Regular Meeting of the Board of Education - March 16, 2026

001All right, it is now 611 PM and we are out of closing sessions. We can be great. Great. Let me into the board education with a pledge to the American flag. I pledge allegiance 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. Roll call please. Mr. Jason Meyer here. Mr. Herrera here. Mr. Hennepin here. Mrs. Howell here. Mr. Mueller here. Mr. Piggy here. Mrs. Young here. Before we start the regular meeting of the Board of Education, as a reminder, all board members are expected to follow our approved community norms and board protocol. Are there any items on the agenda any members of the board would like to amend or move? Hearing none. Do I have a

002motion in a 2nd to approve the agenda of the regular meeting of the board education on March 16th, 2026 as presented. Okay, number empty made the motion number young 2nd, and the motion to approve the agenda of the regular meeting of the board of education on March. 16th. 2026 and presented discussion. Mr. This is young. Hi, Mr. So my Mr. Piggy. Hi. Mr. Mueller. This is how Mr. Herrera. We will now have our district celebrations and at this time, I'd like to turn this portion of the meeting over to Dr. Shuck for recognitions. All right. Well, we are going to start by recognizing two of our board members, Jeff Deistelmeyer, or three of our board members, Jeff Deistelmeyer, Jorge Herrera, and Holly Houck for their continued commitment to professional learning and service to public education

003through the Illinois Association of School Boards Board Member Recognition Program. These individuals have earned the established level of achievement for 2025. This recognition reflects the time and effort they have dedicated to ongoing training, leadership development, and service to the public education community. On behalf of IASB and our school district, we thank them for their commitment to lifelong learning, strong governance, and their unwavering dedication to the students, staff, and families we serve. And we have some pins for them. and a picture opportunity. So please join me in congratulating. Are you going to go up front? We are going to, yes. Congratulations, Holly. Congratulations again. And I'm looking, oh, there he is. Our next individual to recognize this evening is Dr. Matthew Fry. Dr. Matthew Fry just had the successful defense of his dissertation, completing a doctoral

004program representing years of dedication, research, and perseverance. We are so proud to recognize the significant academic achievement and the commitment to learning and leadership it reflects. Congratulations, Dr. Frye, on this outstanding accomplishment. All right. And Danny Gallaghy and Jared Young are either of them. Ah, they're there. Come on up. We wanted to share that this comes from the co-president of Northern Illinois Association of Teachers of Mathematics. And he writes, I wanted to share that your Amped On math teachers, Danny Gallaghy and Jared Young, gave an outstanding presentation of this new D100 class to our local math teachers group at Rockford University. Our group consisted of area math educators from other local high schools, as well as math professors from Rock Valley College. Rockford University and Northern Illinois University. Also in attendance were several pre-service math

005students from teacher education and math programs. Danny and Jared enthusiastically discussed the Amped on Math curriculum at Belvidere North High School, led us through some Amped team building exercises, showed examples of student work and presented achievement results versus the standard algebra one curriculum and i a t m attendees left very impressed by danny and jerry's implementation of amped and also by the student responses the comment that many of their north students who struggled with math in middle school now call algebra their favorite high school class Jared and Danny's presentation reflected favorably not only on themselves, but brought great credit to Belvedere North High School and D100. Thank you for sharing them with us. And thank you. A small example of what the kids actually put together for you guys. Little notepads. I have one. Thank

006you. This has been a very, very exciting new program. And so you know, it's also now highlighted in the STEM Century National Publication. So congratulations to Dana. All right. And we have some board shout outs now. Tina Thode. Do we have Tina here? All right. Tina from Perry Elementary. I want to shout out our incredible kindergarten paraprofessional in recognition of her unwavering dedication, compassion, and professionalism. Each day, she provides individualized support to students with special needs, ensuring that this child feels safe, valued, and capable of success. Her patience and consistency create an environment where the student can thrive both academically and socially. She approaches every challenge with grace, creativity, and calm. What makes her truly exceptional is her ability to support the entire classroom while meeting the specific needs of one student. She seamlessly assists

007other students, reinforces lessons, helps maintain classroom routines, and collaborates closely with the teacher. She anticipates needs before they arise and steps in wherever she is needed without hesitation. Her positive attitude, her flexibility, and her genuine love for children make her an invaluable member of our kindergarten team. She exemplifies the very best of inclusive education and demonstrates daily that every child deserves support, encouragement, and belief in their... their potential, our classroom and our school are better because of her dedication and her heart. I wholeheartedly think Perry School and the kindergarten classroom are both better places because of Mrs. Thope. Thank you. Rachel Condon. Do we have Rachel? Come on up, Rachel. Ms. Condon is an amazing teacher and she's always there to help you if you need anything and she is very patient. Thank you, Rachel.

