Prescott School District April Board Meeting

001All right, welcome everyone. This is the Prescott School District Board of Education regular meeting. We have been in close session since 5:45. I'll call this open session to order. Uh subject 1983 Wisconsin statutes. Our next item is to adopt the agenda. Right. Is there any changes on the There are no changes agenda here. No changes. Then we can take a motion to adopt the agenda. A move to adopt the agenda as presented. I'll second. All right. Motion and a second. All in favor? I oppose. That carries. Next item is recogn pledge of allegiance. I'm sorry. You can do this. First I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Next item

002is the recognition of visitors and the rules for this section as well. Please approach the podium one at a time saying your name, municipality, and topic you'd like to address. Allowed time is three minutes per individual. Six if you're representing a group that is present at the meeting. All comments should be directed to the board and not to other staff or 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 air date. And as always, public comment section will be limited to 30 minutes unless board action is taken to extend. Anybody care to be recognized? Protocol. I got I got to go through it. All right, we're going to move on. Next item is good news.

003You're up, Katie. Okay, I got a lot of good news this time. So, the softball team has started playing and they defeated St. Corey Central 18 to8 with Leah French hitting her first home run of the year. The boys baseball team started their season season off strong as they both won their games at the Lake City tournament this recent weekend. The indoor track season has ended as Andrew Russell repeatedly broke the school record for the 55 meter dash and both the boys and girls team performed well. The musical Sweeney Todd had a successful production as it was not only the longest production they have ever performed but also with the biggest set they have ever created. The speech team came home this weekend with 12 gold, six silver, and seven bronze medals at state. The

004R5 is having an open house tonight where they are showcasing the amazing projects and talents of students who will next year be acting as entrepreneurs and extending their tech skills to benefit the community. Spring fling starts next week with dressup days and assembly and the game Paranoia at the Prescott High School. And then what a lot of high school students are looking forward to is prom is next Saturday with Graham March tickets still available for purchasing on Go Fan. That's it. Thank you, K Michael. All right, some good news. Mr. Igo reminded me to remind everyone state testing is coming to an end. Um, so that's some really great news just in time for AP testing in May. So, good luck to our high school scholars who are in those AP classes. Um MPC carnival

005was last Friday that the Malone parent committee um uh uh raises funds on behalf of the K5 our K5 programming is well attended. Just want to thank those families who made donations and then also those that attended and then um bid on the baskets. Um and I'm excited to have one excited kiddo to go fishing with me during lunch and recess. So that's one of the things I donated. And another kiddo was excited to be uh principal for the day with Miss Dussk. I know it's not popularity contest, but it is and she always gets a higher bid than I do. Um, we have a at the intermediate school, we have a few STEM trips coming up. Um, so W River Falls, Carrie Seismore, and the Prescott High School, we do a STEM day for

006grade 4. Um, so half the day is at River Falls, half the day is here at the high school. So we're starting to plan that out. And then always our culminating fifth grade trip is with uh we've been raising brown trout in the classroom in our STEM classroom. So, Trout Unlimited um and then also Pierce County, we work with them and uh we have a full day of outdoor learning. So, looking forward to that. Just want to invite people to the um intermediate and elementary concerts. They are on Tuesday, April 29th is the intermediate starting at 6:00 here in the pack center. And then on May 5th is going to be the elementary concert um starting in the gymnasium. So, uh come out and see the littles uh sing and dance and play instruments. And

007it's a it's a whole production. It's not just a singing concert. So, come on out and support the kids. Thank you, Michael. Um, one of the things uh just wanted to give a quick update and good news is that uh the election occurred on uh April 1st and no fools um we were able to have the two incumbents uh reelected. Um, thank you for everybody that voted and congratulations to Mike Matzik and Vicky Rudolph. Um, in addition, we had uh one of our administrators who was just up here presenting um won one of the most prestigious awards that the state does present to uh leaders within the state and u Michael Kosowski was recognized among 14 other uh principles in the state for outstanding leadership. It was a nomination that came from the staff. There

008was additional uh portfolio that Michael had to put together and some letters. Um and we just wanted to uh congratulate him. Um and the uh benefit of the working with him among the administrative team as well as with uh the intermediate staff, but also Michael serves as our K12 um teaching and learning. and it's been a delight to work with him um over these years and watch him grow, but also I think it's uh speaks highly of the team um the administrators that we have and um the teachers as we uh collaborate um here uh within Prescott. In addition, uh Nicole Lensner, who is the lead for our nutritional services, was awarded a $5,000 grant for a meal distribution uh equipment that will be placed at uh the high school and will facilitate um distribution

009of breakfast um at the high school starting next year. It's a $5,000 grant. Um we're very uh appreciative of her leadership and also trying to improve the program each year. Um, finally, I just wanted to share that yesterday was an immensely uh chaotic, but probably one of the best uh days that I had in the district. I think there's been a lot that has been accomplished over the last um month. And we're hoping to see some of this come to fruition tonight and also on April 30th with the next work session that'll include um an update and review of our benefits. So, with that, I turn it back over to our board president. Thanks. We're going to move on to school business. First item, consent. In consent, we have the March 12th, 2025 regular board

010meeting minutes, March 24th special board meeting minutes, and March 27th special board meeting minutes. We have the finance report personnel report for non-licensed staff. Except accept the receipt receipt of Mike Massik and Vic signed and notorized official oath. Consider early college credit and start college now applications for summer session. Accept the 4K new contract 4K new contact new contract agreements for New Adventures St. Joseph School and Hard Hands and Mine. Accept the renewal lease agreement for with CAB company at and Firehouse Field. And finally, accept Neiola schoolboard technical updates for and changes for policy 168.1 meeting minutes per district administrator's responsibility. And just point of clarification, did you um do the personnel report? I did. Okay. I just wanted to make sure. Yeah. Okay. Anything that the board would like to take out for further

011discussion? um early college now maybe. No, I'm just kidding. Um, but I would say I look at it and I'm super impressed with our students. That's such an awesome program that gives right back to our community. So, my heart just Mike, I I don't want to pull anything. Ricky, I I think you guys know this, but the the revenue expense, the master summary report, just on the on the fiscal year today percentages, there's just the percentages, it looks like there's an error. The dollars look right, but the percentage calculation looks to be Yeah. And I see something messed up. Yeah. And on the reports, I did want to make sure that you understood that it did have um due to the two staff members that are no longer in the finance department, the February report

012and the March report. So, you had both. And then there was an updated revised one for March. Nothing changed other than um making sure that the tax revenue receipts um in fund 10 were booked and those uh got missed, but it didn't change any of the percentages for um spending or expenses. Thanks. All right. Nothing coming out on the consent. I will adopt the consent agenda as presented. Are there any objections? If not, we're going to move on. The consent agenda is adopted. Thank you. And we're going to move on to personnel reports for licensed staff, new hires. You want me to just go right into this one, right? Yeah. I'll let you and you can look up at the screen and you can you can lead. Uh what has it been? three months of

013the search, 19 candidates, six six interviews in the first round and three finalists that spent the day in the district and got a chance to meet and be questioned and interviewed by many different stakeholder groups including the school board's final interview with each of them and we have selected our candidate Jim Ree has graciously accepted the contract that we offered him and he will be starting on June 12 July 1st at then starting the the uh new the new fiscal year for the school district. So, we're really excited about Jim joining us. I think he's going to bring a lot of energy and and a different perspective on on things here in Prescott and I I very excited. I I think the board uh probably agrees with me on that. Does anybody else have anything

014to say about the process or about Jim in general? Tanya, you have anything you want to add? Um, no. I would say Mike and I have had the opportunity to work with him probably the last couple weeks kind of working through contracts and stuff like that. He's been great. He's been responsive. He's been really um open to our suggestions and stuff and it's it's just it's been a pleasure to work with him and we look forward to having him. Yeah. Anybody else have anything to add? So, we look forward to Jim. Jim wanted to be here tonight. he had some obligations from his uh current school district in New Auburn and he couldn't make it down, but he does plan on coming I think to the workshop on the 30th. Yep. And he's going to

015spend a day um in the district on the 30th as well. Yep. And I believe he's he's got some vacation days to burn up and he's going to be using them down here in the district to to work with Rick. So, as part of kind of his transition plan. Um, so yes, uh, very excited about the pick and we look forward to having Jim here in July. So with that said, yep, then we do have one resignation that came in, um, uh, staff member that's been with the Prescott public schools for over 14 years, highly respected middle school science teacher, John Willick, uh, has, um, submitted his resignation affected the end of school year. There are no retirements. All right. Any questions on anything, you guys? No. No. All right. Somebody want to make a

016motion? Do you want do you want to split this out? I mean, do you want do you want to have Jim's motion separately or do you just want to roll it in kind of feel? I I just caught that. I didn't can somebody want to make a motion to accept Jim's contract. Yeah, I don't have mine pulled up right now. I'm trying to grab that that wording if somebody else does. But I agree. I think we should separate them. One for Jim and then one towards our resation. Um, you want to take a shot at the motion? We don't have it in writing anyway. Oh, we don't. So, no. Okay. I just wondering my fault. I probably should have called that earlier. I move to accept the um superintendent contract of Jim Refe starting July

0171st, 2025. I'll second. We have a motion and a second. All in favor? I oppose. I thought it was just me. Tanya and then Pat. Y excellent. Yep. And then we just need to accept the resignation of John Wick or we can approve the personal report for license. I move to approve the personal report for the license staff uh listed above. I'll second. All in favor? I oppose. That carries. All right. Thank you. We're going to move to item C. Consider nomination of board delegate for Ca 11 annual convention. This one could take a while. I move to I'm I nominate Vicki. Vicki, you good with being in the CC still? Anybody else want for sure want in on this? Want to go up and check it out? But no, I'm okay with going. Perfect.

018Excellent. Make a motion. Someone I move to approve Vicky Rudolph as the board's delegate for C1 annual convention. I'll second. All in favor? I I opposed. That carries. Thanks, Vicky. Item D. Consider PHS band trip to Disney World. Where you going, Mr. Piggy? Early college credit. You are all ready. You had everything in front of you. I wish someone would have just seconded that. Just All right. Well, I think I've gotten us down to really just the the title slide and the second slide, but if we need to go beyond that, we can. Um, every four years for I think now this would be boy, I think this is the eighth cycle, um, our band has been going to Orlando, Florida to get coffee delivered by loving daughters. No, that is so nice of you.

