Board Meeting 2-23-26

001I 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. >> All right, Sarah, will you please call the role? >> Yes. Miss Kaiser >> is here. >> Mr. Lee >> here. >> Miss Lee >> here. Miss Clark >> here. >> Mr. Mr. Verbos >> here, >> Mr. Becker >> here, >> Mr. Keller >> here, >> Miss Steel >> here, and President Burns is excused. >> All right. Proper notice of this meeting has been posted in accordance with the open meeting laws of the state of Wisconsin. >> All right. Are there any modifications to the agenda? >> There are no modifications. >> All right. At this time, um, we will be actually doing something new,

002uh, with the board and I will be adopting the agenda. So I would ask for a a motion to adopt the agenda at this time. >> Motion to adopt the agenda. >> Second. >> Any questions, comments? All right. All those in favor? >> I >> opposed. >> That passes. All right. All right. So now we have our Mitchell student showcase. So where is our our Mitchell fan? I'm not a phmom fan of microphones. All right. So, we have quite the crew here tonight to share with you. One of our schoolwide focuses this year here at Mitchell. So, we've been working really hard in our tier one instru um instruction to teach to our standards, but one of the pieces that we really wanted to focus on this year is not just the teaching of it,

003but the application piece. And so, our second grade friends are here today to talk about how they've been independently applying their math instruction through math games. So, take it away, friends. Good evening. My name is Zachary and I'm a second grader at Mitchell Elementary School in Miss Wner's class. We are excited to present to you tonight. Thanks for inviting us. >> Hello. My name is Elliot. We are here tonight because we'd like to share with you some second grade math games. Hi, my name is Emma. We learn and play these games in school to help us be successful with our learning intentions. >> Why are we playing math games? We play different math games to support us with our math skills and the priority standards. I'm Sebastian. Here are just some of the reasons why

004the math games have helped us with our math learning. They help my math mind because I can remember the strategies. It makes me more successful at adding and subtracting tens, ones, or even hundreds and more. Hello, I'm Colin. The math games have helped me grow my math mind because it gives me opportunities to work on different strategies when I multiply, like using equal groups or adding. I'm Dominic. Math games help me work on my own personal goals that are different from the other students in the class. For example, my group is working on multiplying and dividing within 100. This is actually a third grade priority standard. >> We would like to teach you these math games that have helped us with our math skills. Please join us here on the carpet to learn the place

005value game. On the tables, we will show you the multiplication trail game. >> Do you have some first here? I'll put blue and blue together. >> It's all right. >> Mr. Robinson, would you maybe like to play with me? >> Could you Would you maybe like to play with me? We have other choices right here. >> Dr. Robinson. >> Oh, >> you got a different game right here. >> Oh, a different game than him. Okay. >> All right. Sounds good. >> So, here's how to play the game. >> You will need the white board. >> So, I'm going to roll the dice. How about you go first? You know, I was editing each other the other day. I saw this game. Wait, >> both of one or two? >> You got five times, >> right?

006>> So, you want me to solve it here or you want me to put it on here? >> Yeah, but you also got to also got to use this space on here. >> Okay. How do I use this? >> Because it's kind of like bingo. >> Yeah. >> But except your your line can go like a little bit wiggly. So it's like that cross vertically and so the five and the eight they meet at the 40. >> So like >> I got to explain it. >> Okay. So it' be like >> I have to show have to show it. You have to show 9. So >> 95 four six >> making Dr. Okay. >> We want to break apart these numbers into we might take smaller little jumps. So we might just 15. >> Are

007you guys >> So we talked to these third grade teachers teachers. This is one way. >> Look at that. You guys go there. Okay. Who started it now? >> Yep. 10 and three. Good. >> Are you sure how long you It didn't So it has one You can go here or you can go here. Did you guys pretty >> are I guess we'll try it out as well. >> Yeah, >> do you think that you're doing >> Dr. Robinson? Good. >> How about Did you introduce yourself? >> I said it on the microphone. Okay. >> Oh, I tried. >> See if they did a good job of teaching. know what it tastes great. So now the entertainment That's the lowest question. Thank you. How you guys hand? All right. So, a big shout out and

008thank you to our Mitchell students for um coming and doing the showcase today. Do any of the board members have any comments or questions for the students? So I I'm I'm trying to relearn and re understand tier one instruction and tier two and uh what would this have been part of a tier two? So tier one is obviously the delivery of the concept. Can you speak to what tier this would be? So it would still be considered within tier one um because students are working just in more independently. So we classify that under tier one um even though kids are working on their individual skills and what they need um it's still within the universal instruction. >> Okay. >> All right. Well, I'd like to give the Mitchell students a nice hand round of applause

009and their teachers. Thank you to the families for bringing them out tonight and we love seeing you uh show us how you learn. All right, so now we'll move on to um number seven on our agenda, the superintendence report. Robinson, >> good evening. I want to also thank the students and uh the principal and teachers for coming out tonight and allowing us to um to see what you guys are doing on a daily basis. I can actually say I was there on last Wednesday and I uh witnessed the same uh exercise that I had the one-on-one tutoring over there with and uh so the the things that you're seeing tonight are actually things that are being implemented. And so we we understand and we know that um in order to improve our data, we're trying

010to work on individual skill building and this is part of that. And um so different our kids are at different levels and so it's sometimes individual work is what's needed. our community transition services. Is that the first thing or am I skipping one? Oh, I did skip one. I'm sorry. Legislative updates. Thank you. 21 education bills are on the way to Governor Ivers. A series of education bills are progressing uh to the governor after a busy legislative session with 21 bills currently tracked by Web uh WASBY heading to the governor's desk. These bills include diverse topics such as designation of athletic teams, policy on changing students, legal names, and conditions for school districts to exceed revenue limits. So, we look forward to um additional conversations as um things progress. Our community transition services. All right.

011Yes. Uh yeah. So, our community transition services is an exceptional program serving 20 students ages 18 to 21 with disabilities across our district. Each day, CTS students step out of the traditional classroom and into the real world, building employment skills, daily living skills, and social skills through hands-on community experiences. The dedicated CTS team provides individual support to every student, meeting with them where they are, meeting them where they are, and empowering them to reach their greatest level of independence. This program is shining example of our district's commitment to ensuring every learner has the opportunity to thrive. And I know there's a video, we won't show the video, this will be on our various platforms. I see uh Isaiah is on the uh the front cover right there. Uh funny story about Isaiah. Isaiah tended Nathan

012Hail. Uh and um he would always come up to me and say, "Hey, Mary Divine." And I said, "I am not Mayor Divine," you know, and he kept saying and kept saying it. And finally one day he came up to me again and said, "Mary Divine." I said, "No, Mary Divine is right here." And he was next to me. And so they started talking about all of the he said, "How many fires have we had in West?" I said, "Yeah, that's Mary Divine right there." So no, so Isaiah and I at uh every time I I visit, I I ask for him. now he knows who I am and so I I I enjoy the conversation. I enjoy just being around those students and they they bring a a huge smile to my face. So

013just wanted to send him a shout out. Nathan Hail FCCLA uh state qualifiers. So Nathan Hale FCCLA recently competed at regionals and qualified for state. Students earned numerous honors including a gold with three perfect scores from Kamaya and Killian for their presentation on the dangers of vaping. silver medals for Desiree in repurpose and redesign, Bailey and Harmony and professional presentation, and Elias El Elias and Raven in cake decorating, and a bronze for Waqen in baking. We're proud of these students and look forward to cheering them on at the state competition. Our Wisconsin High School volleyball officials association sportsmanship award. Congratulations to the West Alice Central girls volleyball program and head coach Amanda Schwitzenberg on being named a recipient of the 2025 WHSVA girls volleyball sportsmanship award. This honor is awarded by the Wisconsin High School

014volleyball officials association recognizing programs that demonstrate an exceptional commitment to sport sportsmanship among players, coaches, and officials. our state cheerleading. Um, so West Alice Central cheer team represented the district with pride at the state competition this weekend, earning fourth place in all girl non tumble small division. This outstanding achievement reflects the dedication and hard work for our student athletes and coaches. So shout out to our central cheerleaders. State cheerleading Nathan Hail. The Nathan Hail cheer team had an incredible weekend at the state championship, claiming the state title in the all girls none tumble small division and earning third place in the game day division. This remarkable achievement is a testament to the talent, hard work, and determination of these outstanding student athletes and their coaches. So, congratulations to the Nathan Hill cheer team and state

015champions. State wrestling qualifiers, wrestling qualifiers. So that there's my my my text is coming out of me. It's it's a heavy I'm sorry. I'mma get it right. I know I'm going to get talked about tomorrow on that one. West Central wrestlers Duce and Duce Sharp and Prince Zahir Cameron have earned the honor of competing at the WIA state wrestling meet in Madison this weekend after qualifying at the sectional meet. We wish these dedicated student athletes the best of luck as they represent West Dallas Central. State wrestling qualifiers for Nathan Hail. Nathan Hail is proud to send seven student athletes to the WIA state wrestling meet in Madison this weekend representing the Huskys on the boy side are Brody Sardina, Dylan Sardina, Tristan Greg and Tristan North while Leila Medley, Kaia Krueger, and Tiana Jones will

016compete on the girls side. Wish all seven of them remarkable of these remarkable student athletes the very best as they represent Nathan Hill on the state stage. Go Huskies. Coming up very shortly, I believe it's next week, we have uh Finding Nemo. Uh is Shelly here? Oh, there you go. >> Did you bring your award tonight to show everybody? >> You didn't bring your award tonight. >> Not my night. >> Oh, okay. All right. >> You have the floor. >> Yep. All right. Thank you. I'm very excited tonight um to introduce Shannon Shimoyama. Did I say it right? I close. Sorry. my apologies. Um, not only is she an educator in our district, but she is our vocal music director for Finding Nemo Jr., and she brought with her tonight some very talented cast members.

017So, I'm going to allow her to introduce them to you. And as you can see, they brought some props with them. All right. Good evening. and I am the coral director at Franklid Wright and also have the absolute pleasure of teaching about 30 of our West Dallas students in uh Finding Nemo Jr. So tonight I'm going to let them introduce themselves, but I have three of our students with us. Uh and let's start with Carly over here. >> I'm Carly Burns. I'm a sixth grader at Frankwood Bright and I play Gurgle. Um, hi, my name is Audi Hernandez. I'm in seventh grade. I attend FW and I play Tai Finding Me Up. >> Hi, my name is Vivian. I am a sixth grader at FLW and I play Dory. >> So, we're going to ask

018the characters some questions now here. So, Gurgle, can you tell us what Finding Nemo Jr. is about? >> Junior is about this small fish named Nemo, who gets lost in the ocean all by himself. His dad, Marlin, sets out on a quest to find him. He teams up with Dory to search for Nemo. They make friends along the way, and their quest to find each other is it very well, but Good. Awesome. Thank you, Gle. Uh, hey Kai, can you tell us what Audi has learned about through Finding Nemo? >> Well, sorry. One thing Audi has learned from being in the show is how to adapt her acting from to the puppets. >> Yeah. Throws a curveball in in your rehearsal schedule when you bring out puppets, though. And Dory, why should they all come

019to see us? >> You should all keep You should all come see Finding Nemo Jr. because it is so much fun. We've put so much hard work into it and there's such amazing talent in the WAWWM school district that you won't know if you don't come see our show. >> Awesome. Thank you so much. Our show plays next weekend, March 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th at uh West Intermediate. And it's going to be a good time. I'm blown away by what these kids have done. So, I highly encourage you to come check us out. Thank you very much. I wanted to highlight two students on tonight. They're I considered student ambassadors because the these two young men took the initiative to not only reach out to me, but they were very vulnerable in their uh

020quest to to see change. And the change that they well, let me just say, they wrote a letter to me. Each one of them did. and they they're they're concerned because they want to improve the quality of the food that they they're eating at school. And so, uh, I we I took it personal and I actually went over I took Connie with me. Is Connie in the back? I don't see her. There, there she is. I brought Connie with me. I said, "Connie, if I have to feel this heat, you will feel it with me." And so she came with me and we visited Hoover and we had a a good talk with the students and and I I think the their requests were not what I would say just far-fetched. I thought they were

021they were they were they were very thoughtful in their responses to us and just really wanting to make sure that their their uh food is is worth qu is the quality that they expect. And some of the examples were themed food days um variety of more variety of choices. They they said they wanted warm or hot option for breakfast. Things I would say are not they're not that out of the out of the question. And the other one was with texture questions. So concerning chicken soggy versus uh tough. So it's like okay that's a good one. How are they cooking it? Are they cooking it long enough? Not long enough. So, uh, in in talking with them, I was trying to get them to kind of understand that it's it's we have guidelines that we

