001Welcome everyone. This is the School District of Prescott Board of Education regular meeting. I'll call this meeting to order. Subject to section 1983 Wisconsin statutes. Our first item is the pledge of allegiance. Uh Vicki, would you care to lead us, please? >> 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. And we have recognition of the visitors and rules for public comment are as follows. Please approach the podium one at a time stating your name, municipality, and topic you'd like to address. Allotted time is 3 minutes per individual or six if you're representing a group that is present at the meeting. All comments should be directed to the board and not to staff
002or other participants. The board will not act on any comments that are made during a meeting. The presiding officer may direct the district administrator to follow up with that individual at a later date. The public comment section will be limited to 30 minutes unless board action is taken to extend. And as always, please refer to the public comment policy listed on the agenda for a full description of this section of the meeting. So, anybody in the audience care to be recognized at this time? I'm going to take that as a no. We'll move on. Good news. >> Who's first? Jim students first, Jim. >> All right. Good evening. My name is Kaden Hillibbrand and I am the school board representative for the student body within the middle school. Battle of the books is taking place
003on Thursday. This is a statewide reading challenge where teams read from a curated list of books in order to compete in a trivia competition. The winning team on Thursday will go on to represent Prescott Middle School at the state level in February. The character trait for the month of February at the middle school will be kindness. There will be TA activities throughout the month and random acts of kindness week is February 9th through the 13th. It is Snowfest at the high school. This event consists of dressup days throughout the week, fine frosty, and a schoolwide assembly on Friday. The speech team has their first competition this Saturday. And I would like to congratulate the Prescott dance team on qualifying for state for all three dances, palm, jazz, and hip-hop. Thank you. Thanks. Next up is
004Sarah. It's a little touchy. Um Sarah Ducet Malone Elementary, but I'm also um speaking on behalf of the entire advent team. I would like to invite Aftton Apple um up to the podium as well. Um they are our good news tonight Sandy. Uhhuh. I know you do. I'm going to make it for you tonight, too. Um, Aptton Apple does have um they are part of our good news tonight. But before they start our good news tonight, um I am honored to present Aptton Apple with our Cardinal Champion Award for this month. Um it's a it's I'm not going to read the whole thing cuz it's long. Um but basically you guys know um Aptton Apple comes every year and they are such strong supporters of all of our schools. Um they always talk to the
005admin team before and they talk about initiatives that we're in the middle of and how can they support us and how can they fund us and I think um all of their supports like tangle into every student, every part of our schools. Um, and so we just thought it was fitting um that we present them with the Cardinal Champion Award for this month because they just do so much for our schools and for our community as a whole. So, thank you for all you do. Turn it over to you. Okay. >> Thank you. You're welcome. Everybody's excited. Hi, I'm Sarah with Aftton Apple Orchard. I'm here with my mom, Cindy, and my daughter, McKenzie. Thanks for inviting us to the schoolboard meeting tonight. Back in 1989, with no experience and no true plan, we took
006a leap of faith. We bought a run-down apple orchard, uprooted and moved to the farm. Back then, the farm was really rough with overgrown trees, rusty equipment, and a play area with a single battered tire swing. Since then, we've completely transformed the orchard into what it is today, over 250 acres with a variety of pick your own produce. We have diversified by adding a 15 acre corn maze, concessions, playground, special events, and expanding our educational tour program. Looking back at what the farm was like back then really makes us appreciate how far we've come with hard work, dedication, creativity, and resiliency. Not every idea has been a home run, but we wouldn't have learned that if we hadn't tried. Some people think farmers are always outstanding in their field, but there's a lot that goes
007in behind the scenes to get there. We've learned a lot over these past 37 years of being a family-owned and operated orchard. And one of the most important things is that an orchard doesn't succeed because of doing one thing well. It succeeds because many parts quietly support each other. Most of what makes an orchard successful happens long before anyone shows up to pick an apple. Customers generally only see the fruit at the peak of harvest, not the years of ground work that goes into producing a decent harvest. Trees don't grow because they start off strong. They grow because they are supported from the beginning through soil, water, and the needs of each season. There's a proverb that says, "Those too lazy to plow in the right season will have no food at the harvest." The
008soil prep, pruning, irrigation, planning, none of it is glamorous, but it's all necessary. We've learned that we must be flexible and meet the needs of the plants on their own timeline. You can't rush a bloom. When we plant young trees, we use stakes to support them as they establish their roots. They're small, vulnerable, and need extra protection. While we only see part of the growth above ground, so much is happening beneath the soil as the tree is building its foundation. After years of proper nutrition and care, we remove the straps to allow the tree to stand on its own, grow its branches, and become even stronger. It could never reach its full potential without that early support. Kids need that same kind of support. They thrive when families, teachers, and their community encourage them, care
009for them, and believe in them. Their futures are shaped by the experiences they have along the way. When children receive unwavering support from some of the most influential people in their lives, they gain the confidence to be brave and independent, like cutting the protective straps off and allowing their own branches to spread. Students don't bloom at the same time, and each one needs something different to support their growth along the way. There can't be a one-sizefits-all rule when it comes to learning. Diverse approaches, supportive teachers, and the right tools help expand opportunities to help students stor with a solid foundation. They can do anything they set their minds to. It's essential to support and nurture the next generation, filling them with knowledge, strength, and confidence. Growth starts at the core. The impact we can have
010as a community during a student's school years is monumental. The most important work often happens quietly. Showing support doesn't have to be flashy. It can be a high five to lift spirits, sharing a social media post with a positive message, or attending a performance they've worked hard to prepare. Simply showing up shows support. Even when it's hard and even when it doesn't feel visible, having a variety of tools to get the job done efficiently is very important. We've heard that bailing twine turns every farmer into MacGyver, but we all know that too well that no single tool will get the job done. Although some might argue that a Leatherman comes pretty close. We checked in with the schools asking for ideas for new tools to enhance learning materials and they shared thoughtful ideas on their
011wish list that would support students across the district. First, we're proud to support initiatives that offer alternative approaches to learning and encourage out-of-the-box thinking. The world needs needs more creative thinkers, and we must recognize that not all success, achievement, or progress can be measured in tangible ways. Amid all the fast-moving technology, we support the idea of building thinking classrooms where studies have shown that movable erasable vertical whiteboards can enhance creative thinking and increase student engagement among other things. Therefore, we'd like to continue to develop building thinking classrooms at Prescott Intermediate with a contribution of $3,500. Secondly, the fourth and fifth grade teams have been limping along with some old technology in their classrooms. Only a few classrooms are outfitted with space-saving Chromebook charging stations, up-to-date document cameras, and movable wireless equipment. We'd like to help
