001All right. Good evening everyone. Welcome to the school district of Prescott Board of Education regular meeting. Uh we'll call the meeting to order. Subject to section 193 Wisconsin statutes. Our first item here is to adopt the agenda. Uh recommending changes to the agenda. No changes by administration. All right. Take a motion to adopt the agenda now. I move to adopt the agenda as presented. I'll second. All in favor? I oppose. That carries. Thank you. Next item is pledge of allegiance. Katie, would you like to lead us in the pledge? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, and indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. What? I'd like to our next item is the public comment recognition of visitors.
002And as always, the public comment rules are as follows. Please approach the pony at a time stating your name, municipality, and topic you'd like to address. Allowed time is 3 minutes per individual or six if you are representing a group that is at present at the meeting. All comments should be directed to the board and not to staff or other participants. The board will not act on any comments that are made during the meeting. The presiding officer may direct the district administrator to follow up with that individual at a later date. And lastly, the public comment section will be limited to 30 minutes unless board action is taken to extend. And please refer to our public comment policy listed on the agenda for a full description of this section of the meeting. So, would anybody
003like to be recognized at this point? All right, we'll move on. Thank you. Good news. Well, we do have a lot of good news uh for the month of May, and we're going to turn it over to our student representative who might be doing something special tomorrow and Friday. What am I doing tomorrow? Do we have an awards ceremony? Oh, we do have an award. Okay. And I think it's bright and early, isn't it? Oh, yes. Tomorrow we have the academic breakfast and that's where we'll award NHS and honors. So be there. Um and then on Friday I heard that there's going to be a phenomenal speech done by Katie Hoopert. So you should all look forward to that. And if I don't see you in the crowd, then there's going to be a problem.
004Okay. And then we'll get to the normal business. So the inclusivity club just met with eighth graders to get their interest in the group. And the choir just had a concert which I heard was awesome. The girls softball team is going well and they just finished their regular season 19 to6 and start playoffs next week and they got the two seed. The track team has their middle border conference meet tomorrow night wrapping up the season before regionals and sectionals and they have set eight school records this year. The boys baseball team has one le one one week left of conference games against Ellsworth and if they win both they win the conference. They also got second seed in playoffs and they play the winner of get against West Salem. So, very good news this month.
005All right. And uh Katie and I had the pleasure of meeting was it last Friday? Yes. And we kind of just uh had a kind of a reflection of the year and uh thanked her for her service representing the students and um she's among the student council and we kind of talked a little bit about how the elections are being set up for next year. But we also wanted to acknowledge your work. And so if Helen would uh drum roll please, we'd like to present you with just a going away present and a thank you for all your service. Um you did have a name plate that you're allowed to take with you, but somewhere somehow somebody's taken it already. So we're hoping it was you. I think Helen maybe she has her eye on
006it. I know. All right. Thank you. and congrats. We'll see you Friday. Um, and then from the administrative team, we have a special guest. And so, I'm going to ask Joan Simon, who oversees our national um, history day and also a student uh, page. And she is going to come up and talk about the kind of the competition through the year. And she is um, probably not going to share with you. So, I'm going to tell you that she is going to nationals. So Joan, you want to introduce everybody? Sure. This is Paige Hope. And um National History Day is a nationwide program that inspires young people to learn about the past through in-depth research, analysis, and creative presentation of historical topics. This year we had 12 students um go to the regional contest at
007Wclair. We had three middle school projects and six high school projects. Um students pick a topic that they would like to research and then they relate it to the yearly theme and this year's theme was rights and responsibilities in history. Um we had topics like Brown versus Board of Education, the history of Legos which was phenomenally interesting like I I did not know anything about LEGO and there's a reason that they're such a big company. Um, X-T troop, the secret to his commandos, which um, Helen's son and one of the other seventh graders. Again, a topic that the judges had never heard of it, so that was kind of cool. Um, Title N, the women of Lel, um, the establishment of the National Park Service, LGBTQ rights, the Native Excursion, a take on Native American
008life, and then Paige's documentary, um, Don't Tread on Her: The History and Significance of Row versus Wade. Um at Oakclair, the women of Lowel won the labor history award and four projects advanced to the state contest. Um the extroup um group went to state, the establishment of the national parks went, the native excursion went and pages documentary, which brings us to our good news. She competed against 17 other documentaries from high school students around the state and finished in the top two, earning her a trip to College Park, Maryland to compete at the national contest. So, I'm going to turn it over to Paige so she can tell you a little bit about her project and history day. Um, so I I did mine a documentary on Roby Wade and it a lot of I
009kind of procrastinated it, not going to lie. Um, but I did it through Cap Cut. Um, lot of primary sources. I used found a lot of like really old like from the 70s of like the court cases, like the real videos, the real audio. So, that was really cool. Um and then through that all to my documentary and then Oaklair um really okay first off what you do like at the competitions is you'll present you'll play the thing on for the judges and then they'll like interview they'll ask you like oh how did you make the documentary what made you choose this topic um are there anything that shocked you that you found out and then they'll judge and then you get the results if you're moving on um I did it in eighth grade.
010I did this in eighth grade. It was it was an experience, but I'm I'm very excited and it was very fun. And I chose my topic because I think it's very relevant to today. It's very Yeah, it's very relevant to today and I think it's a very important thing to talk about. Um, and I just wanted to mention at College Park, she'll be um there'll be about 300 students from across the US and the world actually. They have international teams and this year um the evaluations for Paige and then actually Brady and Goldilinger were the they were the highest scores we've ever had in the 15 years we've been doing this. So really a lot to be proud of. So that's great. Nice. Thank you, Joan. And as you can see up on the good
011news that kind of uh the loop that goes through, you can see that there's a lot of uh wonderful events that have occurred. Our student uh um artwork has been uh put up at the Orange Dragon and we've had a lot of showings. Um a lot of students engaged and this could not occur without our staff stepping up and taking leadership roles that go above and beyond the classroom. So, thank you to all of them. Um the superintendent update is really just a rolling calendar. They're um making sure that uh we look to my left and make sure that Katie is available on Friday the 23rd at 7:00 p.m. because that is our high school graduation, the class of 2025. Um, I remember standing and talking to the class of 2016, 10 years ago, and
012I talked about beginning my journey with the Prescott public schools as theirs was ending. And so, this will be a decade where both of us are experiencing the same experience of saying goodbye to a very special place. Uh, we have a grade five graduation on June 2nd. Our kindergarten graduation is June 3rd. We do have a special uh internal um professional development day checkout with our staff on June 4th when we celebrate retirements and years of service. And then um I shared with you all a note from Jeremy Kirk highlighting some students that have participated in our youth apprenticeship um uh system and program and how it's grown over the years. And so AJ Roll and Kalin, is it rained? Is it Rene Ryan? Sorry. So, Kayn Ryan um were spotlighted and highlighted in that
013uh magazine. So, shout out to um our counselors and also students. It's a wonderful program and obviously supported by our school board. And then um our new uh wheels did arrive. So, the new school bus is in house under the garage and uh ready to roll. So, thank you very much for the support on that. And with that, we'll turn it over to our board president and begin school business. Thanks, sir. All right. Uh, first item is the consent agenda. We have April 9th work session minutes, April 16th regular board meeting minutes, April 29th special board meeting minutes, April 30, April 30th work session minutes, and May 14th special meeting minutes. A lot of meetings. Uh next one is finance reports. We have personnel report for non-licensed staff. Selection of depository for investment funds to
014and to renew annual designation of first national bank of river falls Prescott in the local government investment pool as the official school depositories for general funds. Designate an official newspaper uh and publication of minutes. Excuse me. which is to renew the annual designation of Pierce County Journal and the official newspaper as the official newspaper and publication for business minutes. Renewal of WIAA annual membership. Renewal of Pittney and Bose postage meter lease. Renew Northwest Technical College drivers education contract. And finally, accept eight open enrollment applications to the Prescott School District for the 2526 school year. board, is there anything in here that you would like to pull out from consent? I just had a question. Um, the eight open enrollment applications, are they carryovers from previous years or are they new to the district? Those are
015new, too. Awesome. Nothing to pull out? Nope. All right. I will adopt the consent agenda. Any objections? No objections. consent agenda is considered adopted. Thank you. Next up, election elect school board offices. So again, this is kind of the procedure. I we take a motion for each and then I have to ask three times if there's any other nominations and then we do a second and then all in favor. So first first one on the list is for president Anybody like to make a nomination here? I will nominate Michael Matik as president of the school board. I'll second. Well, we have a motion. Are there any other nominations? Any other nominations? No other nominations. You got a second, Tanya? Mhm. All in favor? I I oppose. That one carries. And the next up is vice
016president. I move to elect Tanya Holl as vice president of the school board. I'll second. There are any other nominations? Any other nominations? Any other nominations? And Pat, you got a second on that one? Yes. So, we have a motion and a second. All in favor? I opposed. That carries. Next one is the clerk. Pat the clerk. I move to elect Pat as clerk of the school board. Second. Any other nominations for clerk? Any other nominations? Any other nominations? It seems silly, but that's the rule. We have a motion and a second by Helen. I was going to say someone. All in favor? I I opposed. That one carries. And lastly, treasurer. I move to elect Vicky Rudolph as treasurer of the school board. I'll second. Are there any other nominations? Any other nominations? We
017have a motion and a second. All in favor? I I opposed. That one also carries. We are done with schoolboard offices now. Helen, don't worry. I think consider personnel reports for new licensed staff. Uh what do we got here? New hires. Yes, we have three teachers. Uh, starting with Jessica Olsen at the high school for an EL ELA, our English teacher for the 2526 school year, Alexis Mueller for second grade, and Christa Barker, uh, 7th grade science teacher who's worked with us as a ongoing sub. We're excited to put these three candidates forward. Anybody have any questions or comments on anything here? Open up. Otherwise, we can take a I think we just have Yeah, there are no resignations and no retire retirements. So, we can just move forward with the the motion. I move
018to approve the personnel report for the licensed staff listed above. I'll second. All in favor? I opposed. That carries. Item D, anonymous donation towards the angel fund and R5 manufacturing. Yes. So, we have u somebody in the community that has come forward and has donated. Anything above $5,000 does require board approval. Um very happy to announce that we've received $5,000 that'll go to our angel fund. That is um something is used to provide support for families that struggle that um to pay uh for um meals and also at times for uh different seasons to make sure that they have clothing or hygiene uh materials. Um, and then $1,000 is going to R5 manufacturing that you'll hear a little bit more about later this evening. All right. Uh, anybody have any comments, questions on here? Down
019here, Pat or Tanya? No. No comments. It's awesome. It's great. Yes. Yeah. We appreciate every dollar we get. I know the angel fund money goes a long ways for our students. So, it's great. All right. We can take a motion. I move to approve an anonymous $6,000 donation that be split between the angel fund and R5 manufacturing. I'll second. We have a motion to second. All in favor? I oppose. That carries. Next up, the Herb Coal Education Foundation donation. So, I'm going to ask the board president if he would just read this plaque that arrived and then I'll talk about uh what goes along with that. The Herb Cole Educational Foundation 2025 Vanguard Award is presented to the Prescott Intermediate School for fostering highquality learning opportunities that drive success for students and teachers. And so
020this is a second component of principal Michael Kasmowski who was awarded the Herb Cole outstanding um admin uh award earlier in the month and receives the school will receive $6,000 that will go towards innovative educational programming at the intermediate for grade four and five. Congratulations to Michael and to his staff at the intermediate school. Um, yeah. I mean, I know Michael, you're I asked Michael about this once before and he was so humble and just said it's all about the staff and the people within the building and stuff, but um, Michael, your leadership has just been super fun to sit back and watch from when you were a science teacher all the all the way to where you're at now. You're doing awesome things, big things. I know there's more to come and I'm I'm
021super proud. and I'm super proud to call you one of ours. Awesome, Pat. No. Uh, well said. Um, congratulations. Uh, thank you for all your hard work and to all the staff that works with you. This is, uh, an amazing honor. Thank you. Nope. Just did what they said. Very cool. Yeah. I'm having three kids that have went through either that staff or um, admin. I I can't say enough. You guys are amazing. So, we appreciate all you do. Katie. Well, I don't have any kids that have gone through the school system this summer. I can still tell you're doing a good job. She has one line in tonight. Good for you. She knows it's her last meeting and so she can just Yeah. Thank you for filtering. Michael, honestly, I mean, it's a well-deserved
022award and to your point, I mean, it's a great staff, right? You got you got great people under you. It just makes it probably a lot more it's a lot easier when you got a great team around you surrounding you with good talent. So, it's a it's a well-deserved award and I very proud very proud to to approve the award, I guess, is what we're doing here. So, thank you. The donation the the the donation. Yes. I move to approve a $6,000 donation from the Herb Cole Education Foundation honoring Michael Kasmowski's award going toward the intermediate school. I'll second. That's a motion in a second. All in favor? I I opposed. That one carries. Do you want to give that to him or Sure. I I know where it works. Okay. Everybody's full of one
023liner. I know. Next one is that consider the first reading of updated NEOA schoolboard grievance procedure policy 3340 and 4340. So as you know um the policies for Niola marry each other. So the first one is for professional staff and then support staff. Um couple things that going through the year realize that um helping to kind of refine uh the information. All of you have access to this. You just have to remember to log in. Um remember that green is what the changes are. Um and let me see. Okay. Um basically everything is staying the same. It talks about that uh staff have the right um when there is some type of discipline, termination of employment, some type of dispute dispute in the workplace or something that affects workplace safety. um they can in a
024very clear and concise manner have um submit a grievance and then it follows the regular process. What we have learned though is that it can be in a school system when you're trying to work with principles, district administrators, you have sometimes breaks that are coming up, you have um events either kind of with winter break and then there's a question about whether or not they're business days, calendar days, staff have different calendar days than administration. um we have certain events that occur. It became um somewhat uh challenging to make sure that we were clear. So um going through basically um licensed staff would report obviously to their principal or supervisor. Um the supervisor has 10 business days basically. So two weeks to be able to review it. Um if they are unable to resolve it,
025it goes to the district administrator. um the once it's been reviewed by the supervisor um the staff member has 5 days to move it forward to the district administrator. What we're finding is that you know obviously within a week when you're having um sometimes student issues um meetings and things like that that 5 days to turn things around is not very um realistic to put on for a district administrator and thinking forward for Jim. this would be something that I'm sure he would appreciate. It's basically saying within 3 weeks the ability to have the grievance heard and to be able to have that taken care of would um would follow. If that is not resolved, there is the opportunity for an impartial hearing uh with a hearing officer. That matter shall be referred to the
026school board for determination of whether or not the grievance may proceed. Um and then finally it uh talks about um how the definitions play out. Workplace safety is very specific and it talks about really more things like physical work safe operation of OSHA that sometimes is confused um among staff. Termination does not include resignation, retirement, non-renewal. Um termination is really something about where the position is reduced or that they're terminated, meaning their contract is um not renewed um outside of the non-renewal process. And then employee discipline. Um, just clarifying is that we have staff assignments, improvement, learning plans, oral counseling, reprimands, and regardless of that, some type of written record is going to be placed in the employees file. Basically, to safeguard both for the supervisors, but also for the employee to make sure that
027it's been documented and that it's come to a conclusion. So, those are the changes in the first reading. Any questions? You have any questions on this? Um I I don't have questions. I do know that 5 days um was ex was was really challenging. Um how did you come up with 15 days or 3 weeks? Uh basically I would say from uh winter break and then this month where we've had um a student die by suicide. We've had um graduation and um April we had three board meetings. I think it's um unrealistic for um running an organization this large with student issues um student hearings, staff hearings, and budget to say that something like that can um go into the stream of what's already been planned out typically um months in advance. So um seems
028to be realistic to be able to have um that turned around um with what I would say is two to three weeks. it's still in the same month. Um, and that's how it came. And that's kind of after that 10 days, the the initial 10 and then an additional 15 and their school days. So then kind of Okay. Okay. That's my question. I had a similar question that and that uh that makes sense. I appreciate the timing. Yeah, I you know, not realizing it was that short of amount of time and yeah, just thinking of all the things, trying to squeeze something like that in with how this uh spring has turned out would be difficult. So, yeah, I explanation of that is good and helpful. I have no further questions. Do you know um
029Rick what other um policies look like? Other districts and stuff, how long they have? Um no, I think uh it's really more of just trying to figure out how things play out and different districts, the size of the district would matter. Yeah. And the amount of staff that can kind of dive into stuff too. Yeah. Right. Okay. Um for this one obviously this is uh as we talk about is um the mere version which would be again just uh the 10 days for to the supervisor. um the the staff member has 5 days to go above their supervisor or administrator and then it would come to um the district administrator 15 days and then the same language at the bottom. Anybody have any questions on this one? Same thing pretty much. No questions. Yeah. All
030right. If we don't have any questions or comments, we can entertain a motion. I move to accept the first reading of the above noted policies. Uh these policies will receive a second reading at the next regularly scheduled board meeting. Second. All right, we have a motion and a second. All in favor? I I opposed. That carries. On to item G. consider the second reading of a new state required schoolwork policy related to early literacy and grade promotion. I'll have Michael come up. Um there is there are no well I should say there are no substantive changes. However, since the last time we met um there is a portion that is now required to have a family notification. And so we sent what is in green to all of you ahead of time regardless if it
031goes here or in our annual notifications. It must be added. So legally we have to edit. And I'll let Michael uh share why we are proposing it goes into the early literacy. Yeah. So, um, last month I was up at our CESAW 11, our consortium, and, um, some of the legislation around Act 20 is a bit confusing and there's legal different legal opinions. Um, and originally we were told you could put it in a policy or you could just have it in your learning plan as long as you spell out the definition of a parent and um, what exactly are you going to notify them. However, as the legislation works through this, they're finding some of the things they put in there, they need to go back and modify. So, if you look at this
032parent notification, it basically says we will follow the guidance of DPI and notify you with the things we need to notify you with currently. That that is what is their test score, are they at risk or not at risk, a definition of what is at risk. Um, we do have to notify parents of dyslexia and dyslexia screeners. We have to notify them of their right to um, request additional testing if they'd like. So, all those things we're in compliance with. And the way that we wrote it is that if that happens to change, we will just follow whatever that new compliance is. That way, we don't have to come back. And this is what some districts are running into is they initially put it in their parent notifications and they spelled it out exactly the
033way it was spelled out 6 months ago and now they're going back to their board to revise because now it's been revised. So for us to avoid that. Um we also thought between Musk and myself that it made sense that it goes because all of this is around reading and act 20 and this is specific to those notifications. So that's why we thought it makes sense to amend this one and put it in there and that way we're covered. Ellen, do you have any questions for Michael? No, I don't have any questions. That makes sense. Makes sense. Thank you. I don't have any questions. We looked at this all the rest before. No questions. Thanks, Michael. Take a motion. I move to accept a second reading of policy 5411 with the following edits or considerations.