022have to follow and to make sure they understand that sometimes we we want to have uh the best, but we're also kind of limited because certain things have certain requirements on how you cook it and the options are are are limited as well with the variety. So, we did tell them and promised them or I should say Connie promised them that she would definitely look into it and uh I told them that she would check back with them on next week for an update. She's already talk with Chartwells to try to figure out like what can we do and because I think it is a real concern. U it wasn't anything that that was just way out in left field. There were things that um that I think that we we can really uh inquire

023about and just try to improve as a district with Charwell. So, I I want to just send them a quick shout out. Henry Henry D and Chase W. I I just was so impressed by by these young men and there are students in fourth grade in Miss Gold's class. So, thank you for reaching out to me. Some community visits from since the last time. National Superintendent Conference in Nashville, Tennessee. Instructional rounds and snacks with superintendent uh and cabinet. We've uh completed two sessions so far at Irving Elementary School and Jefferson as well. And then we had in instructional rounds with Mitchell. as I would kind of talked about a little earlier, the West Dallas Rotary Club instructional coordinators meeting on last week. Then I was involved with the student advisory group on last week. The

024voice, they met in my office for uh their their monthly meeting. Speaking of the voice, I have Zahara Price who is here. Zahara is a senior at Central High School. Huge uh huge club participant, students council, junior uh as a junior and senior years, art club, etc. enrolled in multiple AP classes, student office aid, and she says, "I'm not into sports. I'm more of an artistic person." That's a quote. I would agree with that. Um, Zahara is a great kid. I I just adore her and she talks a lot. She'll say she doesn't, but but but she she's a blast to get around to be around. And so, Zahara, uh, what what are your what are your thoughts and what's going on at Central High School? >> Um, well, we recently the gym, the new,

025uh, Westella Central gym has finished and it's great. It's a very bright and it's very nice and I'm so glad I get to graduate in a brand new gym. I'm very, very lucky for that. Um, we have a blood drive tomorrow and it's been going great because I say it's going great because I tried to sign up for it and there were no more spots open. All the spots are um filled. So, that's good. We have March Madness coming up. We also have um we're also doing on a college for the ACT. We have um AP exams coming up as well. Um I'm going to say graduation cuz I'm graduating. So, yes, we have graduating even though it's far away. It's in June, but still. But that's all I can think of. >> And what

026are your plans for next year? >> College. >> Name the colleges that you're considering. >> I'm going to uh University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. >> Thank you. All right. That concludes the superintendent's report for tonight. There we go. Try turning it on. At this time, if anyone would like to address the board, you may sign up in the back of the room or in uh Zoom. There's a link in the chat. Introduce yourself with your name and address. Uh you have three minutes to provide comments. The board cannot discuss, debate, or act upon any item addressed during the public comments portion of the school board meeting. Followup may be provided by the superintendent at the next regular board meeting. All right. Um I have for first tonight I have Daffhne Lee. >> Yes, please. Got it.

027That's got all the instructions. My name is Daffany Lee. I live live at 3620 South Loretta Lane in New Berlin, Wisconsin. Um I am here to dispel some myths um that were made during recent comments during a schoolboard meeting um regarding the failings of West Milwaukee. Our family has been a West West Milwaukee family since our oldest started 4K in the 2014-15 school year at Wilson Elementary. there. He started with the first year of full district-wide full day 4K, which is a program specific and quite unique um when you compare local districts. We moved to our current address in the 1920 school year, moving both children at the time to Hoover Elementary in the heart of Hoover's now divided and increasingly more divided by my own neighbors, New Berlin, New uh New Bland neighborhood. Across

028both elementary experiences, both of my children thrived, scoring well above state and national averages in both math and reading. They also both were able to join orchestra, choir, and a myriad of clubs. Middle school brought us to Lane and then FLW because our oldest was part of the Lane Closure move to FLW. And now our youngest is at middle school at FLW. Again, both kids continued to thrive and exceed national and state averages on state tests, participated in music and sports and clubs. And now for the real crux of this. We have a high schooler. That's where everyone cares about their high stakes tests. At Hail, our son is a musician who competed at the state level, a three sport athlete who has competed at the state level, is involved in student government, and has

029taken AP classes each year so far in ninth and tth grades with four in his schedule for next year and four or five for the following year. In ninth grade, he earned a passing AP score and depending on his post-secary plans, already has college credit earned as a ninth grader. This year as a 10th grader on the practice ACT administered last month, he scored a full 10 points above the 10th grade benchmark. Also scoring above the 11th grade benchmarks, he scored an 1190 out of 1520 on the PSAT, ranking him in the 91st percentile for for 10th graders nationally. He's not alone. There are students just like him in both of our high schools. Interestingly enough, students with high test scores like that actually count against our state school report card because they have very

030little room to grow. However, to state that West Milwaukee fails kids is disingenuous. The overall testing averages of our community talk about all kids as a whole. Disregarding students like mine, literal neighbors of the people trying to leave this school district is disrespectful. Any school district could have produced the same test results in my kids. But what matters are the extras. Things like affordable afterchool care, music programs that start early, theater that continues year for years, and National History Day, a phenomenal nationwide program my daughter participated in as a sixth grader. No one has asked me for my ACT score or GPA since 2001. Why are we asking for only test scores? Thank you. All right, thank you. Um, next we have uh Justin Bolinski. >> Hello, my name is uh Justin Bolinsky. I live

031at 9817 West Harrison Avenue. I'm a proud parent of two kids, one of which is in uh Wilson, so go Wildcats uh K4. and we are super super happy with our experience in the West as West Milwaukee district so far. I'm actually here tonight uh to present a uh citation an award uh from my other job my uh I'm a county board supervisor representing West Dallas at the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors and I have a commendation for uh Superintendent Robinson which is really accommodation for all of you in this room and the board and all the teachers and staff who make up this district. I'd hoped to present this to him earlier in the month, but the some scheduling stuff on my end came up. So, I wanted to come to your house and

032and deliver it here at this board meeting. I won't read the whole uh citation, but uh I just want to acknowledge like Dr. Robinson, I was also someone who used to live in Texas and thought better of it and moved to Wisconsin and uh loving it here. Um but I was born in West Dallas. Um, I think we need to recognize that, you know, in this time of divided government and of uh polarization, this team of Dr. Robinson made the trip to Madison to advocate on behalf of students with some of the board members here. Um, and talk about uh, you know, they mentioned legislation earlier in the meeting. I'll I'll spoil alert, most of it's really bad. And sometimes the best thing we can do is to is to explain to the the power

033policy makers why they're bad and why we need something better. uh why our students deserve better. And um so you know today in recognition of all the the good work uh that Dr. Robinson's done that the district's done you know our schools have uh 12 of the 15 schools have met our exceeded expectations on the school report card this year and as previous speaker mentioned those don't tell the whole story but it's good to have that recognition. Um just wanted to present this uh tonight uh to you sir. So Give him a round of applause. >> What's that? >> Sarah. >> She was aware of the idea that this is the team. I guess I guess I just became the official photographer. All right. Um I don't see anyone else listed here on here for

034public comments. So at this time I will close public comments. All right. And now we'll move on to um agenda item nine, board reports. Um let's see. review of the calendar. So today, February 23rd, we have a regular board meeting. Um we have a FS uh e workshop. So second Friday in January pupil count, 2026 uh 27 enrollment projections, 2627 estimated revenue limit calculation, and the 2026 preliminary budget projections. March 9th at 6 uh we will have our regular board meeting. Another uh FSE workshop uh for the 2627 compensation model. An update will be provided to the uh board of education on the work completed to date by the compensation committee along with the upcoming next steps. March 16th we did have a board workshop that is now cancelled. And then March 23rd we have

035a regular board meeting uh with stu talking about the student services workshop, student services, special education and school safety updates. All right. And now we have uh board committee reports. So uh employment engagement and culture. Uh Miss Carr, thank you. The employee engagement and culture committee met on February 12th. We engaged in a substantial discussion regarding our uh our um special key performance indicators. We focused on retention data points like contract returns mid midyear mid wait let me start that again we focused on retention data points like contract returns midyear resignations and exit survey themes as well as the effectiveness of the delta salary position for hard to fill special education roles. Additionally, we discussed gaining more insight into employee engagement related to the work environment and culture. Our new business items included reviewing quarter

0362 data for exit interviews. And basically, DGarcia meets with the employees personally and asks a series of questions in order to gain some insights and look for trends. We are also curious about the Kelly substitute data and we are happy to report an increase in the amount of subs that we are able to enlist. Our t our last topic for discussion was planning topics for the April EEC board workshop. So far, we've asked D to update the full board on our KPIs, our exit interview data, the Kelly substitute data, and if there are any other topics that the board would like addressed at this workshop, please let us know and we will relay that. And that is my report. >> All right. Uh, do any of the board members have any questions or any topics

037they'd like the committee to address? Oh, all right then. Um, uh, Mr. Lee, the financial stability and efficiency report, please. >> Thank you very much. Uh, the financial stability efficiency committee met on, uh, February 19th. Um, at that meeting, we discussed, uh, in during old business, the compensation model update. As was mentioned already during the review of the board calendar, the full board will have a second workshop on the compensation model on March 9th. And then pending feed feedback from that workshop um the uh committee will seek formal board approval of this compensation model on March 23rd. We also discussed high-cost claims. So for um special education high-cost claims as was mentioned previously um we had applied for these in the past but not to the level that the detail that we are going to

038now. So, we do have a finalized and submitted final high claim cost uh for the 2425 school year. We're anticipating a reimbursement from the new bianual budget of approximately $600,000. Uh this is up from approximately $85,000 in previous years. So, a significant increase. Um, and so, um, you know, kudos to the team on taking the time to to work through those details and ensure that, uh, we're getting as as much back as we can for those high-cost claims for our special education students. In new business, uh, we talked about the activity of fitness center. Um, reviewing the financial plans around the expansion or phase two of this building. Um, preliminary budgets would reflect an addition of a locker room, a full lap pool, as well as a warm water walking pool. Uh we'll continue to

039review uh this uh budget in conjunction with the overall 2627 preliminary tax levy. Uh other items that we discussed for the 2627 prelim budget. So tonight we have a workshop that we will hear um for the first pre prelim and tax levy discussion around staffing and enrollment for the 2627 school year. We're keeping a close eye on the deliberations in Madison around the 2.5 billion surplus as this could have a uh definitive impact on our budgeting that we're looking at for uh this school year potentially as well as next school year. Other areas that we are looking at uh we're uh looking at potentially the potential to lower class sizes. So we're evaluating what meaningful lowering of class sizes looks like along with the potential financial impacts of that. So, if we lower class sizes,

040potentially that means um hiring additional teachers because we have additional classes that we'll have to have. And we also have to take into account if we're lowering class sizes, that's probably also additional less open enrollment funds that we'd be getting in. But um from the finance committee's perspective, we see this as a potential bonus and uh benefit for staff and families in our district if we can reduce those class sizes. we know there is a uh direct correlation between class size and uh student achievement. Uh in addition, we're also looking at modifying and updating the monthly finance report. So we uh will be looking at that for uh approval for our consent agenda this evening. Uh we know as a board we see basically a very large spreadsheet that has every line item that was

041spent um for the district every single month. Um and that would continue. Uh but at the uh recent education convention, I attended a session on a um kind of different monthly finance report which actually looked at budgeting versus actuals, how much money we're getting in, how much is going out throughout the year. And it's uh presented in a graphical format. So much easier for the average person to look at and see like where we're doing, how are we doing as a as a as a district as the year progresses. So, it's something that uh CISA 5 actually put together and um Aaron and his team have looked at that. Seems like a reasonable thing, but we'll have uh something in the next month or so for the board to look at and review and maybe

042something that we add for our finan our monthly financial reporting moving forward and potentially also post on our website. So again, we could direct people to see like this is how we're doing financially as just another means of transparency for our district. Uh and that is everything. If that wasn't enough, so that concludes my report. >> Thank you, Mr. Lee. Uh, does anyone have any questions uh for the committee or um suggestions for future topics? >> Who's car? >> I'm on this committee, but I was not at that particular meeting. And I'd be really curious and would hope that we would put on the agenda at some point um in regards to class size. Where are we now um with class size? I'd really like to see that data. So, if you could ask Erin

043to put that on uh the agenda to report that to us, I would appreciate it. >> So, you're looking at it for our average class size? >> Yeah. >> Because we have district, you know, that we adhere to. Our average class sizes for secondary is 30 and it's for uh for elementary it's 24 with AGR classes at at 18. >> So, are you looking for >> So, I want to know like are we at that or below that or >> Okay. >> I' I'd like to know. It might be school specific, but yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Okay. Then, um I would look to uh Mrs. Lee for um an update on our recreation and community services committee. >> Thank you, Mrs. Deal. Um Wreck and Community Services Committee met tonight right before our school

044board meeting. Um, as far as old business goes, we are, look, we are sending out RFPs to possible third-party contractors as far as helping us with our before and after school care. Um, and just to make it known, this is just research. There is nothing in black and white, but we are just researching possibilities um, regarding our three main areas of concern. Um those three being our staffing um before school, the after school specifically. We have a lot of students, a lot of high school students in the after school that work for us, but we're finding that they're just not as well equipped as students versus adults with some of behaviors and you know, things that they're having to deal with in the afterchool program and things that are necessary um in the job duties.