008And Jenny Brady. Jenny Brady from CMS. Currently in her first year in Belvedere School District, Jenny has stepped into the demanding role of middle school instructional coach for technology, serving both CMS and SMS. No small undertaking. From day one, she has embraced the complexity of navigating two buildings with different systems and different cultures, new platforms, the rollout and support with ViewSonic panels, and so much more. Jenny approaches every challenge with professionalism and grace. Congratulations to Jenny Brady. And Diane Koopman. Do we have Diane? All right. I'd like to recognize Diane, our incredible librarian at Central Middle School, as she prepares to retire at the end of this year. Coop, as we call her, is so much more than our librarian. She is truly one of the control centers of our building. She keeps the library

009operating as a multi-purpose hub that supports students and staff in countless ways. She partners with our level one tech support to guide students, Chromebook management, supervises geometry students returning from the high school. and monitors PE students when they aren't able to attend class for medical reasons. She is a solution-focused voice for best. Mrs. Koopman masterfully manages library scheduling, ensuring spaces are available for small group testing, committee meetings, professional development, breakout rooms, literary classics, book checkout, and so much more. Her flexibility and organization makes... all possible. Coop isn't just Central's librarian, she is a cornerstone of Central Middle School. Her impact reaches many parts of our building and her presence will be greatly missed as she begins her well-earned next chapter in retirement. Congratulations. And Cassie Vermillion, Sean Houston, Penny Paddock, and Heather Lane. Come on

010up. I'd like to give a D100 shout out to our CMS content leaders, Cassie Vermillion, Sean Houston, Penny Paddock, and Heather Lane. Each of them has dedicated more than 20 plus years to Central Middle School, and this marks our fourth year of having middle school content leader roles. These teachers have taken on significant additional responsibility on top of their full-time work with students. Math is continuing to work on common assessments, data analysis, and implementation of building thinking classrooms. Social studies is strengthening inquiry skills. Science is deepening NGSS understanding and intentionally transferring that learning into classroom practices. Literacy is thoughtfully navigating and implementing a new core resource to support student growth. Their daily leadership includes planning and facilitating department meetings, serving on district action planning teams, collaborating as a building team, and partnering with their crosstown

011colleagues to ensure alignment. They've been an essential voice in identifying professional development needs. Although each content leader teaches one grade level, they intentionally engage across all three levels, sometimes working to attend PLCs or visit classrooms, ensuring cohesion and support within their departments. So much of their work happens behind the scenes, but it directly impacts the forward movement of their subject areas and most importantly, supports what is best for students. We are incredibly grateful for their dedication, leadership, and commitment to Central Middle School. And Melissa Arvidson. We have Melissa here. Melissa is from BHS, and this is written by a student. I am currently a sophomore, but she was always helping me in math class because I really did struggle with math when I moved into D100. By the end of eighth grade, I had started

012to enjoy math. Every time she has helped me, even with stuff from outside of school, which also helps support my mental health, I am so very thankful for her. She's the best teacher to me. And tonight we're going to hear about our elementary time study. And we have some of those committee members here tonight to be recognized. John DeVrie, Kara Anderson, Stephanie Cordray, Amy Hansen, Megan Kaiser, Christy Billiter, Caitlin Lease, Beth Limones, and Jenna Schuster, as well as Jen Mandera and Sandra Santamaria and Jen McCormick. If you're here, come on up. I appreciate you taking all the glory on this. A huge thank you from Dr. Johnson to this incredible group of educators for serving on the Elementary Time Study Committee. Serving on a committee is no small task on top of your daily classroom

013responsibilities, yet each of you showed up with high energy and invaluable input. I truly appreciate the collaborative spirit you brought to our discussions. It made all the difference in reaching a consensus we can all be proud of. Thank you. And last but not least is Gladys Guerrero. Is Gladys here? Oh, she is here. Come on up, Gladys. Gladys plays a vital role in ensuring that families clearly understand the discussions and the decisions taking place during special education meetings. She communicates information in a way that is accessible, respectful, and family-friendly, helping families feel informed and supported throughout the process. Gladys is consistently willing to assist the team in any way needed to ensure that the special education process runs smoothly and efficiently. She truly exemplifies the values and commitment to families that D100 strives to uphold.

014Absolutely true. Congratulations, guys. And then can we have everybody who's just recognized come up and we'll take a picture of this photo. It's always good to have a lot of shout outs. Thank you so much for coming out tonight and for all you do. We will now have our student council reports. Is a representative here from Bovadere High School? Okay. Is there a student here to present the student council report for Bovadere North High School? Yes, she is. Hello, good evening. My name is Oskari Quintero and I'll be giving the report for Bovadere North. California said we were able to make to take the whole school to see at the pack We had the opportunity to enjoy an opera for the young performance for some of our students starting in the production We did our

015annual dr. Seuss cafe in which families come in during the day to read with their children and fifth graders serve the book and snack We brought new families from Shamrock bingo one night to have fun before the impact Now, Lincoln Elementary. Our first and second grade students got to enjoy Frozen at the Pack. Our students participated in a fun run sponsored by PBO. We had the opportunity to enjoy opera for the young performers with some of our students starting in the production. We have been preparing our third through fifth grade students to be able to successfully navigate them taking IAR and we are looking forward to struggling finish after we return from spring break. Now Perry Elementary. Panorama survey was administered with a 96% completion rate. Our goal was to increase emotional regulation and went