012contribute to upgrading their equipment with a donation of $4,000. We've also talked in detail about the incredible impact of the one school, one book program. I cannot say enough good things about this program. My current fifth grader had an absolute blast doing the extra activities the teachers provided and going on a field trip to the new Richmond Heritage Center. They taught kids about life in the olden days long before cars and Chromebooks were invented. They toured historic buildings and had recess with no toys. To be clear, they were left to use their imaginations and play with the simple playground equipment from many years ago. From the sounds of it, they had so much fun that they wanted to have a longer recess with those new old toys after all. We'd love to see this program
013carry on and would love to continue sponsoring it with a donation of $2,000. Additionally, Malone Elementary also tailored the one school, one book program to younger students this year, reading about Humphrey the hamster. Students collaborated doing activities with students from other grades. My current first grader couldn't wait to share his excitement about having his very own copy of the book and keeping it forever. We can't wait to learn what book will be chosen next for this program, but we'd love to support it with a donation of $2,500. Also, they'd like to bring in a keynote speaker next fall with a message about being brave, one we believe that will make a meaningful impact on students. We'd like to make sure that happens by sponsoring that visit with $2,000. Finally, we understand that some families have
014gone through tough times have and have encountered hardships. We know that sometimes students across the district need a little extra support outside of the classroom, whether it be purchasing new shoes, paying classroom fees, or helping offset the cost of school meals. We also would like to help contribute to the Angel Fund with a donation of $1,000. We have seen the hard work and dedication of this community and are so grateful to be part of it. We know that what we choose to support today helps shape the community we'll have tomorrow. We are proud to invest in students in our local community tonight with a check for $15,000. In the years that the season went well, our small families farm growth has allowed us to give more back. Through the past nine years of fundraising efforts
015for Prescott schools alone, we have been able to donate over $92,000 to support the students of Prescott. growth made possible by the support of strong roots and a community that shows up no matter what season after season. Thank you, Prescott, for your continued support over the years. Through every season and lesson learned, community has always been at the core. We're so grateful to be the farm where memories are made. Thank you ladies. Thanks for thanks for showing up and that was wonderful. This is wonderful. Thank you. Thank you very much. All right, superintendent Jim. Um, well, with the Christmas break and everything, it's been kind of a a quiet time and we've been getting back to school. Um, one thing we did have is we had a Simone Thomas, who is a Jamaican native and
016now a US citizen, come and speak to us about a partnership where um, after the damage done by the hurricane there this summer, um, we're looking to form a school partnership and we're going to work with her to uh, pair up with a local school district on the north side of Jamaica and um, our intermediate school uh, student council and our high school student council are going to start a school supply drive for them so that they can get some of the things they need. Some of the stuff as simple as um papers and pencils and uniforms and crayons and everything they need. When you have a hurricane come through with 175 mph winds um that last seven or eight hours, um there's a lot of damage to the school and they need some of
017the simplest things and it's going to be a great learning opportunity for our students to uh learn to grow and give back. All right, thanks Jim. Going to move on to business here. First item is the consent agenda. In the consent agenda, we have the December 17th, 2025 board minutes, finance reports, personnel report for non-licensed staff, 8th grade trip to Washington DC in New York for June of 2027, the PHSA trip to Chicago. Item six is the bridging brighter smilesou for 2627. And then item seven is accepting a bunch of Neola schoolboard policy technical updates and changes uh for the I guess following board policies version 35.1 per district administers responsibility. And there's a slew of them there. Uh I think that's it. So uh that's the consent agenda. Does anybody have anything in the
018consent? any of the policies. Anything that you want to pull out and talk about separately? All right. Hearing no objections, I will adopt the consent agenda. Any objections? >> Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I'm going to I'm going to stop there. I I adopt I'm going to pause and we changed this a few months ago. My fault. So, we need a motion to adopt the the agenda as presented and the and to approve the consent agenda. >> I move to adopt the agenda and approve the consent agenda. >> That's the official motion. My words don't mean anything. Never do anyways. So, >> that's a motion. >> I'll second. >> We have a motion and a second. All in favor? >> I oppose. That motion carries. Thank you. And it puts us to item B. Consider
019the first reading of updated or new NEOA schoolboard policies for board consideration version 35.1. And Jim, is there anything that you want to kind of call out here? You want to do this? >> A lot of these changes again are either uh done by law or updates. Um the ones that are really um um the ones that are really kind of uh third grade uh third grade advancement reading promotion at risk students um with the new act 20 law third grade reading promotion if a student is um found to be behind grade level in third grade the state has put certain restrictions upon us. Um we are recommending that the parents have as many rights as possible. Um some of the other ones student use of a motor vehicle um is just a slight change
020to um include snowmobiles and ATVs on school property as well as golf carts by adults. Um digital content and accessibility is will be an ongoing one as the world keep ch keeps changing. Um but uh Andy Holland and uh Josh Figgy and myself sat down and looked at that one and the artificial intelligence um things are changing so fast. We are giving a lot of the control to the building principles um and try not to be restrictive. So if a a new form of AI or a new type of digital content comes out, the uh parent or the principles can approve, you know, all the third grade teachers coming and saying, "Oh my gosh, we really want to use this, but it's not in board policy." uh we give that right to the to the
021principal. Um student fundraising and crowdfunding is very very important to us. Um and basically that just changes a little bit the uh how we source that and how that becomes district overseed money. Um and that's that's the vast majority of the ones that are not just simple legal changes that happened at the state level. And then we have to adopt our policy, change our policy to match them. We will have a second reading of these in February so the board and the community has time to study them and um make any suggestions or changes. >> Tany, do you have any questions on any of these? >> Um I actually don't. I I read through them. I didn't think there was anything too, I don't know, too controversial maybe like anything that I really had questions
022on or anything. So, I'll continue to read them and hear if there's any feedback from the community, but they were they were pretty basic ones. >> Okay, >> Vicki. >> So, I guess my only question is the the student use of motor vehicles. Are we going to then have something posted somewhere, something in the handbook for the students to know exactly where these designated parking places would be and where, you know, for the community, we do have a lot of users of golf carts around here, so where they can and should park. >> Talking to the high school staff, um, the high school administration, there's never really been an issue with the snowmobiles and the ATVs. It's usually on a the kids organize things and they work well with them. It is a little bit
023more the golf carts that that uh we're looking to uh you know bring back a little bit. We need to keep them in the parking lot and not out on the practice fields or the game fields or right up next to the sidelines um but more in the parking spot. So that's probably the biggest change is trying to keep the golf carts parked. And if a golf cart ends up parked in a in a car stall, that's that's no big deal. >> Okay. So you work with Adam and whoever just to kind of figure out where on the grounds or where in the lots maybe have designated spots or something. >> Exactly. Yeah. >> People don't. >> Okay. >> Helen, do you have anything? >> Uh, no. I don't have any questions either. It's good.