034Right. That's right. Right. Yeah. It's just an insert of the family notification. Okay. No, we're good. Okay. I'll second. We have a motion and a second. All in favor? I I opposed. That carries. And item H is to set the date and time of our 2526 schoolboard meetings. Currently we do 6 p.m. on the third Wednesday of each month. Uh I don't know if we need any discussion on that. Everybody good with that? Any question? Any problems with it? I'm good with that. I know that it's been brought up having two meetings and like split it so they're shorter. I actually prefer the one meeting, but it's up to you guys. So, I just wanted to bring that up. Just maybe a question too is when two years ago, right, when we changed it from
0357:00 um and in part board members, but then also the admin team uh that comes, I I would assume everybody is still in favor of 6. It it hasn't been a it hasn't been a Okay. I think it's more beneficial from the It's a good thing right now. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I get home an hour earlier than we were. So, usually it drags on anyways, but All right. So, we can we can entertain a motion here. Did I just say that alone? Yeah. I move to designate the third Wednesday of each month at 6:00 p.m. at Prescott High School as official date, time, and location of the 2025 2026 regular board meetings. Second. All right, we have a motion and a second. All in favor? I opposed. That one carries. And item I is the
036federal certification of nondiscrimination pledge. If you uh similar to Michael's example, right? Anytime you get lawyers involved, you get uh muddled thinking and you get both sides uh equally adamant about um how things are right and how they should be interpreted. Um but I did need to bring something to your attention. Um there is a federal certification for non-discrimination pledge that was sent out to all local educational um associations. We were asked to um sign off on that pledge and return it to um the federal government within a week's time. There were probably eight different um legal um webinars for all uh superintendents within the state of Wisconsin. The challenge is is that school districts have never had to sign this pledge. It's about receiving additional money for title six. Um it is something uh
037related to um inclusivity and diversity, equity, and integration. Um every state department up to this point is the department that signs off and they're the ones that provide the oversight. Um they receive the monies. They then funnel the money out to the districts and then they are the ones that monitor and audit that we use the money correctly and that we're abiding by the laws. Um there was a lot of confusion. Then DPI came out and said that they would not collect any of these letters on behalf of school districts and said that we didn't have to sign these because they are the legal authority. Um then we had uh 2 days later uh another letter that came out to superintendent saying that you um should at least uh ask your council whether or not
038you should sign it for fear of potentially losing federal money if you didn't sign it. It definitely will go to the courts. Um, I wanted to let you know that um the last um guidance I received is that um the challenge of how the um pledge was sent out from the federal government is very um vague, ambiguous, and could be farreaching, meaning that what you're signing, you don't know really what you're signing. But failure to sign also could uh create loss of funding. And um one of the first things um you're taught in uh superintendent school is don't ever sign a document. You don't know what you're signing or what the meaning is. However, um I won't be here and it does put the school district um but many other school districts uh at risk.
039um from the DPI's lawyers and um they believe that there is really no rational reason for why you would have to sign it. However, um there have been three options uh put forward is that you can um make a motion, we can sign the letter and send it, albeit it is late, but I didn't feel that it was appropriate to sign something um that later also could boomerang back on the district um in a negative way. you could um sign a modified draft, which this is that DPI helped craft, and send it to DPI because they changed their stance and said that they would accept the letters on behalf of districts. Or you could sign this letter and send it both to the office of civil rights and also DPI. Um so this is a
040modified letter. It is beyond the deadline, but it would um basically say that we would follow by the legal obligations that were required to do so, just like Michael stated. And we are not signing off on any other documentation other than saying we will follow the rules that we're supposed to and not a secondary um letter. The other option you have is that I would just not ignore it. Um so that you could have a record that you discussed it and take a stand and that um rather than table it, you can postpone it until further um more clarified information comes out of the courts with regards to what the federal government is really asking local and state departments to do. So if that's not clear as mud, um I don't know what uh better
041way to say is that we have a couple options. one, I needed to bring it to you. Wanted to share with you. I did not sign it. Um the one that came from the federal government. We have a modified letter and if you would like it signed, it um would just take board action and I would sign it and then forward it up. Um or you could um postpone it until you had um more clear information either from the federal government, DPI, or the courts. here. That's why I like English teachers. Well, hopefully it doesn't matter. Hold on. Is it this one? Yeah, it's the one. Educations. April 20. There's no comma after education. How's that? Thank you. Google Doc doesn't like it, though. I don't care. Google's wrong. All right. No, it's clear enough.
042Look at that. Like magic. Oh, there you go. Anybody have any strong opinions on this? If you want you want to talk to Sir, Pat. Well, I got a couple questions. Um, you know, have have you received the April 3rd uh reminder of legal obligations? Have we received it? I would have to go back and check. Okay. I mean, we should check because if we didn't receive it or review it, then we ought not sign it and send it back. Um, when you when you say lawyers are or you know, um, we're talking from DPI legal counsel. Uh no there's um uh there are state lawyers um at DPI but also then we have legal counsel um through WSB and then also webinars that put are put on on behalf of um administrators. So there
043are webinars that are put on by WASB where the lawyers came forward and kind of shared what the conundrum would be if you signed uh the letter that came from the federal government and their um perspective. And then they also would talk about um possibilities that you could take rather than sign it. And then we've heard from Ben Jones who is the lawyer for DPI, but he can only talk about how DPI interprets, not how the courts would interpret if it gets there. There's not going to be an easy quick solution. Um, you also know at the federal level, the Department of Education is undergoing some remodeling or um being shuttered. And then um whether or not Prescott in and of itself would be um a big enough fish for this to come up, I
044can't answer that for you. Has has have we had our council look at it and would they weigh in on it? They would if I um brought it to them. I didn't think it was worth at the time. I'm I'm trying to understand the risk of not signing it. federal I mean the potential of losing federal dollars is what they say. Yeah. And and that's ambiguous too because on title six we're talking um uh we overall we get less than $100,000 from the federal government um for all title programs for title six. Sandy would know um title six pertains to the elementary and secondary education act. So essentially every year all school districts in the nation are required to sign an assurance essentially saying that we abide by all civil rights laws um pertaining to
045public education and that's how we receive our federal funding. And so we already do that part. So this is redundant. This is an effort on the part of the federal government to push um their agenda which is more specific to um uh other issues that are not necessarily um but do you know how much money is in the title six part? I think it's whatever we get from the feds for our regular operations. Title six is elementary and secondary education. It's not title 1 2 3 or four. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So Mike, maybe about other I mean that's that's my question for right now. Maybe go around and see if other questions other. I mean yeah I think that brings up a good point which the first sentence says that we're acknowledging that we got
046that reminder and so I I think let's make sure we got that reminder before we sign something saying that we did get it. Um, and just for my understand, I I've heard about this and read about this a little bit past, but my understanding is that federally there was something sent and this is the state's response and they're giving it to districts that they can choose to use or not use. Right. Correct. Okay. Um, and I agree. I would not want to sign the federal one, especially if it's ambiguous and sounds like there's a lot of room for interpretation. That is true. I'm not opposed to signing this though. I don't really know. I don't know if I have a reason to not sign this coming from the state just saying we're following the current
047laws that we're obligated to follow, not something else. So, I I'm not opposed to it, but I guess I would have a question about the April 3rd. So, I guess if we don't even know that, we probably should postpone this. It's already late. We should probably postpone the conversation then. But look to you guys to see what you're hearing. Any thoughts on this? I'm thinking um from a schoolboard perspective. I have thoughts. Uh no, if we're if we're already if we're already school board, according to Sandy, every year we do this for title six funding. There is no reason to sign something else. If the governor and the state superintendent have filed their lawsuits or pursuing legal to get through this, that's on them. Let them do their job. That's why they're there for us.
048If DPI receives the funds and then doles it out within the state, then the federal government, that's they've handed it off. They've done their part. The state then does their part. I'm kind of on board with, yeah, we need to know if we got that reminder, but I I'm all for postponing this because things are going through the courts and then they're saying no and then they're going through the courts again and they're saying yes and it's just a fight back and forth. Um, and until there's something specific, I'm I'm not willing to give or just make it let put it out there so someone can interpret it any way they want to for whatever district. So, and we've already signed the 425 authorization for next year for 2526. So, I I think we let
049DPI and the state of Wisconsin do their thing. We hold off on this until we find out what exactly needs to happen. What are other districts doing right now? Like around us, Ellsworth, River Falls. It's I would say it's uh probably 50/50. Yeah. Okay. Sorry, Helen. Oh, that's okay. I can't say much better than that. Um I also took didn't take superintendent classes, but I don't sign anything that you don't have a full knowledge of. That would be silly. So, um, postponing it sounds like the right while they figure things out. Sounds like the right course of action. So, sometimes $100,000 is worth is okay to lose, too. So, I mean, well, yeah. I mean, that was And so, Rick, that's right. Know that's about the federal funding level, right? max risk. Max risk and
050highly unlikely it would be 100 which is real money and lots of it but it's not a uh yeah and death sentence. What I can tell you is even though we've signed off the we all know that the federal monies for next year aren't even promised. Um so that's part of our headwinds. Um so it is one of those things that it's uh it's a it's a big kurfuffle. It's taken a lot of time. uh and distraction, but I also thought it the board needed to be aware. So my question is too, what is the difference between tableabling and postponing? Uh we just asked WSB. While you're looking it up, Mike, did you have any thoughts about this other let them battle it out in the courts and we'll make a decision after that's all
051done. I agree. I don't think we should sign anything. Yeah. Typically, when you table something, you say it'll come back at a time defined or you table it into perpetuity. Postpone just means you you're saying you're postponing it for a rational reason. And in this case, you would say you don't have enough information. And the way you're heading is the court should decide and that it goes from federal, state to local. And the federal government usurp that and at least we're acknowledging it. So, it's not like we're ignoring it. It's an agenda item. We formally postpone it, so we acknowledge it. We just haven't made a decision yet. So, I think that everything laid out here makes sense to me. And Courtney, just for the record, does that jive my interpretation with Bob Butler? Okay.
052All right. All right. So, we need a motion though on the postpone if we want to postpone it. I assume that's what we're doing. I move to postpone this federal certification until further information is forthcoming. by DOE and or DPI. I'll second. All right, we have a motion in a second. All in favor? I opposed. That carries. Thank you. And then lastly, we have item J. Accept the Health Partners year extension for 26 27 12% cap. Yeah. So, we were um we had good news last month with uh the reduction in our rates by 2 and a half% following a half percent. So over the last two years, our rates have decreased 3% uh on premiums where many districts around us are seeing uh double digit increases. Um the cap has been in place the
053last few years and every the last two years even with a cap uh we've come in based on our usage um with negative uh premium increases. So, um, given the ERA, uh, work and giving Jim some time to get his feet, um, under him before kind of taking on, um, an, uh, RFP for other proposals or looking at tweaking with, uh, self-funding. Um, I'm recommending that you accept Health Partners for another year with a 12% cap. Um, maintains everything in place and that would then go into effect for the 2627 school year. Vicki, any thoughts or comments on this? Uh, no. I mean, I I I think we've kind of set a kind of a plan in motion with our our work sessions that we've had that we need to pursue this and look look
054forward. But for now, we know that we know where we sit with this. So, it's it's actually good for this year. So I think I think I'm okay with information we've been given. Yeah, I think um like we said the other some other districts around are seeing double double digits there. So the fact that that this is can come down is good. Tanya, yeah, I'm I'm all for for moving forward for one more year. Um Jim was at our last session, our work session, too. And um the reality is is for the past 2 years we've actually decreased in our in our premiums which is great. Um I know the 12% cap is is real and it could happen but um I think we need to keep given some time to kind of get creative.
055We have some really good I mean ideas kind of moving forward of what we're going to pursue and that takes time. So this allows us to budget minimally. So uh no um no questions. Uh I I think executing the strategy we talked about in the uh in the work sessions uh locking it in uh for 2 years knowing that uh we've seen great results and um working on that strategic playbook that helped us uh develop will uh is is is the right the right move in my opinion. All right. Take a motion. I move to approve accepting Health Partners year extension for the 2026 2027 school year. I'll second. We have a motion and a second. All in favor? I opposed. That one carries and we are done with business. We're on to information discussion
056and the first item is the summer construction projects. So, I'm going to have uh building and grounds Mike Qua come forward. Um he's been here a few nights. uh just kind of talking to you about fund 46 and all the capital projects that we have. He's also talked about some summer projects that are closing up the bond referendum from 2022. And we wanted to just kind of share for the first time not having major construction or moving buildings. Um there's still uh I can tell you we're going to catch up on some maintenance. So Mike, thank you for everything you do. Right. Um, just give you a little update where we're at. Um, you know, we're going get more of a into a regular summer routine, getting back to a lot of stuff we want
057to maintain and and prevent a maintenance program. You can see some of the stuff up there on the top for the high school like service uh some makeup air units. And actually, we're going to go through all of them anyhow, but um but um getting kind of down with the middle school where we have the working with uh Mark and Johnson for the last few items that are coming up uh for the on on the referendum projects. Um grease trap and some floor drains in the in the kitchen at the middle school. Um that that will actually we're meeting Friday to go over a lot of dates and times on this stuff when it's going to be done. So, we'll be able to lock them in. Um the gym um divider curtain and bleacher replacement,
058we talked about that. That's going to be early fall on that. Um restroom partitions are ordered. Um they called and asked if we had a place to store them until they could install them. So, I look for them to be coming in first part of June. Um we have a chilled water leak. uh replace some fittings and connectors on that uh with Mark and Johnson and Steiners. Uh re uh reconnect some gas piping that got uh disconnected during construction projects. We're going to meet on that. Also, how we're going to re resolve that. Uh we still have some small water leaks and the mezzanines and we're going to meet again on that on Friday. what possible solutions we'll have for that. And then kind of the other stuff there is just some regular routine maintenance
059stuff we'll be doing. Um recording the gems, cleaning coils, um uh air handler space number three there. We're going we want to add a VAV box here. Um now that we got the wrestling room fixed, we're going to have that door shut all the time. So we need to supply some heat into there instead of just opening the door. Um so we're getting prices on that on Friday. uh intermediate school. Um in the Vast we're installing walkoff carpet very similar like you see at this building and at the uh elementary getting rid of those pits where they have the aluminum things there that you just put right over it anyhow. So we're eliminating those uh recorder gym floor uh dratification fans were already done. Um gym lobby replace exhaust fan in the uh restrooms in
060that lobby. Um two uh fire doors on the second level to get replaced. They're beyond repair. Um that should be happening the first part of June. They're already ordered in production. So they should be here shortly. And then Mike, we recently had um many of our buildings lost power. I don't know if there was a power surge or something, but wasn't there? It was citywide. Citywide. Yeah, we had um a couple Fridays ago it happened. So, but didn't it damage fallout? Fallout is that you'll see that in yellow there. Fallout is that bl coils one and two with the AC are constantly tripping the breakers. So, we need to look at that. We didn't take care of it under the referendum projects in the beginning. One is when we did our study in 18 and
06119, they were working perfectly fine. There was no reason to replace them, but unfortunately now we have to deal with it. Um, and can you share the the up tick because of that? The problem is we just can't replace the AC part of it because one is a new freon. I've been told now that there's the new Freayon that is out there now is considered flammable. So your cabinets have to be ULL approved if there was ever a leak. So that's the uptick in the cost. So we now we can't we just have to play the air conditioning part. We can replace the whole cabinet lower coil in it. So um got two vendors getting us priced together. We're going to um send some more information off to the one um of all the specifications
062and CFMs and all that we need meeting with another party uh Friday afternoon to go over so we get two prices on that. You know, is is there a way we can repair it or do we got to replace the whole thing? So, uh looking at that. um don't overact quite uh on the referendum dollars if we have any money left over to pay for that out of that or not. But um that will get we'll determine that and then find out how we're going to have to pay for it if we're going to use fund 46 or do we wait later and take it out of next year's budget or something. So we'll discuss that. Um um elementary not too much going over there. We got a little plumbing to do there. Um um
063that was part of the referendum dollars. Some shut off valves and faucets in the 63 classrooms. Um main jetting from the kitchen to the street. That's something we do. We were doing it every 5 years. Um but we moved it up to every three just because with the last time we did it, there was quite a bit of blockage in it already. So I moved it up to three years. So we're doing that now. Um, and it's just regular stuff. Playground borders, some mulch, and then under others, that's just that's regular routine stuff. We do regular inspections for our backflow prevent valves, fire extinguishers, fire alarm inspections, sprinkler stuff, replacing all the filters, our summer floor, deep cleaning, classrooms, restrooms, locker rooms. So, roof inspections. So uh and then also to keep up with our
064permit to operate our elevators and boilers as they need those inspections. So um outdoor bleachers we um are are doing an inspection this year. We don't do it on an annual basis because of the the use. Um it's not a requirement but I feel it's safe and wise to do it. So and actually they were here today. So hopefully they got them done. Um, no. Any questions today? Pat, do you have any questions? Yeah. Can Who was driving me? Can you just scroll to the market Johnson stuff? Um, Rick, what? So, the work that Mark that that you got tabbed as Mark and Johnson in column C. So, this this would represent still the referendum dollars. That is correct. Yeah. And and this would also represent the end of the referendum dollars, we believe. Still
065in process. Yep. Still in process. Yeah. We have uh one submission, I believe, from RVA, who are the architects, their last quarter. Um we're we have the bleachers coming in end of September or October. Um and then there's some what they call owner savings. So basically uh unfortunately um they have I think we're on our third no second super superintendent through marketer Johnson. Yep. And so um paperwork slowed down. Um so we're still trying to reconcile the books basically is the answer. Okay. Um but we're solid on these projects have already been if they weren't already filled. I think the only one we had to clarify was the chiller repair. The parts have been paid for. We just had to verify that the installation part of it. Yeah. So, um stuff that's been approved already
066in funds there is the grease trap, divider curtains, bleachers, bathroom partitions, um the water leak is is debatable where that's going to come out at. Um the exhaust fan and of course the shut off valves. Those were all already approved. Mhm. um with Mark and Johnson that we have funds there for them. Sure. So that's why the the uh blower coil units. That's why I have that one in yellow. Yeah. Kind of if we can take it out of uh the referendum dollars, great. If we have some money there, we'll use it out of there. Maybe it might be part of it. Maybe part of it out of there, part of it out of 146. I'll we'll definitely bring that back to you. Let you know the dollar amounts and stuff. So, so because after
067the true up then we'll know if we have any dollars left there. And if everything goes as planned by this winter, we should be able to close out contractually with River Valley and Market and Johnson. Definitely with River Valley um Mar and Johnson, I think the two things will be uh the mezzanines, you know, we need to get that resolved which may require some new concrete. Yeah, I wasn't excited to see more a few leaks on the mezzanine still. But is it both of them or the wall? It's mainly the front one. Mainly the front one that's over the mechanical space. It's it's it's minor. It's minor. Um, you know, it's minor in the north one. It's that's really not it's not like saturating or or could get in any electrical box or anything like
068that. you know, still don't want the water leak, but the south one's the one I'm really concerned about because we do have a control panel right there and and it was leaking in that corner. And uh and we just put a new flooring. Put a new floor in. Well, we got we got some absorbent uh mats down so that we're we're checking to make sure, you know, does it add to the new new flooring. How else there's always an issue or something that'll come up. How have they been performing in terms of warranty and call backs and punch list stuff? Are you during when they were on site? Um, not a problem. You know, if you gave them if you told them about a problem or a concern or whatever, they they were taking care
069of it fairly quick. Um, I thought I thought our boilers deal was really drawn out from what it should have been. Mhm. Um, and now that they're not on site, it's slower just because you don't have the have the guy on site. Plus, we're trying to also the new site superintendent, we're also he's got to bring bring get him up to speed on what projects we're doing and where and what. And that's why we're having the meeting on Friday. Okay. To go over that to get all the same page and timelines. So, yeah. Mike, if you had to throw a dart at the cost of that um the AC issue, what where would you throw it? Oh, the one at the intermediate school. Yeah. Yeah. Um $80 to $100. 80 to 100. Okay. All right.