019Wow. Um, hi. Excellent. um to go to Disney World. And uh I found out through kind of the music circuit that this isn't just a Prescott thing. Um that Orlando and Disney and playing at Disney and doing the workshop there um and playing at one of their parks is really something that is iconic for most band programs nationwide. Um so this next year would be that next year that we would cycle through. And so, uh, the high school band is looking to get approval for an overnight trip, obviously out of state, uh, for six nights, 7 days down in beautiful and hopefully sunny Orlando going to the Disney parks. Um, it is an educational trip, which I think some people lose sight of when you look at Disney World in Florida. Um, if you haven't

020had an opportunity to to go down or learn about the opportunity that our kids have, they do work um in a pretty intensive three-hour plus workshop with uh Disney composers and musicians in their professional studios. Um, and it is extremely extremely cool to watch. Um, but it's pretty rigorous for the kids working with professional musicians and kind of honing their craft. And then in addition to that, the hope is always that um through our application, we also are selected to be one of the few schools um chosen to perform um at one of the Disney parks or one of the Disney locations. Um so for a couple years now, we've performed at Disney Springs. Um we've marched at Magic Kingdom um and Epcot. And so that's something that we would like to apply for or

021we like to audition for. Um it takes audition video a year out to do that. Um, but you don't get selected until 6 weeks or less before we go. So, we have to commit to going before we actually know that we would get to perform. Um, we did ask to pull this one out of consent because it this is a little bit of a different iteration of the trip than it was the last two cycles. Um, the first six times I think they went they actually didn't travel or the band didn't travel over spring break. They just traveled when it made most financial sense to families. um the last two cycles that has happened to intersect with spring break and so our band has left um the week previous to spring break missed a couple

022days of school and then been gone a majority of the spring break um this next year um because of some things that are happening nationwide with flight prices and and what Disney's doing um the travel dates to go on our spring break are extremely high. um our our tour director who does this specifically for band groups to Disney said we have the best opportunity not only for the lowest price but also the best opportunity to have to audition against fewer bands to get selected for the workshop and performances um if we were to go in February. So we're actually we're actually um applying for two February dates pending your approval tonight. Um and you can kind of see the below that blue line are some of the reasons why we did choose February. um for

023for our students and families. Um that cost of $2,300 would be the highest that it could possibly be if we travel in February, but our tour director believes that could go down as much as $500. If we were to travel over spring break, that $2,300 would be the absolute lowest our price would be, and it could go up $500. So, we're trying to mitigate um students missing some school on both opportunities. They would miss more school here uh traveling in February. Um but we would have more more access for our families to go at that point. The one last thing that Mr. Smith and I have been talking about is um no matter when we go, we do have conflicts with activities that are going on. Um if we go in February, that is um

024potentially postseason for some of our activities. Uh but in past uh practices that we've done with our band trip, we have and um are able to do alternative travel plans for those students if they happen to make it to the the postseason. Um if we were had happen to go over spring break, that's the intersection of the postseason for other activities and the start of spring activities. So we were trying to keep all activities out because we didn't want to appear like we were prioritizing one group over another. Questions? Any questions for Pat? Um just a couple. So, so um it is possible um although the timing helps that that they are not able to perform or attend some of the music um workshops. The workshop we're g well the workshop we know we have

025already um and that is probably in terms of just pure educational experience that's probably the best experience that our kids get. uh we will not know if we get to perform. Um we do have contingency plans. So if we don't get selected to perform at Disney, um we have um kind of standing agreements with like the Hard Rock Cafe that we would perform there and some other venues down there. So we would still get to perform, but Disney's kind of that iconic we want to be on the stage. Yeah. No. Great. And then and then the 2300, how was that how was that per student? How was that uh paid for? That's a good question. And some of the some of the later slides don't necessarily um denote how it's paid for, but what what's

026included. So, it's most meals, it's the parks, it's the travel, it's the hotel experience, which is on Disney property. A majority of that is is a cost that parents or families would have to incur. Um, which is why we're trying to, you know, a year out, a little less than a year out. Um, we do have some fundraising opportunities that Miss Cornish and Mr. Canfield are working on for for students. But those we always want to be clear with families that you can't fund raise yourself to paying for a majority of the trip. That that usually covers um like charter buses to the beach one days or a special meal that the group shares together. It's really not going to eat into that $2,300. And and that's been my record election for years past, right?

027It's been planning planning for a year in advance and taking advantage of some fundraising opportunities. Okay. And it looks like there's five installments kind of over throughout the year. So, it's broken up for families and stuff, too. Correct. Thank you. That was that was it for me. I don't really have any questions. I I know it's exciting. I loved hearing about um it last year and they got to perform last year and stuff. So, it's a exciting opportunity. Um I my one question was the cost difference from year to year and you explained that. So thank you. This Yeah. So and just as a throwback to kind of juxtapose what four years does. Uh the trip cost last time was $1850 per family. So when we saw $2,300 could be the lowest we would pay

028in spring break, we felt like we needed to bring that down by necessary. Yeah. Um, so hopefully if we do go in February, it does come down below $2,000 to get closer to that last trip. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. Um, I have two questions. So, the first one is because it's not during spring break, is there um staff will go with you? So, is is there plans to be able to either modify the day here for people so you can cover it internally or make sure that you have those subs and people can go if they want to? Yeah, I think well on two sides of that because there's a student side and a staff side. So, anytime you take 80 students out of the building, we know we're going to have to modify what

029we're doing here. Um, and we're going to have a year to plan for that which is a great benefit for us. I mean, we have had staff members who go in the past. will work with everyone to make sure that we can cover or be creative in terms of sharing classes to make sure that's an opportunity they get to because it is a you know it's a community field that we want to have going down. Um second question is I see the dates um it's now the 16th the first date is the 30th is that a hard date or can families um just so there's a little leeway for that first payment for families Oh you're you're talking about the installment payments. Um yes yes that was that was kind of the initial we had

030we had asked for a proposal of when they wanted to start metering things out. Um they suggested as soon as possible. Um but we can control that within within reason right they're going to start locking things in. What they really want is just a commitment that people are starting to sign up and committed to paying for the duration of the trip. Sure. Okay. Awesome. Katie, any questions on this? No questions. All right. We'll take a motion. Thanks, Josh. Thank you. Here, um, I move to approve the Pres Prescott High School principal and band director's permission to develop, fundrais, and execute a band trip to Disney World in February 2026. I'll second. We have a motion and a second. All in favor? I opposed. That one carries. Thanks. Next one is item E. consider a first

031reading of a new state required school possible related to early literacy and grade promotion. Yeah. So, I'm going to have uh Michael and Sarah available for any questions that you might have. Um Michael, if you want to walk through kind of the key elements as well. Um but, uh as you know, uh this is the first reading, but we are required to have it by statute adopted before the end of the school year. That's why it's on um and it's up on the screen with the edits. Right. So, this is coming out of 2023 act 20, which is a literacy uh legislative act. Um it's gone through a few renditions. Originally, it was um any student who is not seen as proficient in reading in third grade had to be held back in third grade.

032They have loosened that up to districts can have a promotion policy and then there has to be key parts of that promotion policy. So right now we already have students um on reading plans. Part of the policy is if a kid is not proficient on the on the Wisconsin forward exam in reading specifically um we would have to have a promotion policy where they would have to stay on a reading plan as they went into fourth grade. Part of it is we'd have to have uh a school-based learning team that would help make this decision based on on the student. Um the parents would be involved in the plan as well. Um you can see there's a few crossoffs. We felt that those were redundant of things that we would consider. Again, this really is

033based all around their reading and reading skills. So looking at their data obviously is something we're going to look at. Um the other things we also look at is the potential long-term adverse risks of retention. Um because there's been a lot of studies that show that um retaining a student isn't necessarily a positive thing. So, we really want to consider is is that the best and in some cases it may be the best. Um, and then there are some exceptions under the policy and under the legislation like if the student already is uh identified special education and gets uh specialized um instruction in reading, they would be exempt from having to go through this meeting with this policy. So, this really is talking about general education students or special education students that do not have

034a reading goal as part of their IEP. um would go would would be put through this promotion policy. Um and really the promotion policy um in the end it just gives us more latitude to be able to move students on, but making sure that districts are still serving those students. And we've we already do a lot of this um already. We already have kids on plans. We do make those have those transition meetings when when we're handing them off from the elementary to the intermediate. We have Stacy Helders at the intermediate school as our interventionist. So these are all things that we already currently do. Um it's just in the legislation we have to have this as a policy. One of the leeways they do allow in the policy is that we have to provide

035for remedial summer reading. We've already done that. We've done that for years. We um communicate with parents. We already have for this next summer of who we're recommending and we kind of have a a matrix of um what are sort of our criteria. So some districts don't have that in place. We already do. Um so we have to allow that. The other part is that this policy though by the end of June it has to be on the books. It doesn't have to take effect until September of 2027. So the recommendation from me and principal Duss is that we would have this take effect in 2027. And part of the reason why that's the recommendation is this next year we'll be doing our professional development of round um structured literacy. Um this is our first

036time we've just been through um personal reading plans one time. We haven't even made it a full calendar year round of what would that plan look like. part of those plans. There are certain criteria at different grade levels of how do you um exit a plan and part of that exit in third grade is again being proficient on the Wisconsin forward exam. Typically, we get those results in July. DPI is telling us we will get them in May yet. Um yet to be seen. So part of it is the recommendation of why in 2027 if we're already doing it is things change. Um will the legislation has already changed around this. Will it change again as districts start to implement and say this may be a barrier or some unforeseen um you know domino that

037that the legislation didn't see and are they going to tweak it again? So that's the reason why we're recommending let's wait till the 20 2027. Again, we already do everything that's in this policy already. We're already meeting with families and communicating reading goals and where um opportunities for them um both in school and out of school and how can they get uh you know what can they work with their kids at home. So again, we feel like we're doing this already, but again, putting it off would give us just that little bit more PRP work that we're doing. And then also that professional development. Chinese, do you have any questions here? Um, well, I want to be honest and I could not um access this policy. Mike, I see you have it up. I'm jealous

038of that, but I don't have I can't see it. So um I didn't read it ahead of time. I did look at our policy 5410 which is in comparison to this one. Um is there is there any contradictions or do they align pretty well together? They align pretty well together. So that one is the fourth grade and eighth grade promotion policy. Um this one is third this one is specific just to literacy. So everything in here is about literacy. Yeah. Um yeah. So they're not necessarily they they they are not congruent to each other. Um Okay, perfect. That was my only question. So, I know this is the first reading, so I'll have to try to figure out how to get it. Yeah. Thank you. There's a login. Okay. No, I mean I read along

039tried to follow best I could say Miss Tanya wasn't able to read it um beforehand, but I understand. Okay. No. And I I we had discussed this last fall, I think, or last summer when we were talked about reading and and you had stated then that we already do that. We're already doing that. It's just now it's going to have to be in a policy and everybody's going to have to do it. Uniform across the Yeah. So, that's great that you guys have been ahead of the curve. So, that's good. Um, I read through the policy. It looks good. I I think it's smart to wait till the 2027 and I have so many questions for the state, but not you. Um, so yeah, looks good. All right, Katie. Anything on this one? No comments.