024The AI one is interesting. That changes every day it seems. So, it's good to have flexibility there within the buildings and trust the building principles administration. So, I have no no questions. So if we don't anybody if we don't have any other questions we can look to to make a motion here. >> I move to accept the first reading of the noted policies within version 35.1. These policies will receive a second reading at the next regularly scheduled board meeting. >> I'll second. >> All right. We have a motion and a second. All in favor? >> I opposed. That one carries. Item C, consider increasing long-term sub rate. >> So, the board has been working for a few years to increase uh well to adjust our salaries to be a little bit closer to the rest
025of our Middle Border Conference compatriots. Um we are the only Middle Border Conference that does not pay um more money for a long-term sub. Our long-term subs are asked to grade. They're asked to uh prepare lessons every day. So this is for example somebody out on paternity or maternity leave for you know 3 4 5 6 7 weeks. Um the most common use is initial teacher salary which is defined as BA plus 0. Um and then we do the per DM rate. So you take the total salary and divide it by the number of days in the contract. Um this would come out to be $237 and I cannot remember the change right now. Um I think it was 41 cents per day. Um we have a lot which is a wonderful thing. We have
026a lot of staff going out on paternity and maternity leave this spring. Um this will help us attract and retain um the best long-term subs. And by placing it at BA plus0 as our salary schedule increases over the years. This number would naturally go up over the years. >> Vicki, any questions on this one? Well, and my guess is that's the better way then to do that with with a long-term sub like that is to tie it to something like that versus continually coming back. >> Is that something other districts do, I guess? >> Um I only ran into one district that didn't have it as BA plus zero. >> Okay. >> Um just because Yeah. Otherwise, I'm going to be here. We're going to be doing this every year. >> Okay. >> Um cuz
027it, you know, it'll just keep bumping up and bumping up and this way it it stays as that as that cell number adjusts. Um Ashley, do you have that cell number right in front of you? It's 43,500 maybe. Um but as we adjust that each year, then this this amount would go up. >> And then what's the the time frame for I guess what's considered a long-term sub? Is it is it consecutive days? >> It's consecutive days for one specific position. So if I sub for 23 days with for 23 different teachers, I'm not a long-term sub. But if Mr. Jones goes out on paternity leave for 3 weeks or Miss Smith has a shoulder replacement and is gone for 5 weeks. I know I'm coming in for that and Ashfield worked with them to
028sign a basically a letter of intent to be there every day for those number of weeks. >> Okay, that's it. >> I don't really have any questions. I think it's a policy and you have to as a long-term subur you do have to do more grading. to part of those meetings and that stuff. So, I think it makes sense to >> Yeah, B plus Z makes a lot of sense, Jim. So, I agree with that. And looks like it's a pretty healthy increase from what it is now, this first year. So, moving forward, the hit won't be quite as significant. I'm I'm assuming. All right, we can entertain a motion here. I move to approve increasing the long-term substitute teacher daily pay to initial teacher salary daily rate of BA plus zero on the salary
029chart. >> Second. >> That's a motion and a second. All in favor? >> I opposed. Motion carries. Item D, accept a donation. Apple donation. Sorry. A apple donation. I don't have much to add to this one. You just uh heard the wonderful, wonderful news they presented. The dollar amount is large enough that by policy, the board has to accept it. And it was $15,000. >> $15,000. Anybody have any comments or questions on this one? >> I just want to appreciate them. I know they're not here anymore, but it's it's it's so much fun. Once or twice a year, they come and they they share kind of a little bit of a history and a story. And I like that they um don't just give in areas of what they think that we want, but work
030with our team and stuff and kind of help with the the momentum that we have going in certain areas. It's it's wonderful. It's another great reason why um Prescott's a great school district. The community makes it great. >> Yeah. and to hear the the total over the last nine years that um Aftton Apple has donated to our school district. Um they've helped out a lot of kids. They've contributed to a lot of programs and it's it certainly doesn't go unnoticed and and they are definitely a valuable part of our Prescott community. I kind of just piggyback. They're not just they just don't donate their fixture in our community. They, you know, they're at parent teacher conferences giving out apples. They come to the school, you know, they're here. They go to parent um the parents
031um parent committee. I can't talk now. Sorry. But they're part of all those cuz I see a member. So, it's nice that um and then they do talk to our teachers and see truly what we need for students and they're not just um donate to donate, but they donate with purpose and that's awesome. So, thank you. >> Awesome. All right. We can take a motion on this one. >> I move to accept the Aston donation in the amount of $15,000 to fund 21 gifts and grants. >> I'll second. >> All right, we have a motion and a second. All in favor? >> I >> opposed. Motion carries. Thank you. Aton Apple. Item E, consider acceptance of Clifton Larson Allen audit for the 2425 fiscal year. So, you also have a paper copy of this in
032your folder, just so you know. >> Good evening. Thank you for having me this evening. My name is Jonathan Sherwood. I'm a principal with Clifton Narson Allen. Uh my role in the audit is I take full acceptance and responsibility of organizing fieldwork and pulling together the 78 page audit report for you. Um and obviously coming to you presentations such as this. Um so I want to thank everybody that we that we're involved with from an audit audit team goes beyond just the administrative team of the finance departments but all the other um you know various department heads, food service, community service, uh some of the special ed folks we get involved with as well. So it's a necessary evil to meet the requirements of both state and federal requirements. So you know even working through
033all the transition that Prescott had here through the last number of years um it's been very enjoyable to work with Prescott staff. they're very um responsive to our requests and it does make the process you know as streamlined as possible. So very uh very big thank you from our perspective to the district staff from that one. Um before I jump into a lot of the you know my my full presentation here I will try to keep my comments very high level but if at any time anybody has any questions for me I'm more than happy to stop along the way. Um I will be presenting on just a two-page audit summary here. Um, but I do have the full 78 page audit report which I would be happy to read from cover to cover if
034you so choose. Um, I'll spare you from that. Um, so before I dive into some of the actual numbers here on your page one of the audit notation, um, essentially the only part of your audited financial statements that belongs quote unquote to CLA is your is the audit opinion. So that is an outside independence uh, audits or opinion over the facts, disclosures, figures that are enclosed in your audit report. Um, so what we we issue it's what's known as an unmodified or a clean opinion, which is that's what the DPI recommend or requirement is. So we refer to it as a clean opinion because, you know, we're we're saying that all the information contained within the report is accurate and is able to be relied upon in order to make financial um considerations or decisions.
035So from an inside internal perspective as well as from an outside agency, they can rely on your audited financial statements. So very happy to say that we're able to issue a clean opinion there. Um also through our auditing report we issue what's known as a management letter and and as well as a governance communication letter. So in the management letter comments there are two items that u professional standards require us in presentations such as this to bring up to governance's uh attention. The first is known as uh limited segregations of duties. So these two findings are very very common in basically all of my school districts that I'm involved in, you know, north uh northwestern Wisconsin and northwestern Wisconsin here. So uh none of these are red flags by any means. So limited segregations of
036duties just basically means that due to the size of our finance department there's some mitigating compensating controls that need to be in place. I usually spend a little bit more time on this one for governance uh for school boards because you are an intricral part of that whole process. All the approvals, motions and approvals that you do during meetings such as this over everything financial as well as board policy is a compensating control. So any additional clarity that you folks are asking for is very very appreciated to hear when I'm sitting back here and just you know following along uh agendas. So it's all great things to uh pay attention to as well. Uh the other one that we uh the other finding that we have issued over the audit report is what's known as
037material audit adjustments. So this basically means that if through the course of our audit audit work we found some audit adjustments that were were required to be made in order to pull together the full 78page audit report. had they not been made, then that might negatively impact somebody's decision-making ability over the financial statements. So, it doesn't necessarily mean that there's, you know, a whole ton of journal entries that we need to make in terms of total number of of overall adjustments. The scale and size of them could basically trip that up. And that's exactly what the case was here for this past audit year was there was just essentially one entry um specifically involved with the capital improvement uh capital project fund. um and had that entry not been made to get rid of impacted
038potentially decision-m of it. So um also then through the course of our audit we we conduct what's known as a single audit or a compliance audit. Um so this year is a little bit different in the numbers that you see there because there's a federal single audit limit and then a state single audit limit in the state of Wisconsin. A federal single audit is just specifically over any federal dollars that have come into the school district. um happy to report there that for fiscal year 25 we were actually underneath that federal audit limit. So that reduces some compliance work that we're required to then report back to DPI on um and then the um department of education and those various uh departments. Um so the single audit work that we did for 25 is specifically
039over any state dollars that came in there. Um and then the rest of the years presented here you were still underneath those federal and single audit requirements. The good news there is there was no compliance of program findings that we needed to report. Uh we just simply just pass along the additional comp um you know material weaknesses that we identified earlier. Um so to dive into some of the more financial information here for you. Um item number two is your general fund or what I refer to as the general fund. Now for those people that pay attention to DPI fund numbers, this is both 10 and 27 combined. So for um Gatsby purposes or reporting purposes, it's all of the information that's required to essentially educate students. So the way that they look at them.