070Thank you. I don't have any questions. No. Nope. That's where we That's where we have. Yeah. Hey, uh, really quick on the outdoor bleachers one, is that does that include the fire hall field bleachers, too, or is that just the high school first we did? Okay. All right. Just checking. Thanks, Mike. You've heard about them as well. You stand behind the dugout anyway. I don't sit, so I wouldn't be able to inspect. All right. Uh we are on to item B PDP lensure guiding change process for financial consideration. Yeah. So we're going to have um both Michael and we have uh teacher reps that'll be here as well. Um I'll let Michael uh pull up the guiding change. He and Shantel uh worked with this. This was kind of a board directive uh to work
071with staff um around their professional development plans. Michael will give you the history and um walk you through some of the information. Yeah. So, as Dr. Because I said uh myself and Chantel I facilitated a teacher group um that were on professional development plans and the focus question we had was how do we create alternative compensation model that rewards those teachers who successfully completed the PI34 PDP while a staff member at Prescott School District. So there are people who we have hired that completed PDPs elsewhere. They were not part of this. This was just where people had completed the PDP while here and are still and are still here. So just some context for the the school board of how did we get to kind of where we are is back in 2005 DPI changed
072their lensure requirements. Previous to that in order to maintain your license you had to have six college credits every 5 years. And by doing that work you submitted that those transcripts to the DBI along with a background check and then you were issued a new license. They started a new model in 2005, starting in 2005. Um, anyone who was in the old model could choose to go into this model, but this model was required for anyone graduating from college after 2005. And what the model was is that they were going to do away with the requirement of those courses at the university level and instead they were going to do a professional development plan. And part of that professional development plan was um there were a couple different models that you could go with, but
073you had a mentor that worked with you. You had uh both a mentor within our district and we had a mentorship program for that. You also had a mentor at the university level. Um these professional development plans were a five-year plan. So it took 5 years to first develop that typically was the first year or two collect background data because what they were doing with teachers was actually collecting data from their own classrooms or their own schools and trying to change internally what was going on within their classroom. So it was very close to home and DPI saw that as a slightly different model than go and take a college course in something that you're interested in. It didn't necessarily have to do anything with your lensure area. um this directly impacted your classroom. So
074you went through that process and throughout the process you had meetings every year. You had work that you had to do every year. Um, in the end though, you had to create a portfolio. And I know a little bit about the portfolio because when I was graduating college, I was the two years prior to this, but I was on a focus group at Wclair where we were building portfolios, um, basically fake portfolios, but in an online platform, which these lovely people got to use the online platform. So, we we would do things and we'd give them feedback on what worked and didn't work. And and in the end, it sounds like it didn't get much better from the pilot. um it didn't it wasn't all that user friendly. Um I digress. Anyway, so what what
075they were doing is they were doing that, but again, you had to have a mentor here, you had to have an administrator, you had to have someone at the university level. They were all reading these, giving you feedback um throughout that process and then you submitted them to DPI. DPI then had a panel that would read them and then they would either approve your PDP or they would not. So 2005, first educators that were getting into it. So 5 years later, 2010 was really the first year you were going to have people that were going to be getting license renewal based on this process. Well, around 2010, DPI and our governor did not necessarily see eye to eye and we in 2011, we had Act 10. Um, previous to that, school boards and when I
076was in the union, the teacher union, um, at that time it wasn't necessarily a priority for the union to figure out what to do with this. everyone was kind of seeing what are other districts going to do about the PDP? How are they going to count it? Is this going to be for pay invat uh advancement or not? And then also some people I'll say in the union would say, well, I have to pay for my credits in order to get my license renewed. These people don't have to pay dollars, therefore it's not equivalent. Um, so I don't think there was a big push by the union, the teacher union at that time to make this a priority. And again, with all the changing rules and and this being so fresh, I don't think it
077was a priority of the board at that time to do it as well. And then when it did come time, because the first person that we had that actually had this plan was 2012, by then the union was gone. There was no one advocating for what are we going to do about people who did this professional growth plan versus people that took a college credit of again maybe something that interested them wouldn't necessarily have to be in their lensure area. Um, so they had an initial license. They had a professional one. Um, that was a 10-year plan. No one ever got or to the master educator. No one got to that because it wasn't around long enough. 2018 they disbanded it. Um, back in already starting in 2016, they started talking about removing it. 2017
078they were already planning. So there were some people that at that time their adviserss and the other part is it got exponentially more difficult as time went on to find people to not only be the mentors but then you had to have an administrator who was certified to do it and you had to have someone at the university level. Now when when people are first graduating college yeah they have connections at the university but five or 10 years down the road they have no connections anymore. So to find someone who's willing to do it was very difficult. And that was part of the reason why I believe DPI changed the model is because that model just was not working anymore. People were headhunting and paying others to read them for them and some took that
079route and some their mentors said just hold on. It's going to change shortly here. Just just wait. And we had so we had some educators that did both. We had one educator, as I worked with this group, one educator in in Prescott that went through two PDP cycles while they were here. Um, some that were right at the very end of that second PDP cycle, but their mentor said, "Nope, hold off." And and they did. Um, so again, with the changing climate at that time, the lack of a union, the lack of any sort of negotiation, this all just fell on the back burner and fell away. Um in since then districts have had to do things to rectify because of the pay inequities that that created. Um again the only way at this time
080for someone to move on the pay scale was to get additional outside credit. There was no reward for this. Um so as as we met as a PDP group and we and we talked more about what actually went into it, the process, how long did it take. Um, yes, there was some professional development on the days, but then there were times where you were out of the classroom which created more work at home and things like that. Um, you know, just how are you valuing it? And that's kind of the three models that they came up with of what would it look like is sort of what does the how does how's the board going to value it? Because the board back then did not make the decision of is this equivalent to if it's
081for license renewal, is it equivalent to the six credit of license renewal? Yes, they didn't pay for it, but or is it even better than that because it was directly impacting our kids, our school, our teachers, our students here at Prescott, not a course that you just took because it was a fun, easy course and I could get my credits cuz there were plenty of courses like that. I know because I did a few of those courses when it was down to the wire and I needed credits. You could find an online course for 180 bucks and get three college credits for it. Um, so that's kind of where where it was at. That's sort of the the history lesson here of previously what did you have to do? What did you have to do
082now? Are they equivalent towards each other? As we looked at our desired results, we wanted to value the professionals that we have and value that they're still here with us. And so, how do we value that? But we also know that needs to line budgetarily. We know that that's tight. We talk about that all the time. We just had a referendum and we we know that that's that's an issue. Um but sort of our unacceptable means would be to do nothing, right? That we that we want to have finality to this and uh bring some some closure to what's finally happening with the people that were in the PDP. So that's kind of our work together. We met uh several times. We the first time was just kind of laying out this PDP guiding change
083and um just gathering. We sent out a couple different surveys about the PDP process from everyone's point of view. And again, there were different points of view. There were some people that did audit courses that aligned directly to what they were teaching, others that did do that action research plan um in their classrooms. So, we we looked at a lot of those things. And then um one thing that we wanted to be sure is that it's not onesies and twzies that it's applicable to everyone. And which means there will be some people that might feel um someone's getting something more than what they are. But we also know that the board has to wrestle with all that and doing onesies, twzies isn't a a good process for you as well. So that's kind of where
084we were at. We met several times. Again, like I said, there was a there's nine people that identified that we have identified that were that are part of this. Um I think everyone was able to attend a meeting except for one. Um some attended every meeting. Some did a lot more research, background work, and and things than others. But I think they've got three proposals here. I'm going to actually turn it over to Jamie Mcdana so she can talk a little bit about from her perspective of someone who went through the PDP and then through this process and then the prop the three proposals themselves and uh why one over another. You don't have to read. That's just for your bedtime leisure reading tonight when you're board. And Jamie, just tell me when to advance.
085[Music] Oh dear. Advance. Okay. Um, these are just kind of the bullet points of what Michael just went over. Um, we did not have a choice to take credits. I will tell you I would have rather paid. Why didn't I? Because I didn't want to pay and do something else. Um, another thing that I think is important to understand is while we were doing these PDPs, this um, also was taking place when the educator effectiveness came into play. So, not only were we having to maintain a 5-year PDP, we also had to do yearly PPGs and SLOs's along with it, but they couldn't align because your PDP was a 5-year plan. So while you could kind of head in the same direction, it was still a traditional work and we were all, you know, required
086to do the PDP. So this slide is just kind of the bullets of um, you know, that we were required to do it. Looking at the issues, I went back to Here we go. Um, like Michael said, originally and even now, our pay scale has always been when you look at lanes, it's always been connected to um, college credits. That was how you could move over. And this got brought up years ago when we were in our first rounds of could one PDP cycle be counted as that same lure bumpover cycle. And it was talked about and tabled and talked about and tabled many times over the years. Um while it was tabled we had to keep doing the BPS um without any movement. The third one there some started a second cycle depending on
087I think me and April or the I don't want to call us the oldest too but we were the ones that would have had to do the full two. she finished her second one. For me, I had half a year off in year four of my second one and by the fifth year would have had to pay for two of my signers to be replaced because only one was willing to stay on the team unpaid. Um, and actually one just left the portal. So, if they chose not to maintain their ability to be a signer, they couldn't sign for you and then you had to find new ones. But at that point, I mean, word on the street was it's going away. It was cheaper to buy an emergency one-year license because we all got
088the lifetime licenses in. It was cheaper to buy the license than it was to pay individual signers, and you needed three. Um, now our current pay structure no longer has the eight credits to move overly. Now it's up to what is it? 15 12 12 or 15. Um, and that's where looking at those of us that along this process kind of along with a PDP cycle for several of us got our masters. Um, and we know from the work that we're already in a group that is significantly behind in pay. So that in addition to never receiving compensation for 5 to 10 years of the PDP process is one of our concerns. You can go to the next one unless you have questions on those. Um financial implications. Um as we discussed the first round
089was completed in 2012, second round to 2017 and then anytime in between those years could have been people completing their first one. Um, when we looked at lost wages, we kind of based that on had we been given that initial lane movement back when it was the eight credits that kind of aligned with the six credits every 5 years. And we actually calculated out um at just the six credits. We calculated out basically what was the pay per credit when it was eight and then multiplied it by six and then aligned that and the average kind of rounded wages there. if we would have gotten to move on the years that we finished PDPs ranged from $6,000 for those that completed one um to over $11,000. And that is on the oldest that was on
090the 2012 pay scale. So that doesn't account for all of the pay raises that occurred since then. Go to the next one. Um these are our proposals. You can see the the estimated costs in there. Um that's just kind of us using salary information that we can from DPI and um I don't know I think we did not have I think we used last year's pay scale because at the time we started it that's what we had. Um and these were the options that we came up with. So option one we looked at a step advancement. So moving us down a step we know that the letters do not represent years of service. They used to, they don't, you know. Um, but looking at there is nothing that says we're a PDP fit. So, okay,
091if we moved a step, does that give us a little bit of ground? The first and or the second and third bullets you'll notice are the same across all three. That second bullet is for all of us except April who worked on a second one but never completed it. So working I mean you were in year four when they went away. So then for those four years still getting the acknowledgement of the process and then the $6,000 stipend that is on the low end. Those were the minimum lost wages for someone who completed one PDP in 2012. So we are asking as kind of a token of we of recognition of those lost wages. We went the low end realizing that asking for everybody's individual um isn't really an option. So those two bottom bullet
092points are the same across the way. Option two, we looked at a lane instead of a step considering that really it was professional development which is what our lanes represent. But when we initially started with that one, we recognized that maybe that's tricky because on our pay scale, it currently says credits and these weren't credits. However, we don't know what the AA work is going to end up. Maybe some of that changes or maybe we say that the work we the collective we decide that the work um was similar to graduate credits as um I know that we've talked a lot about potential for in-house professional development in-house credit so maybe that isn't something that's holding us back. Both of those options really similar in overall cost. Again, those aren't the exact numbers. And we
093kind of feel that both of those show a hey, we realize you missed out on some money. Here's something we can do for you. Option three is a combination of the two. when looking at the loss wages but also the potential to make up that money over time. Option three for those of us who stayed in the district long enough there which if you look at this group of people we are the people who are choosing to stay in the district. Um, this is the option that allows us to make up beyond that minimum amount that was lost. You know, I think we looked at approximately 10 years down the road on that, you would have broken even on the full amount of not having been given the movement initially. Um, and I would just
094like to say before closing off, as a wise woman once said, sometimes $100,000 is okay to lose or invest in your loyal staff. Um, and in closing, kind of the three different options there are very similar in the two of the three bullet points. The third one, the first two really say like we acknowledge you. We acknowledge the work that you've done. We acknowledge the work that you continue to do. We feel that the third one says if you're willing to stick with us, we'll put you in a position to make that fully up kind of make you go over time. Um kind of, you know, I've said this in a few other meetings when it comes to recruitment and retention. I feel a lot of our effort has been on and focus has been
095on recruitment. This is the group that's looking for the retention to be acknowledged. I think we've all been very patient, sometimes grumpy, but patient. Um, and we feel that it would, you know, in doing something about it this year, ideally before the end of the school year, that it fulfills a promise, if you will, going back 10, 12, 20, 15 years of it's getting table, but we'll come back to it. It's getting table, but we'll come back to it. And I think one of the big concerns we have is with the ALA work happening. We are also that group that I'm sure you've seen doesn't quite fit with that work. We would love to see this addressed before the ARA work happens so that we are not the same group that is left behind again.