040All right. Thanks, Michael. I think we're good. Uh, we need a motion here for the first reading. I move to accept the first reading of Neiola School Board policy 5411. Um, that's good. Second. Second. Helen seconded. Second. Sorry. Second. All right. We have a motion in a second. All in favor? I post. Ellen carries. Thank you. We're going to move on. Consider approval of the administrative and finance coordinator's recommendation to add technology transportation and the performing arts center bus garage and capital investments for our grounds as 202425 school year and future long-term plan. We eligible for fund 46. Yes. So, as you know, um we opened up fund 46 as soon as we were eligible. Um we were able to tap into it uh fall of 2023 for the first time. Um, as you know,

041Mike Qua uses this on an annual basis um to give you an update with regards to capital investments within our facilities. You can see those. Um, he's gone to um give you installation dates and also lifespan of each of the uh pieces of equipment and what the estimate cost is at this time. Then we're going to be adding information about um adding um inflation and giving you kind of projected costs when these um things come to um end of life cycle and needing to be replaced so we can manage our budgets well. Um middle school you can see has been um the projects are on there the elementary and intermediate um the high school. Then what we started to talk about is that we know that there are big uh ticket items that at some

042point fund 46 is really a safety net. It's when your fiscal year within year budgets can't handle or plan for a cycle. So for computers we know that we're doing computers every year. It's so that the budget is just being uh used at different buildings. However, there are going to be times where a server or a switch or something large goes out and we need to address it. So, um we did give this out to um Matt Smith and the coaches um Adam uh R and Mike Qua and we kind of identified um big capital improvements that might be occurring at Bornerfield, Fireh Hall Field, First National Bank and the track. Um we did internal what are the types of things within our gyms or as you know we have a new middle school facility

043um in planning for kind of the um conversion of multiple grades. Then we have the performing arts center if you think about the lights, the soundboards, uh the music room uh or uh control room, the bus garage. um beyond just the buses, we also have um furnaces and lights and and we wanted to make sure that we were covering that. And then with the bus fleet, you know that we have and we'll be having a presentation later after this is that we have a fleet of 19 buses. They cost about $143,000 in today's um uh dollar and we tend to replace one every year. We did take a gap year this year and that was because of financial situations. By having and adding these to your fund 46 does not mean that it gets spent

044and automatically comes out of fund 46. It still requires board approval. It just means that it's eligible for that use. And our recommendation would be that you look at fund 46 uh three times a year. we would come back or uh with my uh s uh with Jim Reef joining you, you could start to talk about of the money that you have, what percent would you keep in CDs that are fixed and lad those? Um how much money would you keep in a high yield savings account? How much do you want to invest per year and how much uh would you be able to take out on an annual basis? Those are really nice policy things to kind of put together. Tonight, all we're asking is that in order for our auditors uh to document,

045you have to have a resolution that um approves that you're adding on the tabs that we just mentioned, the technology, transportation, performing arts, bus, garage, and our grounds so that it's um in uh the audit and then when you uh balance that in the future or are to make charges against it, you have that um you're in good stand. So, any questions? No, sense. Ricky, no. No questions. Um, I I do have a question just about so we have the athletics and the performing arts. Um, where does things like band and band equipment, is that falling more under like the school building one because there's a tab for that or does that will that fall under the PE pack? Yeah. So, it it uh right now we do have a fund um for um instrument

046repair. Um we do have some remember we talked about the different budgets for assigned dollars. And what we typically have been doing is assigning dollars when um the middle school and high school secondary teachers don't use all of their budget. It gets assigned for future purchases. So, we ran into where a tuba costs anywhere from 10 to 15,000. um many of the instruments last 20 years and so it is kind of a huge bubble. So right now the instruments um we have not put it into fund 46 it could be a consideration. Um if you want to make a fair friendly amendment you can add it. Yeah I just feel like cuz I know that they are budget big budget items I think they might fall under the performing arts maybe or something like that.

047Um I think it would be better to have it as its own because performing arts that's structured. Yeah. Yeah. So, if you want to add that as a friendly amendment, I would like to add that as a friendly amendment. Do I have to like more formally do that? Before we do that, is I mean, are we 100% sure that it it's legal and it falls within the fund? Yeah, it just has to be capital investments and so it has to last more than 5 years and cost more than 5,000. So, it does fit the criteria. And again, it's just kind of like emergency. Like we'd still kind of budget, but if something came up, I just know some of those are big cost items and stuff. Okay. Yeah, we can add it to the motion.

048So, this would be what would what would what would be the correct wording? Band equipment or uh music like I would say music instruments. Music instruments. Does that work for you? Kyle, Pat, do you have anything to add? No, I I understand and and uh the reason why we're doing it, I would maybe sidebar here. I would love to see and I know that uh Mike's been so busy getting done with uh um with the work that's been going on. I'd love to see some some progress on the spreadsheet as it relates to identified dates in the future and plan dollars, though. Um, so that'd be that'd be really good. Um, I see some of the recently added tabs um, like I believe the bus fleet transportation and the technology um, has starting to get

049built out with estimate today's dollars future cost target replacement cycle year. It'd be great to see some momentum with all the other the other tabs. Um, other other than that, no no additional questions. Yeah, the roof under the roofs there's he's got information for scheduled replacement for the roofs for all the buildings also that's in there. Yeah. Okay. But and let me that is um and I know we've talked about this before um but let's use the technology one just to kind of for standardize is what we're kind of talking about is that whether or not it's cameras, controllers, HVAC, it's when is something a capital project installed, what's the life expectancy, when do we see the target of when it would be replaced? We would look at today's dollars versus future. Um, does that

050look like a good template if we kind of standardize that format across the tabs? Yes. Yeah. Okay. All right. So, I'll work with them and I think it's definitely something that can be um my guess is it's more a summer project, but um we'll build that out as the headers for each of these and uh um have it something for Jim and the board to look at in August. Cool. All right. Yeah, good good suggestions. Anything else? Otherwise, we can take a motion. I move to approve the administrative and finance coordinator's recommendations to add technology, transportation, performing arts center, bus garage, music instruments, and capital investments in our grounds to fund 46 as of the 2425 school year and our future long-term planning guide. I'll second. All right, we have a motion and a second.

051All in favor? I opposed. That one carries. Next. And just a quick inside note. So, if you can make sure that you clip that in the minutes, send it to Cariff. We'll be good with the CLA auditors. Thank you. All right. Next item. Consider the purchase of a new bus to add to the PSSE transportation fleet. You have five-year lease. And I'm gonna ask uh Rick Montreal to come forward. As you know, Rick Montreal um serves up here at the high school, but he also has taken on additional responsibilities many of the administrative did uh have to do as we kind of reduce some of our uh staffing. He oversees the transportation and um provides insight and guidance with Heather and he is coming before you tonight to talk about we had a gap year

052um and they've come up with a um I think a wise plan in order to make sure that we keep uh safety and reliability of our fleet viable and he's going to walk you through some of the slides uh tonight. I'll get there in a second there. Hang in there, Rick. But you can start. Yeah. So last month we basically talked about kind of the the status of our fleet, the number of buses, how the buses were being used, the number of buses that were kind of on backup. We walked through that. Um and kind of as we were looking at it and took the gap year of purchasing a new bus, um Heather and myself felt like the addition of a new bus now moving forward for next year would be really critical. Um

053the question that Dr. Spakuza and I were trying to work through was how are we going to purchase that when a bus as you heard earlier ranges from 130 to $140,000. Um we started to entertain a lease option which would spread out that cost over a 5mon period and make that what we felt would be more manageable. Um, so as we talked about that and then the last slide that would be added to the slide deck would be what that exactly looks like to lease a new bus on this year's calendar on this year's budget before June 30th. And so the key points are up there. Um, the bus that Heather and uh the bus garage really prefer is a Thomas bus. The current cost of that is $131,384. Uh when I talked to the

054bank that would be our lease partner um originally um about a month ago or so we had a 4.6 rate and now that's dropped to 4.26 for whatever reason. Call us lucky. Um but it did knock off a significant chunk of change. um the interest over the five years still amounts to 11,7001 but I think that bottom line uh number is that each loan payment due in June would be 28,617 and that first payment would happen this year in 2025 and the last payment then in 2029. Um, adding up the numbers from the loan amount to the interest, we're at 14385. Um, and in talking to both the bank and the bus company, Nelson's, uh, they're all ready to go. So, in terms of like when we would get the bus, we could have it

055as soon as 2 weeks from now, as long as the bus Nelson's and the bank merge and I've already they're they're ready to go. So, I guess we're we're coming to you with that information and um any questions about what was just presented free to try to answer. Helen, do you have any questions here? No, I don't actually. Vicki, no. It's the leasing being able to absorb those payments I think is much easier than outlining the the cost of a full bus. So, I like that you guys continue to look at this and figure it out for us. And yeah, it's it's nice to see that we have options, which is good for something that cost so much. So, uh yeah, really no questions. We talked about it. I uh I remember we we talked

056about do we just outright buy a bus or if we're going to go to leasing. Um and it looks like the recommendation really is to go towards that leasing. And so, uh, makes sense to me. It's great. I know we were also considering selling, I believe, one to two buses. And so, um, yeah, we just sold a bus yesterday, actually. Um, it doesn't exactly put a dent in that number. I know, cuz I I was surprised at how low. How much did we sell it for, dude? Uh, a whopping $3,50. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and if this goes through, we would be looking at another one as well. Yeah. Perfect. So, yep. It looks great to me. Um yeah, thank you. Yeah, Rick, uh this is a lease, but this is the intent is a lease

057to own program, right? Okay, that's part Okay. And then not um I unfortunately missed your presentation last month. Um, but uh the type of bus is it in line with, you know, I know Tim used to talk about, you know, we need to be able to wrench on things and fix things and and so is it in line with the other stuff that we have and are we able to service and maintain the bus that we're Yeah, it is. I think Tim was actually involved with this um because he's over there quite a bit. Um I I couldn't speak to it, I guess. Um hanging out at the restaurant. Um, but with Heather being the former driver in her position now, um, I felt really comfortable with the the Thomas bus, they wanted a flat

058nose, we couldn't get that. There was a lot of discussion going back and forth. They are getting the bus that they want as far as like Heather being in charge over there and then Aaron the mechanic working on stuff. This is exactly what they asked for. Okay. Thank you. Good. All right. No other questions, Mike? Yeah. I mean, the math makes sense, especially with the price hike on just buying. I think that that was always 131. That that price jumped pretty he hefty here in North I thought a couple years ago if I remember Tim was about 109 maybe. But I mean you could you could run four leases at one time you know over the 5year period and still be cheaper than buying a bus. Yeah. And we we talked about that and maybe

059that's getting out there too far but um there's some ideas with how we handle it. Right. Right. So that's Yeah. I mean, this this is this makes way more sense at this point. So, I think good job on on doing the m doing the homework. Anybody else have anything before we take a motion? No. Yeah. All right, let's do it. I move to approve the purchase or hang on. I move to approve the lease of a new bus uh to add to the Prescott School District transportation fleet via 5-year lease. There you go. Beginning as soon as possible. at an I can't see the words now you guys. An annual principal an interest payment of $143,85. I know I Somebody put uh put some words over over the motion. So, I apologize for that. Mike,

060you want me to repeat it? Go ahead. All right. I move to approve the lease of a new bus to add to the Prescott School District transportation fleet via a 5-year lease beginning as soon as possible and an annual principal and interest payment of $143,085. I'll second. I'm going to just nitpick this because it's not because of Well, can you change the word lease just to lease? Yeah. Which has changed on here now? I mean, is it clear that we're purchasing the bus? Well, how about uh But lease to own. The way the way that you phrased it, lease to own. I got another nitpick on here, too. Um, we say at an annual principle and interest payment of 143. That that would not be correct. Correct. Correct. How about total principal and interest payment?