016up by 8 points to exceed the goal. 5th grade students got to show off their spelling skills at the Spanish spelling bee. Belvedere North athletes joined Perry for Read Across America. The Perry Garden Club joined the Rain Garden Rumble hosted by Illinois Extension. Now Seth. Our kindergarten and second grade students attended the play Frozen at the Pack. We had our SWES night at the B&H Boys Varsity Game. Seth Whitman students performed the national anthem at the recent Ice Hall Games. We have started the battle of the book and for Read Across America. Our fifth grade students visited the Pack for a band preview for middle school, now central. Our sixth grade students and... Essential Elements students had a great time seeing Frozen at the pack. Our teachers loved watching how many students sang along to

017some of their favorite Frozen songs. We hosted the BNHS mental health club during our lunches. last month and really appreciated having them join with our students for recess as well. They gave our mental health awareness stickers and then sidewalk chalk with the BCMS kids during recess. On Friday, March 13th, we hosted a student faculty games during the school day where students can compete against their teachers in the three-point shootout, tug-of-war, and some other fun games. We were spending time preparing, taking our I.R. and looking forward to spring break to follow after that. Now, VNHS. At Beverly North, Frozen was an absolute hit of a show. We could not have been more proud of everyone involved. We have been spending a lot of time preparing our freshmen through juniors for the next ACT and pre-ACT. We

018are excited to see how they perform. Thank you. Okay, we will now have our board committee reports starting with education services on March 4th. Mr. or Mr. Mueller, do you have anything you would like to highlight or share from the services committee? No, other than there's a couple of renewals there that we recommend for support with. Does anybody have any questions for Mr. or Mr. Mueller or Dr Carson or Dr. Johnson for that matter? Okay, policy and personnel. This is younger Mr. piggy. Do you have anything you would like to highlight or share from the policy and personnel committee? Minutes does anyone have any questions for this is young? Mr. Piggy or Dr. 80? The following policies were brought forward from the policy personnel committee for the 1st readings and will be included in the

019April. Agenda for final reading and approval. Does anyone have any questions or comments regarding the following policies? Or the 1st, we have the services. This is how or Mr. you have anything you would like to highlight or share from. The services community minutes. Nothing in particular a lot of stuff on the consent and roll call so if anybody has any questions. Any questions for Mrs. Hock or Mr. Hempke or Mrs. Armstrong for that matter? Moving on to parent-teacher advisory on March 13th. Minutes have been provided for the board to review. Dr. Shug, do you have anything you would like to highlight or share from the parent-teacher advisory committee? I don't think so. It was a productive meeting and I think it's all there in the minutes for you. Any questions for Dr. Shug? At this

020time, members of the public and employees of district, like, 100, make public comments reminder in person appearing before the board is expected to address the board only at the appropriate time and following the directives of the board president. Maintain order and identify oneself. Limit comments to 3 minutes and conduct oneself. With respect towards others and abide by board policy, 8,030 visitors to. conduct on school property. Okay at this time with Mr. Joel, is it Ellen? Those are two students that came in on Friday. So do we have any students from North here that wanted to speak? Did you hear that? Because there was no school, because it was remote learning they might not have known. But Mr dance now, please step forward. Thank you. I am still, um, I own a house on West Jackson

021and Berlin 1 of address at the Perry school. I know I talked to some of you at the, uh. Open house the other day, but just wanted to reiterate that many people leave that Perry school, including myself should stay open. I'm not sure what happened with the infrastructure. Updates and expenditures that should have occurred a year and a half ago. Or at least start that process and now it seems like we're reinventing the wheel. Little concerned about the survey that's going to go out. It's only going to take a snapshot and I'm sure some of those people don't even know Perry school is this. So, anyhow, just want to reiterate that. Not really sure where the ball got dropped or if it got dropped or it was intentional, but it seems like somewhere in the

022line there was a lot of miscommunication or misleading information. Put forward to the public about Paris school and again, just want to reiterate both the state. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. at this time with Chris Cameron, please step forward. Cameron and Marilyn I'm here today as a member of community. If I want to hear a Perry elementary school, central, middle school and North high school. I'm also a dad of students at all 3 of those schools. And I'm a husband to an amazing teacher at Perry. I'm here today just to talk for a few minutes about. I'm not going to tell you whether you should vote to keep Harry open or close. That's not my job. In fact, I don't really care which direction you vote on that, but I'm very concerned. I'm concerned about