096So if this happens, we don't want it to be lost in the ARA work and feel like we we'll give you one thing but not all things. Thanks. Does well just hold on here. Does anybody have any questions about the presentation or anything that has that we've looked at here or Jen's talked about? I don't know if I want to start down here. No, I don't. No, thank you. I mean, no. Tie, do you have any questions or comments on on any of this? I you know, I don't have a lot of questions. I met with some people in the group gosh 6 months ago maybe too and so I have a little background in it. Um yeah I can imagine how frustrating it was and how hard it is to do all your work
097as well as all these separate plans and everything. I and I can totally imagine the climate of the time and things passing and no union and who's advocating and and you know so yeah I I think um we agree that something has to happen and now is the time to do that and it's a good time. So I don't really have any more questions about it. I um I look forward to making this right thing. Well, I certainly appreciate the background not knowing or understanding any of this PDP and what it meant and not realizing, yeah, there was cost still involved and if you're in the process of going through it and then all of a sudden it's like, well, it's going to go away. Why then are you investing if you're going to end
098up investing twice? So, I like I said, I appreciate the background and getting the whole picture on how all of this worked just because it it it really did it put a group of you guys in the middle and just kind of floundering like you were doing what you were supposed to, but now we've taken it away and how how and what do we do from here? So, um, thank you for all the information and all the work put together here. Not really much. Obviously, I know, but there's nothing worse than initiatives in education when you're like, "Oh, yeah, I got to do it, but then it's going to be gone." So, I understand the frustration. I also understand the fact of what you have to do in a building and then what you have
099to do at home um when this group of people um had to do all that work probably at midnight when their children were, you know, sleeping and all that sort of stuff. So, I get that um we have been talking about it for quite some time and I think we're all on the same page that something needs to get addressed and so I do appreciate um the great I mean this is a lot of work that you guys went through. I appreciate that. Um I don't really have any questions. You did pretty well. Katie questions. I will say the slideshow is very well done. Not bad. You were You were probably in elementary school as they were doing these PTPs. Yes. Um, read the proposal. Read the proposal. I'm confident the board This is one
100of the This is one of the areas that we wanted to address if the referendum were to pass. This was this has always been talked about. I'm I'm confident we'll get to something. You know what that looks like? We got the needle. we got a thread is how does it work in conjunction with everything else and that's where that's where we got to kind of get some numbers crunched. Um well we are willing to trade the air conditioning in Michael's office. You need to make a hard decision. How about in your in your classroom? I don't have it. Don't have that one. Yeah. You guys get it. There's a there's a and we we we have it's listening close session. So I mean we'll be talking about it. We just we have to we have
101we have a needle to thread here too. Um we've always valued um making this as right as we possibly can. I hope we can come up with something that you guys are happy with. Um and maybe I I you know we just we have to take a look at it. So thank you for the presentation. It was great. All right. Where are we? I got to get back to my agenda. Um we got second item in here. Third item. Third item. PHS teched five manufacturing. So Kyle Schmidt is gonna approach hard follow here. I come back to that. Um yeah, so we're talking about the potential of building a shed. So I'll just start off with like throwing out some quick numbers and I'll try and keep those short because I can talk all night.
102Um, so this year we've saved like $10,000 to $15,000 worth of wood by milling our own and we're starting to find different avenues of building different things, uh, selling that wood in different ways. And like tonight, we had a student come in and he's trying to do siding. He's working on his Eagle Scout um, project. So he's residing a business that his business or building that wasn't paying attention. Um, so I'll pass this along, but this is his prototype and it just brings us down another avenue for us to generate more funding so we can take care of ourselves, right? And it's pretty good. It's professional. Great. Well, that's what I had kind of heard. The McCord Park building is needing the Merkard Park down at the down at the river needs siding and they
103can't they can't find it anywhere. So, yeah. So, it's a unique uh shape and Mr. can egg just happen to have the right stuff from way back when and it takes about four different processes to make that right there. But we can do it. So it turned out that we got very close. Um so we're saving the money uh by milling our own wood this year. We brought back in 1,500 maybe a little bit of low ball. Um student siding um has brought in about $1,000. Um so that's 2500. Um, and then we have our two sh or the sheds that we're building next year. Two of them have already been bought. So, people are cancelling on sheds out there and they're seeing the log ones that we're putting the log siding on. They go,
104"No, no, no. I don't want mine anymore. I'm going to order one for next year, make me a log one." So, we have one open if anybody wants to buy one. So, that's good news. Um, so yeah, like even Anthony, I'm going to call on him, too. He's working on his or worked and got his Eagle Scout. He made three kiosks, which is anywhere from $3,000 to $5,000 to Freedom Park and we donated the materials. They sold some raffle tickets for us and they got those for basically free and we have a student that got his Eagles going. So, um, good things are happening. Um, so to the shed, if we scroll up to the top there, um, we're looking at two different sizes. Um, we're hopeful for a 40x60 or a 40x 64. Um,
105you can see the cost of a 40x40 there through Clearary is 36,000. I think that's not including labor. Um, so the 40x 64 through Clearary is 58 well about 59,000 and then you have Deca Builders. They have their two bids that are similar. Uh, but with the two bids there, Deck of Builders includes uh ventilation for future education. um that doesn't that's just the shell but we have overhangs on that. Um and again the ventilation so like when we want to put in sprinklers, electrical, water, all those things are included so that we can just add on to it. So clearly would have to come back with a different bid um if they wanted to match those items. KRS contracting uh they came in with a bid uh this week and theirs is at 49,000
106using Menard's materials. So, those are um what do you want to say? It's uh I would say that Deca Builders probably use a little bit more expensive, but Mards is up the code um with the same ventilation uh same everything that we would need as DECA. Um so, there's that. He did say that that bid didn't include any hole excavation for the posts. So, he came back after I asked for that and it's $3,900 for that. So tap that on there. You're looking at $54,000. Okay. Any questions with the pricing at all? So, uh, just can you um between the three bids, are all three comparable on? So, are the specs of what clearary and the prices other than ventilation? Is there any difference? There really isn't. Okay. uh as far as like whether it's
107the clearary bid right now, we couldn't build that one at that price to meet our goal. We would build that one their way right now and we wouldn't actually be able to put the ventilation, electricity, and plumbing into it. So, they'd have to come back with a different design. So, I can get that at a later date, but right now DECA and KRS are the two to fully decide on. And DECA includes the post holes. Yep. Okay. And did I get the amount right for the post? 3900. Yes. Okay. So, Mike just asked a good question. Uh what what's our uh how many year investment is this? I mean, we could talk about those numbers. Um, if we're saving 10 to $15,000 a year, you know, if tech is saving that money and we're generating
108funding, we would like to, you know, whatever it takes to put back into that tech's willing to put back into it and pay for this. So, that takes 5 years, 10 years, whatever. Um, if that makes that happen, we'll do that. So, can you explain that again? Just say that one more time, Kyle. So, like if if we were to go and let's just say that we build a shed for $50,000, right? This is an investment that the building is going to be there for the next 30 or 40 years, right? Right. Um we're going to continue to teach out of that. We're it's open to, you know, the whole district. Um, and basically we were just saying like if if it takes Techad to figure out a way to raise the funding through all
109the cool things we're doing that we put back into it and we help pay for it until like if it takes us 10 12 15 years to pay it off, Techhead's willing to do that. Okay. You know, so whatever that looks like, you know, um it's important to us, we need it. We're bursting at the seams and basically adding on to the building is much more expensive than you know this. So once we put concrete floors in there, the students will put the concrete floors in little by little each year for the next 5 to 10 years until it's finished. So that just helps, you know, our program teach extra items that we haven't been teaching. Proof of thought. Um did are you do we are you ready for questions or do you have more
110to present here? Um not not really. I mean, if you want to scroll down the bottom, we can talk position so that you can kind of wrap your head around where that's going. And we have some numbers there. We can actually stop there. Let's go up just a little bit right there. So, excavation, there's a, you know, rumor somebody might donate donate the excavation work. Um, not solidified yet. Um, electricity. talking with Mike right now. We do have a 2 amp or a two breaker 20 amp circuit out there. That's enough to get us going where we could run, you know, a dehumidifier for our kiln. Um, you know, maybe a saw, something of that nature, um, just to keep us moving out there. Um, so then for the exact location, we'll get to that,
111but we've been working with city zoning. Uh, Matt Wolf came out and we talked about our corners. Um, I showed him what I was thinking and then he came up with exacts and we were within 5 ft of each other. So, it was like, "All right, we're we're doing what we're supposed to be doing." Um, and then Mike had asked some questions of me to ask or Mike Qua um had asked me to ask them about the hookups and the city did come back with it depends on what the building needs, but he said, you know, if you need a 3/4 in pipe coming in for water. Um, those are your prices for what it would take to hook um the water up to our existing uh water in there. So um so it's not
112too terrible, but still an added cost and something that I personally didn't think about. Um, so we can take on those costs right away, do it all at once and get those hard numbers. Um, or we just get the hookups ready and then hook it up at a later time when more funding comes in. So that's uh probably the biggest hardest decision to make, I would say, if it were to be approved. But yeah, so electrical is 120 ft away and um that wouldn't be too difficult. I I can get any information you guys would need on that or questions or two. So, but as far as the position, yeah, we can scroll down and here is what I kind of came up with off of Google Maps. Um, it's basically Okay, there we go.
113Um, so the back parking lot over here by door five to six behind Tech Head. Um, this is 50 ft off the road plus another 35 was just the cushion that I gave ourselves. Um, so we're actually set back about 5 to 10 ft past what um, the city would want. And Mike had like ahead and mentioned too, is just make sure you do give yourself a little cushion. So that way there's no issues if that road were to go in and be extended. Um, that's a big question mark cuz we don't know if it'll ever be built, right? So it's that's kind of a tough thing. So we're going to just give ourselves some breathing room there. Um, so if you scroll down to the next photo, this one is just proof from the
114city that we've we've done our research. Um, hopefully it's still there. Maybe one more page. Yeah, it's down there. It's way down. There we go. So, you can see that green box there is where the city would approve for. It just has to be behind that green line which comes off the corner of the English department there. Nice call up there for you, the English department. But uh so it's an easy 45°ree angle. We can find that with no problems and make sure that we're clear there as far as positioning. So I am open for questions that people in fairness. I wasn't here to I wasn't here last last time we talked about this. Um okay. Um, so I understand um I understand the dollars uh associated with with the different the different builders, but
115then there's some add-on stuff, right? Okay. So, um I think and then I don't want to what I would like to see would be kind just like an all-inclusive like line item like it's this plus this plus this, right? And if you had and and then help me understand, so you guys got two 20 amp circuits that are available to run out there, but then you you're looking for additional electrical connections. So what what do we what are you hoping to accomplish with that? What do you what do you want to do? So within this building, we would like to obviously move our mill from the woods lab out there. So we would do our milling and kill and drilling out there. We also want to have a classroom that's in there. So that would
116be an enclosed classroom, a clean space. Anybody in the district can use that. So um at any time or whatever. Um so we also want to have like extra storage. So there are like football needs some extra space or cross country needs some extra space. You know we can work out those details later if it ends up growing. It's actually a building that we can add on to in 10 years. Um so we're just kind of trying to find that right size that can help you know more than just tech. So, just like the water, um, the two 20 amp circuits helps you get going right now, but you would want you would want its own service at some point. And when you say the 20 amp circuits are out there, Mike, is there a
117conduit stubbed across the road? Yeah. Small panel here for the power. Okay. when they go with their we get everything that they want in there'll have to run a new service for that um we need to check with that cell but I think we might be able to come off back the generator that transfer might be big enough to run another service over there have to have another electric you know another meter obviously we should be able to run off of that um without bring items and what they're currently starting off with. Yeah. Okay. Water line, you know. I mean, some kind of stuff. Some of this stuff in just buffing it in. in the building is fairly expensive. So when you do the street open up, especially if you pour some concrete in a
118utility, okay, we're going to bring at least water in here. You might have toast the street. Sure. Yeah. Um, so any of the builders that you'd go with, they're they'd go through the full permitting process. Yep. Okay. Does this thing have to be sprinklered? Um, so that's uh what do you want to say? We can move in. We would make sure that we cover our butts. At one point it does need sprinklers once we fully get up and rolling. But I would say as far as housing storage for the materials, the mill, this just allows us to quickly pull the mill outside and then we would do our mill. So, and the city's okay with that type of use occupancy and they're they're okay with it not being sprinklered and all that good stuff then
119preliminarily anyway. Yeah, for the time being. Yes. Okay. Cuz they got holding the truth. Yeah. Yeah. Um Okay. Um, this is I hope you don't think I'm just being I'm not trying to be buzzkill here guy either. I I One thing I'm worried about for the board is that um it's logical where this thing is going to go here. We're talking about the old master plan again, right? And we don't know yet. Um there has been some plans of what's should or could ever go back there. This would this would change that. So, I'm just slightly concerned about that. Not that you don't need the space and and I'm not saying we shouldn't try to find it. I just I'm worried about maybe where it is exactly. And then I'm al So, that's that elevation
120back there. Not that I don't want to play architect here, but that's that elevation. So, when you talk excavation too, I mean, you're going to have to you're going have to bring in a lot of fill or you have to cut a lot of fill. You're going to have to put under a painting wall. Have you guys thought about that? You got plans for that? Are you going to handle it all with grading or it just seems like it it seems like it could be a bigger cost than maybe what is being anticipated, right? Yeah, we have talked about those items and that's the thing too where it's like you got to get a professional in there and say, "Hey, what do we actually have to do to make this happen?" So, those are questions
121that are, you know, where we at? Do we want to move forward with this? How much effort do we put into it? You know, and we've talked retaining walls. Um, so that's where we those estimates I don't have. So it's as far as like do we want to move forward with it to right now. Yeah. So maybe Mike or Rick help me with this information discussion today. Right. So we're we're talking about the things that we would need to see, right, to to come back and and we're not and but uh but what's the hope for? So Kyle, I think in um transparency, what is some of the time bound reasons that it was put before, you know, cuz you had talked about it earlier, we came back for information discussion. Are there time bound
122um hopes or um is it something that can be part of, you know, kind of further long-term planning? I guess in a perfect world, I mean, if we could get a shell out by, you know, by the time snowflies, you know, it's got to wait another year. I mean, it's not not great, but you know, we'll do it. You know, it's just one of those things. Um but yeah, I guess in a perfect world, it'd be nice to have something in by November. So that gives us the space in the winter as well um to keep moving with our R5 manufacturing, right? The needs there. So if we're making trim and all that, we're kind of that's where we're bursting at the seams and we have so much more potential and getting more efficient at
123doing these things that it's one trimester covered us for the full year plus into the first trimester of next year. Well, so maybe to let the board I guess just where I'm at is I mean I'm in I this is this you know would love to see the last investment that you made back there um really paid off, right? And and so um from my perspective um I don't think you're wasting your time. I think this is great. I just would need a more kind of comprehensive kind of planning and and just kind of see it all on paper and maybe identify some of the risk and what the costs are. And I don't think it's I mean to meet your timeline though to get at least the shell up. I assume that these are
124post frame buildings. Y you should still easily be able to make that time type of thing. So I hope I don't that's where I'm at. Maybe I'll let other people No. And that's uh you got a good background. Right. So those are the questions that um it's good to have that. So well he asked a whole bunch of questions I wouldn't have asked. So I'm glad he was here tonight. But um I think we did talk about the long-term um green space back there. That was one of our questions is like if we ever move the track there, the football field and at least at the time we it it didn't seem like it was going to impact that location. And so I think we do want to kind of follow up with that and
125just make sure cuz that would be something too for me that we need to think a little bit more about and I would agree with that. I get worried about parking though, right? I mean but anyway, okay. I already said too much. Yeah, he did. Yeah. So, I don't really have any more questions, but I think Pat asked all the the right questions that he's Yeah. Great. And for me, it really is just about spacing and making sure that doesn't impact our long-term planning, which we did talk a little bit about last time, but any questions? No, I don't have any questions. I think I mean I I think if I hear what you're saying about the space and it is a great it's a fabulous program that reaches a lot of our a lot
126of our students. Um and so I think it's a great I think if we get some of those questions answered and kind of go through that I think it's you've done amazing things so far and I think we're on the right trajectory. So yeah. Um the only thing I I I mean everybody hit on things I'm my other angle would be like how are we going to pay it for right? So we're not talking about fun $10 at least I I wouldn't advocate for that. So it would this would be something we'd probably want to consider either you know paying with money that would be surplus that would go to fund 46 or $146 somewhere in that range. So it wouldn't impact kind of earlier discussion on what we were talking about with teachers. That's
127a different bucket of money. This is this is something that would be more of an investment in our facilities. So I think from my perspective, I'm curious. You know, we always ask the questions, what's on the horizon? What do we need? What are the big ticket items that we're going to have to pay for? We just got done um putting in a a slew of things through the referendum dollars. Is there anything on the on the docket that's coming up that we are aware of at this point in time that would chew into a a bunch of fun $46 that we know of. Mike are things we said really good, you know, with just bring this budget once we get through this referendum dollars. Um there'll be stuff hitting the windows um probably the five
128and 10 year marks. Uh some of those things I'm working on right now. Okay. So, so we can know we're going to do 546 we got that 546 for this. I'm trying to Yeah, I'm trying to look what do we have now? What's out there five in 10 years? You know, we did, like I said, we did this guy in a whole bunch of stuff. a lot of good things, but there is still some stuff that wasn't in that 18 19 year plan. still here. So we know that 5 years in 10 years hopefully can be handled between our own budget and 46 between now that that's also another discussion where we want 46 to set up as far as capital improvements where we want to hold back over there. We got all these other
129tasks, the muscles and van and everything else discussing the finance department. What what do we say for capital? What what's going to be your ear transportation out of that? So yeah. So I guess what would help sell me is how are we going to pay for it? Where's the money coming from? And does it you know what does it what does it impact? other other projects that we might see on the horizon within the next two or three years. Rick, this might be a dumb question, but if if whatever if Kyle raises $5,000 because they sell they sell something, can that money get put into fund 46 or does that have to live in a specific fund? Uh there's different ways that we have dealt with it. So you have an assigned level. We talked
130a little bit about that. So you have fund balance, you have assigned. Um, there are ways where when they generate money, it either goes into fund 10 or we can put it into an assigned account. That's that's what I was wondering too. So revenue generated by them could get used to offset cost or pay back an investment from 46. Yeah. Okay. So then coming back to like a timeline if if you know or might be interested with certain information in front of us presented like what are we looking at like a July time frame where it's like a drop dead if we if we want to get the project moving forward to have before the snow falls. How much time does that take? Do we do we have a guess? Is it June, July, August?