045And then um also to possibly work with the Wisconsin shares program giving opportunities to other families in the area and whatnot that we don't have right now. Um and that's pretty much it with the old business. New business um again looking at facility projects, possible facility projects, the warm water lap walking pool that Mr. Lee had mentioned. Um the girls the old girls locker room. Um and then possibilities for maybe something regarding like a hall space similar to Doro at our at the other um facility that we have. Um possible indoor playground um which would help you know for a lot of the younger kids or even like for parents when they come to work out at the fitness fitness center for being able to bring those littles and have something for them to do.

046Um a concessions area. Um and then outside of the fitness center, we are looking at FLW's outdoor facilities, their track primarily. Um been a while it's asphalt needs a little TLC. Um and then the other thing that we are looking at too is regarding like the drop off areas at FLW and maybe trying to break that up a little bit. So what currently exists in front that gets very congested and things like that. maybe having that either for just parents dro dropping off, picking up or school buses and then adding something at the back of the school kind of coming through the neighborhood to help divert some of the craziness um and help with some safety issues as far as that goes. Um lastly, we will uh be sending out the sport satisfaction survey again

047that will go out um end of April, remain open through May. Um, and this is kind of exciting, too, because last year was the first year that we did this and so it'll be nice to kind of have a baseline now to actually compare this year's responses to. So, we're just looking forward to getting that information in and being able to report that to you at a later date. And that would conclude my report. >> All right. Do any of the board members have any questions for Miss Lee or any suggestions for future topics? Yes, Mr. Lee. Yeah, regarding the survey, um, last year, I remember when we received it as parents, it was only like, um, multiple choice or yes and no answers, and there was no like comment section. And I found as

048a parent when I was filling it out, you have, my son is involved in multiple sports. And so sometimes I'd want to provide comments about one sport versus another sport. And I think um, that was lacking in that last survey. So, I'm not saying it needs to be redone, but maybe having a a like a free text comment area where you could kind of break some of that down because I found it difficult to kind of provide an answer for all of the experiences that we had over three different sports um versus some were better than others, I I think. And so, I think having that opportunity would be beneficial. >> Okay. Yeah, I can definitely make note of it. I know that as far as the basic questions, we weren't looking to change anything,

049but I certainly can we can investigate into being able to offer something like that, what our possibilities are. >> I'm trying to get to Shel's attention back there. Do you have anything you want to share on that? >> So, I know we we we've already have a baseline with the the previous survey. So, I'm just trying to wonder I'm wondering out loud if how would that change? >> Yeah, the comments section I don't think would change anything. Um and that is something in this year's proposal that they added and then um they can provide a service that sort of sorts all the comments out, groups them together by you know um any similarities. >> So that's something we can easily add. >> All right. Um now uh board member reports of community events. Do any

050board members have any events they'd like to report on? I went to the PTA carnival yesterday and it was delightful as always. I've gone for so many years in a row. I mean decades I've gone and I always have a different perspective. Sometimes I went as a teacher, sometimes I went as a parent, sometimes I went as a board member. And yesterday I went as a nona and I took my two-year-old uh granddaughter. And boy, you know, it's just I think that one of the things that we do best in our district with, you know, the PTA and with all of the adults that surround our kids is that we we give them memories and we give them experiences. And I think that's what PTA Carnival does for us. So well enjoyed. Anyone else, >>

051Mr. Becker? >> Uh, I made a quick stop at the PTA Carnival as well, and I just want to uh thank the parents and the families who took the time out of their day to provide that experience for the kids. >> Mrs. Lee, >> um, I wasn't able to attend that, but I just kind of a heads up for a future event. Um, Wednesday night of this week is the unified basketball game at Nathan Hale. So, for anyone that doesn't know or hasn't been able to attend, it is such an amazingly uplifting, fun moment to watch these kids play. So, if anyone is available 7:00 Wednesday night at Hail, just throwing it out there to you. >> Thanks, uh, Mr. Keller. >> Uh, I was at the PTA Carnival as well. Um, and I I

052just want to say the event as usual was great, but um, a lot of positive feedback about the fieldhouse as well. There was just a lot of people who hadn't seen it before who had and were really impressed with how it's come along and how it's looking now. So, that was great to hear as well. >> All right, anyone else? Mr. I was able to attend um well all the wrestling events, but I was at the uh sectional wrestling event that both Central and Hail were at um where the individual um wrestlers qualified for sectionals. So, uh it's really great to see um all the wrestlers compete across the region uh against some of the best wrestlers in the state, like literally. And uh our sectional is is in our area is one of the

053most competitive sectionals that we have with uh multiple schools who have either qualified as a team in the p recent past at state and many individual wrestlers. So both um Central Nail had a great showing at that event as we saw um the sectional qualifier. Those are the people who scored um in first or second place were able to go on to state to represent our school. So that was great. I also was able to uh attend the uh PTA Carnival. Um I have been doing the 50/50 raffle for a number of years now. So I'm the person that's belligerently yelling and asking people for money. Uh but it works out all right. And um I I did want to note that uh I saw some uh individuals there who I recognize from the past

054because they always participate in the 50-50 raffle, but they actually had moved away from the district. They actually moved 5 hours away from the district, but they drove specifically to come to this PTA carnival event for their daughters to attend it cuz they enjoyed it so much. So, I just thought that was a testament to what our our PTA local PTA's put on every year that they're willing to drive such a distance one way uh to be able to participate again. So, kudos to everyone involved. >> All right. And then I also um attended the the PTA uh council's the founders day carnival yesterday. Um I also for uh for nine 9.4 other updates and information. So I just wanted to um mention that if you weren't aware of it, it is actually um uh

055public school week. And so I just kind of have a few sentences. I just wanted to remind people that public schools are the heart of our communities providing every child with the opportunity to learn, grow, and succeed. During public school week, we celebrate the educators, staff, and families who make our public schools a foundation for opportunity, equity, and a strong future for all. And I have to say, I I'm saying this on behalf of all the board, even though I, you know, I didn't ask them, but I think all of us here would say that we are very honored and very humbled to be able to represent um the families and the students and the educators here in the West Dallas West Milwaukee School District. All right, with that we'll move on to our consent

056agenda. That's we have 10.1 approval of minutes, 10.2 employment summary, 10.3 supplementary contracts, 10.4 financial report summary. Does anyone need anything separated out? Nope. Then I would look for a motion. Move to approve 10.1, 10.2, 10.3, and 10.4. >> Second. >> All right. Any questions or further discussion? All right. Um, all those in favor? >> I >> opposed. All right. That passes. >> All right. Now we move on to our action items. Our first action of the night, we have the uh DLVA charter contract renewal and amendments. Dr. Smith, >> thank you so much for letting me present this evening. I'm presenting the action item for our charter contract renewal and amendments. >> Microphone, please. >> And oh, mic, you have >> Can you guys hear me? Okay. Okay. So, in early November, I reached

057out to our DPI contact to find out what we need to do to be prepared to bring um the charter contract renewal to the board. They sent us a contract benchmark worksheet. We filled that out and then we submitted that along with the drafted contract to the Department of Public Instruction. In two weeks, they gave us feedback. We had two items that needed to be revised. We quickly revised those. After that, we brought that to the DLV governance board. So, that's Lori Telford, Sanja, Nias Randall, and Dante Chestnut. And now, we're bringing the contract forward to all of you for a formalized approval. and then we would move on potentially to signatures from there. I also did um give everyone the contract in advance. >> All right. Does anyone have any questions for Dr. Smith?

058>> Uh Mr. Becker, >> it was the last two sections that needed to be added. I notic that's where all the red font was. Was it just uh something entirely new? Was it a change or was it an oversight? >> Sections that needed to be revised. So they didn't like some of the language that we had added about application. So it said the following language removed as enrollment occurs directly with the charter school, not at the district's discretion. And then the second one was the dates in the recitals do not match. So we had to just adjust those two things. Everything else went through just fine. The red we added the the reduced credit pathway language in there. Um we just made sure that all the state statutes looked good. We were big on making

059sure that we have the state statutes in there. Now the end with a lot of red when we originally did the amendments we worked with a consultant and somehow the applica the contract lost some of those items at the end. So we went through the benchmark worksheet we were like oh my goodness like and then we brought them all back in. So, if you see a lot of red at the end, that's why that was a a mistake um when the the consultant helped us edit the original document because we couldn't find the original document from the charter contract. So, we actually had to go in and make edits. >> So, we were able to do that when we did those amendments on the elementary school. >> Okay. Thanks. >> Yeah. I also have the

060charter contract benchmark worksheet if you need it. Motion to approve. >> Second. >> All right. Any additional questions or discussion? Then um I would look for I'm sorry. All those in favor? >> I >> opposed. All right. That motion passes. >> Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. >> All right. And then we have English 101, English 102, and pre-calculus court approve uh course approvals. Um, Miss Barrage. >> So, this is a followup to the presentation that was uh done about almost about a month ago now. >> Yes, it's about a month ago. >> And uh there were a few questions that came out of it and uh I know that they've also come back to the committee to talk about some some some of the updates and we just wanted to provide before

061we asked for approval just those what those responses and changes were or updates and information that's been discovered since then. We just want to make sure that everybody's on the same page before we act. >> Wonderful. Thank you, Dr. Robinson. Thank you, board, for having Alicia Benetti, Emma Kelly, and myself back. Um, we're very excited about the opportunities uh that we are expanding for our students here in West Milwaukee. Um, especially in relation to post-secary. So, I am going to go through the three courses that we are asking for approval. Um, and then as Dr. Robinson mentioned to just respond to some of the outstanding questions that we had and updates in the past three weeks. So the first is English 101. This why is this course needed for our district? It fills a foundational

062gap that many first year student firstear college students face the need for adaptable transfer ready skills in reading, writing and research. Um this would be a concurrent enrollment course. So students would be offered um high school credit alongside college credit um and in that due to it being a college level course it would also be weighted and you all have already seen the full proposal for the course. But something else to highlight uh prerequisites for the course are at minimum English 9 and 10. So this would be available to students starting in 11th grade but also for 12th grade students. Um the only requirement from our partner university would be a 2.75 GPA and um or excuse me a teacher recommendation. If there are students close to that GPA um they would still be eligible.

063And then uh as we discussed in the workshop, we would like to start the English 101 course as a fullyear course. Um this allows both the teachers, the instructors to get used to um and really confident in teaching this college level course. We're also very uh blessed that we have a few teachers of ours who have actually already taught English 101 previously. Um uh but doing it as a full-ar course, you can see we would start that this next school year. It would be students would receive three college credits and then 0.5 high school credits per semester totaling one um high school credit for the year. But then once we move forward beyond this first year, we would like to offer it as a fullear course as well as a semester course. The reason for

064that is you'll notice the next course on the docket for approval will be English 102. So there may be students that are very passionate about English. they know what career they're going into, they would then be able be eligible to get up to six college credits with us in in English uh before leaving us uh for postsecary. And so once the English 101 course if we were to condense it into one semester after the first year that would still again they would receive three college credits and then 75 high school credits because it would be a more accelerated course within one semester. So this is the English 101 course overview. English um is really a step further. Um and that course focuses more heavily on research um information literacy and academic writing demands for post-secary.