040Um so these numbers again are just as of 6:30 year ends. So it's a snapshot in time. So the balance sheet that we're seeing here is just a good good way to identify any specific trends at year end because it's kind of comparing apples to apples. A little bit on theme here for us. Um, so if there's anything that jumps off the page for you, I would, you know, stop here and pause and just note, hey, this is something that's completely off trend or something to pay attention to. So within your general fund, there really isn't many significant changes. Um, everything is pretty well in line with, you know, the overall um, activity for these given years. Um, so then we actually take a look at some other more key metrics here and say, okay,
041what is the fiscal health of the school district of Prescott? So that's where I have those three highlighted or shaded rows for you. Um so those three shaded rows basically are your fund balance or your reserves that are used to meet future um future obligations. Uh so the unassigned fund balance that is essentially like I was saying your true reserve. So there is no specific other requirements tying those uh reserves up and then we compare that to total expenditures. What did it cost essentially to educate both you know general fund 10 education as well as special education fund 27 on top of there. Uh and we compute this ratio of general um unassigned fund balance to general fund expenditures, excuse me. Um we compute this ratio and it basically states how much of our typical
042operations could we fund out of our unassigned fund balance and that gives us this ratio. The industry target is anywhere between 25 to 33% is what we would want to see for a wellperforming or a fiscally healthy uh school district. So obviously you're you're right within there. You're at 30.3% for fiscal year 25. Uh the board policy does have a minimum that has been set at 20%. Which is a pretty common low bar threshold where if you would start going below that as a board, the policy states you would have to take a look at that and make some decisions on how to then improve your financial outlook for that given year. So happy to see that through the course of the last number of years, the last 5 years, you've been at least meeting
043that minimum as well as then kind of falling within an industry targeted 25 to 33%. um through the co the the co years that you're seeing here as well. Sometimes that uh percentage if you look at some neighboring districts that has definitely crept up with additional federal funds that have come through and districts kind of holding on to some of that funding without you know clear guidance of how to spend down some of that federal funding. Um but as you can see that now is kind of flushed through the system here in 25 and we're sitting at 30 30.3%. Um some of the other benefits of maintaining a uh fund balance in this range is it definitely reduces cash flow constraints. So in school districts due to you know property tax collection cycles a lot
044of school districts have to rely on short-term borrowing just to make payroll at certain times of the year. You do not have to rely on on any short-term borrowing here at Prescott. Um also then you can you know clearly meet some unexpected budgetary needs. You can fund that yourself. gives you a little bit of financial flexibility there again preventing any additional borrowing. Um and then ultimately if you do need to go out for borrowing a you know more liquid fund balance here will improve your borrowing rates um and give you more favorable borrowing terms at that point. One other minor thing just well not minor one other thing I want to point out for you as well is if you look at kind of right right below where it's that that second shaded line where
045it says it's change in fund balance. So again, this is essentially another way of looking at it is net income for the year. Um you do have a positive change in fund balance essentially um surplus from your budget, overall budget of about $640,000. Um a lot of people can see some of these numbers and it really jumps off the page. You know, again, $640,000 is a significant number, don't get me wrong, but on a budget of $16 million of, you know, $16.3 million overall total expenditure budget for the year, you're within 3.2% of your overall budget for the year. So, it's a very prudent budget uh philosophy here at the uh at the district. You're doing, you know, quite well overall from that standpoint. So, you're doing the right things. You're adopting proper budgeting standards
046and following that throughout the year. So, all good news here in terms of an outside perspective for fund 10 and 27. Any questions on 10 and 27 before I move along here for you? >> Anybody have any questions? No, I think we're good. >> I'll keep trucking along then for you. Um item number three here, special revenue funds. So again, these are other specific activities that are not required or that are not required to be in 10 and 27 and and qualify to be tracked separately. So like uh the education trust fund, that's your fund 21 where you accept very generous donations and they're tracked there. Any donations or any uh revenues that go into this fund are restricted for those specific per uh purposes. So at the end of 25 you had $361,000 remaining
047that would be set aside and restricted for those spelled out um donated purposes. Um one item to note here is your food service fund which is fund 50. You can see a negative trend here from 2022 through 2025. In 2025 you have a zero fund balance in fund 50 and that's not by mistake or not like coming down to an exact dollar amount. DPI does not allow a negative fund balance to show up in fund 50. So there was a $56,000 transfer from fund 10 into fund 50 in order to zero that out and be in compliance with DPI. So that is something that I'll point out to governance here just to keep an eye on your fund 50 activities and say you know take a look at is it a an expense side of
048the equation or is it a meal price side of the equation. Um I did note there was some non- capital like you know one-time type purchases there over the last number of years but the vast majority of the operations of fund 50 and those expenditures were food costs and what it costs to feed the student body. So keep that in mind. Uh the other two funds here are the community education community wreck or your fund 80s is what they're basically known as. Um, from an outside perspective, so long as these are breaking even or growing in some form or fashion and they're not going to go negative, uh, there really isn't much for me to comment on. Basically means that the expenditures are being covered by the fees to support those activities. Uh, item number
049four is your debt service fund. So, this is just a unique one with governmental accounting regulations. All of your principal and interest payments are required to be um, presented in its own separate standalone fund. The $575,000 at the end of 25 here is going to be restricted and used to meet future debt service obligations. Um during 25 you had $2.8 million in principal payments that were paid and just over a million in interest requirements that were paid during 2025. So obviously you're quite able to meet your u required debt service obligations for each individual year. Um item number five, you do have uh two capital projects funds to report here. Uh one is the capital projects fund that's supported by the debt and the referendum uh dating back to 2022. U all of that activity
050is coming to an end to wrap up here in fiscal year 26 because you still had some carryover there of 704,000 which obviously is part of the um referendum plan. Um, and then the other capital project fund is the long-term capital improvement fund, which that's set aside, you know, required by DPI to have a specific plan in place and some requirements in terms of how long some of those funds need to sit there in order to become available for future need. Uh, lastly here for you is the debt uh long-term debt obligations of the district. That's item number six. So statutoily uh you're limited to uh 10% of all the equalized val value within the school district boundaries and that's you're basically calculating out what your total debt service li uh carry would be. Um
051you're at 24.4% of the overall um statutory limit. So you know from a from a school district perspective you're never ever going to you know approach the statutory limit of 100%. you'd be very unpopular politicians at that standpoint. Um, so a very quoteunquote highly leveraged district that I normally see anywhere around that 50% mark, which clearly you kind of hit that overall limit there in 2022 when a new referendum hits. That's typically when you see that more highly leveraged situation. And then obviously as you pay off some of those bonds, uh, the debt falls off and then you open up that borrowing capacity again. So, in total, you do have four GO debts or general obligation debts out there. Uh there's one debt that goes through 20 uh 2028, and the outstanding debt there is
052just over 225,000. Uh 20 uh there's another one that falls off in 2032, and there's 1 1.9 almost $2 million of outstanding there. Uh and then the bulk of the debt actually is good through 2034 and matures through 2034, and you're at just over 35.6 million in obligations there. Um, so overall, um, you do have some borrowing capacity available if so needed. Um, I mean, I wouldn't consider 24.4%. Again, I wouldn't consider that to be highly leveraged at this point. So, basically kind of concludes my try to be fast and not stumble over too many words, but I'm happy to have any other questions that somebody might have for me. >> Anybody have any question? Helen, do you have any questions for the Vicki? No, I don't have any questions, but that was a really
053informative recap. So, thank you. >> Appreciate it. Try not to have too many people glaze over. It's happened before. >> I think this is your first time presenting this to us. Is have you done it to our board before? >> It's been quite a few years since I've been down here. Again, through some of the transitions. Um, you know, I I usually ask all my districts districts every year, do you want me there or not? And some people say, no, we got it and others don't. So, >> well, we appreciate it. This was I thought it was really it was a really good summary. Um definitely didn't glaze my eyes over at all. Um and it feels good to hear some really positive stuff. I um I noted that that limited segregation I think every