023the lack. The lack of outward concern for our teachers and our faculty members at that school. I'm concerned about the tangible, the lack of tangible concern for Perry families and kids. And I'm concerned mostly about the lack of planning. I'm concerned about tomorrow. When my wife and her colleagues have to go back into the building and look all of those students in the eyes and try to explain to them what happened and what comes next if you do indeed vote to close Perry Elementary. I'm concerned about that immediate aftermath. What is that plan? Will you have additional staff on hand to support perhaps counselors to help our faculty and our students work through this process and their concerns that they're going to have immediately after finding out what this board decides to do? Are we

024considering those families who maybe don't have vehicles and the only way they get to go to conferences is because they're so close to Perry that they get to walk. And that they can only attend events. Because they're of their ability to walk to those that school. Have we really, really thought past the dollars. Into what really matters and that's our community. And our people, so while I hope you have thought through that, I think past behavior is an indicator of future behavior. And I'm not very confident in the planning that has happened. If you do it. Do indeed choose to close the school and I guess as as we say, you know, the ball is in your court. And I sincerely hope you prove me wrong. Thank you. Carol stump, please come forward. Hi, my

025name is Carol stump and we have residents on West Marshall street. And I am here just to say. A little bit statement. I've talked a lot about this and this is just I tried to put it. Just in a very easy statement. I'm definitely not going to go to 3 minutes. I'm here today, not just as a resident, but as a representative. Of a community that refuses. To see its heart torn out. Perry school is more than bricks and mortar. It is a landmark of our history and a vital resource for our future. We are particularly concerned because the previous board had already approved keeping Perry School open. And here we are again. That was a commitment made to the community. And I have to ask again, why is there a sudden change in our

026direction now? We deserve consistency and honesty. from this leadership. When you talk about closing or demolishing, you aren't just talking about a building. You are talking about displacing our children, destabilizing our neighborhood, and erasing the legacy of those who have built this community. And I have been a resident of Boundeer for 53 years. All we are asking for is transparency. for a seat at the table, and most importantly, for a commitment to preserve this institution. We are not here to be quiet. We are here to ensure that Paris School remains a place where our children can thrive. We expect your decision to reflect the value of this community and not just a line item on your budget. Thank you. At this time with 14, Zachary, please come forward members of the board. My name is

027sports Zachary and I am the teacher at Perry. Let me start by saying, I appreciate the job you're doing. I have run for school board before and I do acknowledge the position you're in Dr. I love working for you and district 100. I appreciate how you've made me feel. I can be honest with you. We have had the public meetings, gathered all the input, and had the public debate. The board of two years ago voted to keep Perry open and recommended investments to that end. Just one election cycle later, we are now told, oops, we missed something, do over. It must have been the survey. We were told that surveying just 400 people of a community of tens of thousands mathematically gives us the public opinion. Well, there is just as much research saying that

028a survey pool that small doesn't yield reliable conclusions. Are we going to finally see the questions tonight? Statistics can be made to lie and liars use statistics. Four-year requests show the district continues to spend $10,000 less each year on maintenance or period. The money donated by the city to fix the roof was spent on high school tennis courts and track and field. Perry loses its principal and we're told we'll find you one next year while Seth resigns and you begin looking that very week. And then there's EC. It sure feels like we're being pitted against each other. It all adds up to feeling like there is a right answer for central office. And we are going to keep doing this until the right board gives us the right answer. The result for the Perry family

029is all the trust in the board and the process is gone. The solution is transparency. Tell us your right answer. Dr. Shug, you are clearly the leader. I would like for you to articulate your vision for the future. What do you want to see with Perry, with EC, a year from now, five years from now? Let's have an honest debate. When not given all the information, people will make up the missing pieces to make things make sense. Given the lack of transparency, here's what I see happening, and I hope I am wrong. Perry was supposed to close two years ago. Our principal was brought in to help the neighborhood swallow that decision. Instead, she galvanized families and staff into saving Perry in concept. So for a combination of reasons, she's now out and Perry left

030leaderless. A new board majority favorable to central office has been brought in. Tonight, they will vote five to two not to sign the check. And now not investing in Perry will put closing Perry back on the table. In less than a month, all three mandatory public meetings will be rammed through just like Harlem. and the board will vote 6-1 at the next board meeting to close Perry at the end of this year. At the same time, the board will vote to approve, in concept, an early childhood center. Perry's staff and students will be squeezed into the remaining schools, displacing specialists and interventionists, and making the elementary schools overcrowded enough that even the public now notice. Thus, two years from now, that board will have to sign the check for the EC center. EC will then

031be moved out of Washington and Cal, creating room, and then finally school boundaries will be redrawn, balancing everything out. I would love for you to prove me wrong. Thank you. Thank you, Mr.. Zachary is there anyone else that would like to approach the board for public comment Okay, do I have a motion in a second to approve this consent agenda? Next thing the agenda are a consent agenda items Are there any items on the consent agenda any members of the board would like to take out for separate consideration? I said a couple questions about number 10 are there any other items? Remember Peggy requested to have items number 10 We moved any other requests. Okay. Do I have a motion or a 2nd to approve all consent agenda items not requested to be pulled as