061Yes. Total principle instead of annual. Yep. So now third time's a charm. Let's do it. Motion. All right, let me give it a shot now. I move to approve the lease to own of a new bus to add to the Prescott School District transportation fleet via a 5-year lease beginning as soon as possible at a total principal and interest payment of $143,000 $143,085. I'll second. All right, we do have a motion in a second. Any questions? All in favor? I oppos that. Rick, you get to stay because now you now that you got the bus in hand. What do you got to do? Yeah, it we got to sell a bus. It's you. Um you transportation. I thought we did we did just get rid of a bus. So is there there's a second part.

062So I I talked today with Heather. Um right now we're trying to kind of offload the bus we just sold. um she knows and we we know what bus will be next on the auction block. So all we have to do I guess is go through the same process which we've done now a couple of times and go ahead and list that bus if whenever we're ready. I I I would say we need to get rid of the first one. It's like only a week window but once that week expires if you're okay with that we would just put the next one on. Yep. All right. Anybody want to make a motion here? I move to approve removing a second bus from the transportation fleet and using the required auction site for the disposal of

063public property. Mike, I got a question. Do we need to we So, we said that we're we're approving removing a second bus. Do we need to approve the first one? No, the first one had already been approved. Already been approved. Y All right. Thanks. Then I second. Good question. Good question. Pat did second it. Motion in a second. All in favor? I I oppose. That carries. Thanks, Rick. We're going to move on. Item I is consider standardizing a referral program incentives for support staff and including career professional aids. Professionals aids. Yeah. So, uh, one of the things that, um, Chantel has been working really hard on is trying to standardize and make more things uniform within the HR department. Um, in working with a LER group, um, coming out of the recommendations after they part

064of the job study is also about retention, but also recruiting. And so one of the things that we have but not well communicated and not well known outside of some of the groups is that for our support staff, we do have um a referral bonus. And so what we did is looked at the amount of money that we were providing as a re uh uh a bonus and we noticed that it wasn't the same across the different support groups and the longevity of how long a new hire uh had to be with the district varied. So Chantel, Marty and Alicia Schwarz with a came up with a standardized um option. Um currently we do provide this um referral bonus for all four of the groups. Although when I shared with our administrative team um and

065some of the staff, they weren't aware that it does apply to 100% of Prescott staff. So if a um custodian finds a bus driver or a superintendent, they can't get it. Um but if if a um custodian finds uh a teacher, all of that is uh uh fair game. So what we're trying to look at right now is we tend to recruit from our community. We tend to have a better uh network when we include all our staff in recruiting. And so this was to standardize that um it would be a total of $500 maximum. First part would be it's not just that you refer, it's that their referral ultimately gets hired for the job, stays on at least eight weeks, and then if they're on for another 16 weeks, there would be an additional

066payment of $200. And then a third period of 8 weeks is 24. 24 weeks is about a year round for uh school district. And the maximum amount of money that the person who is the referer would receive is $500. Um over the last 3 years, this has been executed about six times. Um earlier this evening, you just accepted the retirement of two of our bus drivers and bus drivers are very difficult to locate and uh we are currently hiring one custodian. So this is the right time I think to one make it public know that any employee uh can help uh recruit somebody or refer and that the bonus is eligible for anyone. So this would be standardized across the four groups if approved. I would be um working with Andrea and Chantel to get

067it out um on our uh email system to uh the staff and then I'd be meeting with each of the supervisors. any you have any questions or comments here? Um I I do actually. So we talked about this a little bit at our work session. Um I believe that was last week and so great. I I didn't realize the differences amongst them all. This makes total sense. I'm happy that we're going to standardize it and and honestly it it adds to kind of the longevity that we're looking for with our with our staff. Um, one of my questions was, um, you mentioned that this is something that anybody within the district can refer. So, um, we have this for support staff and that's because those are hard to fill positions. So, like a teacher might

068refer someone to be, um, a bus driver now that we're hiring that and they the teacher would still get that. Okay, that is correct. And then do we currently have this in place for any hard to fill um like lensure areas within our license staff or anything like this? Uh not at this time. Um and I think that's what uh we would be coming back to you later tonight in the presentation that recaps the work session from April 9th, but then when Alicia Schwarz is with us on the 30th of looking at what are additional benefits that we want to look at. Okay, great. Um, that that really was my only question. All right, Pat. Uh, is this Rick? Is is this something we're going to add to the handbook or what what happens with

069this uh policy? There's nothing. Well, it's not a policy. It's more just a uh administrative practice. Um, it would we would first give it to every administrator. I'll um have it circulated out among the email, but it would be a great thing to have added to the handbook. Um, I guess one of the reasons I ask is and and you brought it up too that the superintendent isn't eligible, but I would assume that anybody responsible for the recruiting and hiring of staff is not eligible for the referral program, right? And there are some, but it doesn't really say that here. Yeah. So, there's some business rules. remember Marty during the presentation I do. Um we did uh put in here that there would be um nepotism um guidelines as well as um it does not

070include substitute teachers. Um part of this is that if approved Chantel would um kind of put in writing what the business administrative business rules are and bring that out to each site. All right. But I do like I don't think we considered so I will um I do think it would be wise to get it into the handbook cuz then you would it'd be a one source place where it could be seen. Okay. Thank you Vicky. Any questions comments? No where I was headed with it Pat was where is this going to be at so everyone has access and yep the handbook is the best place to have this information. All right. Looks good. Take a motion. I move to approve standardizing our referral program incentives for support staff and including pair professionals and aids.

071Second. Second. Who got the second? Let's go Vicki. I go whatever. Whoever wants to second we have a motion to all in favor. Really good. I I opposed that carries. Last item I believe is item J and that is consider acceptance of health partners July 1st 201 rates for healthcare and dental premium. Well, remember I said in my uh kickoff that it was an exciting day yesterday. There was been a lot of work over the last uh six weeks to kind of bring some of this to fruition. Um Shantel wasn't able to be here tonight, but I wanted to just thank her. Um Sean Fitzgerald, who is our broker and obviously working with a just kind of um setting this up. Um we received excellent news with regards to our rates, um with regards to

072the renewal. Um they are up on the screen. I'll increase it so everybody can see. But it is rare in today's world that you would see a decrease in health insurance. For the second consecutive year, Prescott Public Schools is receiving a discount in its premiums both for individual and family. Uh we're seeing a decrease of 2.5%. Um that means that our premiums are going down for individuals from $911 to $888 for individuals and just over $2,000 down to 2015. Um dental is a little bit different but a very nominal increase. Um you'll see that our premiums were under $60 this year. They'll go for individuals up to 60 and then family it's 160 and it'll move to 165. What is the impact? That means that there will be cash back in our staff. These rates

073go go into effect as of July 1st. Um you'll see that for the district it's a savings on health care of about $56,000. I do preface that with an asterk because you don't know whether or not people will move from individuals to family as people come in somebody might not have had insurance but in general it mitigates the increase. We had a cap of 12%. So health partners even though we had caps which protects us from a huge increase um has come in based on usage. A lot of it has to do with some very difficult decisions the board made earlier and we're starting to see the payoff. The other thing I would like to share is that uh two new benefits are being added. Um Health Partners is adding uh and don't quote me

074on the exact name um but think of it as a my health point card. It'll be a reward card for employees that have health insurance. And as long as they are participating in some healthy choices, documented healthy choices, classes or behavior, they will receive dollar amounts. It'll go on this debit card. The maximum aotment is 275 per year and it is not required to be used on healthcare. So that 275 can be used in any way, shape or form. Um, in addition, Chantel is really happy to announce and we'll be talking about this about all of our benefits on April 30th in a work session, but she's been working with Lincoln Financial Insurance. Um, for individuals, more than 50% of the population, uh, do wear some type of glasses, sometimes bif focals down there or

075contacts. um that there will be insurance that will cover uh or give allowances and discounts on uh staff who are eligible for contacts, frames, and lenses. This will be at no additional cost for our employees. Um I don't think we could have expected um given um some of the trends out there uh such positive news and it's about time that uh Prescott got some uh financial positive news and really happy with um the outcome here. So, um, overall the increase for an individual will be a $1.44 over the fiscal year and for family it would be $3 for the year. Um, plus the savings that they'll have on healthcare. This also covers um any of the individuals who some of our retired teachers who were on the health plan, they also will see that decrease.

076Vicki, you have any questions on this one? Comments? Um, I don't have I guess really questions about this one. This is I guess the best comment I have is like, yay, it's it's gone down again, which is Yeah, which is amazing. Um, I think that's super helpful. Um, give us a little bit of relief this year. So, yeah, I think anything that we can piece is good, right, Tanya? Um well obviously it's really great news. Last year was about 5%. This year it's a negative 2.52% which is really really great. Well um you know we talked about a cost savings of about 56,000 but really on the flip side we were anticipating up to a 12% increase. So it's really like a $150,000 swing there. So it's really great news for us. And I want

077to just add that um the reason why our rates went down and correct me if I'm wrong, but um if I recall was because of our staff and some of the choices they've made kind of healthy, it's just us being healthy as a staff and not having to use as much insurance, right? So then when that smart uses of it, smart uses of it. So when that goes down, all of us really benefit from it. So, that's one of the reasons why I'm extra excited about the $275 Mycard plan cuz it's just really educating and giving opportunities to practice healthy lifestyles which help all of us um and and go towards those lower rates in the long run. So, it's a win-win, I think, all around. Yeah, Pat, no questions. Great news. Yeah, great news.