065Uh this would also be a weighted course. Uh the prerequisites would be English 910 and then English 101. Again the same GPA requirement for English 102. And then this course we would only offer at the semester and that would again be three college credits and 75 high school credits um for students who engage in this course work. And then the third course is pre-calculus. And so why this course is needed um as many of you know we do offer pre-calculus currently but it is not a concurrent enrollment course. So students are not receiving college credit for that course. So this would be updating the pre-calculus course to be concurrent enrollment. Um the the course really bridges the gap between algebra 2 and calculus. Um and it would be also considered a weighted course as it

066is college level learning. Um you see the prerequisites there. The one requirement is that students would have to have a B+ or higher in algebra 2 with trigonometry. Um this would be offered for 11th and 12th grade students and this would be students would be eligible upon successful completion to receive four college credits and then that would transfer again half a credit at the high school per semester totaling in one high school credit over the course of a year. So this would be a fullyear course. And so just to follow up on a few of the questions and just a few updates that we have in the past month working towards this implementation for this next school year. The first is we already have our teachers approved through our partnership with W Milwaukee to teach

067English 101 and 102. That was step one. The second is there were questions around transferability. So, English 102, 101, and 102 fulfills the general education requirement for all UW schools with the exception of WMadison. WMadison is not an absolute no. It's just they review each student's application independently. So, that's just and that's true of if we were to partner with any university in the state of Wisconsin, it would be the same um for WMadison. Um the there is very exciting for both English and the pre-calculus course student scholarship $1,000 available to students who continue towards um in course work at that university. So students could get up to six credits of English um with us here in high school and then $1,000 if they were to choose to continue on to W Milwaukee. And the

068rationale for W Milwaukee over W Green Bay, who we are um anticipating will be our partner for pre-calculus is that they have um more it will be more accessible to students. W Green Bay has some additional requirements around the ACT scores. Um and so we really don't we want this course to be available to as many students as possible and for students to be able to receive that college credit with us. Um secondly, um they provide more consistent support for our staff. So they have a really strong cohort model for the teachers who would be part of this as well. And we're excited to offer that as an opportunity for some of our educators as well. So we are asking for approval for both English 101 and 102 this evening so that we can begin

069that implementation process. And then finally with pre-calculus, our partner university would be W Green Bay. We've identified teachers at um both hail and central who are willing and dare I say excited to um expand their coursework in higher level mathematics so that they can teach uh this pre-calculus concurrent enrollment course. W Green Bay is the only university that is willing to not only allow our our teachers to begin teaching this while they work towards additional credits in math. Um they are also willing to pay for our teachers to get 18 graduate credits in math which is phenomenal. uh we talked about creating a partnership agreement so that um teachers who do pursue that uh would be committed and and staying in our district to stay for the continuity of our programming as well as for

070our students. And so again that rationale for why W Green Bay is quite clear. Um they are the best choice for us to be able to offer this for our students right away as well as supporting our staff. And so with that, we are also asking for approval of pre-calculus so we can start that implementation next year. I'll turn it back over to Mrs. De. Just wanted to remind the board as well as the public um with our new strategic plan, the college and career readiness goal number three, percentage of students graduating with advanced courses, industry recognized credentials, dual credit enrollment, and our wake workbased learning as measured by the state report card. participation by the type of post-secondary preparation will increase from 21.3 in August of 2025 to 45% by 2030. This is the

071efforts that we're we're making right now. This is only the beginning because we're going to we're prepared to come to you in about a month or so to talk about some additional course work that we want to do in the area of CTE specifically. So, um, we we're asking for support with this because our kids have the they they deserve the right to go to college with college credits already. So, >> all right. Do does anyone have any questions for Miss Barrage? Mr. Lee? >> Yeah, just one and and I think I asked this during the workshop. How So, we students are basically already picked coursework. I know it's not officially. So, if this is approved and we have some juniors who will be juniors next year who want to do this, how do they

072like modify or get this to how are they made aware of it and then ensuring that we're able to make those changes because I know schedules are getting pretty close to being set. >> Yep, great question. So, we created a process over the past several weeks of what that will look like. So the next steps my team has already worked on pulling the data of what students will be eligible for these courses as well as where are they already where did the students select to to attend. Um you'll see with pre-calculus it the it's pre-calculus right they chose that but we'll also interrogate and make sure that we're not missing any students that could also be part of that coursework. Um English 101 same thing. Um so we have a process in place to look

073at the data. Now once they're approved then we're going to bring teacher teams together. That's the next step. Um to look through rosters and then the following step is we have already drafted communication for families to say hey this is what your student had originally in the case of English signed up for um we want to offer that uh this opportunity for them and make this change in their schedule. This is what it would look like. So, um, the goal will be that by mid March before spring break, any families will be made aware of those changes. Um, I'm working really closely with Miss Bergman also on the sections and the scheduling. So, again, the first step has taken place where students have selected what they want to enroll in. Um, and but thankfully, we're

074not at the point where counselors have actually created those schedules yet. So that's um we're kind of at a pivotal point right now where once we can get those students uh course requests updated essentially then they can be scheduled. currently building the I'm currently looking at this course requests for hail and central and so we are bu building the course requests for college 101 and pre-calculus in there um pending your approval tonight and then like she stated we are going through and her team is pulling each class and making sure each student is getting that option to have that availability so they are not missing out on that opportunity. So will the process be that people will need to opt in or opt out to that choice? Are you just going to notify them about

075them and then if you don't hear back you presume they don't want it? >> Yeah. So um within the communication I drafted it's that this would be the change in schedule for English 101. But if you don't want to be part of that then um then they would be able to opt out. So that's how we origin right now. That's our thinking. But I also um want to make sure that our counselors are having individual conversations with families. Um especially because of um I mean with concurrent enrollment, the benefit is again it's taught by by our staff in our buildings. Um so we don't have to worry about transportation and other barriers of that sort. But um >> yeah, I think we have the communication set. we're just kind of waiting for the the emphatic

076yes and then we can move forward with that process. >> So, it's more of an opt out and that's what I really want because this is I think a very um good opportunity for students and I hate for someone >> to not do it who wanted to do it because they missed the email or didn't understand or whatever and they were thinking that oh it's the same I don't have to do anything and then they realize that they could have got college credit you know I'd hate for that to happen. Um, so I'm glad to hear that it's a more of an opt- out situation so that people be automatically enrolled and then that the I think the impetus should be put uh specifically on students who are not already in those classes >> that

077you feel >> maybe would benefit from being in and having maybe some more intentional communication with those students and or families to ensure that they understand what this means, why it's different, and why they should consider based on, you know, their their coursework they've already done or teach recommendation. or whatever to to do this since this is brand new for our district this year. So, I think that would be good to include. And then you did say there are uh staff at both Hail and Central that will be able to do all of these courses. >> Correct. Yep. >> Very good. Thank you. >> Yeah. Thank you. >> Um just safe to assume because I just received emails from both of my high school my high schoolers counselors as far as plannings their planning meetings.

078So assuming all goes through then I that would just be part of their their discussion that we'll have when I go in for these meetings as far as that goes then. >> Absolutely. So junior conferences are happening or coming up for the majority of students they're being scheduled right now. So that's a perfect >> pairing but as I work with our counseling team we also want families to be aware of these opportunities earlier so they can also kind of plan for them along the way. Perfect. and look forward to it as well. Okay, thank you. Any other questions or comments? Okay, all right, then I would entertain a motion. >> Move to approve 11.2. Second. >> All right. Um, any additional questions or discussion? All right. All those in favor? >> I >> opposed. All

079right, that passes. Thank you. Extremely grateful. All right. Um, now we have the 20242 annual financial statements and audit report. Mr. Norris. All right. Good evening everyone. So, um, to review the, uh, last week the board had the privilege of meeting with Baker Tilly to review our 2024 2025 audit report and we were happy to report for the third consecutive year that we had no material audit findings. So, again, that's a testament to the the finance department, certainly the board of education, our administration across the board in the work they're doing to make sure that kind of what we say and what the board approves is what's happening. And if there's any deviations to that, those uh are coming here back to the board for um review and and uh update. So with that, I'd

080pause for any questions and happy to answer any. >> Any questions from the board? >> Nope. Then I would look for a motion. Please >> move to approve 11.3. Second. >> All right. Any uh follow-up questions or comments? No. All those in favor? >> I I >> I All right, that uh passes. All right. Um All right. So 11.4 request to alter school district boundaries. Dr. Robinson and Mr. Norris. Um are you planning on taking all are you going to discuss all four at the same time or taking each one individually? >> Yeah, we'll do one presentation and then look for board questions prior to um action. >> Okay. Thank you. Do you want to introduce this Dr. Robinson or >> I do know if you want me to or not. >> Yeah. While you're

081while you're doing that Connie pass out a packet. >> Sounds good. >> So um I believe it was two weeks ago we heard four presentations from residents seeking to detach from the WWM school district. tonight is the district's position and um and uh proposal uh proposal I should say uh in response to those requests. We we we're hoping um following this uh presentation tonight that it will bring a bit more clarity to the situation. I do want to thank all four of the presentations, but I also want to thank um the number of community members that I've heard from since then. a lot of the community members from um both sides being New Burland as well as those from the West Alice um city, city of West Alice, a lot of the the concerns were

082around um these four proposals and um some were um actually wanting to come tonight to present. They um a lot of them have also uh scheduled to come at a later date and we've encouraged them to come. that's regardless of how you feel about it, best way is through public discourse and I've encouraged that and so um we're looking forward to hearing from uh residents in the future. But I just wanted to bring that um out because there are a lot of people that are concerned about the the proposals and uh and how they it would affect them. And so just wanted to bring that uh to everybody's attention of the the communication and correspondence that I've received. But I want to also turn it over to Mr. Norris, who will walk us through um

083our our version of the the story. Okay. >> Yeah. Yeah. Thank you, Dr. Robinson, and and thank you to the board of education for taking time this evening to kind of hear out the administration's position and our version or um our story to tell tonight. And so tonight, I handed out a packet. Everything in the packet is in the presentation. So, if you're listening at home, you'll be able to see that or if you've already seen that tonight. Um but I first want to start out by talking about the word responsibility. And I think that's an important word to talk about tonight because each person, each party, each group has a different level of responsibility. And I think it's important that the board, people listening, you know, from every walk of life hear kind of

084the different positionality of each of these groups. So the petitioners to Dr. Robinson sentiment. We we do want to encourage and we do we do thank the petitioners for taking their time to be able to exercise their rights as residents, as citizens of the country to to do these things they're doing because they're doing what they feel is in their best interest, their families or homes, their finances, etc. The New Berlin School Board similarly, who has approved these petitions are similarly likely doing what they feel is best for their district, their community, their residents, their students, their tax base. And I think the thing that I'd like the board to consider is what's your responsibility as similar to the New Berlin School Board, your responsibility is to the same constituents you serve that elected you,

085right? And so as you think about and you hear our story tonight, our version of each of the criteria we'll go through, I want you to think about the people that elected you and what they would do if they got to put their voice into this. So I think throughout the presentation, I'm going to come back to that word responsibility because at the end that's the question that you'll be given uh whether to approve or deny these. So the agenda, we'll talk about some historical background, what the requests, who the petitioners are, uh location, number of properties, etc. Then we'll also talk a bit about owner versus elector which is outlined in the state statute. We'll go through the seven criteria and then we'll we'll finish up with a summary um along with some conclusions

086recommendations questions from the board. So, so some background information and I won't read this verbatim, but in 1947, the Milwaukee County School Committee formed to consider the consolidation around in Milwaukee County. In the fif in 1954, the common West Alis common council annexed territory from the town of Greenfield uh which included the school district of Parkway and Johnson. Later that year, a couple days later, the city of Westell's annex was annexed from the town of Wawaossa, the territory of Lfal and Lane school districts. And then in 54, that's when the county received a petition which was signed by 154 residents of New Berlin to join the Parkway School District. Um it was in that year that the school district was able to um essentially absorb these uh portions of New Burlin. and we'll talk about

087the New Berlin school district along with the city of New Berlin which is made up of four school districts in the city. It's interesting to note that Hoover Elementary was built in the 60s. So directly in response to this is um why there exists a school in New Berlin. So what is the request made by the petitioners? As Dr. province had mentioned their request is to alter the boundaries for a small territory detachment for homes in New Berlin, the city of New Berlin attached to the West Milwaukee School District and allow them to detach to be attached to the New Berlin school district. There's four petitions. You can see they're all linked. The original requests and the dates that they were received along with the link to the presentation they gave two weeks ago. This

088is just a kind of a visual map of the properties. You can see on the left here, this is um the Makosi petition which is in red and the left is a zoomed out version. You can see on the right a more detailed version here of the different properties. Same thing for the Majir petition. The left a more zoomed out and on the right is a more zoomed in. The left you can see the top right corner is that uh yellow orange. That's Hoover Elementary for those watching. The third petition, um, uh, Mr. and Mrs. Deak. This is another petition, similar area here. You can see on the left, the zoomed out version, on the right, the more detailed. And then lastly, the Yel petition, which is the, as they pointed out as well, the

089island that is um, just north of the other and northwest, I guess, of some of the petitions that we've seen. So in red is if you take all the petitions that are presented and put them together kind of what that looks like across the entire map and what that would do to our school boundary. So I know the petitioners um either they themselves have said I think one person directly said that that there is no precedence to approve and deny certain ones of these but as you can see the totality of all four if all four are approved actually do create an island. So, for the board of education to simply close their eyes and only look at one at a time would be extremely foolish in my opinion because if all four are approved,

090which we'll get into later, what do you think the next petition you will receive, where will it come from? It doesn't take much more than a second to figure that out. So, to me, for the same reasons that you've heard petitions, the petition Mr. yell here last or two weeks ago is we be creating the same type of issue here by approving any of these. Okay. So, um I want to talk about owner versus elector before we get into the criteria here. So, um according to uh Wisconsin state statute 11712, it requires for any small territory petition 50% of the owners or electors um in that area to be able to file a petition. Owners not properties are what's defined electors and owners not properties. Okay. So an owner is defined as someone who owns

091per the tax record a property. An elector is someone who's able to vote and I believe the the statute is is reflected in voted in the last uh governor's race essentially. So this is this is the um analysis the school district did here for the number of parcels. You can see in sum total there's 233. The number of owners per the deed is 400. The number of signers um specifically to each petition is reflected under each petitioner. So you can see under the makosi they had 114 parcels of that they that consists of 196 owners. Some people have multiple owners on their deed, some have one etc. How many people signed it? You can see the percent of owners who signed and the number of students um in total. So you can see for actually

092two of the petitions the 50% threshold wasn't met because the the petitioners in some of those instances said well 34 signers divided by 58 properties is over 50%. Well the statute doesn't say the number of properties at 50% says the number of owners. So there's about 100 owners in the Majer petition they haven't even met 50%. Now, the reason that petition was heard is because that doesn't allow the district to void a petition. That's very explicitly stated in the statute, which we dealt with last year. That's why the petition was heard because that's up to DPI to decide. So, just want to point that out. So, across all four um not that they're not that they're some total petitions, but across all four 50% was not met in our opinion, but um that's again not

093an issue uh for this body. So criteria one is looking at the geographical and um essentially the the estimated travel time to and from schools for students in the area. So the process we use we actually took a dual approach this year. We looked at distance and miles. So how long did it take you to get there? And actually in your packet, which is linked in the presentation, you can actually look through the work that went into determining how far these properties are from the centermost point. Um, to get to the schools, we use during typical travel times for beginning of the day, end of day. We didn't just pick noon, we picked when do you go to school, when do you come home from school. We used the lowest travel time in every instance.