054single year I've been on the board that's come back to us. That's just a size thing and um we have increased some of our staff that are um in our central office from 10 years ago but it's still we're a small district. Um, and then it seems like, and I heard you say that, um, we're making some good decisions. We're at a healthy place, and, um, we know that there's some carryover. We purposely had some carryover. I think it was like $640,000 from last year that we are saving towards salaries and all that kind of stuff for this year. So, um, that was planned and it's good to see that it's kind of lining up where we were hoping. So, thank you. My maybe just one question or comment I guess quite maybe it's a
055question but like compared to other districts I mean does how does Prescott kind of stack up in comparison to into districts if you were to >> Sure that yeah I mean again I I'm involved in a number I I would have to go back and double check exactly how many school district clients I have. >> Yeah I mean it's you know within West Central and Central Wisconsin our team does 40 plus. So, they're in in all various capacities. Some are a little bit more cashstrapped than others. Um, typically the ones that are in more cash trarapped situations, they're just dealing with their short-term borrowing issues. Uh, but overall in, you know, school district finance, school districts are in the same spot. It's a challenge with state funding. Federal funding is only a very small piece
056of the pie. So, the state funding discussion at large is facing every community in the area. You're not unique in that standpoint. So everybody that is doing very, you know, beneficial or very u budget prudent policies, they're they're doing the best they can in terms of controlling the numbers that they that they have at their disposal. You know, your largest cost in any school district is salaries and benefits. That is a challenge that everybody faces. So for all of the fiscally healthy districts, you know, you're definitely one of them for sure. You can see right again in your percent of unassigned fund balance. um that number is right where an outside you know perspective is going to say I want to see that to be at least 25 to 33%. So you're right in that
057ballpark. Um but obviously that does not you know shield you from any budgetary you know shortfalls that may be on the horizon due to you know what whatever they're doing down at you know at the state in Madison. >> Thank you. Yeah. And I don't know Jim if you have any comments here being your this is your first kind of run with Prescott is anything anything stand out for you? No, I I just want to echo that. I mean, it's been a solid financial plan for the last 8 to 10 years. Um 30% fund balance. Really trying to avoid that short-term borrowing um is, you know, a good analogy is having to go to the credit card and then pay that credit card interest rate. You'd much rather, you know, have the savings there because
058our our cash flow fluctuates a lot throughout the year. And in order to pay our staff, which is 70 to 75% of our expenditures, um we got to have that solid cash base. Um and you know, politics being what they are right now, the state is trying to figure out what to do with that extra $2.6 billion they've they've found. So, um you know, we defin we could definitely use it going forward and so could every other school district. But um being at that 30% being that our the other thing too I think is that our expenses have stayed relatively flat for the last 5 years too. It's not like we've gone you know and increased our expenditures quite a bit. They've stayed pretty similar all for the last 5 years. >> Yeah. We can
059have CLA back every year. I know this is the first time they've been here in a while. Ashley and I talked about it. We'd like to bring them back every year if the board wants them. >> Yeah. Thank you for Thank you for showing up. This is great. >> Happy to do so. I'm 20 minutes up the road in Hudson. So awesome. Okay. Uh lastly, I'll just I'd like to just point out I mean we wouldn't be anywhere without the community support of referendums. I mean we've we've generally had a really strong community support on on uh public school funding and without the community we wouldn't be as financially stable as we are. So I just want to call that out. Thank you. Appreciate it. >> Thank you. Thanks. Uh so with that we can
060accept a motion our motion to accept the audit here. >> I move to accept the Clifton Larson Allen audit for the 202425 fiscal year. >> I'll second. >> All right. We have a motion in a second. All in favor? >> I opposed. That carries. Item F is accept grant from Fork Farm Hydroponic Project. This one is all Nicole all day long. >> Okay, so the nutrition services department is excited to introduce the new flex farm project. Um, I'm sure you've you've seen the light and I'm sorry there's a light already. Um, but the initiative, sorry, the initial step towards fresh local food right in our school, it's going to be right in the high school. It's going to be really awesome. Um, thanks to the generous support of the Marshfield Clinic and Security Health Plan,
061we were awarded $10,000 for the purchase of two flex farms, which are going to allow us to do leafy greens all year long in our facility. Well, all school year. Um, so fun facts about the flex farms. We can grow 25 lbs of fresh greens every 4 to 6 weeks. It uses 90% less water than traditional farming. We can do lettuce, herbs, edible flowers, and whatever you guys can think of. Um, but it's designed specifically for schools with built-in learning opportunities for students. Um, we already are working with the student group and you're going to laugh at me. I can't remember the name, but they do those really awesome podcasts. So, they're going to do like a weekly update and they're going to come and like we have it all set up. We're like just
062knock and say hi guys. But, they're super excited. But I think it's really really important because it's going to show students exactly where food comes from and like that it's not just, you know, magically in the stores. So, we're really excited about that. Um, and yeah, if you guys ever want to stop by and take a look, let me know. We're always there. >> I think that's all I have though. Just super fun stuff. >> All right, I'll open it up. Anybody have any questions for Nicole? >> I just had questions. I know we've been talking over the handful of years on that our food budget and we just brought it was just brought up here too. Um we're struggling with it and it's the the price of food and all that stuff has really
063gone up and um is this something that you see helping to um support the cost of food and stuff? Yeah. So overall this will lower the cost. Um we can grow 34 of our needed lettuce for the salad bar in the high school alone. So that's super cool. And just because we won this award doesn't mean we won't stop applying for more. Like we could put one in the elementary school, too. >> Maybe not the middle school because of the space and everybody uses it in the middle schoolers touch things, but besides that, but yeah. So, we're really excited about that. Um, and a lot of it is the educational piece. Um, this bowls I'm like, "Hey, what kind of herbs do you need? Let me know. We'll grow them. You guys can >> Well,
064that's what I was gonna ask working working with the high school. >> Yep. And Carrie, too. We I said we can leave it up. You guys can do like a summer thing. >> We'll start it whenever. So, it I'm really excited to get the kids excited about growing food. I think that's that's the connection that we need. And they eat a lot off the salad bar. So, it's not it's not a small amount. >> It's not a small amount. >> Yeah. That's great. And um and with rising costs and you know we could just increase our how much kids have to pay for lunches every year and I know we have had to do that and we don't want to do that. These are the really great ways to help subsidize like our food um
065budget and our and our access to fresh food and stuff like that. So I appreciate it. Keep being creative. Um this will be fun. >> It'll be super exciting. And like I said, if you guys want to stop by >> Thank you, Nicole. This is great. And we're looking at $10,000 grant donation. So, it's on the agenda here. Awesome. Who wants to make a motion? >> I move to approve accepting the $10,000 grant donation from Fork Farm Hydroponic Project. >> Second. >> All right, we have a motion, a second. All in favor? >> I oppose. That carries. Prescott School District is $25,000 richer tonight. >> It's awesome night. Um, >> just like that. >> All right, we're going to move on to item G, open enrollment program space determinations. >> Good evening, members of the
066board, Superintendent Reef. My name is Sandy Strand. I'm the director of student services. And annually in January, our school board is required to discuss and adopt a policy and procedure on open enrollment for the remainder of this year and the coming year. Um so in this process we'll be talking about the criteria that we would like to recommend we accept um for our determination of accepting or rejecting applications for enrollment from non-resident pupils including special education programs. So whoopsie wow it's touchy. There we go. Um so our current structure um must declare annually. So, our school board has to talk about the availability of space in schools, programs, classes, or grades within our school district at the January meeting of the school board. In determining the availability of space, our district must consider or may
067consider criteria such as class size limits, pupil teacher ratios, enrollment projections, and then we also must consider pupils and siblings of pupils who have applied under um under the open enrollment uh policy or alternative open enrollment policy that are already attending our school district. The administrative team has evaluated our class size capacity based on our building cap capacity analysis to determine recommended ideal class size totals. We simplified these slides. Um last year they were a lot busier um and it was kind of confusing but based on the capacity in each of our classrooms. Now again, this is the the capacity that we would close for open enrollment. if we our class sizes might go above the number you see on the screen if we have moveins or um additional people that enroll within the Prescott