032presented public. 2nd, number of days from our made the motion. Remember 2nd of the motion. Approving all consent agenda items not requested to be as presented discussion. At this time, I would like to acknowledge the following donations Sam smart TV from Caroline rap for your high school class. 150 dollars 1 gift card from your Walmart super center for your North high school musical theater and 300 dollars from and 300 dollars from income tax services. Or. South middle school band and mariachi club. Okay, roll call please. Mr. Jason Meyer. All right. Mr. Mr. Hi. This is how I can you learn. This is young Mr. Herrera. Okay. Do I have a motion in a 2nd to approve a consent agenda item? Number 10 as presented. Number, give me the motion number. Second, the motion to approve

033the consent agenda item number 10 presented. Discussion I just have a couple of couple of questions about the Chromebooks. How often does that Chromebook refresh happen? Yeah, so we refresh when they're in fifth grade, and they're going to take that all the way through middle school and then ninth grade. And then we also used to refresh our K through four on a cycle as well. But now that they're back in the carts, we're trying to extend that longer than that period of time. Okay. So then when the Chromebooks are replaced then do they what happens to the ones that are switched out? So the high school ones When they graduate they take the Chromebook with them So it's our option to keep it with them or they can return that. Middle school what we'll do

034is we'll piece them out so up well whatever Chromebook comes back they may be in different types of Repairs and we'll piece them together and then we'll reuse them as parts. Okay I know some of the kids put stickers on their Chromebooks. So we will remove stickers off of those and then try and use the ones that aren't in damage or disarray. Okay. And then one final question here is I know some have MediaTek and some have Intel. So we have gone Intel for the last forever purchase of Chromebooks. And with the price of... RAM going up. It was a cost savings to go with the media tech. Now all vendors are looking at that media tech processor as the way forward. We didn't want to throw the entire fleet of 1500 of the purchase

035here straight into media tech. So we wanted to start in fifth grade first, get that wave out there. If there are issues, then we can come back and revisit that. But in high school, we wanted to keep that Intel processor for next year while we get that first wave in. Right, that makes sense. Thank you. Okay. Any other discussion on agenda item? Number 10. Okay. Roll call please. Mr. Hi. This is help. This is young. Hi. Mr. Piggy. Hi. Mr. Jason Meyer. Hi. Mr. Miller. Hi. Next on the agenda are our roll call items starting with the revisions to existing board of education policies. Are there any policies under role call any members of the board would like to take out for separate consideration? Okay, you're a nun. Do I have a motion in a

0362nd to approval roll call items? Number 1 through 3 as presented. A 2nd, okay. Remember how to make a motion member young accepted the motion to approve roll call. I action items. Number 1, 3, 3 provisions to existing board of education policies by 1, 25. Personal technology and social media. Usage in contact 5, 140 solicitations by or from staff and. Policy 5, 1 81. Return to work programs as presented discussion. Okay. Roll call please. This is how this is young. Hi. Mr. Piggy. Hi. Mr. Deeson. Hi. Hi. Mr. Mr. Mr. Herrera. Okay. Passes. Okay, do I have a motion in 2nd to approve the elementary time study findings and next steps as presented. I'll make the motion number. Desmar made a motion and remember how 2nd of the motion to approve the elementary time study

037findings and next steps as presented discussions. Dr. Johnson, did you want to highlight some of the key areas of that study that you led? Yeah, absolutely. We had a really great group of people that came together starting early fall all the way through last month. Really stemmed from the fact that in 2018, the state no longer provided exact time frames for subject areas or content areas. Since then, we have adopted some new curriculum between math and literacy. And so we really needed to make sure that we had consistency across the six buildings and the student day. So how are we using our time? And really went through a great process of looking at research. We looked at our benchmark districts. We looked at just what was happening within our own district. And the group was

038able to provide a couple different times where we were able to go out for feedback for all staff. Because we would talk about things that were priority as a committee, but wanted to be able to go out to the entire elementary staff to say, how meaningful is this to you? Or how meaningful is it that we work through some of these issues with you? A lot of it really ended up around scheduling, how we schedule throughout the day with our students in terms of just organization. Transitions was another piece. At times we had... just sometimes awkward or too many transitions throughout the day where staff is saying, you know, we're losing time. We just did this. We would have more continuity within the subject area. So that was some of the pieces. Interruptions were occurring

039throughout the day. Our doors are locked, which is different than 10 plus years ago. And we understand that they're there for safety reasons. but it results in a lot of knocking. Some doors have literal doorbells and with young kids especially the second they hear that their attention to learning is gone. So we're looking at some other practical options to allow staff to have an easier entry into classrooms. Our biliteracy mapping is an area for curriculum. It's our dual language classrooms. They have a curriculum in English. They have a curriculum in Spanish. A lot of staff felt like they were trying to do two curriculums in one day. So we're bringing in a consultant to help with some of those areas. And then when we looked at a lot of our benchmark districts, especially at the