094And then we also did distance. So miles. The thing that's dangerous about travel studies is you know I live about 18 minutes from my where I live to school or to the district office at any point in time that could become 31 minutes that could become 22. So what doesn't change is the distance. So we'll show both because I think both provide merit. It was shown in travel time but I think the thing that I would say is the distance is more important because at any given day anything could change. So what we did here this is the daily travel to school. Again this is just this is the daily travel here. So you can see for each center point the address on the first column is not the petitioner's address. It's the center point

095that we selected the amount of miles to Hoover and the time. And again if you're watching the link on the address takes you to the study the board has. So from that I'm going to give you an exam. I'm going to go through one to show you how it works and we'll keep going. So from that center point to Hoover is about 4 minutes. It is four minutes the lowest travel time and it's 1.1 miles to FLW it's 3.17 minutes to hail it's 2.5 and six and you can see we did the same thing for the the correlating New Berlin schools that is the daily travel then we took what is that in a year okay you can see the totals here and this will get to a sum in a minute and then you

096can then we went to what is it for the a career for a student starting in 4K all the way up to high school what's that look like so you can From that center point for the Makosi petition, it's 198 just under 200 hours of travel about 4,500 miles to our the West Alice West Milwaukee schools. For the New Berlin schools, it's about 5200 miles, 250. I won't go through all these. In every instance we did, it is shorter in miles and in distance to our schools. I won't say it's material, but it's certainly shorter. So that's criteria one. This is just the sum of the hours and miles and the difference that I just showed. Criteria two. So criteria two is on the educational needs of educating children, the programs offered and the commitment

097of the school districts to meet the needs of the students in the uh school district. So the conversation that was had two weeks ago, not by all petitioners, but by the majority, was around our school report card. It was the center point, maybe not the main reason, but certainly a majority uh reason for why these petitions should be approved. That was some of the conversation. So, what I've tried to boil this down to, and this is not a new discussion we've had, is essentially the the assertion is that students who live in New Berlin that are tracked based on the school district boundaries to our schools, the assertion that I take from that conversation is that they receive um a lesser education than if they were able to attend the New Berlin school district, like

098students who live in the city and are able to go there based on their address. So to me, I think to compare the entire district is is is not really reasonable because if you live in New Berlin and attend our schools one, you don't go to every school this school in the district. You go to three schools. So to compare the whole district is is is just not a apples to apples comparison. So what I want to do tonight is one show you how do students in New Burlin that attend our school score versus students in New Burlin, but I also want to talk about why these two scores are different. Okay. And I want to talk about it not from Aaron Norris's opinion, but I want to show you across the state because if

099it happens across the state, then there should be no reason to uh publicly disagree with this. So, here is some of the facts around just economically disadvantaged percentages. So, the table here reflects the different school years. I picked a couple recent and then I picked one from seven or eight years ago to show you kind of the trend. So you can see in 2425 the West Dallas West Milwaukee school district per the report card had just under 70% students economically disadvantaged. Then if you go to the middle column the New Berlin students who attend our district that portion 35% of the students who live in New Berlin that attend our schools were economically disadvantaged. And when you look at the New Berlin district in totality based on the report card it was 13.7%. So that

100tells me based on 2425, students that live in West Dallas across our entire district are five times more likely to be living in poverty than a student living in New Berlin. And a student living in New Berlin that attends our schools is three times more likely to be economically disadvantaged than a student living in New Berlin. The reason I show some of the history here is you can see in the school district here in West Dallas, West Milwaukee, that percentage has continually gone up 56%. 65%, 67 now, not not exorbitant increases, but going up. The New Berlin portion that attends our district has hovered around 34 to 37%. And the New Berlin one has kind of went up and went down, right? But consistently you can if you had to guess next year I'd guess

101it's in the 30s for New Burland students in our district. It's probably going to be under 15 for New Berlin. It's going to be right around 70 for like that's data that's shown that's pretty pretty linear here. So when I talk about you're not comparing apples to apples. This is the best conversation I can this is straight facts here. So the question is is that going to translate across the district? Because what I'm essentially saying is the more the higher a district's economically disadvantaged percentage, does it actually translate to lower report card scores? So let's look across the state. The top 10 scoring districts in last year's report card were White Fish Bay, Fox Point, Cedarberg, Coler, Hartland Lake, Merton, Maple, Indian Hill, Holy Hill, and Elcart Lake. An average report card score of 93.

102Look at the average percentage of economically disadvantaged students. top 10. So to suggest that the economically disadvantaged is simply an excuse is crazy. And then you'd say, "Well, Aaron, well the bottom 10 should reflect that, too." Guess what it does? The bottom 10 had an average score of 56 and the economically disadvantage was less than ours. So this is borderline disrespectful to say what was said two weeks ago. This is certainly not the case. The school district here has an average report card score for last year at 70.3. Our average economically disadvantaged percentage is 68%. So my next question is, well, how does that stack up to other districts that have a similar economically disadvantaged? And if you look across the state, school districts that have a 65 to 70% economically disadvantaged percent across their

103district, this is how we score. We're almost at the very top of that list. Is that say there's not work to do? Certainly not. Certainly work to do. My point is that we're educating our students based on where they come very well. And to give credit where credit's due, when you compare New Burlin to similar economically disadvantaged districts, they're doing very well as well. Both districts are serving their communities, I would say, very well. But to say that because one score is higher and one's less and to say apples to apples, if you go an inch deep, you're going to get an inch answer. And that's exactly what the petitioners want you to hear. So now let's look at how do students in New Berlin that go to our schools attend versus students in New

104Berlin. So we pulled a couple different metrics here to show you. And you can see if you take 3 through sixth grade, this is the metric where each will be different here. The title shows them. ELA Ford exam 2425. This is a third through sixth grade test. If you look at all all of our schools from I'm sorry, if you look at Hoover and FLW, which would be where the schools where families in New Berlin would go, and you include everyone that goes there, you can see the the meets in advance is just under 50%. But then if you go, well, how about the students who just live in New Berlin? And this example is actually Hoover and FLW. That was a mistake there. But you can see that number jumps way up to 61%.

105Okay. And if you compare that to Orchard Lane, it's at 64. So not not the same, but this is not material. Seventh grade. Seventh and eighth grade forward exam 2425. Again, FLW all students at FLW for just under 45%. New Berlin students who attend FLW. Oh, 68.7%. There we're a little better. Again, not materially. No material difference. Nathan Hail, ninth and tth grade ELA pre preac. All of Nathan Hale meets her advance 41%. New Berlin students at Hail 63%. New Brilland Eisenhower 66%. Again, not better but not material. Another example here, ELA 2425, 11th grade. Okay, similar story. Okay, same example here. Math preac 9th and 10th grade 23 through 24 New Berlin students at hail 65% Eisenhower 71 not material. So academically this is the facts academically students who live in New Burland but

106attend our school districts score just as well in standardized tests. When you compare the two districts it's not apples to apples if it was it'd be correlated across the state. It is not correlated. Students who live in our district are five times more likely to be from poverty than students in New Berlin. And students who live in New Berlin are three times more likely to be in poverty than students who live in New Berlin but attend the school of New Bland. These are just the facts that we have testimony of written statements. So here we took some of the comments made by the petitioners just to kind of highlight some of the differences differences of opinion if you would. So the first petition uh Mr. Makosce provided by Mr. Merrill. He had stated a couple

107different things. We took a few of these here. Uh constituents are concerned that some res district uh six Newberan students cannot attend New Bland schools, denying these residents the opportunity to join. The New Brilland school district is denying residents the right to select the best education. Two adults are concerned over the school district's mismanagement of funds. Adults wish they could attend the Brillan school district intend instead of West Dallas School District. He talked about the mill rate um and the average increase across their petition across residents. talked about state aid and that taxes um in the area new went up almost thousand dollars this year. Additionally, he talked about the number of children residing in the petition area. So to go through these the first concern around denying the residents rights, uh we first we

108addressed educational outcomes, opportunities and criteria too. We just talked about that. Additionally, I do want to talk about responsibility. Again, homeowners in this petition area made that decision when they purchased their home. That is not something the school board in my opinion, the state appeals panel, anyone in this community should have to take on that burden. They made that decision for themselves and that's their decision to make that change. If they feel like as an owner that a different educational path is best for them, they can make that decision. There's plenty of options or they simply could sell their home. That's up to them. Number two, the concern of mismanagement of funds. the school district um certainly is in a great financial position. Uh we've had three straight years of audit findings and I would

109whoever that person was who said that we we certainly wouldn't have gotten a 60% plus referendum outcome if people thought the district had concerns about mismanagement of funds. So is it true that one person said that? Sure. If it was a majority felt like that the referendum would have had a different answer. So that's pretty much all I can say. Berlin to their credit is in a great financial position as well. Certainly um doing well there. Number three, again adults wish to send their children to the Bland School West Alice. We we've discussed selling their home. That's certainly an option. And I also want to note that this was also shared during the 23 petition which was officially done in 24. Um the comment was that everyone wants to go. That was the comment. It

110was made multiple times in multiple different ways. And at the end when all the families that got taken out either against their will, unsigned or signed, 60% came back. So to say that everyone wants to go and have that be the case just certainly doesn't add up because that's the truth. Um the mill rate, we'll get into this more in criteria four or the in the finances, but the mill rate um the first thing I would say is that Mr. Romero had said that state aid typically offsets this and in in some budget years he's correct that does happen but we've had this board has been here for a long time. There were uh certainly one bienial budget I can remember where no money was pumped into aid and that's the one we're in right

111now. So for the same reasons that Mr. Romero said his taxes went up $1,000 is the same reason he's saying that they won't go up for anyone else. So aid goes up every year to offset everyone else's. But then on the same note, I'm going to say my taxes went up $1,000 for the same reason. It makes no sense. The reality is that if you include the petitions that are for you today along with the detachment that went through, the mill rate increase for the residents is 24 cent. Some of that's not before you today. I understand that. But to look at the totality of what's happening with these petitions and not include those again is is just not a true statement. The reality is that for anyone to suggest against their will that their

112taxes would go up for the betterment of other people that has no impact on them is certainly not something that any resident should say. I don't care how little the tax burden is because that's essentially taxation without representation. Well, you the board are the representatives. The the educa or the the children the petition this was a slide that Mr. Romero showed. So, uh, we we certainly don't have I think I have a slide coming up here with the number of students. So, we have 13 total. I'll go back here in a minute. Um, and I want to go back here. 13 total students we have listed. Um, we certainly aren't privy. Some of this chart I I can't speak to. Not all of it's publicly available. Um, so we we know we have 13 students

113across homeschool, open enrollment out, which would be students who are residents um, and then students who attend our schools. We aren't provided information from the census on students who aren't school age. So that number could be correct. Seven. Same with private schools. We're we're provided with the number of kids attending private schools, not by address. So 19 could be real. The the things that we've looked to verify, if I jump ahead here quick to show you, is we have four students in Opal. Okay, that's going to be students who live in our district who choice out. Okay, the state portal is Opel. It's called Opal from the state of Wisconsin here. So they've provided that there's actually nine. You can see that six other public schools that's can only be open enrollment if it's public

114school and New Burlin another public school which is nine. We've inquired with the state because that's a state record. We only have four. So that's something we've inquired with to find out. And also I don't know how we got 10 unknown students. I'm not sure. I don't know what that means. So, um, yeah, that's just a question I have. So, either way, we have 13, they have 55. There likely is more, you know, between not school age and private schools. Um, but the rest of the the pie, I'm unsure of how to answer. So, okay, Miss Majer uh had a list of testimony, so I want to go through this, too. And so, we're going to go one by one here. Miss Majir said, "Residents identify as part of the New Berlin and daily life.