068School District um boundary. But you can see on the screen that we have established or we're recommending that we establish the following as our criteria for closing enrollment in K through 5. Um, so right now we're saying that we would recommend that the board state that we are open in all grades K through 5 with the uh maximum of students per section being the numbers listed on the slide. 22 in kindergarten, 22 in first grade, 24 in second, 24 in third, 26 in fourth, and 26 in fifth. So if all sections at a grade level are at the maximum, that grade level would then be closed to open enrollment. I don't want to hit it too many times. There we see. Okay, we do that. Okay. So, also for the last four years, we have
069um been utilizing what we call a workload analysis model for special education. And so when we have a student who enrolls in our district who also has an individualized educational program, we review all of those enroles on an individual basis and we make our program considerations based on a workload model. We also base our decisions on the availability of services within the school district um which is covered under the state statute listed above. So if it's a service that we contract for through CISA or through a collaborative service agreement with another district, that service is considered not available in our district. So for example, we contract through CISA for physical therapy. If we had an a non-resident apply for enrollment in our district and they required physical therapy, we would likely say no because we
070do not we only pay for a finite amount of time. um and that service under state statute is not considered available in our district. So in our cross categorical programs, these are programs that include students across disability areas who spend approximately 40% or less of their day in special education. Workload totals um at the elementary level K through five we are recommending remain around 18 um and 20 for our secondary secondary cross categorical programs in our specialized programs for students that spend 50% or more of their day in special education or those that have significant behavioral needs or significant medical or physical needs. We are recommending that their workloads not exceed 10 students. So cons students or programs considered unavailable. So again, I stated the example of physical therapy. Right now in our district, early
071childhood through 12th grade programming for students who qualify with visual impairments or orientation and mobility needs, related service of physical therapy or the related service of aiology or deaf heart of hearing would be considered not available in our school district at this time. So our current numbers and recommendations um our I don't don't have our current numbers on here. Um our current numbers are all um at the elementary level I will say our our workloads are substantially lower than 18 right now. At the high school and um they're right around 20 and at the middle school they are around 15. So for next year, we would like to recommend based on um our current numbers and our program capacity or open enrollment capacity that our early childhood playgroup would be closed to non-residents. Um and
072our 4K special education would be closed to non-residents. We we do have a number of families that bring their children to our local daycarees for daycare as they're going to work in the morning. And so we have had a number of families try to open enroll three-year-olds. Um but at this point our um early childhood and 4K special ed teacher is really maxed out in terms of her workload. At the K5 level we would be considered open um given our current workload. Middle school would also be considered open given our current workload. And at our high school, given our current workloads, we would be closed for crosscategorical. And our specialized programs at the elementary level, our programs at both um Malone and at the intermediate school are both lurking right around 9 and 10. Um
073so we are recommending that that program be those programs be closed for the coming year. and our current high school um high needs program um would be considered open. So the overall recommendations from the admin team for the board action would be that Malone Elementary, Prescott Intermediate, Prescott Middle School, and Prescott High School all would be open for non-residents in general education. Can I can I pause just um and that's based on the recommended class size for the school district for next year's class? >> Yep. Um our special ed programs would be open for non-residents who spend 40% or less of their day in special education for K through 8. specialized programming at the elementary and the intermediate as well as our early childhood specialed programming and 4K would be closed to non-residents. And the
074high school is only open for specialized programming and closed for students identified as having crosscategorical needs. >> Any questions? Yeah, I don't know. Tanya and Neil, this is your wheelhouse here. >> Yeah, I um I don't necessarily think I have so many questions. Um this is just something that we have to do um accordance with state once a year. We're projecting for next year things can change, right? Like we can have a bunch of kids move out that have high need services. Um but this is uh for a couple reasons, but um one, it protects us financially. we can't hire teachers because of open enrollments and stuff like that. That's really really um financially difficult. Um but second, it also um provides a good service for our students that are in the building and um
075help our teachers um not feel too overwhelmed by those case loads just getting bigger and bigger. So I always love when we have kids move in our district. I hate saying anything's closed, but there's a lot of really good reasons why we have to do it. So thank you. >> Yes. And again, it's really important to note that when we have um especially during the non uh the alternative open enrollment period, so this is for the typical open enrollment period that starts February 1st and goes through June, but it also includes the alternate open enrollment period, which is every other time of the year. Um we are still required by state statute to consider every enrolle on an individual basis if they have an individualized education program. So, we never just unilaterally say that student
076is not accepted in our district. We have to review their paperwork. >> Right. >> Do you have any questions here? >> No, it's pretty straightforward. >> Okay, Vicki. >> No questions. >> All right. Thanks, Andy. >> Thank you. I >> think we can take a motion here. I moved to approve open enrollment programs that are closed for the 202627 academic year as proposed in the Prescott administration open enrollment document shared tonight in the 2026 administration enrollment recommendation document with class size maximum by grade level as proposed for external residents. There was no commas in there. It was a lot. ALL RIGHT, we have a motion and a second. All in favor? >> I >> opposed. Well, motion carries and we are done with business on the info and discussion. First item is CMS for schools
077website resign. Helen Helen with the second. All right. CMS for schools website redesign. >> This is mostly for information um just because you'll start to slowly see changes made in our website. Um we are required to have as are all public organizations um an ADA compliant website. Um a lot of this has to do with those who are visually impaired. Um we like I have not found another school district a school district that does not work with CMS for schools. Um they are kind of the gold standard here in Wisconsin. Um it's going to be a $4,900 cost, but they will work with uh Mandy Matik and Andy Holland and principles and myself. Um but mostly Mandy and Andy are going to do the heavy lifting on this uh to make sure that our uh
078website uh is ADA compliant. It'll be a 6 to 8 month to 10 month process and then going forward as we update images and other things on the website um they'll assist us making sure that it it fits the federal regulations. >> Anybody have any questions on this one, Helen? Or >> I don't have any questions. I just had a huge presentation on this today at school. So, um it's something that's uh it does when it's all laid out, it makes a lot of sense. Um and once it is laid out, it's easy to update and all that sort of stuff, but it um it's a he it's going to be a heavy lift for sure. But it's >> I learned something new when I was reading through this that there is ADA compliance required
079for our website. I did not know that. So, Um, I wanted to comment in that they were actually at the schoolboard conference. So, we had a chance to talk to our rep who is going to be working with Mandy on the website design. Um, she's they I mean, I don't know if she's kind of the one running it or she's the main one just kind of doing it and she was um ready to go and it'll be it'll be exciting. I did want to ask um that 4900 this is kind of a one-time kind of lift and then from there we'll be trying to know how to keep it up to date and stuff. Is that correct? >> Correct. Yeah, this is this is a onetime lift. They'll be available for consultations um as we
080need but that's at that is at cost um but it's mostly onetime lift. We do obviously have to um pay to have our website hosted and all those costs are as normal but this is this is separate. >> Great. Thank you. All right. Thanks, Jim. Move on. Potential item B is potential movement of the uh school board meeting in March. So, we want to move that one. >> We we'd officially do this at the February board meeting, especially with Mr. Block not being here. Um Yeah. But if we if we could start planning, hey, when's this going to work best for us? >> Sure. >> Okay. I mean, we don't need a we're not making a motion here, but what what would you prefer? The 11th or the 25th? And I'm asking you maybe first.