131Somewhere in the middle that we'd have to make a decision. Well, I I think Kyle, you're going to roll your eyes, but I mean, I think for you to take a stab at kind of backwards backwards kind of pull planning this thing from, hey, you want it covered in, you know, so whatever. Pick pick pick November 15th, right? You want it done. You want materials in there. You know, maybe talk to some of these builders and find out, so what's your construction schedule? Let's just work backwards. Talk to the city about what's your permitting process. Just kind of work backwards and get help that that'll help us get to a hey, I you know, we need a decision by X. I think that would be a worthwhile. Yeah, I actually talked to the city and
132whatnot in St. Croy, figure, but usually do your paperwork. Paperwork takes about 10 days. You know, if you got a dealer that's got something on schedule, that's that kind of advice. You know, it might take a few extra days, but yeah, what you're saying. Okay. So just the only other thing going through my head too is, you know, as we continue to plan about, you know, the buildings that we have and and other potential cost avoidances and what does that mean for Mike like your shop um or your shop needs or your shop spaces? I mean, that's I would I would just hate to make a short-sighted decision here and not be thinking about some of that. um cuz you would get some economies of scale, you know, if you ever had to do something.
133Um and and I don't know that we'll have time to to get there yet, but I don't know any any awesome ideas would be a good time to bring those up. Obviously, this thing needs to be really close to the to your shop space up here, right? Having it at a different site doesn't help you, right? Okay. Yeah. So, 10 ft off the parking lot. Yeah. kind of there. Yeah. What what is the likelihood of uh you know football field, baseball field, all that stuff going in? You know, that's kind of a question that I I can't no matter who I talk to, I can't get a real good question on that one either. Um like two whether that sells or not. It's all part of that long-term long planning and that has to that
134has to resume. So, yeah. I I I mean I don't want to talk. So the track is not we can't use it for meets and stuff like that. So for me it's pretty important that we consider another spot for our for it and that's kind of our only spot. And so I think that we just have to make sure like and map it out like that if we did move this there or or build this space that we still have the right space for something that it might not be for another 5 to 10 years but it's it's something I think that eventually we need to do something about. And just if I could interject because Matt's here, Matt has been sitting in on the meetings. Yeah. Um but when we have plotted out even
135even when you built this school, there were uh potentials of a football and track. Um and then we had two sites. So some of it has already been kind of platted. From your perspective, is parking would be something to consider, but for an actual track or a future football, where's the location likely to be? Not where the shed would not impact uh any layouts for future athletic activities that now would that be a pivot point down the road? Yes. But I think that cross but right now we are going out. I think we have two maybe three locations that we've kind of projected. I do think the parking would be something that because it's already flat compared to some of the other terrain. But um if parking's the only piece we might be able to
136figure that out. Well and that's what I was saying really. I mean, with the building, how many parking spots would that actually be? I mean, it's a decent sized building, but when it comes to parking spots, what I guess what does that actually impact? Well, I was thinking more parking for an eventual eventual football like how many? I mean, all Yeah. All good questions that we don't have answer to right now. If you want to support an event though, yeah. So, all right. Um, are we good on this one? I mean, if he's good, do you need anything else? Do you have what you need? I'll come back with more itemized list is what you guys are asking for and maybe more definite timeline. Some of you guys have asked questions and got closer to
137getting to that place. Yeah. And Kyle, I think it would, although you're looking for possibilities of like site work or excavation, um either in partnership or gifted, I think it would be good to put a price value on just in case it doesn't come through that we know what the cost. Sounds good. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. Thanks, K. All right, we going to move we're going to move on to item D. Update on transition readiness grant funds, student services. So Sandy Strand, student services, take it away. Hello members of the board, Dr. Spakuza. Um this time last year, actually at our staff appreciation um lunchon, we found out that we received a transition readiness grant from um the Department of Public Instruction. And that grant was intended to help support a student participate in
138Project Search at River Falls Hospital um to also pay for transportation for that student to get to and from. Um it was also intended for um our high school transition teacher and our middle school um program teacher to attend the Wisconsin transition conference. Um and and also myself. and then for us to start forward planning about what we wanted our essentially grade 9 through 21 uh programming to look like for students with more significant disabilities. Um so the transition readiness grant is designed to support Wisconsin students with disabilities to successfully complete transition to competitive work and post-secary education environments after high school. Um there's a federal indicator that we are rated on every year. we have to call graduates one year out from graduating and find out if they are in any type of competitive
139employment or educational um programming. Um why am I presenting to you tonight? because in the grant application, I indicated that we would present uh at the board meeting in the spring of 2025 uh a review of our our students participation in project search as well as a presentation of our program review and a three-year plan for improving transition programming for students in Prescott School District. First and foremost, I want to just recognize Carly Ericson and Helena Yiannis. Carly is our teacher currently at Prescott Middle School and Helena is our um teacher at uh Prescott High School who have been working primarily Wow. Yeah. It's the thunder um who've been working primarily with this population of students and they have been um my kind of we've been the trio that's been planning and putting our heads
140together around this for the year. So if we could go on to the next slide. Um, we did meet earlier in the year. This is very small. I don't intend for you to be able to read it. Um, but, uh, much like Michael did with the, um, the teacher group, we used the guiding change process to kind of analyze what we're currently doing for all secondary students with IEPs and what really is missing or what is needed. Um the things that were identified as kind of our reality is um staffing challenges. Obviously uh not enough staff for academic support um in terms of paraprofessionals. People are concerned about staffing for specifically for our high needs programs. Um we currently do uh some pull out uh English classes and math classes for our high school students
141who are maybe are not at grade level academically. Um we also do a lot of pushin for uh math classes, intensified algebra, those kinds of things. Um so anyway, we kind of analyze what our current reality is. We talked about the un un uh un non-negotiables, the unacceptable means, which you know, we're not going to build a whole new building somewhere in Prescott for transition. Um we're not going uh we're not going to not go into the community. We're not going to not do this. Um and and then we we kind of talked about what could happen, what could we envision. Um we talked about wanting to expand our community options, um which would mean needing to have reliable um transportation. Um throughout the week, uh we talked about improving our opportunities for uh prevocational
142um work uh in-house assessment for work, vocational opportunities for students, which right now Helena does an excellent job of um partnering with the community and bringing students out for different opportunities. Um but we're really limited in our geographical location. And um I'm going to talk a little bit about Project Search. While it's a great program, um it's very um it's very narrow in terms of its scope for the type of students that it serves. Um one of the other things that we talked about was uh just the staffing ratio that we felt like we needed in the high needs program. And um actually at this meeting earlier in the spring, we talked about consolidating based on our current population of students um K through 12 um consolidating our 6th through 12th grade programming for high
143need students because right now we currently have zero students um that we have two students moving from 8th grade to 9th grade this coming year and we have zero students that are moving into the middle school that require that kind of high needs programming for students with like autism or intellectual disabilities like significant intellectual disabilities. Um so next slide please. So for this year we participated in project search. We did have one student participate in project search. Um that student ended up um per the recommendation of the staff at um project search ended up only participating halftime in Project Search. Um and and that was for a variety of reasons. Partly because Project Search is at the River Falls Hospital, so it's a very quiet environment. And this student um likes to vocalize. Not not
144terrible, like it's it's it's wonderful. Um but likes to talk. They're a talker. And um and that that was startling to some people. And so what we ended up doing is we ended up pulling back um and that student participates half days at Project Search. And then we created a combination vocational opportunity at Prescott Middle School. I worked collaboratively with Mike Ha, um Bob Fireen in the building and Nicole Lensner and the c the nutrition services staff at the middle school. And this student does um custodial and nutrition services work starting um with the sixth and seventh grade lunch and then they do light custodial for the remainder of the day. um and they have absolutely excelled and are pretty much independent with the exception of somebody has to hold the door so they don't
145touch the door after they wash their hands. Um so that's really exciting. Um it also kind of opens up our eyes of we have such capacity here in district. Um we did purchase the transition planning inventory which is a more structured tool to assess for transition and um are looking to be a little bit more structured on how we do that moving forward. We did tour um another transition program um just this week um over in South Washington County. We toured their pathways program which um they serve students really similar to the students that we currently have in our programming here. Um and these guys got to see uh you know a larger scale operation but um their their supervisor is phenomenal and very knowledgeable. Uh the three of us participated in the transition conference
146um down in the Dells and then we did create a three-year plan um for program development and enhancement. Um our goal for next year and beyond is to as appropriate participate in Project Search, but be far more selective about the students that we do refer. It's an expensive program. It costs nearly $20,000 just for one student to participate. um we'd like to consider purchasing a vehicle for transition related transportation and we would like to begin financial planning for a pays lab and I'll tell you what that means in a second. All right. So our program structure currently that we've kind of designed that we'd like to move forward with is obviously all of our programming for our students um in these programs are guided by the IEP. So, they all have a program of of
147services and supports that are um directed by their IEP teams. In 6th through 11th grade, um those students are still participating in statewide testing. Um they should be still receiving uh as typical of a high school experience, middle school experience as possible. So, they would still be receiving standardsbased instruction in their core content areas aligned with the alternate standards. Um, they would also have periodic access to community activities via field trips. We would want them at that age to be participating actively in vocational exploration and then starting to participate in building level job activities. Once a student really hits that 12th grade year, if we know that they're going to continue on with us um beyond 12th grade, then we want to take our our approach more functional. So, we want the academics to be
148more guided in um if it's money math, it's not just money math. It's how am I how can I count out change to somebody using a cash register or um independent living skills instruction. Um teaching a student how to maybe do food prep in more of a commercial kind of kitchen. Um opportunity for job trials, youth apprenticeship. We've had a number of students access our youth apprenticeship program. So we collaborate with with other um departments and our guidance staff. Um project search is certainly a part of that. Um but the pays lab um is something that we really would like to look at adopting. It's something that um they've had in um in other districts that I've been in. It's comprehensive program that I'll I'll talk about in a second. And then those other two,
149you know, community based job activities, building level district job activities, and then regularly scheduled community outings. So, next slide, please. So, our three-year vision is um so this first year is pretty much everything I already s summarized and then beginning the budgeting or funding process for a pays lab. Um I've already appi applied for a Prescott Foundation grant. Um we do have uh potential for some private donors. Um and then we're building our budget moving forward for next year to see what we can set aside in our federal flow through dollars. Um but then also um we'll begin to have some conversations with teaching and learning um about supporting that program. Sandy, can you just um for us to acquire a PAS lab um is there a initial cost and then what is the ongoing
150upkeep? Yep. I was going to talk about that when I get to defining it. Um, so the pays pays actually stands for and I'm going to I'm going to mutilate it. It's a performance assessment uh evaluation system or something like that. It's um but it's it's really it's a it's a system of work. There are over 300 different types of jobs that students can participate in um across five career areas. And on a on another slide, let me see here if I've got it. Um those five career areas include business and marketing, computer technology, processing and production, consumer and service service industries, and then construction or industrial. So feasibly we could um work with a student who maybe isn't ready to be out in the community and they could be doing job trials and we
151could be collecting data on their stamina, on their accuracy, on um on just their their expressed and manifested interests in those areas and be much more focused on whether or not we're able to bring them out into the community for an actual job. And it's something we can show to prospective employers. Um so for next year uh so the pays lab itself um costs about $38,000 that is the that is for all of the equipment and that includes the setup and when you purchase the pay lab um Heidi Johnson is a regional rep. She works with all of the districts around this area in Wisconsin and Minnesota. She was at the conference that we were at. Um, she actually comes, her people come, they physically set everything up. They train all of the staff on
152all of the equipment, on all of the jobs, on all of the computer programs, um, so that we can accurately and appropriately use the program. Um, so yes, it's a huge cost, but then I look at if I'm sending one kid to Project Search and it's one industry that they're getting exposed to and that's costing $20,000, I think we might get more bang for our buck in a transition program if we were able to give kids a broader range of opportunities and experiences. Um, so in year two, we're looking at consolidating the programming for a couple of reasons. Not only are is the population kind of shifting a little bit, but also we've had staffing difficulties um both at the middle school and the high school in those programs. It's difficult to find and retain
153pair professional staffing. Um, this way we're consolidating um teacher FTE. Both teachers would be in one spot so they would be able to support one another in building this program. Um and we would be um then consolidating the staffing um so that we're aiming for a 2:1 or a 3:1 ratio in that program. Um and then obviously I talked about transportation. Um and then we talked about comprehensive transition assessment and programming training for secondary staff including our related services and our psychological staff. Um and then the goal would be that in that third year we would be able to acquire that pays lab. It would be set up in the summer. Um, we'd get the training. Um, we would advertise to neighboring districts about pays. We could engage possibly in a collaborative service agreement with
154neighboring districts if they wanted their students to come participate on a daily basis. Um, it's it's like a 2-hour kind of time slot that they could come. We could charge a fee and it could possibly be a revenue generator for us. Um, I want to continue um our transition assessment training. I think we can be far more robust than we have been and then continue our standardsbased academics through grade 11, which right now I have to say that both Carly and Helena have done an exceptional job with teaching um this population of students. Um all right, next slide. Okay, so difference between Project Search and PACE. Project Search was created um back in the '90s, 1996, um at Cincinnati Children's Hospital. So, the hospital setting is kind of the original Project Search, right? There's one
155at Metronic, there's one at hospitals all over the Twin Cities. Um the idea is that it is a work program. Uh it was intended to be for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities to prepare them for entry- level positions in a hospital. So some of you are educators. Um you might be able to reflect and and identify on one hand the number of students with intellectual and developmental disabilities which of which autism is part of um who are quiet um and conform and can very easily work in that kind of quiet environment. Um it it has not been friendly to our students here in Prescott. I know Mark really struggled getting students placed at Project Search when he was the director here and um I think it's for that reason that he was so willing
156to work with us this year with our student and be flexible and do something kind of outside the box. Um, but it it hasn't proven to be super um super helpful for our students with more significant disabilities that may have um some behaviors uh that might include vocalizations or um you know any type of physicality. So if we go to the next slide. So like I said for the district um project search is cost prohibited prohibitive. it's difficult to get our students selected. Um, we do have to transport the student to and from the site. Um, we also maintain the IEP. Um, that's just a Wisconsin thing. And for the students, they have to be able to function at a 2:1 um or 3:1 ratio at all times. So, if they need individualized support or
157attention, they generally frown on that. And that was one of the reasons why our student initially um was not being successful. Um they must demonstrate a quiet demeanor and be mostly compliant and must be nearly employment ready. Um next slide. So pays the practical not performance practical assessment exploration system um is a researchbased assessment system identifying aptitude for community- based employment functional skills interests and work behavior strengths and barriers to success. And we're thinking of pays because we want to be able to expand that transition experience to all students with disabilities, not just our kids with the most significant disabilities. It's inhouse, so it's kind of sheltered, so we're able to do that. But we've got so many kids at Prescott High School that would probably benefit from doing some job trials with this that
158maybe have mild disabilities, but they just don't know. They haven't thought about what they want to do for the rest of their lives. Again, um they they clock in and clock out. So, it's like going to work. The teacher or the staff in there in there are referred to as the employer or the supervisor. the students are the employees. Um, and it's just an excellent way to um, look at transitioning to work in independent life. Um, and it's for all students, right? In special education, that is. So, the little video, you don't have to go back, but there's a little video camera clip on that last slide. If you you guys have access to this, there's a link on that and if you just fast forward to 316 that gives you a down and dirty
159kind of video clip of what it looks like. Um, so moving forward, um, this is kind of what it looks like. It's kind of colorcoded and stuff, but then all the jobs are inside those boxes. We can go on to the next slide. So, moving forward, this is what we're looking at. We're looking at the consolidated program focused on functional academics, life skills, community engagement, vocational and career exploration, and recreation and leisure. Um, we want opportunity for grade level participation. So if we get a student who is middle school aged and they need to access this program, we are prepared to then bring them back to the middle school for their peer contact so they can participate in um grade level activities such as um fed or specials or or lunch or what have you.