115So, WAWWM creates a disconnect to the community they live in." Th this is this is just a fact. 400 out of the 421, yes, that is correct. 90 plus% of school districts across the state of Wisconsin include students who live in multiple municipalities just like ours. We have taxing entities of New Berlin, Greenfield, West Dallas, and West Milwaukee. 95% of people in the state have a district that this happens to. So, I'll talk about this more, but to suggest that that's why we're here is ridiculous. It is it is the norm, not the abnormal situation that they'd have you think it is. Number two, families in the petition area are not enrolling in the district. That is not true as well. 19 family 19 students currently attend our school district in all petition areas. So,

116that is not accurate. The district's 202 2024 referendum increased taxes by 259 per year per taxpayer. By comparison, the detachment here ranges 14 to 50 times smaller than the referendum. I'm not contesting that that could be true. I didn't really dive into that detail. She could be correct. That could be a factual statement. The difference here is that the referendum got the option for people to weigh in with choice. Each petition don't require the voices of residents to be heard. And I would say it's interesting that that is a comment made because the New Berlin portion did support the referendums. So it's kind of an interesting comment to make. But either way, this doesn't require people to get their voices heard. And that's some of the comment Dr. Robinson was made. Many people have reached

117out having concerns about this. Um whether it be large or small, it's just the truth. They don't get to weigh in. The next one is the approval of an attachment does not set precedents. So, um, the district on the left here, depending on how you're looking at this, the left, um, that's our district map in 2023. That's what it looked like. If these are approved, that's what our map looks like. So while I while I don't disagree with Miss Majer is that each petition can be heard and decided upon individually, it is is ridiculous for this board or any board to think that they shouldn't look at these in some because what that would do to a school district um certainly would have a massive impact on a district. I mean ju just just just

118keep going. What happens if all four get approved? What's the next one that comes? Well, the island. And then if the body approves that one, they're going to likely approve the island. And then what what about all of New Berlin? What happens if new all of Newber's gone and we have a school in New Brun? It's it's just where does it end? And so I don't I don't know the answer to that. The next thing is and this is in your packet as well, but it's it's shown here. During the presentation, Miss Mir referenced an open records request in which in response to uh board member Lee about the number of um students who reside in the 58 properties. So she said that she was provided that number of zero in her presentation from Miss

119Shepard. And so I wanted to just review the facts. You have this in your your packet. It's certainly listed here. Is that Miss Majir uh did file an open records request on January 7th. She submitted seeking student count along with the 58 properties. At that time she had not submitted a petition. Miss Shepard responded to Miss Majer on the 12th saying the district has no record of this student count is certified upon the receipt of a formal petition. So um manipulating records to create a record is not we we can't do that. Okay. So do we know where every kid lives? Yeah. But that would mean to filter out just the 58 properties Mr. Jer wanted to know about we'd have to create a record. So we said hey submit the petition and we'll send

120you the number of kids. So on the 22nd, the foral petition to alter school district boundaries was received and accepted and next steps were explained. On the 28th, the status update provided from the clerk's signature. And on the 30th, the petition was finalized and certified by the board clerk, Miss Shepard. Also at that time communicating there are four resident students identified. Miss Misure acknowledged the receipt of that email. So when Miss Mure came saying that she was told there is zero, one, that is not true and two, she acknowledged receiving that there's four students in the area. So it's just fundamentally not accurate. Number six, it was communicated from Miss Mir that New Berlin's offered numerous times from people she knows to purchase Hoover. And I can say that I've never seen an offer in

121my history in the district of the school district being offered uh from New Brun to purchase Hoover. So, um, the, uh, deep testimonial here, our home is closer to other areas that have been reassigned in the Bron School District. This would allow home to be contiguous. Those areas, other homes are given the opportunity to attach, so we should be afforded the same. This is exactly what I've been saying. It's similar to Mr. Yell's petition. I'm here because one got through, and it's exactly what I've been saying is the more of these that get approved, the more people feel like they have the opportunity to do it. one goes through and the next one comes. So the snowball effect would be argued from the petitioners is not real. This is literally something that was said. I

122don't know how if I was going to say how would you how would you say the the snowball effect is real? I'd say this recent uh they communicate they recently sold their home but started the petition before selling their home because they feel passionately about having others to move in the area. Um, so again, they sold their home, but they're still here looking to petition to detach it. That's an interesting comment. Just want to point that out. I'm not sure um why that would be the case. They are. And they wrote, "There's no um logical reason that kids on one side of the street attend a different district than kids in the other side." And the reality is like, I get that comment, but there's got to be a line somewhere. And that's where the

123line was drawn. Not by anyone here, but that's where the line's drawn. And that's an experience that is felt in New Berlin by many residents. The Yell petition, uh, they said that the the reason they're here is because they're an island. And they became aware of that a month ago through looking up the school district map. And the reality is this board didn't make a decision to create that island. Islands are not illegal. Okay? They're not statutory legally to have. They happen across the state. And it's a reason why the appeal boundary board shouldn't have approved the first one. So to do something to react to that to me is not something this board should do. Uh category four, the fiscal impact of the reorganization on the school district. So number one, I want to

124talk about the average property values here. So you can see these are updated here across all four municipalities. So, West Dallas, West Milwaukee, Greenfield, New Burlin, the total equalized value from Baird of each of those um municipalities, the percentage of that across the district, and the number of parcels. I want to just point out that it this is literally a story of the halves and have nots. It just is. It's just a fact. West Milwaukee has about the same equalized value with a little over twice the number of homes as New Berlin does. And West Milwaukee has 19 around 1,900 parcels and New Berlin's around 900. So you can see the price of those homes is the reason why they have twice as many. So the people that want to detach are the people that

125have the most to leave the people that have the least to pick up the slack. That's just the truth. financially. Um, and if you include the new Bland detachment of 24, that's what that equalized value would have been. Right? Again, this is the mill rate. I showed this before. You can see um it is around 14 cents for all the um the four petitions with the detachment that occurred previously. Um those numbers have been updated um because that was a few years ago. So that 90 million reflects a more reflective of the year. Um but 24 cents across all five four of them um who are up today for discussion. So what what does that 24 cents look like including all five petitions one that went through and four that have not yet across the

126home values. Okay. So we're going to talk about this. So if if you take what does the mill rate mean for one year? Again that's that's one way to view it. But my opinion is that you go, "Well, one year is important, but this is forever." So, if I'm a homeowner here in the district and I'm not in this petition, I go, "What's this cost for me this year? What about next year? What about five years from now?" Okay. Now, granted, some of the questions here, it's like, "What happens with state aid?" I don't know the answer to that. For every year, I can say we got more state aid. I can point to this year, we got none. Just like revenue for school districts previous to the some of the legislature and the governor,

127like we would go into every budget thinking, "Hey, we might get a couple, we might get nothing. You don't know. You You can't really know. But I can tell you that the 24 cents um if you scaffold this out, assuming a 2% levy increase, which is about what it is per the governor's um 325 initiative, this is what it would look like for a West Alice average home, a West Milwaukee home, a new Berlin home, and a Greenfield home. So, a fiveyear cost about 300 to $500 depending on the municipality all the way up to a 30-year cost of 2,300 up to almost 5,000. So again, when I talk about taxation without true representation, like the question I have for you is what would what would the people in this community if they got to

128vote on this say about this? Would they be pro raising their taxes for a benefit that they wouldn't have? That's a question. I don't know the answer. You as elected officials might have more insight into that, but certainly um the property taxes are a point of discussion at the state level across the entire state. Certainly here is no different. So when we look at the mill rate, ours is substantially higher. This to me represents most of the motive around why you're receiving these. So detaching my property would save me $212 on the mill rate. And what I want to point to is that our mill rate, if you look at the detached petition, which is 10 cents of that, but the referendum, which is a$110, our mill rate isn't that different if you remove those

129two things. Now granted, you can't do that. I'm just saying the referendum was approved overwhelmingly across the community. So to reflect apples to apples, New Bland doesn't have a referendum on the ballot. They don't have any real referendum in their mill rate. So to show that to me, not not that ours is lower. I'm not saying that. Still higher, but it's not this substantial difference. But the difference here is that the referendum was voted on. These detachments don't get that option. So what is the fiscal impact? We we we pulled just the students in our district. So this doesn't include students who are open enrollment, private, homeschooled, kind of that table, Mr. Marshall. We only looked at students that we go, hey, I don't want to over represent revenue. I just want to show you

130how many kids go to our schools. What's the impact on the district? And when you look at membership, you can't look at it as um just one year because membership is a three-year average. So if we have a kid today that graduates, okay, we get funded for that student for the next two years. Okay, that's how it works is a three-year average. So when you look at one year and we look at our our per pupil times the seven students in the Makosi petition, you go the first year, okay, it's not a complete view of the revenue you lose from seven students if those students chose not to stay. You got to get to three years out. So the the actual impact per student the multiplication there is our per pupil times 7 that's the

131three year the 190,000. So if you do that across 5 10 20 years you can see the impact of just losing 18 kids is all is over five.5 million across 20 years. So again I don't want the board or anyone in the community to go well it's 70 grand. What's your budget? 140 million. What do you guys care? It's it's the cost over time. It's how many of the properties don't have kids in school that would have kids in school. That's not even captured here. This is just 18 students. So, is it is it fair to say that's substantial? I think so. And I think it doesn't even capture the true story, which is going to be how many families move in and and do send their kids to Hoover? I don't know the answer

132to that. Unknown. The impact is unmeasurable. And again, this shows you the prior attachment of the 25 kids. So you can see the true loss to the district of revenue across both of these potentially across 20 years is just under 14 million. So real numbers certainly not a drop in the bucket. Certainly not minimal by any by any fashion. Um contiguous again this isn't a new thing. This is our current map and this is what it would look like if all proposed petitions were approved. So again is each petition individually contiguous? Yes. That is exactly what the petitioners will tell you. But they don't want you to look at these in some because in some this is what it looks like. And some of the experience I shared before that comments that were made um

133in these petitions and last year's as well is that we we live in New Berlin. We should go to New Berlin school district. That's enough for you to pro approve it by itself. And again, I want to just focus here just in New Berlin. New Berlin, the school district actually, I'm sorry, the city of New Berlin actually is made up of four different school districts, which you again, you might say, well, that experience is isol. It's just us. It's just New Burlin this is happening to. Okay, that is not true. So, there's four districts. If you live in New Bland, you might go to Elen Brook, you might go to West Dallas, you might go to Mosquel, and you might go to New Burlin. That's the facts there. That's true. And as I shared before,

134400 districts operate in more than one municipality. Here's just a few examples. West Dallas, we know that very well. There's four. In Mosqu, it's Mosquo. It's Norway. It's New Berlin. In El Brook, it's Brookfield, El Grove, and New Berlin. In Cedarberg, it's Cedarberg, Mewan, Grafsonian, and Jackson. In Maple Indian Hill, it's Bayside, River Hills, and Fox Point. And you might know River Hills is in the Glendel River Hill School District. Why do families in River Hills go to Maple Indian Hill? Because school district lines were drawn first. And they would suggest to you that their experience is shared by just them. And that's not true. But we'll keep going. Whitnill School District. Whitnill's in Milwaukee County and Hails Corner is a city. Greenfield's a city and Franklin's a city. And you'd know Greenfield has a

135school district and so is Franklin. Oak Creek, Franklin. Just the name of the district lends itself to having two different cities. Manona Grove, Cottage Grove, Manona, and Madison. Verona, Fitchburg, Madison, Verona, Altuna. I mean, this is there's 390 Morris districts like this. The overwhelming majority have the same experience they do. The next question was, well, how about counties? We live in Walkshaw County. Why don't we go to a school district in Walkshaw County? Well, the reality is there that's shared across a hundred different school districts as well. So, the this the comments, the feeling, the isolationist types of approaches aren't true. They just aren't shared across the state. They aren't recognized because we don't live in Kakana. We don't live in or sorry, Kiwas, Random Lake, Campbell. We don't live there. I don't know. Right.