081Does it matter? >> It does not really matter, Ashley. Do you have a the 25th gives the 25th gives our finance department a little bit more time but it's 5545 6040 whether you know um >> so we can we can solidify it in February when in February when Pat is back and just try to keep the dates open. >> Yeah. >> If you can keep the Anybody here have issues? >> I don't have any issues on the 11th or the 25th at the at the moment. >> 25th. >> Okay. So leaning towards the 11th then maybe >> that's my birthday. Be so exciting to be with you. What a birthday. Great. What a great pres. >> Yeah. I couldn't have asked for anything better. >> All right. Item C is the Chamber of Commerce Educator
082of the Year nominations. So I'm doing uh Prescott as you know. So this one's I I'm the winner has been chosen. We had 55 nominations from the community, staff members, students, uh, parents. Um, the deadline was January 9th. Um, of those 55 nominees, um, we were informed this afternoon that the Chamber of Commerce reached out to the winner, but they didn't tell me I could say it. So, I'm going to >> keep it to myself until they give me the go-ahad. Um, cuz I'm not exactly sure how this works. But the annual dinner is uh, February 11th. They've moved that off of the third Wednesday in the hopes that as many uh school board members, staff members uh would be able to attend as possible. So, uh one of our own um will be we'll
083be getting the educator of the year award that night. >> Should we maybe is anybody planning because we might have a quorum so we have to post. >> I will be there but I will be with my uh my employer. There's a comedian that night, too, by the way. Very exciting. >> So, if we if we Let's just make sure if we have more than three, we got to post it as a quorum, right? >> Mhm. >> Okay. >> Um, and we won't have another board meeting before that. So, I I'm already attending. So, >> maybe it's worth an email just to shoot out to the board to see who's going to be able to attend that. >> I know they want to RSVP at some point. Yeah, >> it's possible. So, can't we just
084split it out and if we don't >> Yeah, you can you can just list it as you can you can state right now that there's a possible corner month >> February 11th. >> Yeah. >> Awesome. Okay, great. Uh item D, report on school consolidation progress. So um we have been working at mostly right now as an admin team. Um and as we go through this AI journey, I want to always put out there that uh again the initial information and all of this came up from me and then I threw it into gamma and then I spent about an hour modifying it. But that's a whole lot better than me spending 5 hours building this this uh presentation. So um but we're looking at four stages. Uh stage one, we're going to listen and plan.
085Uh that's going to be till basically the end of this school year. Stage two, uh a lot of administrative work over the summer and then bringing the staff into it in September, October, uh where we're really going to build the schedules. Stage three is when we're going to start finalizing the details October to January. For the high school teachers out there listening, we're going to try to get your part done by November or early December to make scheduling as easy as possible. um cuz scheduling at the high school level is a little more challenging uh than it is at a fourth and fifth grade level. Um and then stage four is uh executing it and making it happen and answering all the questions we didn't think would even come up. Um so we've already started
086having we had a listening session on Tuesday night at the middle school. Uh the entire middle school certified staff was there Monday afternoon. A lot of good questions went on for about an hour and 20 minutes. Um Mr. Iggo uh and myself let it uh Mr. Cosmowski and uh Sandy Strand were there. Um and we were able to answer a lot of questions, get a lot of discussion going. Um we have one scheduled next week for the intermediate school and the week after that uh at the high school. Since Malone is not involved in the move, they chose not to sit with me for an hour. um and said do work in the classroom which I applaud them for. Um also what we're trying to really get done this spring is the academic programming. We
087need to have these collaborative decisions on what type of programming are we going to have for fourth, fifth, somewhat sixth and seventh. There's there's a possibility that we'll look at maybe what are we going to do with sixth and seventh as well, but are is fourth and fifth going to be in the middle school model? Are they going to stay in the elementary model? Are we going to move to a junior high model? eighth grade, are they going to stay as a middle school standalone, some type of hybrid between that and the high school? How's that going to work out? And that is the big next lift. And we're going to gather as much information as possible. We're going to sit down as an administrative team. Obviously, uh, Michael as the director of teaching and
088learning and Sandy as the the, uh, student services director are going to have a big influence, but this decision will primarily be the principal's decision, but we will sit as a a high functioning administrative team and bounce ideas off each other and come to a consensus. At the same time, um Matt Smith, Angie McGee, and Penny Peterson are uh taking a good look at our gym space and um how much we're using the intermediate school gym. That's going to influence uh what we come to the board with here in the next couple months um as far as options for the intermediate school after we uh after we move on in the summer of 2027. So, if all goes well, they will be in front of you at the next board meeting talking about our gym
089use and where we're at with that. Um, stage two, May to October, really start working on those schedule developments, daily bell schedules, our teacher matrices. Um, the big thing that everybody's asking about and we don't have answers for yet cuz we haven't we haven't done the deep dive and the deep work is how is the shared teachers going to change? um you know where are we going to look at is that we're also going to look a little bit at our scope and sequence. Um there's been a conversation going on for several years about possibly moving around what our science teaching uh requirements are and should we move physical science down to 8th grade and if we do that how is the move going to affect that? There's obviously going to have to be a
090year where we double teach something. Um but where is that going to work? Um, Sy's already done a lot of work with the workload for the special education staff to give the report you just heard, but we're also going to look at a teaching load for all of our staff and try to make sure that as much as possible, K12, all of our staff are doing a similar load. It's impossible to get the same workload for every teacher, but we want to be as fair as possible. And then again, those cross building assignments are a wild card that's going to come up quite a bit. I'll pause for questions at the end of stage two. Helen, any questions on here? Any Vicki? >> I don't think I have questions. I think it it looks like
091you've got you're looking for a lot of input, which is good and starting that sooner than later. You guys are jumping on it right away. So, no real questions right now. Um my only question is um are we doing any community engagement within these couple stages? >> Um I've already met with a couple of the homeowners right away um around the intermediate school. Um and I'm meeting with them and Penny's working on setting up. It's a little farther along. Um I'm meeting with the gathering space st uh members. um they're going to they formed a a little committee of their own and so we're booking to schedule um in the next couple weeks to uh to see where that goes. Um but yeah, we will probably do some type of community listening session as well.