160Um another reason that a vehicle would be very beneficial. Um anyway, the next one, Hawaii Consolidate. Um again, I mentioned the lack of um high need students at the intermediate and middle levels for the next probably 3 years at least. Um we can consolidate the staffing to enhance learning opportunities. Um it allows a stronger focus on transition activities while one with one one teacher while the other teacher continues a high quality standardsbased um program based on academics as required by law. Right now these are all the partners that we have worked with courtesy of Messianic and her team Charalug. They partner with the American Legion. They partner with the food pantry. We we run the entire backpack program out of a a room upstairs. It's like a grocery store when you walk in there. Um
161the Kickan River Land Trust, Twisted Oak, Attacks, Hudson 12 Cinema Bridge, Project Search, Northwest Technical College. So, we're already doing so much. Um it takes it takes staff to make it happen and um it takes focus. So, we're we're out there. We're working hard. um we just need to get a little bit more structure around the program. And the next slide, these are just some pictures of our kids doing some of the things that um that I talked about. Um the two on the um left-hand side, that was when they toured Project Search um earlier this year or was it last year? It was this year, earlier this year. And so they're doing a stickering project. Um that's one of the jobs there. Um and then uh at American Legion, they're making the folding the
162boxes for the lunches. Um and then that is our custodial support at the middle school. Um he's actually um breaking down the salad bars in the cafeteria, which requires him to um part do the um food safe protocol for handwashing and dawning gloves. And he does all of it very successfully. One day I had a sub and I spent my whole time chasing him around because he knew his schedule and I didn't and I was useless. So, um just really proud of uh the work that we've done. I think we've got a vision. Um I know it's something that Mark wanted to do. Um when he was here, he he mentioned that he really wanted to build the transition program and I think we're we're well on our way. We've got a vision. So, thank
163you. Thank you, Sandy. Thanks. Any questions? Any questions? Tanya, do you want you have any questions, Thomas? Um, well, is this kind of Are you looking Can you So, last year you had the transition readiness grant like 28 $29,000 or something like that. Um, is that something that you can reapply for this year to help support that? We already have. Okay. Problem is is that you cannot use the transition readiness grant to pay for a pay lab. So they put stipulations around it just like I can't use transition readiness grant dollars to pay for a job coach. Okay. So we've had to pay staff to job coach. Sure. But we can't use transition readiness grant funds. I can use those funds to pay the actual student which we are planning because we're we're not paying
164for the full project search fee. I'm using some of the balance of those dollars to um pay the student actually for doing the work that he did. Great. Um and obviously we know the pays lab together and it is a really great it's more of um an assessment of of kids skills and their readiness and stuff and it kids generally really like it. It like they're actually using tools and hammers and creating stuff and then along the way they're also being assessed. So, I I would be excited for it to come here. And I mean, it would it it's beneficial for our kids that have a uh higher needs, but it really would be great for a lot of our students that that just are kind of getting into wanting to do trades and they
165just don't know where what they're able to do skill-wise. So, great. Absolutely. Thank you. No, you that was a great presentation. I I don't I don't have any questions other than what Tanya asked. Um yeah I nothing right now. Um it would be it it would be wonderful. I I agree and I guess I just keep going back to let me ask you a question. So the PA lab sorry um right now does the vision include um um reimagining some existing space. Well so we have we are very rich with space um here in this building. Um the the high needs program has what how many classrooms are up there, guys? It's like four. There's essentially four classrooms and like a conference room. And so the pay lab would fit right into one of those
166spaces. Um we would probably continue to run the back maybe in even in the room that we're doing the backpack program because you can run one at a time when the other thing's not running. Um and then we're using the other spaces for like we're looking at a sensory space. Um we're looking at using the different spaces for different types of academics. Um and then there's a functional living skills space. So a full kitchen um that they also use. So it's it's wonderful. We just really want to get a strong structure and a schedule around it, which these ladies have already been um starting to plan their um course catalog and um kind of get that structure in place for what to expect at 9th grade, 10th grade, 11th grade, 12th grade, and beyond. Okay.
167All right. Thank you. Yeah. Well, it sounds like you've kind of rolled everything together. Some cost savings and some possible revenue opportunities. So, that's nice to see. There is there anyone there in our area that has a PAS lab? What's South? South Washington County has one, but it's currently boxed up um because they are building a new program, a new space for their transition program. And ultimately, a pays lab is it should be at the high school level. It shouldn't be at an 18 to 21 level per se because we should be doing a lot of this exploration when kids are in 11th and 12th grade. Um and so that that principal supervisor is is pushing for it to go back down to one of the um high schools, but we kind of have both
168so it works. So are you saying that that pays lab's not in a plan right now and somebody should reach out if they want it? Uh I think she wants it. I just think she has it in storage right now, but you could certainly reach out and ask if you can get it at a discount. I hear you're not saying your program here, right? I know, right? But if anybody does ever want to go see it that I assume that you looked at that kind of stuff and it is really cool. So, and I think I think Hudson might have a Pays Lab, but I don't I don't know. I could call Heidi and find out, but yeah, she's the person. I get a question. The 38,000 that's a big price tag. Does that training
169include in that 38,000? And then is that continuing train? like is it just like one year training or do they keep coming out? And they would come out as as often as we would need them to to support us getting off off and running. Um and then if we needed like if if all of a sudden we just had a huge turnover of staff, we'd probably have to pay a fee to have them come back out again and train again. And this pays pays labs cuz I don't work with this. Um and I was actually part of the trans that team that worked with that population. So, um, is there is this you said it's appropriate for that high school. Is it appropriate for the sixth to 8? Yes. Okay. Yeah. And and and honestly,
170so kids who are sixth grade, 7th grade, 8th grade, they're still going to be doing more like of their core academics in in special education, right? They're going to get um ELA and math and whatever. So, they're not going to have as much flexibility and time as a high schooler would who is doing career exploration and at that age, but certainly you can start transition um programming activities as early as the IEP team wants. So, I would say 8th grade would probably be reasonable if a kid wants to dip their toes in. Okay. U my last question would be um you mentioned a van. Um I included that in my um Yeah, I would in my TRG grant. I'm wondering why cuz we have like this would be during the day, right? You would do
171this during the day. Is there do we currently have any a van or transportation that they could use? We just bought a van, right? And I think was it for some sports and activities, but it's maybe a possibility that we shared. I don't So, we have we have the Suburban. We have that um the thing on lease with um with the local dealership um that is often um used by sports, right? That was kind of the intention behind that. Um, we do have a few vehicles that are in the garage. Um, not all of them are incredibly I would not recommend that we necessarily transport. There's a there's a Suburban in there that's quite old and and um and there it just doesn't have the the capacity. We're looking at like an eight passenger van
172with uh the potential of a wheelchair lift. Um, but I'm not even going down that road for planning until I know whether or not we get the grant money. And then I have to request special permission from DPI because you can't purchase a vehicle without permission. All right. Thanks, Andy. Thanks. Next one is item E. WA is new NIL approval. Everybody's favorite topic, the NIL in high school sports. Big money. Big money. Well, thanks for having me. I will be brief here. Um, a lot of this I know you talked about last year the WA brought it to uh vote. It it did fail last year. Um, so in terms of NIL uh for name, image, likeness, u, basically what I'm coming to tell you is that we will have for our activities code, we
173will be adding some languages for clarity with how to implement it with guidelines and whatnot. Um, but it did pass last at last month at the annual meeting for the WA. So, it's now in in place and basically athletes can now profit from their their name, their image, their likeness. Um, there's still many regulations, though. You cannot wear your your school jersey. You cannot represent that. You can't say things like, "Hey, when I play for the Prescott Cardinals," you can't have pictures on school grounds, things of that nature. So, um, there's still a lot of guidelines. And if you wanted to be a business that approached a student athlete with an NIL opportunity, um there's a lot of logistics to navigate there. You cannot be an alumni. You cannot be a current booster or sponsor.
174So there's still a lot of hurdles that are going to need to take place for it to happen. So it's not necessarily going to be like the NCAA. Um it's much more scaled down in that approach. Um but our athletes now are able to profit, like I said, from their name, their image, their likeness there. What we're using is um middle border conference. We partnered in the WA also um influential athlete. It is a a company that basically um this is what they do. They specialize in NIL. Um so they're going to give a lot of oversight and they have already with videos, links, question and answers. Uh there's a webinar next week. It's going to be a live stream that that families and athletes can join in to get an an overview. Like I
175said, what are the guidelines? Where are the you know where are the rails? What can we and can't we do with that? Basically, I would look at them. We are paying a fee to have them as a conference. Basically, I would consider it like having an attorney on retainer. So, we get a question, we have, you know, is this a violation? We bounce it off them. They can give us clearance with that, what to look at with that. Um, the big thing is educating our families, our athletes, our coaches, and then businesses also for understanding. So, everyone wants to play by the rules. Um, WA is going to help us with that. Influential athletes going to help us with that. but educating people what we can, what we can't do there. So, communication is going
176to be huge with that, getting out information, making sure everyone understands what are the dos, what are the don'ts. Um, and there's going to be some some gray area. I I think this being brand new across the entire state, there's going to be times that people stub their toes. There's going to be, you know, verbiage added, there's going to be asterisks, there's going to be language added as we go throughout the state. So, it's going to be interesting as we go about it. Um, that being said, we expect smooth sailing. We're going to navigate as we go. Um, it's a new endeavor for everyone involved, but like I said, from a from a board standpoint, the biggest thing would be we're going to be adding language to our code. Um, and just making sure that
177our athletes, our families, people understand what it is, what it entails, and then how we follow our guidelines and what we do. Um, if there is a violation, then the WA will say, "Hey, here's here's what needs to happen." Then there's consequences for that. But my hope is by educating people, by making things available for them, um websites, links, um you name it there, like I said, uh webinars that people can understand the dos and don'ts and be proactive instead of reactive with our approach there. And Matt, you've already been pretty proactive with our coaches, right? Yeah. Talking with our coaches about it and they understand and that's the biggest thing like if we're going to get approached, come ask. We don't want this to be after the fact. Let's not hide anything. Um you
178know, and then beg for forgiveness. Let's let's ask for permission and move forward with that. The one thing in terms what's interesting um the WA said you you don't have to have school approval to do it. Um but most schools we talked about as a conference we met today we're going to ask our kids just to be upfront with us. Uh it's a partnership and the biggest part is is for the kids may understand but the businesses might not and they don't know what they don't know. So, you know, I'm not going to say anything would be under the table, but everyone just being transparent with their their approaches, I think, will help everyone to get it rolling. And then if we have, we'll call it a hurdle, we can navigate that hurdle together. Well,
179Matt and I talked a little bit about this and I think for smaller districts, there'll be more hurdles because there are many local individuals who are alumni that are business people and and then you get this conflict of interest. It also uh I appreciate the educational piece um and informing because violations at WIA maybe it impacts your high school career for whatever sanction they put in but if they are looking to go to the second level the NCA may have a different view as well. So we're trying to make sure that we're not only um taking care of students at the high school level but anybody that's looking beyond that we're also trying to navigate that as well. I guess any questions on on that part of it? The NIL. Anybody have any questions here
180on NIL? No. I had a quick question. Um, and it's just procedure for us, but um the last time we had a presentation on this and I think it it didn't pass if I recall or we or it was held off or something. Um, it said that districts could choose to accept it or not allow NIL. And I was wondering if that's still a thing. And we were advised last time, Andrew advised, you don't want to block it because people will open row and possibly go someplace else. But I was wondering procedurally, do we have to accept it? Do we have to do anything formally besides policy in order to It would be following policy, making sure making sure we have it in policy was it checks with the guidelines. Um, where I would pause
181is if we block something like you said, a student saying, "Okay, I'm going to go up the road where this is approved." um or like we talked about earlier, students not having to tell us, then that's where we're going to get the lack of transparency, the handshake deals under the table. Um just I think everyone being transparent, being upfront, that's going to lead to uh it being a healthy relationship with all involved. And then the education piece because um kind of the other concern and I think Rick you were bringing up too is like being in a small town you can see where like this this could go really easily for some of our our kids and stuff like that with some of our businesses but um the risk is really the families bear the
182risk here and the students bear the risk of of businesses not going through the proper channels and um so anyways when it comes to the um education is there going to be um some specific education to businesses around town and stuff like that. It'll be yeah kind of what we're looking to do and conversations on that. So it'll be here are the guidelines, here's your yes, no, check this box, what it looks like, dos, don'ts, per se. Um and then as we go, you know, hey, is there wiggle room here? Let's look into it. Um nope, we can't do this, but we can navigate this and go this rout. Yeah. Yeah. Great. I mean it's I think it's exciting for kids and you know I you know it's exciting but also there's there's a lot
183of risk too. We don't want them to be taken advantage of and stuff either. So thanks good to go. All right. The other big thing here at the WA annual meeting that passed um unlimited summer coaching contact. So basically in a nutshell, um before there was rules and restrictions during the summer, what coaches could and couldn't do. Um a lot of times it was limited to 5 days depending on the sport and the contact. Um but it passed now here in April. So it's going to be implemented here as we hit June 1st. So it's unlimited and as you can see up on the slide there, it is open June 1st to June 30th. It closes up. They call it a dead week. July 1 through the 6th. it reopens up then July 7th through
184the 31st. Um, football has to stop. A hard stop for them will be the 26th. Um, so that's basically the unlimited aspect has to fall within that that category there. You're going to have spring sports that are going to go past June 1st. So that's more local governance. So here with our coaches, we're going to be very respectful of our spring sports and our playoffs moving forward with that and not stepping on their toes. Um, some might say, "Well, that's limiting opportunities for other sports." Um, those kids are in season. that's ultimately what we're looking to accomplish our goals and do those things. We got to be respectful of that and with our staffs, our coaches, we have a good group here. That's not going to be an issue in terms of that. Um, why
185do I know that? Our coaches have always been fantastic. We share athletes. We know we got to have multiport involvement. Um, we got to honor their time and it's not just from a physical standpoint, mental health, just people being people. We got fishing to do. We got cabins to to visit. Um, that stuff's important. Also, you could see a slight uptick um now that it is unlimited. You might have some coaches that might say, "Hey, we're going to add a day here and add a day there." And those aren't days that weren't already implemented before, but the term I used is a lot of times they were farmed out before. Our our football team, for example, they used to um Park High School, they ran the same defense that we ran here at Prescott. So,
186we would basically flop for two days. Prescott coaches would go work with the Park athletes. for our coaches will come over here and work with the Prescott athletes. Now, what it'll be is instead of having to do that, it will just be Prescott coaches coaching our own athletes. So, it's not necessarily adding days. Um, same thing like with seven on seven leagues, our coaches could not coach in those before. Now, they're going to be able to coach. And what does that lead to? A safer environment and more instruction which is going to help us. Um, you know, like boys basketball league for example, I know Coach Johnson usually doesn't go over to to Still Water and coach in the league. They're already doing it. Now, if Nick wanted to head over on a night and
187coach, he can do that. That's that's a choice now that he has without having to use one of his five contact days. So, it's not necessarily adding more days. It's just who can be there doing the things that we want that we trust to do. You can see all of us that have kids in sports up here thinking, "No, it's adding more days. All of us. You should see our faces." And I mean, and I I get it. I get it. But, yeah. I And I don't think it will be. I think if you talk to our coaches, it's there there's a calendar that that they're they're going to have and they're going to look at it. It's it's going to be an eye openener when they look at it and go, "Okay, so we
188have, for example, we had a school in our conference, and I don't know if they're still going to do this, but when it first came out, they said, "Okay, Legion baseball is going to have one day to play their games. Basketball is going to take two days, and football's going to take two days." If you look at that, you want to tell a kid that maybe their third sport is football. They're not playing football anymore. They want to go to the captain. They want to go to the league. So, I think you you will ultimately be surprised because our coaches want to go to the lake, too. They want to go to the cap. They they want to win. They want to be around the kids, but they also know that it's not the our
189our coaches really understand the physical health side of things, the mental health side of things, and there is overdoing it. And you know, full transparency, I could see down the road, a summer or two from now, I think what's what's going to happen ultimately, which I don't want to, but I could see this happening, there's going to be districts that maybe look and overdo it a little bit and we have to compete and then you got to keep up with the Jones. Obviously, what's going to happen? Then our coaches are hearing, hey, I'll say for example, Oyola football put in an extra 20 days this summer and they overachieved. They're they're doing XYZ and why aren't we doing that? and then coach Hansen having to say, you know what, where where am I going to
190thread that needle? Is more always better? What works best for us? Um, so that's the thing with that aspect that like I said, our coaches have always done a great job. And talking with our coaches right now, they don't expect to do more. It's not going to be an overhaul there. Like I said, maybe a day here or there, but ultimately it's um, you know, it's sharing those kids. We want to encourage multi-involvement. That's one thing we're going to do. And ultimately, if we have, you know, if it's getting abused, then that's my position to take have some hard conversations with coaches and what we're ultimately doing, what our end goal is. A big part of this, like I said, with the calendar, communication is going to be key. We don't want to overwhelm families.