136But that the truth is that is the feeling that people have across the state of Wisconsin. So those are some more examples. Um criteria six is the socioeconomic level and racial composition. We've talked about socioeconomic levels. So that's not a new discussion. I won't spend too much time on that. This is just the facts. Uh 2526. I updated that to be 33% for this year. Those are the current students. Um the racial composition. So it's certainly in the West Alice West Milwaukee schools. We have about 43% of students who are white, 12% that are African-American, two 2.9% Asian, etc., etc. Um, it's a completely different demographic in New Berlin school district. Not that you'd be surprised, but that's just what it looks like. And then the students who live in New Berlin are are closer

137in uh racial demographics to families who live in the New Berlin school district. So, um, as you might expect, that is the case. Um, students disabilities. So our district has about 18% of students per the report card of 2025 that have disabilities. New Bronland has about 11% and the representation of the New Brun students living in West Dallas is pretty much right in the middle there. And then again just a summary. So this just kind of shows the distinct difference as we are very different economically, we are very different racially and we're very different from a from a disability perspective with our students as well. Criteria seven. So the results of referendum under sub 11710 I want to just point this out is that the comments that got made around the petition around this criteria

138maybe not specifically here but across the presentations were around the referendum that passed. Well this criteria for criteria 7 under 11710 is not about any referendum. This is about the dissolution of a district of which that's not happening. So it's it's really in my opinion irrelevant because no district's dissolving here. But I want to point out this is the results of the 2022 and 2024 elections. So to to say and I think overwhelmingly this was said from multiple petitioners that the district has or people's opinions of the district have financial problems. Um number one that isn't accurate. I've showed that. But two you wouldn't see 60 plus% support for a district that people thought had financial problems. wouldn't happen. We've been there. We know what that looks like. That's not what this looks like. And

139the other piece here is that if you look at just the results in New Berlin, um, in some they were they were successful, too. So, some of the people that either signed this or didn't sign this probably voted yes on these. So, so in summary here, uh, just to kind of go through these, travel distances in terms of annual miles and school careers are not longer in the West LA school district than in New Berlin. There's no material difference there. Ours is shorter, not material. There's no material differences academic outcomes of students who live in New Berlin but attend our school district versus students who live in New Berlin that attend the West Dallas School District. Um, in my opinion, allowing the petition to be approved any or all of them would have a significant

140future implication for ed programming for our districts. Um, living in New Berlin and Waka County, attending our school district in Milwaukee County is not a suitable reason to attach. There is an overwhelming number of districts both from a municipality and a county perspective share these reasons. And financially, it would decrease taxes for petitioners and likely raise home values. But it in in converse it would increase taxes for community members of which the people who are left have less means. So going over the criteria just a nice table here. In my opinion I've showed that each of these should be a denial. There is zero criteria that were met two weeks ago. Not one. So if you were to approve I'm not sure which criteria you use but that's in my opinion the facts. And so

141I want to get back to the word responsibility. And um you know I have a four-year-old son kind of a quick story and every day I pick my son up from school every day. He's four, okay? He's like late August birthday. So I pick him up. He's the youngest kid in the class. And every day I say to him, I pick him up, "How was your day at school?" And every day, no matter how bad or good is day, he says, "Pretty good." "What did you do at school?" "Pretty good." "Nothing." And so I picked him up this past week and I said, 'Hey, what did you do at school today? And he was excited because the word of the week at his school was responsibility. And I got in the car with him, buckled

142him in, he opens his backpack and he hands a piece of paper and the piece of paper starts talking about all the things kids are responsible for at school. And so I said, "What's it mean to you?" I'm trying to like get in my teacher mode here. What's it mean to you? And he says, "Dad, I'm supposed to take responsibility for the actions I make." And so this decision that you guys are asked to made is really comes down to people wanting you to take responsibility for their decisions. That's it. And so I'm going to pause it there and open it up for questions. But my recommendation to uh Miss Steel, the vice president, is to approve a resolution denying each of these detachments. So with that, I'll take questions. All right. Thank you, Mr.

143Norris. Uh, questions. >> Well, then I would um look for uh Do we want to take these separately? >> I think we should >> take each of these separately. >> Yeah, separately. >> Um All right. Well, then I would start with 11.4.1. I would uh entertain a motion at this time. Can you please delineate what a motion what we're exactly motioning and what a vote yes and a vote no means. >> Right. So the motion would be to deny the petitions. A yes vote would be that you are saying no. We are not allow we are not approving the uh school detachment. If you would vote no that would mean that you are approving them to be detached from our school district. >> Yep. So a yes vote is that you are voting that no

144they cannot detach from the district. we are not approving it. A no vote is that you are approving the districts and they can uh detach. >> So I would look for a motion. >> I move to approve 11.4.1. >> Second. >> All right. Any questions or um discussion? All right. Okay. All right. So then the motion is to uh approve a resolution denying the petition to detach one land parcel from the school district of West Dallas West Milwaukee at all and attach the property to the new Berlin school district for the reasons presented. Let me read that to you. And then also this would authorize the board vice president to prepare and include with the resolution a summary of the rationale for the board's denial of the petition as discussed by the board at the

145February 23rd, 2026 meeting. All right. So all those in favor >> I >> opposed. All right. The the net school detachment petition has been denied. I would look uh and then we have 11.4.2. two. Any questions or uh discussion on that petition? Then I would look for a motion. >> Move to approve the resolution denying for or I'm sorry for uh 11.4.2. >> Second. >> All right. >> All those I'm sorry. Any discussion or questions? All those in favor? >> Opposed? All right. It is that um that means that the detachment has not been approved by the school district. All right. I would then look at 11.4.3. Any questions or discussion? No. I look for a motion, please. >> Move to approve 11.4.3 to deny the petition. >> Second. >> All right. Again, any questions

146or discussion? All right. All those in favor? >> I >> opposed. All right. that school detachment petition has been denied. And then 11.4.4. Any questions or discussion? Then I would look for a motion, please. >> Move to approve 11.4.4. >> Second. >> Again, any questions or discussion? All right. All those in favor? >> I. >> Those opposed. All right. Then that has uh that has not that detachment has not gone through either. We have our um sorry got it. All right. So that is the end of our agenda or action items and now we'll be going into our workshop. So we have the financial stability and efficiency workshop. Mr. Norris >> five minute recess. >> Oh, you want to recess? Okay. Sorry. Uh do I have to ask for a roll call for that? No.

147Okay. We're going to take a fivem minute recess to set up for the workshop. We are back. We are going to do our workshop now, the financial stability and efficiency workshop. Mr. Norris, take it away. >> Awesome. So, this is the first meeting in our budget calendar. This is why it's tonight, you know. Um, and we we'll talk about some stuff that you guys have been privy to, enrollment, um, and staffing and certainly the revenue limit. A lot of that's consistent because we're in the second year, the bienial, but as I think Mr. Lee mentioned, Dr. Robins mentioned the states in deliberations right now about amending the current budget because the surplus they had um was $2 half billion. So that could get better for us both revenue and from a a state aid perspective.

148So we don't really know a ton about that. So we're kind of like we're operating in again an unknown bianium. So it's a little interesting being here. So the couple things I'll hit on membership and enrollment trends uh 26 27 member and membership and enrollment fiscal impact. We'll talk about staffing projections just lightly. Um and then we'll talk about what that means for the bianium revenue calcs and budget projections. So again two two distinct things. Enrollment are kids that actually enter schools. That's different than membership. Membership are any resident students who live in our boundaries. We just kind of talked about that like kids that open and roll out. We count as members. We get paid for them and then we owe the expense to the district they go to. And it's not a dollar

149for dollar. So the membership losing members even if they don't go to school here is important. Okay. So that's that's a good thing to know. Kids that open enroll in are enrollment not members. Kids that we take from different communities. We don't get to count for membership but we get paid for them from the district at the end of the year. So this is the big chart. You guys have seen this from Connie before so I won't talk too much but essentially the the big thing to note is that our enrollment I think I have a slide here is is actually leveling off here. You can see from K kindergarten, which is mostly when most kids under the statute requirement enroll. It's not till six, but most kids turn six in kindergarten. So most families

150enroll in kindergarten because they go, well, I don't want to enroll my kid in January. So, but the reason I bring that up is because kindergarten to 8th grade literally it's a twokid difference up and down. So, the enrollment decline that's left is really in the high school. And I would argue that our ninth grade class is probably the new norm for nth grade. 500,45. You get that jump from 8th to 9th grade because private schools are expensive. Not a lot of not a lot of, you know, cheap private schools out there for high school because they're required to be comprehensive. Band and orchestra and athletics and try it's expensive. K8s can get away with not having that, right? So that's kind of what that looks like. So the enrollment in staffing you're going to

151see really is reflective of the high schools. Um and additionally a commitment from the team, Dr. Robinson included to try to eliminate a split level grades in elementarymentaries. Um that's certainly a big portion of our uh strategic plan certainly. So this is just another slide that shows the three-year membership. This is what I was kind of getting at in the presentation. We get funded for kids after they're gone. So that red line is actually the number of we get funded at and you can see the blue chart is actually where we're getting fund the number of membership kids. So, as our enrollment declines, if you have 9,000 and 8,000 and 7,000, you actually get paid for the 7,000 year 8,000 kids because they want the state wants the schools to as membership decreases, they want

152you to kind of curb your costs over time. They go, it's unreasonable. You lost thousand kids, you're going to cut a 30-year staff, but over a couple years, they want you to do that, right? That's what they want you to do. So, that's that. You can see over um essentially a fiveyear period, we're down to 347 kids. That's why it's so important over time, not all at once, to slowly rightsize your staff. So, if we're losing a 100 kids, we got to cut a few teachers. Now, we don't do that through RIFF anymore. We just go, "Hey, you retired. We're not getting replaced. We can recalc." We don't do that. We haven't done that in like six or seven years probably. So, that's good. Now, people might get moved across schools. That's normal. That happens.

153But that's why it's so important over time because typically districts that end up having financial problems, they don't do little things over time and then it becomes big problems, right? So staying kind of ahead of that, even if it's minimal one year, two years to try to do that is important. And so again, it's membership. That's why the pupil count matters in September times what you get in every bianual budget. And what that actually looks like for us is 13,000 next year. And I'll tell you the reason it changed. This year it was 11,763. Again, if you add in the 325 Governor Reaver's um state mandate plus the 171 in transfer of service, that was the number of students who transferred in with special uh needs that we didn't have staff for. And then the

154the $5.8 million recurring referendum actually gets rolled into your per people next year. So that's 780. You add that up, you get the 13,000. And that that's why part of the referendum pitch, we're like, we're going to get up to the average. Well, that's about 12,08. Now, it's going to be about $13,000 per kid. So, put this right there. Um, so then from there, you got to figure out how many staff you need by school. That's really going to go down to protected enrollment by school by grade. So, these are the board approved matrices for elementary and secondary to Mr. Lee's comment from the board report. This is what we're looking at trying to do some analysis for the full board on like what if 22 became 20, what if 27 became 25? to Miss

155Car's question. I'll get to some of your question I think tonight actually. We'll certainly discuss the committee, but that's some of the analysis we want to do and because for elementary because we've tried to eliminate having split level grades, like we don't want a teacher that teaches 4K to have 4K and kindergarten, right? It's difficult from an instructional perspective, two different curriculums. So, we're trying to eliminate that. Actually brought down the averages further. So, we're we're actually well below in most schools under 22. Um, so anyway, I talked about this staffing efficiencies, balanced budgets, comes down to like if you're staffed appropriately. Most districts that are having balanced budgets, they're doing that every year. And we we have a good record of how to do that. And so trying to stick to that and make

156small little adjustments like elementaryaries not having like that to me is a a minimal cost for a huge gain. So trying to pick our battles of where do we want to put some money at that to me that's a good thing to try to do because we you know we have a healthy fund balance so even if something you know etc. So I won't get into that. So this is the big table. I've actually condensed it a little bit to show you. So I won't I'll go through like Franklin to give you an example. Then you guys can read through it and get an idea of what things look like. So Franklin and and I'll go slow here. Franklin has currently 12 general academic teachers. This does not include special ed. Okay. Special ed's done

157a different calc. This is just regular ed. Okay. So they have they were projected again we staff off the projection. They were projected at 255. That number came in at 239. So if you take 239 divided by 12 you get to 19.2. That's Miss Car's question. Where are we at today? Franklin today give or take a couple you know point whatever >> is around 20 kids per teacher across the whole school. Now does some teachers have 24 and some have 15? Sure. But across the school, that's the average. We're projecting Franklin to have 222. And we've broken that further down. That won't be in this presentation into by grade. We want to know, does every grade make sense? Right? So, generally, that's why you don't see them reducing teachers because we got to make sure

158that the classes at each grade have enough teachers, right? So, kind of a where we might have reduced to 11, we're not going to try to do it this year. We're going to keep it at 12. That rat that that building average is 18. Do you guys see that? But that the reason it's 18 and someone's at 21 is because sometimes the numbers don't work. You go Franklin's got 32 kids in first grade. What do you do? You can't run one section of this. You run two. So they got 16. Well, if that happens a couple times, that ratio is at 18 then, right? So it just Irving's at 21. Next year it could be at 19. Just depends how the numbers flush out. But you can see across the elementarymentaries the average is about