092There will also be other meetings that will start happening at the principal level where we start having the eighth grade meet with the high school staff, the fourth and fifth meet with the sixth and seventh. Even though it's a year out, those meetings will start happening directed by the principles. Okay. keep going. Okay. Um October to January. And again, I said we're going to try to get we're going to try to get the high school done by December um because it really helps with the schedule for the next year, but finalize those schedules, lock in the building level schedules. Um Nicole will be involved in what we're doing with lunch periods, start looking at staffing assignments, um start looking working with building and grounds to make sure we lock up what we're going to do
093once we close the intermediate school. How are we going to adjust our building and grounds work? Um, and then we start looking, that's where I have the, uh, finalizing where the gathering space is going to be located. Um, and then we start to assign classrooms and address individual teacher needs. Um, and communication through the whole time, share it with the staff, the families, the communities as we go along. Um, anybody is always welcome to email me, give me a call, stop in and see me. Um but uh with the listening sessions at every building and then our quarterly superintendent listening session staff for sure is going to be involved in um all the discussions going forward. Um, and then moving logistics is going to be a big challenge is we got to get uh Adam
094and Mike and I are going to work on trying to figure out what moving company want to use and get that booked as soon as possible, but a lot of that will happen in stage three. Um, stage four is implementation and support. Um, in my notes for this, I really put I have no idea what we're going to have to answer in this stage because a lot of these questions haven't come up yet. Um, but there's going to be a lot of one-on-one assistant uh trying to figure out their academic and physical transition. A lot of questions answered. Um, but again, if we can get it locked up by December, January of 26 27, um, that's going to give us 6 months to really just take the time and go, okay, what's going on here?
095What are we going on there? Um, but it's 19 months and we got some time to go uh that way. But this is basically our working document that fed the AI generated fancy PowerPoint. So, >> well done. Anybody have any questions or comments? >> I I will I'll just make a quick comment. I know this was a a good uh strong recommendation that came from the administration to to make the decision to push the move to the 26 27 school year. And I mean this is why right here. This is it's a wellthoughtout kind of a blueprint for the plan. Sure. This is going to change. The plan's going to change, right? So I mean it's just it's great that we have the um the time to to really go through and think about what
096needs to happen and get it right. And I think this is what I what I'm seeing here is is is exactly validates why why I'm glad we made the decision to agree and push it out for another year. >> So, one thing I want to mention too that popped up is the Great River Heights sale uh or development popped up at the board meeting uh the city council uh committee meeting. And so, yeah, that's already been brought to my attention that uh there's a possibility that there will be 240 houses built in the next 5 years out in River Heights. And how will that impact us? And considering I heard about it in the last 24 hours, I don't have an answer for that. But we do I am working with uh the owners Elmost
097uh and the developer out of uh Minneapolis to set up a meeting with them hopefully next week and really have a conversation with them about what they think that impact will be on our district and um going forward in that manner. Um, you know, I've had people talk to me about that as well, and we have a year and a half out plan, right? So, if we need to adjust, we have time to adjust. But the other reality is is that even with consolidating um, and we talked about grades like n or 8th grade going to the high school and stuff like that. When we had those discussions, we looked at every building and it's they're still well under capacity. And so we have some room, plenty of room um to to grow still. >>
098Yeah. I mean, our current second Friday count um children in seats as of uh the second Friday in January was 11:48. That's from memory. I'm within plus or minus three there. Um probably. But 11:48 in the seats right now are I know this number 100%. If we were at our comfortable capacity is 1420 um with three buildings, not with four buildings, with three buildings. And that's the comfortable capacity of 22 at the K K2 level um and 24 at the middle school and 26 at the high school. There's a lot of high schools out there with 35 36. So, uh 1420 gets us 26 kids in the classroom, which is small for the average high school. Um, yeah. >> Well, yeah. I think the plan we looked at the numbers that we had from that
099working session was we could absorb 350 more students. >> Mhm. >> Yeah. And they're not all going to be in one building. So, spread that across the three. Yeah. I think >> even if there's 240 houses that quickly, >> you're not going to have kids in every single house. So, yeah. And it the what I what I read in the paper um was, you know, it was a 5-year plan. So, and then if they're built in 5 years, they're not sold instantaneously and families aren't moved in instantly. So, we're looking at a 5 to sevenyear, you know, gradual growth, which is great for our district. >> Yeah, it will be great for our district. In fact, every uh every one of the groups that we looked at to look at like kind of our demographics
100and our growth and population, they said, you know, what'll help you guys is a really big development coming through. And it looks like this is that. So, this will be great. Um I did have a question on this too, which and and maybe I just missed it, but one of the other decisions that we have to make yet is what are we going to do with the building on Elm Street? And go ahead. >> Go ahead. >> Well, my question is where is that fitting into here? And do we have kind of a time frame of uh decision-m with that? >> I was going to give the board a month off and come come at you with that in December. Sounds great. >> So that's that's honest because I thought about talking about it and
101then and then the 242 hit and I'm like >> give me a couple weeks cuz again we do have time. Um, I'm hoping um I want to I would like to get another realtor to walk through it and give us an estimate. I really would. And um I got a couple irons in the fire there. Um obviously we were all at WSB last week, so I wasn't up on my um chasing down realators. But that's something we hope to do is get somebody else to walk through that building and then take a look. And honestly, the other thing I want to wait for is I want to wait for that gym study because that's going to have a big impact. >> I think so, too. Yep. Great. Thank you. >> Good questions. Anything else? Anyone?
102>> Nope. That seems like a good one. >> All right. Nice. Nice job on the presentation, Jim. Thanks. That's it for info and discussion. We're back to recognition of visitors. Anybody want to get to the podium and yell at us? >> Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. >> Carrie. Or just say hi. Yeah. >> All right. We're going to move on and the board is going to consider a motion to convene into close session under exemptions 1985 1D in room A17 for Prescott High School. Uh basically to consider specific applications of probation, extended supervision or parole or considering strategy for crime detection or prevention. There's a couple items in there. So, um, let's do a motion in a second for a time and then we'll roll call in when we get to that point. >> Let's see. Let's
103go with Where's the thing at? >> 7:24 right now. >> 7:24. Uh, I move to go into close session at 7:35 in room A17 at Prescott High School. >> I'll second. >> All right, we have a motion and a second. All in favor? >> I opposed. A motion carries. And for the record, Jim, we're adjourning from closed, back, and now open. Will we have any motions or actions? >> We will likely have one action. Yes. >> So, okay. So, we'll have an action item in open session in A117 with the door open. If anybody wants to stick around, we'll we'll let folks know if you really want to stay around. Thank you everyone. Have a good night.