078Thanks, Rick. Well, I can entertain a motion here. I move to approve Health Partners July 1, 2025 renewal rates for healthcare and dental and dental premiums for 20 2526. I'll second. All right, we have a motion and a second. All in favor? I opposed. That carries. That was good news. Information, discussion, teaching and learning update. You only need one person. Mhm. There could be only one advisory committee. All right. Two uh updates for tonight. I know I was gone last uh month at the board meeting, but human growth and development committee um advisory committee. We met on Tuesday, March 11th. Um we have another meeting scheduled coming up here. Um we have 19 people that are part of that committee and we had 16 of them at that uh initial meeting. So it was a

079great turnout. Um fortunately not everyone could attend but that's is the life of balancing um many schedules as we have found out trying to schedule our next meeting. Um if you go to the next slide Rick um just as our full committee again um some staff that we had there Amy Crosser district nurse was there um our teachers Mr. Hansen, Miss Poff and Mr. Schwick were there as well. Um and Mr. Figgy was there representing the admin team. Um we did some activities together um in a BTC type of way where we paired up in random groups and we looked at some district policy and state statute. Um and we reviewed sort of the the purpose of the committee and and what what their role is. Um and Rick if you go forward. So one

080of one of the things that we use from teamworks a lot is this graphic on the right of you know we want stakeholder voice and input and that's really what this advisory is for. Um and then giving that input to our options team which is our Prescott school district teachers and how do they develop the curriculum along in conjunction with our school nurse. Um and then ultimately the choice makers being the board. So we talked about um state statute and how the board has choices of do we teach human growth and development or do we not and the our board has voted that we will teach human growth and development. Well then there are certain requirements that come along with that topics that must be taught. Um so we really spend a lot of time

081reviewing that um of what topics must be taught. Um but the flexibility comes in when do we teach them, how do we teach them um and those things and and that's where our our teachers have developed that curriculum. So really was introducing the group to that. Um and then this next meeting will be really diving into that curriculum. So now they've had about a month little maybe a little bit more to look through the curriculum. So all the curriculum was provided all the slide decks. Um we do have outside organizations that come in and talk to our students including Pierce County Health. So all of their uh activities and things were shared with this group. So now they are shuffling through. Um we have a shared Google doc where they can enter questions. So that

082way when we get back together it's a more meaningful conversations our teachers can be prepared to talk about or maybe even bring some activities and have them do some of the activities that we do with our students. Um couple of the takeaways that we had from that night was that um you know the state statute really identifies the topics that we must cover and how they are covered to some extent. Also the advisory committee is really here to provide their feedback of how can we um change our curriculum areas that they feel would help them as parents and then also resources. So, one of the one of the big things that came out of that conversation was um we talked about some of the tenants, some of the things that we believe is that teachers

083are the primary educators when it when it comes to human growth and development. We'll we'll do our part, but um parents need to also. So, what the parents had expressed was it'd be really nice to have besides for the letter that comes home and says you could opt your kid out, but then also here are some resources to help you as a parent to have what sometimes can be a very difficult conversation um with your own children. So, I think that was a big positive that came out of that. Um, and then we our next meeting is scheduled for Monday, April 28th. Again, we're going to review those curriculum questions that we've had coming in. We're going to do again some small group activities to try to gather their opinions of ways that we can

084strengthen the curriculum. Um, and then also, are there other areas that maybe we don't delve into that they feel would be appropriate for us to add add into the curriculum that they see as parents? So, most of the people on the committee again are parents. We do have a few clergy on there um a few just uh community members but a lot of them I'd say nearly half of them have experience in the medical field so it was a really high level conversation and then also with some of them working in different departments um around is they also are a great resource for us and our teachers were making those connections with them of how can we have them either come into the classroom or resources that they provide that we can be using. So

085it was it was a great first meeting. Um the goal is we're going to have the second meeting. After that we're going to or part of that is make sure that they understand the curriculum and then gather some of their input. Uh probably have a third meeting to one of the things talk about is how do we take all that and then kind of decant it for the board. We'll probably use some AI to help us do that which we commonly do. So you'll get the full set on the back side but then sort of what are the high points the AI pulls out as well. And um I'm not sure if that'll be at the at the May board meeting or the June, but um shortly we'll have that that for you. It depends

086on how does our next meeting go and how much more work time do we need together. So that's human growth and development. Do you guys have any questions for Michael on this one? No. No. Don't hear no. Okay. All right. Thanks, Michael. Next one. All right. And then our next one really is more act 20. and um along with act 20 is structured literacy and our move towards structured literacy. So sort of by the numbers here. So we have act 20 training. Again act 20 we have about 13 different choices for that. We've kind of narrowed that down to one or two different modules that we'll be using. And then we also have this um reading guru group led by uh Sarah Dusk that will be helping to facilitate that professional development. We figure that's

087going to be about 40 hours of our life next year is going to be um on structured literacy. We also need to look at um a resource adoption and it it's more than just let's get some resources and let's pilot and see how we like them. Um it's really going back to that what are our priority standards. The standards were updated in 2020. So let's go back and rep prioritize them, unpack them, repack them. do thinking classrooms, wrapping that all together before you start to select. Um that process we predict based on how long it took us with math the last time we did a big overhaul is probably going to be around 60 hours of work. So we have about 100 hours of work around literacy. Um that's looking at us current professional development

088days um all that time is about 48 hours of professional development. So that's less than half of of what we need. We also have some mandated training every year. We have some planning time. We want to give our staff planning time in their PLC's. Um but also individual planning time on those days. We can look at collaboration Mondays. If we look at one Monday a month, we already use one for uh building thinking classrooms and we can pair some of the structured literacy work with the thinking work that we're doing. That gets us about 13 hours. We already have K5 teachers. um they have a common prep which is great because then they can collaborate and they can PLC and that's just part of the fra fabric of what we do. Um so we already

089do that two days a week at minimum on the PLC. Sometimes it's more than that. So we could look at do we add a third day where again they wouldn't get that individual time in their classroom to plan and prep. It's more of this that would give us some more time as well. But even if you add that all together, we're still going to be short. And that's really on top of everything else that we do. Um, so you can go on, Rick. The uh the first thing the just the training requirements. So again, this is a mandate by DPI. DPI originally had money in um or legislation had money for this $50 million. However, that got held up in court and um it sounds like it will never find its way to our school

090districts, but the mandates are still there. So, starting by July 1st, we will kick off with our 5K through grade three teachers. And really, we talked as a district of 5K or excuse me, 5K through fifth grade teachers. adding those nine extra teachers to that professional development might look slightly different at the two buildings um because it is required K5 three um K5 through grade three for their lensure to have a certification. We don't necessarily need that at grades four and five. However, we know a lot of our our special education students and our teachers at grades four and five, they are working with students that have reading abilities that are much lower than grades four and five. So, we want to have them fully trained as well. However, um having Mr. Matic in fifth

091grade work on phonics with fifth graders, we're probably past those modules. So, there's some modules that we'll kind of gloss over for our four or five instructors, but then there's a bulk of them that um they will follow through the same training as the elementary building as well. So, we've got that required mandate of training. If you go to the next slide, Rick, we have Can I can I ask a question on this one before you slide? It says that it needs to start and finish on the same. Is that July 1, 2026 or am I reading? No, it's just we have to start by July 1 of 2025. You know, we could use a 2-year model for doing our professional development if we wanted. There's no end date on it. It's just we have

092to start the training by then. Okay. So, they didn't give us an end date. No. Okay. Yep. So, we're kind of imposing on ourselves one year because we really want we've waited on adopting a curriculum resource to get this training because none of our teachers have gone through a training program around structured literacy. It's always been around balanced literacy. So, as the pendulum shifts now, um we are we're waiting for that and being intentional. And it uh I don't want to interrupt you, but I I also just wanted to share for the board is that this has been really complex um and delayed uh legislation that's trying to be implemented. Um I wanted to thank the work that Michael and Sarah have done. Um we had an afterchool meeting. Um we met twice with the

093admin K12 to talk about many different options around professional development. As Michael shared with you, the amount of hours is double what we even provide within the school year. And so we thought about even changing and coming to you about changing the calendar. What I do want to share is that was up there and they have um by working together principal teaching and learning and the teachers being able to sit there and have them come to the realization that they're working on math adoption and reading. And there is no district that tends to do that in the same time concurrently. And so what was great was for the staff to say what they want to do, but then say it's nearly impossible. But they came up with a plan together. And Michael's going to kind

094of share with you what that's going to look like. But I wanted to just recognize the teachers, the PLC leads, and Sarah and Michael's collaboration that um is rare many times. Okay. So if you go to the next, so again, we already have this um this uh teacher leader team with Sarah already doing the uh keys to beginning reading. Um next year we're considering do we stick with the keys of beginning reading or do we um do some work around the Cox Academy structured literacy program and pull in those parts of keys to the beginning reading into that. Um, one of the reasons why we're looking at both of those is there's a financial cost to the keys to beginning reading about $800 per person where the Cox Academy is an open ed free online.