040younger ages they were doing a much greater exploration of literacy and math and they were finding ways to integrate other subjects areas versus standalone especially in the younger grades for sure so this particular proposal Didn't have anything that required a policy or board approval. It was more just in-house organizational things that we could do. And then we would come back together as a committee next year just to see if we needed to push further with some different options. We did have a couple things that we were interested in potentially considering, but we wanted to see how some of these changes. helped our elementary day first so that we weren't throwing too much at it and then not knowing what was working or not working. But really felt like we wanted to be able to bring

041it back to the board because it was a board approved research study way back in the fall. Just to kind of close that loop. All of this is under goal two. So the high school time study was done a few years back. Last year, middle school took a look at their day and how they were supporting students who were at risk or struggling. This one was elementary's turn to take a look at how we were using our day. So I'm very excited to start to work on some of these pieces, and I'm very hopeful that this will help our teaching staff and ultimately help the school day for our students. Provide some efficiencies some better time utilization and I think dr. Johnson and that team for working through that we do know there's still some

042other Areas that we want to continue to work through but we are really excited about the work that was done Thanks, Dr. Johnson. I have a question for you. What does it look like to integrate social studies and literacy together? Sure. Yeah, great question. So a lot of the literacy companies are ahead of the game on this, so that's been very helpful. That was one area when we adopted this a year ago. The company that we utilized was... very forward in the fact that they were able to kind of take the two content areas and typical standards. And so that was one of the highlights of that literacy adoption that we did, knowing that we could do this further down the road. So if you're talking about some concepts that look at conflict or change

043or time, some things with even geography, if it's done through literacy and storytelling, and if it's done through your teaching of writing, your speaking, it's going to be a much more meaningful project than sometimes these standalone pieces. What we were finding is that Teachers at the elementary level might have a couple days a week with these short blocks to just suddenly teach a concept in isolation because that's all that the daily schedule was allowing. This way, we're able to work in some of those topics in a more authentic manner. through larger literacy blocks. And so what will happen is our social studies teacher committee and our literacy teacher committee will come together next year and they'll work with the company that has our curriculum and they'll be able to kind of piece what that would

044look like, which is why we said we weren't going to jump into it immediately because we needed essentially a year's worth of planning and training so that our staff Is able to feel better equipped into the. Upcoming year, any other questions for Dr Johnson? Any other discussion? Okay. Roll call please. Mr. Hi. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi.

045Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Do I have a motion in a 2nd to approve the designation of individual to prepare that. This will year 2027 into the budget as presented. I move. Okay, remember him give me the motion number of Mueller 2nd of the motion to approve the designation of individual. Joanne Armstrong to prepare the fiscal year 2027 to the budget as presented discussion. Roll call please. Mr. Hemke. Aye. Mr. Mueller. Aye. Mr. Piggy. Aye. Mrs. Young. Aye. Mr. Dieselmeyer. Aye. Mrs. Holt. Aye. Mr. Pereira. Aye. Motion passes. Do I have a motion and a second to approve the maintenance grant RFP recommendation as presented? Is there a second? I second. Member Piggy made the motion. Member Hemke seconded the motion to approve the maintenance grant RFP to McDermott Ruffin

046as presented. Discussions? Quick run down on sure. Um, or Sean either 1, sorry you want to give them a run down on there? 2 minutes. Okay. In a nutshell every year we are provided with a business grid. And what this is geared towards is deferred maintenance. And it is a matching grant up to $50,000. And we've done these over here since I've been here in prior. And we typically try to hit up building envelopes, but we've tried to keep the dollar amount around $100,000 for the project. Because we have a lot of other deferred maintenance in the district. So this year we went back and revisited BHS's rough section. And we were fortunate enough that we separated it out to a primary rough and then a couple of addendums. I'm sorry, not addendums, but alternates

047that they could give us numbers on. And fortunately, the pricing came back at $100,390, I believe. We're going to do a nice chunk of real format, which will help us that rough is slated to be done in the phase 1. But this here by us doing it this way, we're able to take the 100,000 dollars and hopefully. Take some of the burden off of those projects. So, thank you any other questions, special questions here with Mr. Winters. Mr. Piggy hi. Mr. Hempke. Aye. Mr. Desaumeier. Aye. Mrs. Houk. Aye. Mr. Mueller. Aye. Mrs. Young. Aye. Mr. Herrera. Aye. Motion passes. Do I have a motion and a second to approve a secure entry RFP as presented? Second. Member Hempke made the motion. Member Piggy seconded the motion to approve a secure entry RFP. I guess it's

048the option two as presented. And, uh, yes, next will be here to speak to the 2 options and I think option 2 is probably what you want to put in there, but we can certainly alter that depending on the discussion. So, if you want to support and kind of provide the overview of the options. Oh, perfect. Um, should we go through? Presentation perfect. Good evening. My name is Russian mark with that solutions and I would be reporned 1 of our directors of construction. We want to tonight to basically give you some updates on bid activity beyond the secure entrance, but focus mainly on the secure entrance, give you a couple options on how you'd like to move forward and then answer any questions you might have. That's fine. So this is going to give a