191We got to take the help of our student athletes. Reminder, this stuff is voluntary. Um, it's encouraged, but what makes Prescott High School special is our ability to have multi-involvement students. And it's not just athletics. It's our kids that are involved in a plethora of activities whether it's the choir, musical, you name it, they're doing a lot of different things and that's something our coaches also understand and we got to value as we move forward. Um, from an aspect of, you know, compensation, we have to pay the coaches more for their time. What we're looking to do is run as many of our camps that we already run and we operate, contact days, you could call them, um, through summer school. I talked to Sarah Dusk on some of the guidelines. She's going to meet
192with our coaches on what they need to do, what needs to happen. we're then able to to take those kids that attend do those things. Um we can use those those hours then towards summer school. We can pay the teachers um through that through our summer school process with that. So it boosts summer school numbers which helps our FTE there and we can compensate coaches along with that too. So you look at that from that vision as as a win-win. Um so yeah that's another new aspect from the WA that pastor at the annual meeting I guess in terms of updates with that. Any questions in that regard? Anyone have any questions on this? I would like I mean I I would like to see that we have something in handbooks about this cuz if
193we have kids playing three sports and every coach edge it's 4 days throughout the summer. You can see how this gets busy. And so I just want to make sure that and I and I don't know I'm not saying like qualifications or requirements but I do think we should somehow address it in our handbook just to address and I don't know if we need parameters around it. I that's up to you but I just think it should be addressed you know it'll be addressed yeah I don't know parameters wise it is unlimited hence the WA so it's we have to trust people I think and then I think we navigate if you know much like if if your dog stays in your yard do you really need a fence once phto kind of leaves then
194you've got to address that issue and I think absolutely we have phenomenal coaches like I I but we you know our coaches change too over time and you're right like as soon as that competition changes next door, you know, it's going to change here just like it does when reading increases scores some, you know, I mean, the same kind of thing happens. And so, I do want to protect our kids. And I do want to just say that there is a difference when your head coach is potentially going to the Sunday scrimmages versus somebody else that's not part of that program necessarily. So whether or not like it's changing the opportunities that are there for kids, but that pressure of being there has definitely changed, which is which is fine. I mean, I know I
195have athletes, they're expected to be there, even though it doesn't say it, but I'm just saying this is a big change, I think, actually. So, but we have great coaches and I do trust them. Anybody else? You're you're happy you're done. He's smiling. That's why. Matt, Matt, thank you. That's It is going to be uh uh definitely a game changer. Who came up with that idea? Minnesota. Yeah. Minnesota. All right. All right. Well, uh follow that up with everyone's second favorite thing to talk about. Um sex head. Hi. Uh so our human growth and development advisory committee um met this spring and I'm coming to the board tonight to discuss the input that um ultimately was the work of this advisory committee. So the board had um we had 19 people that were interested individuals
196that came forward that wanted to be part of the committee. As a board you elected them to this committee. We met three times over the last couple of months here. Um, our first time that we met, we had 16 of the attendees were were able to attend. Um, and then we had a day of curriculum uh, clarifications and then a day of input results and and additional clarifications. So, it was a three-day process. Um, but there was a lot of work that went on in between the three and you'll see uh why. I'm really here today because we're at the end of that process is to provide the board with input um and sort of some of the things that we learned as a um faculty and the things that we could improve on that
197parents are looking for that maybe necessarily they didn't have that voice or this wasn't maybe brought forward in such a way that they felt like they could share that with us. So there were some very positive things that came out of this um this process. So Rick, if you go to the next one. Um so the the the work itself was the policy day one we spent a lot of time on policy because now that the school board has decided we will teach human growth and development there than our policies and statutes of things that you must teach and that's what we spent the entire first day on is what are the things that we are now being told we have to teach within our curriculum. Um I think some people on the advisory were
198surprised of the co of the things we must now cover. um versus things that uh c can we remove things and take things out. Um so that was part that was mostly the first day. Then what we did is we actually had and I know the board you have this there was 21 different things in that policy or in the state statute which again is part of our policy of things that we must teach or stipulations and even within those 21 there were multiple on some of them. So we're probably talking about 40 different topics we must cover. Um, so we laid that out. Our teachers developed this new curriculum or with a new resource developed the curriculum. Um, we provided links to those slideshows. We didn't we did not provide every activity that we
199did in class. Um, we didn't provide quizzes or the tests that went along with them, but it was more of the general this is what we're presenting. Part of it was educating our families on, you know, they're not educators. So, when you look at a slideshow, what am I really looking at here? What's what's really the conversation? How does a lesson actually go? We had a lot of great conversations about that of, you know, how are we pairing kids? This is uncomfortable for some children. What do we do if they're uncomfortable? Um, how do we know they're going to work well together? Um, things like that. And what and one of the things that the teachers kept talking about is that this is always the last unit of the course because we have done building
200thinking classroom tasks where we have kids working together and we know who can or maybe cannot work together. Um so out of these 40 or so different topics u they're covered nearly every single one of them is covered in grades seven 8 um se six seven eight and nine. There also are some of the topics that are covered in grades five when we start with our growing up groups. Um so we looked at all those and then looking just for feedback and I threw it into AI and said give me some feedback on this feedback. Um and some of that we looked at and there were different categories but you can see that fully covered and partially covered like every topic pretty much rate that there was one one where someone said no this isn't
201covered. What we did see within that is that there were some patterns. Some people had that everything is partially covered. And when we met as a group, we talked about some of those results and like one shared that well I put that in there because I feel strongly health should not be in nth grade. I feel strongly health should be in nth grade, 10th grade, 11th grade, 12th grade. And they should be getting this every single year. and therefore you're only partially covering what I feel should be covered. Um the health teachers did talk about at the high school how as seniors we do, you know, this is a freshman year course and most freshmen take it and then and then you're done. Um but then we do come back as seniors and we do
202have all the seniors together where they talk about some of these these same topics maybe in a different way. They also have law enforcement come in and talk about sort of the responsibilities and now that you're turning 18, there's different responsibilities that are on you as well. So, it isn't health class again, but we still are reaching out to students and still making sure that this um some of these things are are front of mind. So, we did see that um in some of our um comments that we had additionally to that to those. Um, and then Rick, if you go to the next uh slide, here's just a couple pie charts that came out of the input. Again, out of the 19 people that were involved, 10 responded. So, 50% response rate is actually
203pretty good to a survey. Um, part of it is though, again, we had these 40 different topics for four different grade levels. So, some people really I'm really concerned about sixth grade because my kids are fifth grade and they're going into sixth grade. So, some just looked at a particular grade. Some people went through every single one and had comments about nearly every single slide deck that we present. Um, so I really appreciate the people that were able to put in that much time. They probably put in, I would dare to guess 30, 40 hours looking at this curriculum and then giving us input. Um, but you can see like overall is it medically accurate? And again, some of it was I'm not knowledgeable enough to to to answer that. So you can see of
204the of the six of the eight people, six said, "Yep, it's medically accurate." um two said it's not. And some of that was there was a big debate that we had about some of the slides say um instead of male or female, they say body with a penis or body with a vagina. And there was a lot of comment about well that's not medically accurate. But we had our school nurse involved. We did other there was six people on the panel that were in the medical profession and they said that is accurate. We sometimes refer to it that way um versus male female but like our teachers talked about is this this is inclusive. It it includes everyone but when we typically talk about this we say male and female. It it they're interchangeable. Um
205so there was some debate on are we going to change the slide or not? And we said well let's go through the lenses that we need to educate all students and all students need to feel welcome. um sort of the same idea with some of the external groups that we have bring in. We have SART which comes in and talks about um you know pregnancy and and opportunities um within our county and and we have Pierce County comes in. We have P flag comes in that talks about LG LGBTQ plus. Um some would say that's not medically accurate, so you shouldn't even present it. Um one of the things that we kept coming back to though was the ability for families to opt out. you can either opt out of a particular lesson or opt
206out of the entire unit with an alternative assignment. Um, so we still want kids doing things around health and their own health. Um, and maybe giving them some choice and voice and what they're going to pick if they do the alternative. We did talk about families will let us know if there's something that's being taught that doesn't align any longer. Um, at the high school level, I believe there was four students that were opted out this year. um and really only two that opted fully out and two that did the curriculum but didn't feel comfortable in the classroom. They did it on their own more sort of independent study and at the um middle school there was three students. So the term the number of of families that are opting out of the curriculum um
207is very low. So if if that ever was an issue again parents would let us know by through the opt out and we we have those conversations with our families of why are you opting out? And the other part that our teachers run into and one of the things that we'll be changing on our opt out is did you have this conversation with your student? Because what we run into our classroom teachers is the parents say I'm opting them out. They come to class and they say well but I'm not opting out. So there's sort of the debate of well then who do you follow? And in Wisconsin, there isn't a particular age, but typically um court laws about age 12 is the age of knowing. And about age 12, they can make their own
208decisions. So if they come to class and say, I want to be in class, then they're in class. And then we do reach out to the family and let them know that, you know, Johnny participated today. They they really wanted to be here. That's their right. So one of the things is just did you have this conversation with your student? Because often times the students say, I don't know anything about it and I'm going to be here. Um, so it's more of students wanting to opt in um to that. But again, you can see the overall age appropriateness. Again, that goes back to some of them saying we need it for every age. That's why it's not appropriate. Um, but overall, you can see um it people felt like yes, we are meeting what we
209need to be doing. Is it inclusive and non-discriminatory? We had a lot of conversations on that of um again we need to be welcoming for all students and if uh there's a lot of belief that goes into human growth and development and again that's the purview of the family. The family should be the primary teacher but as we even looked around the room um and I and I fall into this category myself included I'm guilty of this is um there weren't any dads. So, dad's involvement in human growth and development seems to be on the the low end. And I'd say that's the same in in my house as well as if my son has a question, he's going to my wife and she's been asking me and then going back to him because that
210dynamic isn't quite there. Um, so yes, the the the people that we had on the panel were very involved. They're very involved in their children's lives and and that's great, but not but also the panel realized not everyone has that support at home. So for the school to not teach certain things, um you know, overall the feeling was it's better than then opt your family out of it versus we're going to limit what we're what we're presenting to others as well. Um and again we talked about what things are appropriate or inappropriate and then again how is that inclusive to others. And I I want to thank uh Pastor Amy was was on the panel from Joy Lutheran and she talks about um mentoring students and uh and things and where she has like mental
211health issues coming in and things like that and and how much kids really need this which makes her life a little easier. But then also when we talked about resources, she wanted she was very adamant that we need to include resources that are non-religious because not everyone is religious and sometimes when it is a religious resource it um makes the work of the religious um people even harder. So she wanted to make sure that was was in the room as well. Um and then again the the opt out. So one of the opt out you know we talked about that is again including that did you talk with your student um you know are they aware the other part is like timelines that like parents ask for they ask for can you give us the
212specific date of each one of these lessons well we can give you the scope and sequence we can't give you the specific date because if something runs along maybe that's a two-day lesson that used to be a one-day lesson so um some of those things we're we're able to look at and other things we're not um Rick if you go to the next slide. So, some of the big takeaways for us um sort of as I met with the health teachers over the last couple of months is providing families with that digital access to the curriculum and the timelines. So, that's one thing at the grade five we've always done. We've always given them the video that we use with the boys for the growing up groups and the girls and the slide deck so
213they see everything and then we say, "Do you want to opt your your kid out?" And in my 5 years of being the principal, um, we have chosen to opt to talk with families and not necessarily opt the children out, but we know that they might not do well in a large group setting. So, we do that more in a small group with the nurse, um, individualized. Um, and that's they they've said like that they really like being able to see all of it because also as the parent as the primary teacher is they also are looking for resources. You know, some of them said, "I never had human growth and development when I was growing up, so I don't even know what I'm talking about. So, if I can at least see your slides,
214I at least know I'm using the correct terminology." Um, again, the emphasis on the on the family being the primary source and knowing that they they uh take on that role, but then also providing families with those resources to have those conversations um is something that as with the teacher group we talked about is something that we can do a better job at. Also, again, that that full opt out and let them um understand that Another uh input that came from several was um educating our families. What are opportunities for our families to learn about some of these topics, especially some topics like LGBTQ plus that were never talked about when we were going through school, but now they are part of society and talked about in the amongst students and things like that. I
215did reach out to Penny Peterson because we have had a number of these over the last eight years. Um there's been five different opportunities on different topics um related to this. Penny said the largest group she ever had was 30 from our community that came out to one. Um but like P Flag and Sart, those are always part of our health fairs that we have and we've even partnered the health fair with um vaccination clinics just because it gives people another reason to be there. Um but Penny says the engagement um from families is very low in that. So we can provide them with those. Sart, one of the one of the parents that one of the ladies that was actually on the committee, she is part of SART and she talked about, yeah, anytime
216we we can set up a a a community conversation and have that if we have people that are interested in it. So, that'd be something that we're going to look at through community ed of sending out maybe some um surveys to families of what what level of interest is there to to bring some people in. Um, as we know, there's very there's strong feelings about the human growth and development curriculum. Um, but we all agreed we we the schools need to provide accurate information. It need to be age appropriate and it needs to be welcoming for all and it needs to be reviewed because things change um from time to time and you again we had six people on the panel that had that medical background and it was great to have them there because
217they see different things. um some of them work in uh fertility clinics and and and others are just general nurses and what they see in here um was very valuable to for us and for um what some of the changes that we're going to implement now based on that. Um but again several several comments about the family being the primary teacher and just that not all families are comfortable with that. So what resources can we provide? And we we felt we can do we would do a better job with that and some of the resources that came out of that group that they there are additional resources that we even weren't aware of. So very appreciative to everyone that was part of that group. Um I think on the next slide Rick I have all
218the who was on the committee and again um not everyone was able to attend every night. um our biggest night was 16 of them. But again, it takes hours and hours to shuffle through curriculum and and for us to build it, but then for others to give us feedback on it. But it's very valuable the things that we had and um we've come out stronger on the other side and now having people in our community that are a little better educated about human growth and development curriculum and age appropriateness and resources and things like that, they just go out and they're just better advocates for us. and then as questions uh uh come up, they have all of our contact information. So, they're just another conduit to families through the people that were on this
219group as well. So, that's my update. What questions do we have? Anyone have questions here? No questions. No question. No, don't have questions. Sounds like it went well. I don't have a question. I just have a comment. I just turned an essay in to Miss Bledworth actually last night about this topic and very nice job on it. I think this is phenomenal that we're looking into it a little bit more because we're in a generation now where when students have questions, they're not going to teachers or health professionals. They're going straight to Tik Tok instead. Mhm. And it's spreading misinformation. So, I'm just so glad that we're doing something about this. And I just uh want to thank, you know, for um many districts try to sherk this responsibility. Um it's it's a very hot
220topic. It's a hot potato. It has torn communities apart. Um, Michael and the teachers, the health teachers did a remarkable job. If um, we shared with you all the materials that the committee went through. You can look on the 40 uh, kind of the modules. You can look by grade, by season, and I think it was really, really helpful. Um, Michael shared all the feedback that the ST or the uh, committee was giving. And I just want to thank Michael for being able to navigate this. I think as you said, we came out better, stronger. You'll have a updated curriculum, and I think we did um we went above and beyond, and I think it's uh going to pay dividends um down the road. So, thank you. All right. Um I'm going to call for
221a recess for five minutes. Yeah. All right. So, we're going to we're going to pause. We'll be back in five minutes. Oh, 9:05. Thanks everyone. All right, we're going to we're going to gavvel back in. We're on item G of info and discussion update on Aera job study. We just cleared a room. Mhm. I'm trying. Come on. All right. As everybody uh is well aware, um we were um supported by our community to invest in our staff in programming and we wanted to make sure that we were able to deliver on that promise over the next uh 5 years. We're heading into a bienium. We won't have all the information with regards to public education funding um prior to the end of the year. And so that'll put some um or suppress some of our
222ability to figure out how we would have a long-term plan with regards to compensation and benefits. That said, I know that the board has been committed to make sure that we are able to um move and signal to our staff about um the increases heading into uh the summer so that they're well aware of uh what their salaries will look like and what that would play out for the fall of 2025. Earlier tonight, you heard from a very specific group about professional development um uh and with regards to their uh PDPs that is separate and is something that we're aiming to act on prior to the end of the fiscal year. Um what have you done since January is that we have been working with a um and they have been able to um provide
223what I would say is uh since January six key areas and they really looked at compensation both policy and practices and we talked a little bit about how they need to be aligned they have to be balanced and over time it's the best fit and so Marty often times would talk about there are things a consultant can come in and talk to you about there decisions that we have made that I've even recommended over the last 10 years that may not always be at the right place at the right time for where we are. And so those are things that we always need to come back to alignment, balance, and goodness of fit. The employee benefits, I'll um go lighter on that tonight given the hour, but what I do want to share is that
224um we met three times with in April. Um all of the work that Shantel and Cara Clatt and I've been doing behind the scenes is um pretty significant with regards to getting data and having us be able to work with the board and identify what is going to be our identified group to benchmark. The benchmark is so that you can continue to look at have you hit your target and the target is to be able to match the middle border and riverfalls with regards to starting salaries for BA and MA. We know that we're behind and so the question is how do we get there? The employee benefits um we know that we're above the overall kind of comparison group. We're adding certain things but we always know that there can be a mismatch. what