095So, can we do the best of both worlds where we can still pull in where Cox Academy might not um meet our need? Can we pull in the keys to beginning reading? There also have been times in Keys to beginning reading that um they don't necessarily meet the need either, right? So, sort of like curriculum, there's no one one thing that meets every need. Um, so again, we're going to look at those facilitated conversations and then meter out that professional development. Again, like Rick said, we met with our PLC leaders to get their opinions on this because we could try to pair these both together or is it wiser to pull them apart considering all the other things that we are doing. Um but this we will kick off in June and this will be

096the primary work of the 2526 school year will be this training and if you go on Rick then then the other big part is that resource adoption. So we adopted formerly good habits great readers back in 2013 um that no longer fits the needs of both the our teachers or our learners in reading and phonics and in writing. And that's why we've already done phonics work. We adopted foundations a couple of years ago. After that we did some writing work. We did the priority standards and aligned what are the our priorities in every grade level based on the three different types of writing. And now we're on at the reading. And even though um that PLC leadership team, even though we're chomping at the bit that we really want a resource in front of us,

097we really need to know what are we truly looking for in that resource. Um so we looked at this previous before anything Act 20 was even talked about, but the pandemic uh delayed that. um it delayed that again when we started hearing about the um act 20 but then also when we started doing our phonics work because we knew we couldn't wait any longer. So we started the phonics and the writing work already. There's currently six different curriculums that the early literacy curriculum council which is through legislation this council that looks at different resources. Every year they update the list. Um there was four of them on there last year. They added two more this year. There was originally a funding option up to 50%. However, again, those were part of the funds that got

098held up in Madison in court were never released to districts. They now do have a process to apply for and it you will only get funding if the legislation decides to put that as a priority again in their next banual. I got a quick question on that. Are are charter schools or private schools mandated to do this? Is it just public? Charter schools are charter schools required their requirements are slightly different than ours and their timeline's a little different but private schools are not part are not part charters are charters are yeah okay all right so Rick if you go to the next one um you know again resource adoption about 60 hours um we got to look at priority standards we have to scope and sequence we got to unpack repack that you know

099sort of those questions of a PLC you know what do we want kids to know and how will they how will we know if they know it? What will they demonstrate to us? What will we do if they if they aren't meeting the standard and what will we do if they are? And then unit designing and piloting. So you can see it's a lot of work. It's also in addition to that building thinking classrooms that we're doing, the math work we're currently in um you know some of the phonics that we're that we're still tackling. So when we met with this group and again it was across the K5 building um that group came to the conclusion that it's probably best for them, best for their PLC's. Now again this is a highly functioning group

100of real the really the go-getters, right? So there are a couple of them they're like, "Yep, we can do this. We can do 100 hours worth of work in 84 hours." And as we talked our way through it and some of the staff that had been here when we went through the math adoption talked about the process and oh yeah we needed to have these really deep conversations that are meaningful because what we choose in one grade impacts another. Um by the end I think the they even though they may not have liked the delay they understood that we needed to delay. Um so originally again like Rick said we met as a admin team. We we talked about if if the choice was that we need to get going faster and it's one year.

101Um the secondary principles did talk about do we look at a schedule change for to add professional development at the elementary level. What would that look like? Impacts on families and and things like that. We had already started to have those preliminary conversations, but once we met with them, it was clear that this was the path that was best for us and in the timeline. So that's where we're at. We're going to have a a two-year process um to get there, but we also believe we'll we'll get somewhere better by doing it this way. Awesome. Anybody have any questions or comments here? I kind of Yeah, I got a question. So, when it you're looking at the resource adoption process and you're putting 60 hours on it, how many staff members does this include? And

102I guess what's the the grouping of staff members? because all of the teachers need to be trained. But are all of the K through three teachers going to be involved in this or is just this you're picking this is that group of PLC leads and it's a it's a both and right so you need some people to it's sort of like when you when you come to a meeting if you have an idea on a piece of paper it's a lot easier to pick it apart and point out you know areas that could improve versus from thin air let's come up with something. So typically the way that we do this like the priority standards work is we have a grade level rep. It may not be the PLC leader but a grade level rep

103from each grade level. This is what we did with the writing and they met they they did some of that priority work and then they took it back to their PLC. So we kind of trained them on priority standards the real process um get them to a good level of understanding and then they take it back and they do some of that work during collaboration Mondays and PLC time during their common prep. Then we come back together and we work again as a small group. So it's this accordion of going out and coming in, going out and coming in. But eventually we're all in the room together. And when we've done this before, we have all of our standards up and then we have different colored post-it notes all over and we look at, okay,

104this standard everyone wants. Y and this standard no one wants, but we need to cover all the standards. So again that scope and sequence work is some of the hardest work that we do but that then really helps us understand what are we going after in this resource. Um so it is it's an all and some at the same time because it's difficult to have that much dedicated time with 35 staff members at one time. It's just really hard to do that. um we can do that on some PD days and we will do that but a majority of the work will be done by a a smaller and then the other part is is sort of the methodology that we're going to use then to do the pilot. Will it be all three or

105four teachers at a grade level using every single different curriculum and getting trained at high levels or is it two at each grade level eaching using each of the others? Um you know I know some teachers will say I want I want to try all three and sometimes we have to save ourselves from too much work as well right because that does come with training and um also the look fors and things like that and sometimes um and everyone wants that wants to have their opinion heard but again when you have two two working on it versus four you still end up usually at the same spot. So that'll all be part of the process of what's the methodology also question. Um not many questions. I think spreading it out between two years is a

106good idea. I think um I've done the reading training our own and it's tough. So it's going to be a lot of a lot on teachers and that's hard but for K for K3. So nobody can hear you. Oh sorry. I'm sorry. That's good. He can hear me. She's talking about the professional development and the modules being a long tedious process and you saw it's over 30 hours and that's best case scenario to make it just through the modules and then that's really not where the learning comes. It comes from those conversations, those facilitated conversations that Sarah and that team are going to do and lead us through activities. Um that's really where you're going to make the impact in the classroom. Um yeah, I I like the two-year model. Um, my school district's doing

107the one-year model, and it's super overwhelming, to tell you the truth, cuz every from a leadership lens, it's hard because you can't do any anything else. Like, it's almost like everything else is on a pause except for literacy. Um, which literacy is very important, but it but there's other things that are also really important. So, I like the balance of the 2-year model. I also think you're not burning anybody out. you're able to ingest the material, use the m I mean it just it's a great model. Um I do want to just caution which you had shared and I totally understand you're just sharing by the numbers like all the times that we could actually fit this in and it was like kind of putting everything out there not that we're going to use everything.

108I just really want to um caution using collaboration time because we prioritize that for really time to work with stu about students to plan on interventions and I um we we worked hard to get that time in for teachers and stuff and for staff and I just don't want that to become kind of a meeting or a training or something else that we're adding. Um so that's just my only caution with that is the to keep valuing that time and and and allow it for staff to have that. Yeah. No, no, no additional questions. Thanks. Thanks, Mike. All right, moving on. Last item in info and discussion is the update on the job study on April 9th. So, the board uh we've been putting it through the paces, uh selecting a new superintendent, uh having

109a lot of meetings on that. Now, um we're moving towards um fruition with regards to um setting up a model in with regards to um closing the gap with regards to financing for um compensation packages. First, there's salaries, but then there's also benefits. And so on April 30th, we do have another work session scheduled for 5:00 p.m. and it'll be here at the high school in the media center. Um, at that time it'll be kind of part two uh with regards to kind of how the overall uh packages come together and I'm going to try to do a quick summary. I would uh feel free to chime in um with regards to just your reflections and then there's a couple um clarifications that Cara and I would like so that we can start putting Prescott

110dollars to these um uh models and then be able to hopefully uh signal out to the staff what their salaries would be for 25 26 uh both to recruit but also for when we're trying to hire staff, they know where they would be, but also before staff um have wandering eyes that they know um that they'll be uh we know it'll be higher, but how much higher? So, understand that came in, they did break it into six sections. Um I thought it was really well done. There's been a lot of uh give and take. We were on a conference call um yesterday finalizing some of the things. Um Cara and Shantel um from HR and finance have been part of these um again they aren't here but they are definitely uh their fingerprints voice and

111leadership um could not have gotten this far without their participation. So we're looking at compensation. U Marty did a really nice job about talking about policy and practice trying to make sure that they're aligned. Um it's engineers sometimes say it works in theory. Um but we want to make sure that it's working both in theory and in practice. Um employee benefits, we mentioned that that'll be done on April 30th. We've had employee feedback surveys. Um we talked a little bit about recruiting practices. We've updated some of uh the information both on our website, tried to um beef it up with regards to graphics and graphic design um so that it's easily seen, easily uh maneuvered. Um we also have um earlier tonight um approved kind of referral bonuses. We've looked at some turnover data and

112then obviously external benchmarks and that's what we're going to try to um focus on tonight. Um, as you know, we just uh talked about that um referral bonus earlier tonight, so I'll skip through that. We initially started with 31 school districts. Um, it's trying to figure out what is the deck of cards. Um, we looked at CISA, middle border. We also had a key five that included some Minnesota districts. Um, and we looked at Hastings, Redwing, and South Washington County. We included Hudson and River Falls. Regardless of how you decide, it's very similar to the Dow Jones or consumer price index. Economists, in order to manage and report out on what inflation is, they create a bucket of what is the current price of certain goods and services. They monitor that across time so that

113you have a standardized metric that you can compare to. It's not necessarily the end- all beall. It's not about perfection. And in when the Dow Jones and a company no longer is a good indicator or bellweather, they delist it and bring something else on. In CPI with the economist, they'll do the same thing. I think it's really important though is that we can't keep switching the goalpost. We know based on the information from heading into the year, but more importantly, we now have empirical data that shows us what is the gap. But the only way we can close the gap is if you define for us what the goalpost is and then whether or not how much time it'll take. Very similar to what our educators are very familiar with is a smart goal. Identify

114what amount of annual growth is necessary within any curriculum. If I'm behind grade level, then what's the additional growth that's necessary? And Marty provided you information about having two variables and we'll talk about that. Our discussion uh I thought was really intense. It was very helpful to kind of talk about what's included and what's not. This goes back to the bucket. And so out of those 32 know that um you had directed us to um we had learned that um for some reason one of uh our neighboring districts Ellsworth hadn't uh complied with our request. So Friday when I was up at CISA, I made sure that uh Brian Nadau uh was able to turn over Ellsworth's pay scale. Um so it is good to go up to CISA once right. Um well I was

115going to say I I had learned they were I found out on Thursday that they were just finishing up all of their information. So to bring it to their board. So what's nice is we were able to include them and then also um you had asked us to add Riverfalls some of the um guiding questions or uh discussions that you had was out of the 32 we did have Minnesota districts. Do you guys want to share a little bit of how we kind of started to land on that? This would be the category with or without River Falls and how we got here from the 32. just your discussion about kind of you guys kind of set some criteria. I can kind of summarize a little bit and everybody can add in. Um I think

116we all felt that the middle border conference was a pretty important um key point for us. Um both be because of kind of that recruitability piece but also the retention of our staff wanting to keep staff here. That's a really big comparable. We use they're all they surround us. We see them all over. we go to their schools for athletics and activities and stuff like that. But we also wanted to really identify schools that we sometimes see our teachers go to or schools that are actively recruiting our staff and that meant Riverfalls needed to be included as well. Um and so we um included Riverfalls. Um we kind of ruled out places like Swashkco and Hastings and and the some of the Minnesota schools for a couple reasons. one, a lot of our staff don't

117go there because it's different licenses with states and stuff like that. So, it's a little bit of a harder challenge to go there. Um, but also to be honest, we can't compete with those pay scales. We have a different funding system. We're in a different state. It's funded really differently and Prescott happens to be that bottom of the state's funding anyway. So, it's just almost um put us out of a competitive spot that we could even compete with those districts. So, um happy that we got Ellsworth's information though because that was um a key piece that we were missing that is really close to us and um you know our neighbor essentially here. So, anything else when it comes to how we chose these uh one maybe one other point with our I I with

118within our vision our our mission and vision we have we have a met for recruitment and retention. I think one of the metrics is that we want to be you know how how we want to be stacked up against is through the middle border conference. So we felt like the middleboard conference was kind of like at least the that's the baseline and then because of River Falls and their location we wanted we wanted to add that in. So I just wanted to call that out too. Yeah. Okay. All right. So this is Marty's work. You can see in black you know it just designates where that school district falls and then obviously um you can see uh the new benchmark group. So that became the metric of analysis. remember we met on the 9th and

119it's the 16th. Um had a conference call with him yesterday. Um now instead of having uh 8 to 32 bar graphs, you're down to two. Um we have Cardinal Red on the left representing Prescott and the green is the middle border plus Riverfalls. So you have uh eight districts. Um typically you don't go below five you know so that um if there's one outlier it doesn't create a huge swing. Um as you can see there is a gap at both levels. On the left hand side we're looking at the starting scale for a bachelor's and then um all the way through and then also for our master's level. Um the gap is slightly different for our bachelors. It's about a $2,100 gap. Um, and then for masters, you can see it's about a $4700 gap.