049little update on the activity that's happened on several jobs for bidding. So starting with the secure entry project, the secure entry project is one of these three that the bids have been received. So, documents were sent out to the contractors. The project was advertised in the local newspapers. A mandatory pre-bid walkthrough was held. Contractors were contacted for questions and to review items that were included in the bidding documents. Local contractor associations were contacted just to give a word out to the contractors in the area. And bids were received on March 9th for that project. for the Washington and VHS roofing project. Documents are out to bid to contractors right now. Newspaper advertisements have been published for that project as well. A pre-bid walkthrough is coming up on Wednesday and contractors have been contacted to notify

050them about the project being available right now and bids are slated to be due on March 24th. Then for the Wellness Center project that one's currently out of it as well Documents are out to the contractors again the newspapers advertisements were done a pretty big walkthrough was ready held for that project 17 different contractors attended the walkthrough so that was a good turnout and really nice to see a good positive interest from the contractors local contractors met with the local contractor associations to again promote the project within contractors and Try to get as many business again contact again. We're in the process of contacting contractors to make sure if there's any questions or make sure they understand the scope of the project. And they are also due for that project on March. Switching back to

051your entries. The scope of that was to modify the building to provide security for 9 of the buildings. Most of them were fairly straightforward. With the exception of Caledonia and Washington, where the more extensive work had to be redone. In order to integrate the check in process, some of the office itself had to be remodeled slight remodel as well at Everest. Along with the additional infrastructure, that's part of that mechanical, the electrical, we ended up replacing an air handler. For Caledonia, which was going to be part of the next set of projects, but we had to do it ahead of time so that it could accommodate the relay out of the office. There's also some additional site work that's being done as well throughout the district, but for the most part, it focuses around. Um,

052parking lots and the security. Okay, so then, um, looking at to go through a little bit the bids that were received for the security project. Um, so we. Requested bids based on seven separate work scopes. You can see the work scopes listed there. Those are separated out based on traditional expertises of different contractors. It's a little different than you might see on a lot of projects where you might have been expecting just one bid back for the whole project from one contractor. We purposely set up our bidding system to separate out the different works of different contractors' expertise to level out the project as was kind of an industry term to reduce markup on top of markup of different contractors if it's all if it's a more vertical system of contracting that can be internal

053markup on the target markup that you can't quite see within the project and this way it gives us more visibility into what's happening with a project to be able to see different parts and scopes of the different projects so how numbers are coming in where the bid interest was or wasn't. So there you can see the list of the project of the bids ever received for this project two for excavation two for our three for asphalt paving on none for site concrete one for general trades two for plumbing two for HVAC and We did follow the district process of mandatory walkthroughs for this project, which did limit a little bit for some of the bidders specifically on the concrete side and general trades concrete. If they missed the walk through, they couldn't bid when they

054called after the fact, we weren't allowed to. So, moving forward in consultation with the district, we will have the. Not mandatory, so that we don't limit the flexibility and ability to obtain the maximum amount of this for the, for the district. You can see from option 1, we did want to give you 2 options from the bits that were received. We did put budgets in there for the site concrete, which was not. Which would go to receive 0 bids. We have a budget of 300,000 dollars when you take out the general contracting bid at scope for. And you take the rest of those rest of the bids that were received. We were about 6% under budget. When you add in the one general contractor that we did receive for 26% over budget. So what we

055want to do is provide you an option, which we believe there's a better way to achieve some savings, get all of the work done. And do it more cost effectively. However, if you do choose this option, we can execute it within the projects. Funding, it will take quite a bit of contingency to do that. And I'll have some limitations on some of the projects moving forward, but the project can handle moving forward with option 1 or option 2. but we did want to give you both options. Option 2, what we'd advocate is awarding all of the contracts. For bid, except for again site. Concrete, which is where scope 3 and the general trades, we believe by not requiring a mandatory walk through. Re advertising, which we'll have to do for a site country on site.

056That site concrete regardless will give us more ability to generate more contractor interests and get more bids. There actually is a lot of a lot of desire out there to bid your guys's work. But keep in mind contractors are we're competing for contractors because they're bidding a bunch of projects every week. So. That is your option as well. We put the budget for that work around 3.2Million. If we can bring that, which I truly believe we can, I'm very confident in our numbers. We are under budget. If we do take that 1 single general contractor out by rebidding it, we believe we can bring the project within budget and move forward. With that, we'd like to answer any questions you might have between the options. Well, and just to clarify, Nexus's recommendation is option number

057two? Correct. All right. And how will that affect the timeline of? These projects, it'll probably will be about a month or 2 before we get the bids back for the 2 for scopes that we'd be rebidding in the meantime. The rest of the contracts would be written. We get equipment ordered on the mechanical side. Get all the shop drawings all the minutiae we have to do for construction for to make sure that everything is installed for the specifications. Get that process going. It would. We would advocate probably adding a little bit of extra time on the end, right? Because we have a couple months, maybe weeks, not months, obviously, to get some of the more simpler projects done. But we will be able to get very close to the original timeline. Thank you. So you