225we think may be um something that as employers that employees value that might not always be in alignment. And as you move forward, know that you are one of the only districts that is doing a $2,000 match for a 403b. It may be something that we look at through our surveys. we have agreed and I've run this by Shantel and also Jim is that we are going to look at making sure that we have full attention of our staff do the survey in early August when they're coming back be able to inform and educate like we talked about and then be able to survey again so that it could be lack of knowledge once I know I can do better once I know I might make better decisions recruiting practices um we've already updated some
226of the things and tonight you just approved three position positions. We have very few positions open in the Prescott public schools other than support staff. We're looking for custodians, food service, and bus drivers. Um so we're very healthy and in that regard and then um turnover data. Um so as you know, we started with a purpose. We wanted to be very specific and um we do have these slides available so we can send them to you. If you want to keep taking pictures, you're welcome to. But we also have um the PD the PDF of this and uh Courtney can share that. Um we defined as I mentioned we had three meetings in April and then um we wanted to make sure that um we had those comparisons and we have some of those comparisons
227that we have shared both throughout the board. I've met with every school building. We've met with Tracy and the group of the representatives and I've met with um each of the um admin teams supervisors throughout uh since January. The school board um you understand that there's also some headwinds. So what we don't know other than the 325 is guaranteed is that the new bienium budget will not be in house um prior to the end of this fiscal year. And that doesn't mean and this is not a oneandone. This is something about a process and so you now have a process, you have a roadmap and we'll talk about how that's setting up. Federal funding, uh, we talked about this earlier in the meeting. It is not guaranteed for next year. Um, there's a lot of
228speculation and the bills at the federal level have not come in yet. Um, human resources is committed to providing a 5-year plan and so we you'll see that uh in the road map um at the end. Um, we did ask you to be able to respond back to me and then we set up one-on-one meetings. And the first question was, "How satisfied were you with ARA and the benchmarking process?" You were across the board independently responding. Um, didn't see each other's responses, but 100% were uh satisfied with the process. Um, in summation, just kind of hitting the top parts is that we identified the external benchmarks in March and April. We invested in maintaining these benchmarks and so we uh as you'll see have identified that it is impossible to build Rome or rebuild Rome
229if you will in a day or in a year and so Prescott public schools has been funded at the fourth percentile on uh um per pupil funding. We also uh have been in a situation where um act 10 came in and changed a lot of the structures with regards to how we can use dollars, how it can be um partnered with our staff and yet we have made um in 2018 major changes and now are coming back with some significant changes as well. There are some non-cash rewards and I think that'll fall more to the HR long-term plan and I'll sum that up at the end. Kind of using a very similar grid that we did for um when we were talking about the operating levy is that we have established a structure. Now that
230the structure is in place, the idea is that we'll do a 2x two grid. We will always talk about raises to our licensed staff and then we'll be coming back for support support staff is making sure that there's an annual in% increase and we're going to be tying it to inflation or inflation plus. So it's CPI plus right now for the uh next year schools are locked in for CPI with the bargaining units at 2.95 but we know that we're 5% behind in the BA. I can share that there was a little bit of um new work. We're not quite as far back on the MA as um we initially thought, but it is still more significant than the BA. So, it's somewhere between 5% for BA and about 8% behind on the masters. So,
231we're going to always have a closing the gap. Now, the best thing about this is once you have that structure in place, like we do in education, we want to monitor. We're going to look at whether or not the structure that we put in place across years is having the intended outcome. Are we closing the gap and are we closing it at the rate that is um appropriate? And that's probably the last thing the board's going to have to nail down is we agreed that you can't do it in one year, but the question is is it going to be two? Is it going to be three? And that's probably going to have to wait until the legislature finishes its business in Madison. Um what we did agree is that it is 100% anytime you
232have structures in place and you have many different things changing either state laws, federal laws being capped or not having funding for six or eight years that sometimes there are going to be anomalies that occur in the current structure. Those anomalies uh really break into a couple things and we wanted to kind of point those out. Um first and foremost is that staff when they come to us if they are not new to profession often times have worked in charter schools, parochial schools, other states. They may have or other surrounding districts. They have professional experience. We have had four HR directors in the last 5 to 6 years. Each of them had big city or new or outside of the educational system. And what we know is that there was not a consistent way of
233granting the number of professional years that individuals came into the Prescott public schools. Somewhere between some districts do not allow or count professional experience. They say we start you at X and then you move up within our system. I would never advocate for that. I don't think that's appropriate. Educators or professionals, they come in with years of experience. Some districts will give you 100% of the years that you had elsewhere as long as you have the documentation. Somewhere in between, I think, is where Chantel can come back to you with Jim early in August. And I think it should have a chart that says we give 100% credit for all the years of experience elsewhere or for your first 5 years we give 50%. For 6 through 10 we give 75%. Whatever it is, it
234should be documented. It should be in the handbook and it should be um known. In addition, we have talked about that there are certain positions and this is critically important for everybody to understand. It is not about hazard pay. It's not about I work harder or that I have a tough group of students or that I have a small group of students that behave in a certain way. It's about what are the positions driven by the market that we have fewer staff applying and that we have difficulty filling. So it's market driven not necessarily about I have X Y or Z responsibilities. I work harder than my colleagues. I work harder than the EL. I work harder than English or English. I score 150 papers a night. It's not about trying to figure out who's
235out working. It's really about the exceptions of and right now the board has identified special education, secondary math and science, teched and then talked a little bit about lensure and that is still where we have to kind of finalize. I think those things should be again um something that HR works on over the summer comes back to you in August and would have in um that in step four it would be published it would be in protocols and it would be printed in the employee handbook when staff come back in August we can have those conversations and update them and then obviously every time we implement a plan we want to make sure that we're monitoring it we review it we refine it we come back to the board and as I've talked with Jim
236is that there should be a defined cycle, right? So, how often is the report coming to you? But remember, it's to remain market competitive. And so, markets change and so sometimes people are going into the trades, then they go into um technology or uh coding, then they go to med school, then they go to law school, then they go into education. So, the markets will change and we need to be able to be responsive to it. um whether or not the cycles will change as quickly um uh in education that remains to be seen but I think you start with the plan implement it monitor and update. So really what we're talking about is being consistent and competitive with our salary structure. We also talked about some um uh benefits and kind of uh that
237are nonfinancial. I'm going to brief skip through this, but in special education, we do provide training through CISA 11. Um, we do have uh collaboration Mondays. We do have uh 10 professional development days. There's a lot of things that we put in place to make sure our staff have the stimulation and ongoing curiosity and um continued refinement in their profession. But really what I think most of our staff want to hear about is that transition to salaries for the fall. And so our goal is to be more um uh kind of consistent, uniform, and standardized. So, we did talk a little bit with you and we kind of wanted to know whether or not the information that you had since January had given us the opportunity that you believe we could um make that decision
238and close the gaps of 5 and 10% within a year and you came back uh 100% that you do not believe this is a one-year executable plan. And I think I um believe that that is prudent given there are so many unknowns, but I think you can make a huge step. And so what was good to see is that um we talked a little bit specifically about making sure that it can be done um across time. The primary thing that we're going to be challenged by as a district is the fund balance. This all started back in November of 23 when we went and started to talk about a referendum for operations and operations. You have a policy and the policy is whether or not you can have three to four months of cash cuz
239it's all about cash flow and money doesn't come from the state all at once. It comes across time sometimes even after the fiscal year is closed. So it's important what we've done is looked at it's going to be more accurate early on. The challenge you have as a board is you got to bend that curve. You have to work to figure out how we can with decreased enrollment decrease your expenses. With decreasing enrollment, you're going to be flat in revenue. Even though you got the 1.2 operating, the operating goes on per pupil. fewer kids. It means that the revenue next year is identical to this year. So to some degree, expenses can't keep going up, but you don't have a choice on utilities. You don't have a choice on food. One of the things that
240Mike W and I just looked at is that we cut his budget um nearly 20% or 20,000 for supplies and then he couldn't stay in that budget because we still have four buildings, we still need paper, we still need towels, we still need soap. It was the wrong budget to cut. um we are increasing his budget for next year by 5% based on the costs and the prices. The main point of this is that you made decisions to make sure that we have we've mapped out Cara and I for you is that by the end of this year we should be at $5.5 million as a fund balance. We ended last year with 5.2. So, we need about $300,000 in surplus by the end of this year to get back to where we were. You
241had a pothole last year where we had $600,000 in deficit spending, right? And so, what we're trying to do is look at that across time. What you can see is whether or not I used CPI inflation of 2.5 or 2.0. It's nearly indifferent. It's $100,000. Okay. Mike, you have a question because you you mentioned to get back to where we were in the formulas and are you you're referring to getting back to the policy states what the floor is and the floor is 5.4 93 or 5.5, right? Yeah, I'm rounding 5.5. Yeah. So, not to get back to where we were, but to get back to at least the floor of what our policy states, we need that that amount of money. Correct. Okay. All right. And it's it's all about your bond rating. It's
242about not having to uh borrow uh and use your short-term loan in the fall and winter which then acrus interest and yada yada yada. Right? So that's the point of this. Um obviously by 2027 2028 you'll have more information and made other decisions. Um but the goal here is you want to if you continue on the trend of expenses and we don't bend that then you your fund balance continues to go up. Okay. Um so do you believe that we could um get this information out? We were pretty confident. Um we did have to change a couple meetings because of emergency and time bound issues that popped up late in April. Um that's why we're presenting here now um for the first time and likely we'll need one more work session with you. Um this
243is just a reminder of the starting uh discrepancy between our target groups. Um we're about 2,000 below on BA and um quick 5,000 um on masters. Okay. So this is the 2x two chart that we agreed on. Um this is the methodology that Cara and I have been running. We've run different scenarios for you. Um, basically the first would be that we'd be at CPI plus. Then we'd have whatever else we can put in there would be closing the gap. And the total fall projection is that we're aiming for a 4 to 5% increase on base pay. Now, that will, depending on where we are, will impact the budget by $350,000 to half a million dollars um this year. Um again, we have to go back through and run and put this onto the scale,
244but um that's kind of between what we've been able to do internally and what also matches up with Marty and um Coyle's presentation to you during work sessions. Now, for the staff, what they really care about is that bottom line. What is the total increase going to be on the steps and lanes? We're just using the two charts, the two lines to be able to say, we're always going to hit inflation and then we're going to close the gap, inflation and gap. And that's what we modeled all the way through. Um the challenge I'll share with you is that when we um went to 5% um within uh 2 years you would already be deficit spending unless you make significant cuts. And so the challenge for based on the decreased enrollment and the way that
245expenses currently are um 5% might be a little bit too ambitious. We are talking specifically remember the goal was to get to the first year um of the third bienium. So the legislaturator is meeting right now on funding. For the most part I don't see any additional money coming from Madison. We have the 325. The thing that you have to monitor closely is special education. We cross subsidize. For every dollar that we get in special education funding, it's a dollar back to fund 10. Um, we talked a little bit about the gap between what employees value and what employers value. And so there might be some money that gets shifted there in the future to put on salary. Those are conversations that you can have for the future. Um the main goal is that we
246talked about if your fund balance is sufficient, you could start to tap into it while you're waiting for the second bianium, right? And then the idea is can you get to the third bianium and it really will always come down to this chart is by 2029 we want to be able to we said that we would be okay using fund balance to cover us before the third bianium makes their decisions. Right? And so change at Madison is slow, but I think by the next bianium, you make some cost containments, you consolidate um instructional uh groupings, you become more efficient, you won't need $6 million in 2029. You might only need 5.7 million, right? And that's a 300,000 that gets into salaries. So those are the things that you now have a standard that you're mapping
247to. You have a way of articulating back to the finance, HR, and then the staff with how compensation will work and you're able to then weather the storm um while you wait for additional information to come in. Questions or clarifications? Let's just go around. Tanya, you want to start? Um, questions or comments on anything? Yeah, I mean, just I guess if I was looking at your at the presentation here, I don't know why I don't have it up. Um, yeah, I guess I I don't necessarily have uh a ton of questions. I would be curious to see um I'd have to go back actually to the Lara study and see what percentage do we need to increase in order to get to um where we need to be for our BAS and our MAS and
248all that kind of stuff. Um to see cuz if we're going to offer 2.95% let's say increase what percentage do we need to add each year to get to the right spot. So those are that's kind of the information and and that's that's and let me just kind of clarify because that's where I think this model will be really helpful is that this is why as a board I would recommend that we as a finance department HR come back to you would be that keeping it CPI is going to keep you in the same place. It's not going to change your station. Right? And so we have to at least do that. And it's that X factor that's going to start basically nipping at the heels, right? Right now we know we're 5% behind, right?
249And so or 10% although it's really eight um for MA. So one of the things would be is can you give a um 8% raise next year? Um not with based on the information that you have, right? Um, if better information comes through after the summer, you can always make updated decisions and you've done many different things with stipens or hero pay when we were in CO. So, it it's not without the ability to make adjustments. Um, but I think um, in general, the sooner we can get at least updated scale and a known um, model out there to our staff, I think the better um, confidence they'll have and um, also retain people um, from having any wandering eyes. Yeah. And I and I know our our goal is to do that when before
250the end of the year basically so people know. And I mean that highlighted X. That's really the question we have. And I think we just have to sit down and talk about that to get there. Um I I was happy to see we both or all of us chose that this is a two-year thing. So that's not really a thing that we have to decide and debate on. We know where we know we've got two years. That's important. Um, you talked we talked and I I don't think this is the priority right now, but the different do we pay differently for different license areas or positions, that kind of thing. I I think we really concentrate on this for the time being and then next year really kind of start mapping that out um more
251as we go. I I've said this before, I'm not really a fan of the stipens because I think it's just like this one time shot, but it doesn't really we need to change the base, right? and it doesn't really fix the problem too much. So, um, but that's where I'm at. And I know that that's a that's a close session of conversation when it comes to contracts and stuff, but I um you know, I think the one thing that would help um cuz I know we're looking at a we're looking at a special board meeting, but um and Rick, we talked about kind of like how we did with the fund balance. um if there's any way that uh that you guys can model up some scenarios on these percentages um with our current cost
252structure and revenue structure. Um and then that gives us I mean that gives us some really good data to understand the costs that need to get cut. Um so um when it needs to happen and or influences how how quickly we're able to close the gap. So that would be, you know, and I and I know it's not just as easy as car pushing a button, but I think some of those models, some of those scenarios would be extraordinarily helpful. Yep. No, that's what I was hoping we could see is something with the different different options, what that looks like, how far out we have money, how much we have to maintain in that uh fund balance and where we what our ultimate goal is and and what it looks like getting there. Cuz yeah,
253it without those different scenarios on paper, it's really hard to visualize. I have nothing else to add. It's kind of the same everyone else said. Yeah, I I really think it's important. The communication on on this piece is is super important. It's not a one this is not a one-year deal. This is a multi-year deal. I even go as far as to say it's not just a two-year deal. This is a this is something that we're going to be continuing to try to close the gap. Close the gap. That's however long that takes. And part of it is not just what we do with the dollars that were secured by the referendum, but it's also how do we optimize our operational expenses. Mhm. We talked a lot about benefits on the 30th and looking at
254ways to reduce costs there, you know, and one of the big topics was do we go to a self-funded model? I I those are and and then there's other perks that that we're that we're doing. You mentioned the 403b, the contribution, the match there up to 2,000. I think we we put $200,000 a year towards that. Those are all things that got to be on the table that might be above and beyond what other districts are doing um that could be put towards closing the gap. And I think that's where we're going to be looking at staff to kind of help us um make those decisions or at least give us input to help make those decisions. So, I think just I caution this slide because it looks to me like, oh, we're just going
255to give them another percent and a half. That's not that's not true. This is a multi-year problem we're trying to solve. We can't solve it all at once because it's going to put us in a bad spot if we do. We'll be we'll be deficit spending in 2 years. So, we have to be smart about it and we have to watch the the headwinds. So they use your language, Rick, and and be smart about how we how we try to close that gap, knowing that that's always going to be our one of our top priorities is is to try to close the gap and and and be competitive with our neighboring districts. Anything else, you guys? No. No. Okay. [Applause] Um then a quick one. Oh, do you I mean what about some timing? Um
256well what how do we go about Yeah. What's what's Yeah. So the the next time we meet officially is June 18th. Um I believe that it would be helpful if we could have something early June. Um and a doodle calendar would go out since we had to bump the May date. Um, any other things before we move to the last one? Yeah, I guess that's that's about as early as we can do it. So, I I guess that's that's where we're at. It'll be probably sometime in June. And that would be and that would be in in in hopes for taking some action. Yeah, it could be a work session, take action or definitely act. I mean what I'm worried Yeah. Or you do it at on the 18th. Okay. I'd have liked to have
257gotten it done before the school year was out, but it's just not possible. So, we've poured through a lot of data. We've had a lot of meetings on this and we just want to make the right decisions. We don't want to rush into something without having everything crossed, all the tees crossed. So, okay, I think that we'll move on. Then we're going to item H. This So, I need a quick uh show of hands. Um, you are all invited to the graduation. Who can be there? I think we already answered. Did you already get three? Okay, so we did notify that there is a quorum uh that will be uh we posted because we just wanted to cover our basis. um 7:00 here um at Prescott High School and we can't wait to celebrate the
258class of 2025. All right, we're good. Yep. Moving on. Next item is recognition of visitors. Anybody care to be recognized? All right. We the board's going to consider a motion to convene the close session under exemptions 1985 1D in room 118 at PHS. And I'm just taking a look at the agenda here agenda board here. And the topics for one for 1985 1D are board consideration of PDP proposals, keys to literacy training proposed stipen parameters, lead cook stipen parameters, lead custodial stipen parameters, discuss differential parameters for salary negotiations among admin supervisors. Those are the topics. Can um do we have to go or can we propose to add this on to when the meeting in June only because I I think that this is a discussion. Yeah. I you can um you can do whatever
259you wish. I would suggest that if you I think the first topic which is the one that will take a while. Yeah. But I think it would be helpful to lay out um because it gives you the ability to at least set some parameters of what else you would want so that the next meeting that we have we got to go we got to do some we got to get in and and do some of this hopefully well all of it but I think we should at least hit the topics. Okay. Cuz you can always table decisions in I'm not proposing it cuz You guys go for it. So moved. Okay. All second. So we have a motion second to go into close session. All in favor? I opposed. All right. We will go into
260close session now. What time? And it is 9:40 right now. 9:45.