120Um, presented in a different way, if you just look at kind of a histogram, and it's kind of a horizontal green is compared to the middle border in River Falls, you can see that we're about 5% below on the bachelors and about 10% on masters. Um it's important to note is that 50% of our licensed staff are in the bachelor's side of the scale and 50% of our uh staff licensed staff are on the master side. So now obviously in theory right we want to talk about how far away are we to a known identified group and then how do we close that then you have to start putting dollar signs to that. Um, one thing that we did notice is that the distribution of where staff fall on BA versus masters is that, and

121this goes back to some of the relicure issues, is that currently staff do not have to take college classes to be rellicensed. more of our senior staff previously did have to take college classes and therefore it was wise for them to move across and get the more credits you get you can get a mast's and so you'll see of our population a preponderance of the staff that have a mast's are also at the higher end of the scale so this will create um some impact when you start to look at how this will impact the overall um uh budget. Thank you. All right. So then we looked at um two things. We would have an indicator of on a smart goal. It would be what is your annual typical grade level growth for a fifth

122grader from fall to spring. And we're going to call that the annual increase. understand that the annual increase if it was based on um act 10 and we had a um organized union we would be restricted to CPI um that CPI indicator is uh 2.95 and those districts can't go above it in this case we're below we're not proud to be below and our goal is to remedy that so the first thing is is the annual increase we had been um modeling this since the beginning of looking at a referendum of about a 3.5% increase that would likely at this time obviously be above inflation based on my meeting with uh CIS 11 and the 41 superintendent it would not necessarily be the highest but it would be towards the higher end. Many districts and

123I shared with the board um a couple other districts are coming out with 1.2 to 2.5 uh annual increases for next year. So again, that's only one part of the metric. Then it's how do we close that gap? Um, as I mentioned, the gap was 5% for a BA and 10% for masters. When you put that onto our current scale, which is represented here, and the dollar values, and move everybody up a step, it would be about $260,000 in one year for a bachelor's and half a million for masters. This is just one year. And then that resets the bubble. That overall is about $760,000. So se, so if we, and this is if we did this all in one year, right? So if we do this all in one year, we're looking at adding

124about $760,000 to the budget. That carries over every year. We already added that on its build now into our budget. And the following year, it would be roughly, right, give or take a 3.5 in% increase on that 760, which would be another what, 400,000. I mean, it would be quite a bit. Okay. All right. So, it's important for us to kind of know where we are right do we have the right goalposts and then what are some of our options but as Marty said his presentation was somewhat um given to you in a vacuum right and so what I did want to do is just remind the board and the community and our staff and as we kind of walk through this our goal and we've talked with um Tracy is that we want to

125get out to the schools, share what the goal is or has been identified, what the dollar figures are, and whether or not we're trying to do this in one year, two years, or multiple years, and how that would play out. But you all are aware that we do not have funding identified for next year. The legislature is currently meeting. And so this is um right now just the headwinds that we're faced with. We currently are scheduled to receive $325 per student next year. Understand that that is currently at the Supreme Court. We are hopeful that that decision on the use of a line item veto is upheld. If it is struck down, we lose that 325. Then it would have to go back to the legislature to decide are they going to give us 325

126or more. Understand that they have come out and the joint finance committee stated that they are not going to take up any educational funding discussions until May of 2025. So one of the headwinds you have is that one of we have built our budget with the 325. understand it is somewhat precarious but I think it is in keeping with the use of the vetos historically at the time when we were making this slide the healthcare was supposed to come in at a cap of 12% and wow we got really good information and it came in at -2.52 so that is some cost savings there um again it's a one-year cost savings but I would highly recommend that we roll that right into salaries um as soon as possible Um, it also may alleviate the burden

127for you to go out for an RFP for healthcare. It gives the superintendent the first year to get a better understanding of other things and um, we can talk about that on April 30th and then likely in early May. Um, but here are some of the true possible headwinds that we're facing. Prescott Public Schools has declining enrollment. It is the lowest enrollment in over 15 years. That decrease is compounded by that reoccurring operating levies. The 1.2 is put on the base. So, it's not a guaranteed 1.2 million. It's based on your enrollment. It'll be wonderful when enrollment stabilizes and goes up, but as it continues to go down, you are not getting the full value of the 1.2. In addition, you know that special education costs more than we are funded. Presently, uh Sandy has

128worked with CARA. We have shaved off $100,000 of that cross subsidy. Um that was remarkable. I don't think we can shave much more in the special education. That population is not decreasing. And special education staffing is typically individuals with masters and are higher cost. That cross subsidy is 1.7 million. Our hope is that there are many proposals both from advocacy groups, the governor and DPI asking for increased money at special education. That'll be your first tea leaf. If there are bipartisan recommendations for special education funding coming out of Madison, every dollar that comes for special education is a dollar that goes back into fund 10. So it's an indirect way of monitoring whether or not fund 10 is going to be increasing, flatlined or um decreasing. Downside is that you have looked in and we've

129been pointing out that food service fund 20 or fund 50 um currently is not cross subsidized but we are operating in the red. Uh as of the end of the year we will expend through any fund balance that it has and based on statute it cannot be in the negative. Um we are looking at having to cross subsidize $111,000 next year. So that is something that is a challenge. Um and obviously we will not be able to generate revenue and there are going to be additional cuts that you're familiar with and some discussions that we're going to have to talk about operations and consolidation. Um, other things with regards to technology and why technology was put on fund 46 is that federal money called -ate, educational rate, is that we get about $30,000 per year

130for all the equipment that um Andy buys for our district. Um, that is sun setting. And I would be um basically a snowman in a hot uh hot room to tell you I I do not believe you're going to see -ate funded uh at the school level, but maybe. Um and then obviously the Department of Education is um being um redistributed that they are the ones that oversee title dollars. We receive about $70,000 for all our title programs from intervention um to um mental health aid and things like that. So that's another 200,000. So those are some of the challenges that we're going to be faced with. This is a pictorial graph of our enrollment. Remember that you are funded on the last three years. So we are um the peak was in 2021. Um

131but you can see that we are dropping um closer and closer to um 1280. Um at this time our projections right now show that we are graduating more students that are enrolling. And so our high school population will be under cons uh under 400. Um maybe probably closer to 370, but we'll see. Um and then early 4K enrollment is about on par. I think it's looking at was it 70 or Sarah do you know 4K are we about 70? Yeah. So again about 30 students per grade less than when I first started a decade ago. Um then one of the mo second most important things we are going to see our per pupil aid go up but per pupil aid is based on this right and so we're going to have more money for every

132student but we have fewer students. Okay. Also, the situation that we're in is that our PU per pupil aid currently is at $11,400. I'm rounding up. It's $3.99, but it's 11,400. Okay, that puts us at the lowest 4% tile of educational funding per pupil. So, that is the constraints that a consultant doesn't have. That's the constraints a board has, right? That you know based on where you are, we will migrate closer to the middle based on the operating levy supported by our community. But it really is in the grand scheme of things going to mean that your revenue for 2526 is going to be really close to the revenue you received this year. So, as we make decisions, you have to realize that revenue isn't going to be coming higher and you know that more

133because you've been vetted and steeped in this, but I just wanted to make sure that you had the information um so that you can kind of walk through that. So, Pat, you had asked on the 9th about per pupil aid. This is where we stacked up previously. Um you can see Amry, Somerset, Eltuna, St. Croy are all above us. They will continue to go higher. Um the only thing that will change that will be based on any of our um operating money that goes on the base. We won't have that information until early summer. Okay. Um, so I'm going to go any questions with regards to just balancing the needs of where we are, but also understanding some of the limitations that has us where we are and what it might take to rectify that.

134So many questions. It's always so there's hope. There's hope, right? So, one of the things that I think could happen is rather than try to given that you're in a bienium funding cycle and there's enough headwind, my recommendation based on after hearing a presentation is rather than trying to swallow the apple all at once is that a multi-year process is probably the best. Um it would allow you then to one have fiscal numbers that I think Cara, myself and um Baird could confirm that is conservative but aggressive. meaning that aggressive to start to provide an annual and a gap increase and give you the flexibility um to do both but not put you at risk of overshooting and then once you have hard numbers you can always make an adjustment for 2526 or you know

135that you have more money for the second year. Okay. Um so this is what that looked like. Um this is middle border and river falls. Um this is one of the ways where you could look at year 1 and year 1 would be in this case fall of 2526. We would look at our pay scale. We would make sure that the annual increase for all licensed staff at minimum is 3.5%. And then we would have a gap increase. Um, at this time these are just preliminary and I I know that one of the biggest challenges of putting numbers out there is this is a template. This isn't a proposal. It's it's something that would say take the 5% and cut it into two years. You can do it in 3 years. You could frontload or

136backload, right? There's many different ways that you can put that together, but as a starting point, you would have about a $200,000 increase to your um financial budget for um almost making our bachelor's whole cuz they're not that far behind. And then masters, it would add another 306,000. that would just that would make a dent in but obviously we know that there's further to go with masters which would mean that you have a second bite of the apple uh for 2627 remember we're trying to get to 2029 that was the whole goal and maintain your fund balance and so um as a proposal one of the ways is that you would add the numbers going horizontal so the first year would be about a half a million dollar increase to the budget. If this is

137something that you're leaning toward now, I can start to work with. Um, we do have it set up so that you can change those percentages and we'll see in real time. Um, but we just have to get our hands around two things. Do we have the right metric, middle border and riverfalls? And then are we looking at trying to do this in one year or multiple years? And I'll just pause there to kind of get a sense of is there anybody just like we did with the teachers, do you think we're trying to do this all in one year? Is that even feasible? And if it's more than one year, um I'd like to just hear some discussion or direction. Anybody want to jump in first or let's talk about the the groups first or

138what do you got? Go ahead. Well, when you said groups, what groups? I'm sorry. And uh that's so Rick's question is about like are we benchmarking as the right schools? Is it middle board or false? Do you think that's right? Sure. We can talk about that first. I I I do believe that that and that's what we talked about in our workshop that those are the right schools and you could argue, you know, um you know, one of them or two of them, you know, maybe don't belong, but it was important to bring River Falls uh into the mix and and we did that and I'm I'm comfortable with the group. Anybody have any other comments on that? Cuz I think that was pretty straightforward. No, I I'm pretty comfortable with the group. We had

139a conversation about it. We're seeing the results. I would be comfortable no matter what the results said. That's the group we went with after discussion. Okay. Yeah. I just So, I think we're good on that. Pat, did you have something that you wanted to add here? Well, I was just going to start. You asked just to kind of start commenting. I I would I would love to be able to tear the band-aid off and and and get there right away. I think given some of the things that that Rick presented um and the fact that we that we still need to um address the uh amongst other things the three or four uh building district and we need time to do that. I right now um we know we have to do something year one.

