um None of this is easy. Uh and we've said that um we knew going into making the decision that we did four weeks ago that some of the results were going to be challenging for families and for staff and for students. This is what challenging looks like now is what we're see this this proposal. Um this is this is the

109challenges unfortunately that we're dealing with. um the burden will be paid by the staff and the students unfortunately because of the financial situations that you know we're no it's no one person's fault no one situation's fault um and I do give a lot of credit to Sulers and the administration for doing the work you know as we as they did last year and we have to remember that like we thought doing this last year was challenging like going through all the departments, going through cut, you know, trying to shave money all over the place. Um, and to even consider that last year we're going to have to do it again next year. I I wouldn't could not have even thought that this is what where we'd be. Um, but unfortunately it is. And um I

110I I agree with the recommendation. That's where I was at in my head uh before um Mr. guys kind of shared what the recommendation was with uh the tier one and the tier 2 not including the fourth grade part from tier 2. I think we um I think the first year of charging um a transportation fee for open enrolled kids um if there was two proposals, the lesser would be the first way to go instead of the greater um because even the lesser will be a change for those involved. Um it's um it's not not fun. It it's not a fun part of what we have to do. I'm on with that. Okay. That's where I'm at. Okay. All right. Well, if there isn't any other discussion, I would seek a motion. Well, before we

111do that, should we are I mean we're going to we do we all agree about having that sliding scale part too, you know. Well, you can't we have to No, no, no. I'm just saying somebody has to say in the motion. Oh, I thought that was great. I thought that was a good, right? I mean, we can have a discussion about you can do is you could have Mr. Guys amend his motion if you'd like. Was there a motion made? He did make a motion. Okay. Okay. But it wasn't seconded, right? So he could amend his motion at this point because there was no second for it. Okay. So I'd amend the motion. You're going to be to write this really detailed. Sorry. We just want to make sure we wait write it correct to

112consider the tier 2 transportation with a sliding scale based on free and reduced lunch application. Eligibility. Sorry. and deleting the fourth grade and removing the fourth grade section from the tier. So, it's approving all of tier one with a modified tier two. That is a sliding scale for the transportation fee, right? Yep. Okay. And then when you get caught up, um, Miss Cook can just let me know and I'll give you the amount. Oh, yeah. We have to have amended. Okay. Okay. Ready? In the amount of approximately 849, $684. And that was a motion by Mr. Gist and a second by Mr. Lman. All those in favor signify by saying I. I I post same sign. Motion carries 70. So the next items on the agenda all go in order of what we just approved.

113Yes, they're all just resolutions. So bear with me. Um the next item would be E. Consider and adopt or no, I'm sorry, D. uh resolutions to limit the enrollment of non resident pupils which is um listed above for the grade levels. These are the current as of today open enrolled students. So we counted them double checked all of the projections for class size sections everything. So you would be limiting the current open enroll students for next year at these numbers and it does include everybody that we have on the roster. So effective tomorrow morning if we get any open enrollment applications for these grades they will be denied. Okay. Okay. I would seek a motion. Second. I have a motion by Mr. Lman and a second by Miss Kefir. Miss Cook. Hi Mr. Gist. Hi

114Miss Kefir. Hi Mr. Lman. Hi Mr. Ravenhorst. Hi Mr. Welch. I I for myself. Resolution carry 70. The next item on the agenda is a resolution for non-renewal contracts. These are individuals now that will be released from employment and each one requires a separate resolution. So, oh boy. Yeah. If you um just want me to say the name and then you can vote or how would you like to go through that? Well, it doesn't say that on here. It's on each resolution. This has five of them listed together. So, we need on your page. They do, but each one requires a separate resolution. Okay. Okay. All right. We don't have to read those signals yet. No, but I I need to record who can record. Yes. Making a motion. So, each one requires a separate

115member to motion and a second from the from the board and then a vote. Okay. Okay. All right. We're going to do this. Okay. Go ahead. And they're up there. So, the first one is Miranda Krueger. We would need a motion. So, moved. Second. I have a motion by Mr. Welch and a second by Mr. Gist. Miss Cook. Hi Mr. Gist. Hi Miss Kefir. Hi Mr. Lman. Hi Mr. Ravenhorst. Hi Mr. Welch. Hi. I for myself. They're just marking all I'm just doing. So um for that piece that letter that you have we'll fill in the rest. If you can you can do either way. You can do it on the notes that you have that you've been using and we'll transfer it over 70 next to that one because I obviously only have the