15920. So we're already below the 22 now. Um, but that doesn't mean that every grade's below that. It just means that the building average is, you know, you might have a fourth grade, a second grade class at 23. You're not going to split that in two, you know. So, we're just, you kind of have to think a little bit about it, but that's kind of how that works. So, you can see across elementaryaries, we're actually adding two teachers, one at Wilson and one at Mitchell to make that work. At the intermediate, this is the last year. Remember, if you go back before the maps got changed with the um the three schools closing, kids at Jefferson used to go to Wright and now the Jefferson kids go to West. This is the last year. So,

160the reason Wright's going down too is because the Jefferson kids that are in eighth grade at Wright actually aren't going to be there anymore. And the sixth grade class doesn't include Jefferson. So, now Wright actually has no kids next year that came from Jefferson. So, >> they're going to go down a little bit. F West is going to go up a little bit and they're actually going to remain at at zero. Uh they'll remain at 17 staff so they're fine. Um and that's an area to Mr. Lee's comment like we might look at that and we might have to add staff to get that down to 25, right? But um FLW is going to lose two and the high schools are are still up in the air of questions because course requests as Connie said

161are still being done. So we don't know exactly what that looks like but my early projections are that we'll probably likely cut one teacher per department there. And the reason that is is because if you look at hail is a good example. They were projected this year at 1,58 kids. We're projecting them at 950. That's 100 kids. Well, how how many times can 25 go into 100? Four. So it's about four. If I had to guess, I'd say the course requests are going to come in and we'll likely need we could likely reduce a teacher in every major um department. That's likely what I'll guess. Not sure until they come in. Central's a little bit less because 948 to 880 is is 68 kids up too, right? So that's rough math. So again, state budget

162update really quick and we'll finish up here in a second. We're in year two of the bianium. So typically there's no changes, but the Senate Bill 852, which is still being deliberated, has a very wide range of things. This is kind of the list here. There's been discussion of tax rebate checks for households. I think there's pretty much a commitment to G give state aid or tax levy credits. So, just so you guys know the difference, when they talk about tax levy credits on your tax bill, there's a line. It's called the school levy tax credit. >> Some of the people in the state like that better because everyone gets an equal amount. If your house is a millionaire, it's 100 grand, you get the same amount. Okay, pretty much it's it's on a per

163it's on a percent basis. Okay, the aid, the reason aid is more popular with some people is they go, "Well, if you live in H Heartland, you actually don't need a ton more. we want to give it an aid and have it distributed where districts that have the biggest need are going to get more of it, right? So, there's differing conversations there. Either way, I think there's going to be an appetite for money into um state aid. Additionally, I think Governor Ivers wants it in state aid because when you look at your tax bill, it's the tax levy credits taken off at the bottom. So, if if if it doesn't come off the school line, people might still go the schools are still that's some of the thinking, too. It's like optics, right? Um, but

164the good news is that in every proposal there's been additional money for special education to get up to >> hopefully some sufficient. Um, but at least at a minimum to get up to the 45% next year we're supposed to get. Right now it's like a net difference of four. So if they say 42, it's going to be 38. They say 45, it'll be 41. That's generally how it goes. >> So that's going to be good news because at this point we are still I'm I'm forecasting us to be at a deficit, but I'll get to why in a minute. Um, so that's kind of some of the things we're planning on. Um, I think it's going to happen. We're not banking on that. It's not that's not baked in here. Um, but some of the

165expense assumptions we're planning on, we always budget about 15% for health insurance. It's trending around 10 right now. So that's hopefully that comes in right around there. Dental, we're we're uh we've been at zero for a while. The transportation contracts at 4 and a half. WRS is at 7.2%. That's what the state tells us. The reason the $1.25 $25 million deficit is because of the comp model, which you guys have been privy to that conversation. So, that's going to be about a four-year deficit. The fifth year we're that's when the money's gone from committed. That's when I that's we're projecting the OPED benefit to reduce for that to replace it. So, that's good news. Um, for other expenses, utilities, we have been historically overbudgeting this, so I think this 4% seems reasonable. And then insurance,

166property liabilities between six and 10 every year. So, eight's pretty good number usually to use. So that's the deficit 1.25. Uh that's kind of the revenues and deficits there or expenses. There really isn't a pathway to get to to to get balance because this is what we're projecting for. If we get additional dollars that come in, you know, Dr. Robinson, myself, finance committee will certainly kind of table that up and look at what district priorities do we have, etc., etc., to see if there's other areas that we might need to, you know, increase some staffing on or programming, etc. Um but the the mill rate um we're projecting a 7% decrease in the mill rate and about a 3% decrease in the tax levy that's pending. Nothing happens at the state level. So that's a

167good news. I think having the tax levy decrease next year is probably a great thing for the community, you know, and finding ways to stabilize that is is is kind of the plan. So we as we know more, we'll certainly be sharing that out with the finance committee and the whole board. But at this point, I think it's all good news from finance. Um, in terms of I guess budget, mill rate, tax levy, it can only get better from here, I think. So, I think that's it. Think I can skip this. >> Before we open it up to everybody else, are you prepared at all to talk about sort of like what your work is for the current budget year kind of like how that could >> Yeah. Yeah, we certainly could. Yeah. So, we

168we've just started about a few weeks ago to Dr. Robson's point, it it's very difficult to do um I know we're looking at some of the finance reporting for this board monthly reporting. It's very difficult to get too far down a current year budget. So, we kind of joke sometimes like we actually are in three budgets at one time. Like in November, we've approved this year's budget. We're still finishing the audit on last year and we're getting ready for next year's budget. It's three budgets. So, we finished one, now we're on two. Well, the work you're seeing is next year. Well, the current year is what Dr. Robin is talking about. So we we do the first year pull. We do the first pull for this year typically about the first payroll in February. We

169meet then and look at it because there's enough expenses where you go you can forecast teacher pay all the salaries that are going to be paid. You start to get a sense of like where are the departments at? Where are the schools at? Where are the where are encumbered expenses? Like where are we going to end? And we're we're kind of looking at we think we're going to have a few million dollars in a surplus. Now that's like a 2% in our budget. That could change tomorrow, but generally when I feel really comfortable is when we're past April because April, end of April is when the school the schools like we kind of shut down spending on stuff. Pecar mean stuff that gets expensed. We generally the big expenses are done. Grant claims are in.

170We know if revenues went up. Um but we're forecasting that. So I'm hoping um in likely the March or April meeting, we'll start getting into what that looks like, some projected ideas for expenses uh around the budget amendment process. But to your point, Dr. Robinson, >> I just wanted to make sure because there have been some some persons that came recently saying we were not stewards of our financial >> Yeah. >> great stewards of financial. >> So, I just want to make sure everybody is aware that we are in great shape. >> Um, and we've given out and I know you guys are aware of this. We've given out state checks to our staff the last two years. We anticipate doing the same for the third year in a row. So, just wanted that to

171kind of I don't want to get down the road too far, >> but uh we're we're in pretty good shape. And I think to that point, I think one other thing that we've talked in the finance committee about is like as we get into May and June, do we look at potentially because even though we've done a really good job of projecting, there's always still like a half million or 750,000, which seems like a lot of money is, but to our whole budget, it's such a minimal amount that we're like, you know, we're so conservative that we go, hey, we actually had more than we thought. So I think one of the questions that we've talked about in finance committee is like do we overt transfer into a 46 fund to make sure that we're

172like getting as much aid as possible. And so I think that might be a recommendation just to kind of get your feet wet a little bit around May like we think it'll be three but we're actually going to present four. >> And it's not like the district's going to lose a million. It's going to get put in different place that way we can man make sure that the tax levy is as best supported by city as possible. Yeah. >> All right. Thank you. Um, do we have additional questions for Mr. Norris? >> I don't have questions >> or a comment, >> Mr. Lee. >> Yeah. So um I had brought this possibility of doing this because it's my ninth year in the board. I think at least seven of the nine years we have had

173uh surplus at the end of the year. It might be more than that but at least seven. I know the first year we didn't because we were cutting like crazy to get under the second year I don't know but ever that ever since then we've always ended up with a surplus of money. And we've seen that even though we do well with our budgeting and we stay within the budget that we get, other districts don't and they get a one-year benefit of that in more aid. And so I wanted to know what's the tipping point, right? If we overspend by half a million dollars, that's not really the end of the world, but we're going to end up with more aid the next year because of that. That help that helps the taxpayers, right? Our

174property taxes less is coming out to fund our budget. We're not being ridiculous about it, but you know, it's the system, right? And I think some districts are playing the system better than we are at this point, >> 100%. >> And I don't I'm not saying we should overspend by stupid amounts of money, >> but I think there is a there is a balancing point that we could hit where I'd rather make sure that we're taking the money that we get for this year and we're spending it on this year's kids >> and this year's staff to the best of our ability. And and then if we go over a little bit, okay, fine. we got a very healthy fund balance, we could cover all that and then next year maybe we get a little

175bit more in aid that helps offset that that point. I think if we can as a board strike that balance and working with Aaron and his team, that is a I think a a good benefit until they change the formula where you start actually getting some sort of negative outcome from spending more than you've budgeted for in your in your annual budget. >> I think a good example of that is you heard in I think Miss Lee's report and Mr. Lee's report about the pools. We're talking about that that's kind of coming up in our finance committee meeting certainly with Shelley. So this is interesting. So we've inquired like part of the discussion that we've had is you know for fund 80 you levy into fund 80 you expense out of fund 80. I've inquired

176you do not receive more state aid if you levy and expense out of 80. So the pools yeah you it doesn't impact state but like in rine this is a good example of playing the game. If the board takes out a loan through 38 to build the pools, levies in fund 80 transfers it, makes the payment, you get you get aided on it, that means whatever pools you build, the state pays for 25% of it for us. That's real dollars. So if it's 20 million bucks, the state pays for five of it. That's what Rene did. That that's a loophole I would say or like how people play the state a game. Yeah. >> And so like part of that discussion is we're trying to go like what does the district need? Is there a

177way to do that? If we do it, it's better likely to take out a loan because then we can subsidize taxpayers. Better strategy. That's just a good example. We've talked about that. So yeah. So that was one thing. And then the other thing I just want to note with the um re-evaluation that's happening within West Dallas for the properties again that's going to occur >> and that there's going to come out in April that I think it might be a good idea to try to work closely with um West City West Dallas on that as they come out because that change depending on what has to happen there may affect where we want that rate to land. So if they end up with another increase in their property taxes um that is not uniform, so

178like they actually do see an increase based on those values, >> we might want to look at that and make decisions about where we want levies to fall and that sort of stuff >> on that which I know for sure for sure they don't know till December, but they're going to have you'll have your valuations in April. So we can hopefully make some projections. city can help us with those projections because we want to try to make sure that we're aggregating that as much as we can um with the flexibility that we know that we're going to have in this upcoming budget barring any major changes that happen at the state level. >> And I and I hadn't heard that for some reason. I know I saw it on social media, but we have city

179schools. >> Yeah. >> Have they announced a frequency as far as >> Yes. I thought it was every 10 years. >> Every two years. So I can comment I can >> so >> I can minimum >> Mr. Lee. >> So I've been digging into this a little bit ever since I've learned about it because I was interested as to why it was happening. I've had some conversations with some um older people at the city about why this occurred because I didn't know anything about it till I started seeing stuff on Next Door and Facebook. So apparently the issue was that the state essentially is forcing this to occur. um the evaluation that was done two years ago in 2024, the state basically determined it wasn't close enough. They have to be within 10% of actuals

180versus assessed. And so um there was some things that happened and essentially um they're okay for last year or for 2024, but 2025 they fell below that limit. Again, that's why it's happening. My understanding from the city perspective is that they're looking at going to do this within every two to three years moving forward. So there isn't this massive change one way or the other. Um, and so hopefully then that becomes like a normal thing and less anxiety building, which is now the norm for people when they get these valuations. Oh crap, I haven't had it for so long. Oh crap, my taxes went up so much. And so if we do it every two to three years, it should smooth out those changes. And so then thus hopefully smooth out any changes in in

181taxes as well. And also, I mean, the big swing with this was the commercial property values being shifted more to residential. And if we do this every two to three years, we can hopefully see those changes shift back too when um the commercial properties start uh gaining more in value again. So that's my understanding of that. But that was something I was thinking about when we're talking about, you know, where the mill rate will land and what the levy's going to be at. Um and and our our goal to to again smooth out those bumps so we're not going up and down so much. um to just keep that in mind and maybe reach out to uh your compatriate at the city of West Dallas to kind of see where things are at and if

182they can give some idea. I know they can't give us definitives, but then that can help us maybe in our planning as well. >> All right, any additional questions or comments on this workshop? All right. Well, if there's no further business and there's no objection, the meeting will be adjourned. There being no further business or objection, the meeting is adjourned.