140It it has to be more than just uh cola. Um and and this 2-year model would would provide that and provide us with some time then to make other operational decisions um if necessary uh to uh reduce cost in order to uh make year two a reality. Yeah, that that I'll just that's that's it for right now for me. Yep. Ty, do you have anything to add? Um yeah, I I agree with Pat honestly. I just did the kind of the percentages and roughly if we were to just take off the band-aid and kind of um calculate it out for the next handful of years, it's adding 25 to $30,000 every year onto that. And we quickly I don't want to say price ourselves out, but we're using you know 80% of the referendum dollars

141very very fast. And um staff is by far our priority, but we also had other priorities too that we had to do. Um and so one of those being not depleting our fund balance and we had to get our fund balance back up. And that's something else we have to consider is like every, you know, we're going to let's say we add a half a million dollars to our overall budget. We also by policy have to add more money into our fund balance than we had the year before cuz it's about how many months we can operate. And so between those ying and yangs and I think that's what you would kind of play out. I I just don't know if we could get to year 2029 um safely. we would be at um we

142would be at um about $850,000 just in the increase in pay scale here um by 2029. And that leaves very little increase that had to go to um into our fund balance and it does not account for all the other acceleration with interest. I mean with um just everything inflation and everything else going on. It doesn't account for anything. So, I I don't I think this is the much more responsible way to do it. And I guess I also the the thing I absolutely do not want to do is to get stuck in a spot where we overpriced and now we have to freeze, right? I don't want to do that ever. Yum. Um yeah, I over multiple years I think is the way to approach this. I agree with we need to get something

143immediately going into this next year. what that looks like. I'm not exactly sure if we just hit that 2.5. We've got a lot of funding things. We don't know if we're losing um title dollars or not. That's a number then that we have to absorb into our budget and figure out where that's coming from. So, that could be our healthcare savings goes to pay for what we lose out there. Um, we're, you know, we're hoping the 325 stays and that we're good with that. Until we find out how that goes, we can't make a big jump and do everything at once. Um, we do have a lot of planning that we need to look at for cost savings because we know this is where we want to put the money. So, we need to pay

144our staff. um our licensed staff needs to get right um with other districts within our district. Um so I think that is going to take a little more thoughtful planning for year two and maybe year three or four going forward. Um so we do have I think a lot of work ahead of us and there's just a lot of other things I think we just need to explore. we need to explore how we can get more revenue um coming into the district, how we can attract maybe more students, if we can do something more with our facilities. So, I I I think we need to do something. I just I I'm okay with year one. I just don't know that we just automatically build in year two and say, "Yep, here we go." I think

145we need to do some planning for that year two. um and and make sure that we have everything covered, especially if we lose federal funding. I think we said it all. I think going the two years is the most responsible, but I think it's going to be we're going to have to have lengthy discussions cuz I think teachers are going to be thinking why am they've been waiting and they've been out of whack for a while now and so they're probably thinking well another 2 years but really we do have bigger discussions to have um and they're going to be really hard ones. Um, we've talked about, you know, our our buildings and all that other stuff. Um, but I think at least starting and getting them trying to get them um equalized um with

146the middle border and her is really hard for me. But um I think that that makes sense. It does. Yeah. And and honestly like this is a minimum if we do this for the next year and I know this is a discussion item. This is not a decision point. Um, that's a minimum of a 6% increase. I don't know if I've been on the board where we've had that, Mike. Have you? I mean, it's been a long time. And then the maximum is an 8.4 increase. So, right. So, this is something that we're able to do this year. I'd like to look at I I think it's absolutely what we should do the following year as well. Um, and but I I know that there's a lot changing out there with how education's being funded

147and I think there's a lot more to come that we have to consider. All right, Rick. So, you had two. So, the benchmark on the schools, Middle and I think we're all agreeing that it's a multi-year process at least two years. At least two years. Okay. But, you know, I think we'd be interested in seeing some options on that, too. You know, what it would look like. The other piece of the pie that we have or piece of the puzzle that we have not discussed yet and we're going to be discussing on the 30th is benefits. And we know Prescott has good benefits. So I I I want to call that out because if you're going to go apples to apples on salaries, you have to try to compare benefits as well. So I think

148there's a big conversation. I'm excited to have that that data and see what and see how we stack up against other districts and maybe you know how does that play as a whole for the for the for the district in comparison with the middle border plus riverfall. So I think you know there are options there and some are long-term options. I think some are going to involve lengthy lengthy discussions and and input from staff. So uh but I I think for tonight we got what we got what you wanted. We gave you what you needed. So, I think we're good. All right. Um, and and just to back up again, can you go back to that last slide cuz that you mentioned this this is this is a template. This is not this is not

149in stone. I I Rick called it out. I I want to call it out too that this is this is these are numbers that we're we're looking at here, but nothing is set in stone. Even even the dollars on the, you know, the the 3%, the 2, the 198, the 214, you know. So, I think it's a good view. I like this view. I think it's important that we have something to look at like this, but it's it's certainly not set in stone. So, thank you, Rick. All right. No, I appreciate and what now I can work with Marty and Cara is that we'll start to lock down Middle Border River Falls as our uh goalpost. um we will start to look at our overall budget with Baird um based on new parameters that we

150have and forecasting um and then be able to come back with you with more than one scenario and like I said is those boxes if you remember that um Marty has set up is you know if we have to go from 2.5 to two we can quickly give you what that will impact um and share it sounds like for year two both on just modeling or even saying it's kind of blank, but understand and I would just want to be clear and I was uh I couldn't be more proud is that you realize that there are some challenging questions yet to come and that there's not enough with falling or decrease in enrollment that there will be some cost savings decisions cost cutting decisions that are going to be required but I think it will

151be for the benefit of um maintaining your staff um allowing that the funds that are preserved uh to be put into salaries and retention and not have staff jumping across force sites to be honest. So I got a I got another question for you. Something that we had discussed a little bit at our work session was Michael was working on with a group of staff on on coming up with what they could do to make that internal adjustment. He I can't remember the PDP PDP with um was it nine people I think they identified correct? Um, so this does this help them at this point to kind of get an idea of well that's going to be have to be I mean they still would fall on the salary and get the this increase but

152there's got to be something unique for that in addition to so there is overlap but yes uh we are they have a there a doodle calendar went out they um are working under a um guiding change we see that as a um separate investment to rectify that challenge. But obviously there's only one correct dollar fit that into what we're that that's why I'm sharing is that the sooner we get both of these kind of moving forward um if we want to be able to have it in the budget for 2526. The sooner we have real numbers the better. So this was very helpful. they now know that they're um kind of on the clock to come up with some um things and then that's the tradeoff, right? And and I guess one of my pri

153it's nine people um one of my priorities would be to not rightize them over two years but to to figure it out right for them sooner you know. Yeah. Um and then uh just a reminder uh that we will have that work session that starts to talk about um you know rewards the presentations. Um it's not tenatively scheduled is now confirmed for the 30th. Um but to Mike's point, you know, one of the things that is really hard is that trying to compare benefits across districts is a little bit more challenging. Not only will um share um what they've been able to compare, but they'll also talk about different ways that you can um set up health care plans. What are some ways that you can have cost savings in your benefits and um retention

154or non-cash rewards that can go a long way. So, I think that's a benefit. also understand that our 403b match uh when WRS came in and spoke to our staff, it is um one of the rare districts that does do that match. Um it is an additional um up to $2,000 for staff. If they're contributing to, they have $4,000, but the district outlay is $2,000, I'm sorry, $200,000. That's an added budgetary financial investment in our staff. The HSA with the high deductible, we tend to be on the higher end uh with the 1750 and 3,500 contribution. Um we took the numbers of individuals that are on individual and family and mapped that out and that's another $375,000. Goes to your point, Mike, that it's both salary and benefits. That's another half million uh $575,000. So,

155as we look at um trying to put a package together, we know that we'll be meeting probably twice in May if we're going to try to have something in place for um by June. But that's kind of our timeline. Um, I appreciate the feedback um and the work um that you've been doing and hopefully we'll have more uh insights as of the 30th. All right, I think that wraps up info and discussion. So, we are on then uh recognition of the visitors. Anybody here to be recognized? Please do so and approach the podium. Same same rules apply first. Same rules. So, I only get three minutes. Three minutes. Are you speaking for a group? I'm speaking for a group and that change, but I'm not going to need I won't. Okay. My name is Tracy

156Budwward. I'm an employee here. Uh I am also the district representative for the teachers union. Um so as a person who's been employed um by the district uh we know that we are very appreciative that the district is looking into um the the pay the compensation. So um very appreciative. Thank you. Um it is um we kind of feel like it's important to um to look at the gaps that are in um that are in those steps. Um and then one of the questions uh would be if you're also looking at whether um all the employees are on the appropriate like step and lane before um you go any like further with making a decision. Um and then finally, if um any discrepancies are noted, um are are you going to try to rectify that

157before you start making those other changes? And that would be it. Okay. Thanks, Tracy. Thank you. Anybody else? Can you be recognized? You got those questions? Yeah, I did. All right. We are moving on and the board will consider a motion to convene in close session under exemptions 1985 1C in room A17 here uh for four employees. So uh we need a motion for that and probably a time to tie the motion or the time to start. I move to go into close session um at let's see let's say 8:25. Yeah. 825. I'll second. All right. We have a motion in a second to go into close session at 8:25. All in favor? I motion carries. We'll resume at 8:25. Thank you everyone. Have a good night.