116check marks for the first and second. Yeah. Yeah, I got the first and second. I just want to make sure, especially with something like this, we have it. Okay. Okay. Okay. Our next one is Maline Miller. I would seek a motion. So moved. Second. I have a motion by Mr. Lman and a second by Miss Keeper. Miss Cook. Hi. Mr. G. I. Miss Kefir. Hi. Mr. Lman. Hi. Mr. Ravenhorst. Hi. Mr. Welch. Hi. I for myself. Resolution carries 70. Jason Miller Dunar. I would take a motion. So move second. Second. That one to Ryan. I have a motion by Mr. G and a second by Mr. Ravenhorst. Miss Cook. Hi. Mr. Gist. Hi. Miss Kefir. Hi. Mr. Lman. Hi. Mr. Ravenhorse. Hi. Mr. Welch. Hi. I for myself. Resolution carries 70. Next one is Rebecca

117Ruin. Nope. Oh, okay. That's fine. That's fine. Seek a motion. So moved. Second. Have a motion by Mr. Lman. A second by Miss Kefir. Miss Cook. Hi. Mr. G. I. Miss Ke Miss Kefir. Sorry. Mr. Lman. Hi. Mr. Ravenhorse. Hi Mr. Welch. Hi. I for myself. Resolution carries 70. Cassandra abandon him. I would seek a motion. So moved. Second. I have a motion by Mr. Ravenhorse and a second by Mr. Gist. Miss Cook. Hi. Mr. Gist. Hi. Miss Kefir. Hi. Mr. Lman. Hi. Mr. Ravenhorst. Hi. Mr. Welch. Hi. I for myself. Resolution carries 70. Okay. Thank you for helping me through that. Next item on the agenda would be for the acknowledgement of end of contract. Mr. Queasley is a tier one teacher. Tier one teachers are only given a one-year contract. So we are

118acknowledging that at the end of this year that one-year contract will have been concluded. Okay. It requires a resolution. Okay. I would seek a motion. So moved. Second. Have a motion by Mr. Ravenhorse and a second by Miss Kefir. Miss Cook. Hi Mr. Gist. Hi Miss Kefir. Hi Mr. Lman. Hi Mr. Ravenhurst. Hi Mr. Welch. Hi I for myself. Resolution carries 70. Next item would be to consider and adopt resolution for discontinuence of position. Um these two staff members are not members of the teaching unit and so they are having they are not a non-renewal. They are discontinuation of their position. It's Kathy Conger as an administrator of assistant would be your first one. Okay. I seek a motion or I'm sorry. Yeah, a motion. Yeah. I have a motion by Mr. G and a

119second by Mr. Lman. Miss Cook. Hi. Mr. Gist. Hi. Miss Kefir. Hi. Mr. Lman. Hi. Mr. Ravenhor. Hi. Mr. Welch. Hi. I for myself. Resolution carries 70. The other disc continuation of the position is Lynette Miller as the district LPN. Okay. I would seek a motion. Second. I have a motion by Mr. G and a second by Miss Kefir. Miss Cook. Hi. Mr. Gist. Hi. Miss Kefir. Hi. Mr. Lman. Hi. Mr. Ravenhorst. Hi. Mr. Welch. Hi. I for myself. Resolution carries 70. Next item on the agenda would be H. Consider and approve administrative recommendations for probationary teachers to renewal of employment. So these teachers all have completed either their first or second year as probationary teachers and based on evaluations of performance are being asked back for next year. And this is just one resolution.

120This is one. It's not a resolution. It's just a motion. Oh, I apologize. I will point out Brooklyn Johnson. She is a tier 2 teacher. They're allowed to have two years probationary on the tier 2 license. So that would be her last probationary year as a tier 2 teacher would be next year. Okay. Any questions? All right. I would seek a motion. I have a motion by Mr. Gist. Mr. Lman. Okay. And a second by Mr. Lman. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. I. same sign. Motion carries 70. Next item on the agenda is the tenure teachers to consider and approve the recommendations for the probationary tenure continuing employment for 2526. All of these teachers completed their probationary period and are being recommended for tenure within the school district. Are there any

121questions? Okay, I would seek a motion to move. Second. I have a motion by Mr. Ravenhorse and a second by Mr. Gist. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. I. Post. Same sign. Motion carries. 70. Next item on the agenda is item 12, adjournment. I would seek a motion. Second. I have a motion by Mr. Lowman and a second by Mr. G. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Oppose. Same sign. Motion carries. Meeting is adjourned at 8:50 p.m. Thank you to everyone. Just got a tenure to my previous. What? To yours. I