058mentioned this will bump up the timeline by one to two months, which means completion in the fall? Yes. Okay. What's your experience with working when students are present at the school doing these jobs? We do that all the time. Yeah, it's a regular occurrence. In fact, most of our, we rarely get the luxury of working without students in the school itself. The key is to set up, especially a lot of these, over half of these are very straightforward from a secure entrance perspective, either adding glass or compartmentalization for the entry sequence we're trying to achieve. Will the learning environment will not be disturbed and normal student or staff safety. So that's always paramount and how we approach these things. But I would say 90% of our projects are not occupied buildings. And if we proceeded

059with option 2, we'd still be able to get concrete poured before the weather turns bad in the fall. Yeah, by, especially by awarding the other than work scopes 3 and 4 a lot of that is site work. We can get that going right away as well. So we can. Get what we can go on right away and as these other kids come in, get that right on the heels of that. Concrete's not a not a scope of work that requires ordering materials for. Far ahead of time compared to like, HVAC, electrically order materials that might have a longer lead time concrete. You just need to get a concrete contractor hired and then they could fold into the schedule by just ordering ready mixes. Process not not a month long across months long process of ordering

060electrical equipment. So, that site concrete contractor could be dovetailed right into the schedule easily for the summer still. Russ, can you explain how you get to your confidence with being able to go out on option 2 to rebid this when the price of oil is nearly $100? Gas has gone up by 75%. The price of everything is going up. So, how do we get comfortable with either locking in option 1 today or... Feeling confident they're gonna you guys are gonna be able to come back with more bids with a lower with a lower price That's exactly it. We need better Participation by removing the mandatory walkthrough requirement that gives us flexibility to continue to market the project to meet with Contractors to walk them through the site get them familiar with it and get a

061larger Group of bidders to participate which we have no doubt will be able to do both for the concrete and the general general trades The general trades have 1 respondent and they were 77% higher than what your estimate was. That's correct. So, what, um. What are the details being? Why do you. Again, why do you have confidence that that 70% was just a very inflated and not appropriate bid. When there's mandatory walkthroughs and contractors can see who's there and who isn't. And as the process works itself through the mid process, contractors are very creative and very smart, and they can find out. Through suppliers who's been in the project or not, and we feel that opening it up. And allowing others to take a look at it, and even taking a look at maybe the

062materials, or just some things we can do differently and things like that. Just from suggestions. We will without a doubt bring back more bids that will be of lower cost. So, essentially, they've seen nobody else showed up through a high bid. Because it's not uncommon. Do they provide a very itemized. Quote right one number they just provide one and it's based on the plans and specifications They don't have options of what to bid and what not to bid if they have to bid everything within the plans and specifications If they do want to substitute materials that has to be approved Prior to bid so that we are bidding apples to apples and the same. Type of Apple, the same type of, but they don't break it out like this, this work scope of the project

063is cost this much. This works called this material. Not more than the 70 song screen. That's it. And that's by design. Like, we're also saying so that we can make sure they're equal equal bids. If a contractor is sending in a list of holy qualifications, then you really don't know if you're getting equal equal beds where we just hold them. You say give us your price for the plans and specifications. Anything else we can answer for you. Did you receive calls from concrete contractors after the walkthrough? It did actually a couple they could submit. There's actually a couple of work scopes and site concrete was 1 of them that. People wanted to be the projects and I said, you missed the meeting. Sorry. So. That was 1 of the reasons we're changing already have changed

064the process for the 1. Except a bit activity, we already have changed that process to gain more interest. I guess reading the list here of the schools, obviously, Perry's not on the list. For secure entrances wasn't that slated for next year anyways for secure entrance or correct? It would be done with the rest of the of the very design because it's very integrated. I couldn't remember anything else. Any other questions comments. Thank you, Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr.

065Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr The fiscal year 2025 has presented discussion. This this audit is required because we receive over 750,000 dollars in federal grant money. So they typically pick 2 of our programs. This year's program was titled 1 and the nutrition program. We get very excited when we have no findings and that's what I'm used to. Unfortunately, this year we did have 1 binding on internal controls. For the nutrition program. There is a limitation within is these website for when you submit your claims you do in schools and then you consolidate

066it and put it as a whole. We have always operated with that being put in do a review of it physically and then submitting it. Barbie would be very familiar because she used to do this. That has always been an acceptable process this year. They decided that they wanted that certification. Uh, documented within the system, um, that the state has established, but there isn't a workflow. Um, so in talking with the auditors, what we have chosen to do is that 1 person will input all of the site. Uh, claims, and then I will physically go in and consolidate those and submit the final claim so that we have both of those looking at, um, in the past, I was just signing off on them and then they would submit the whole claim. So. It was

067a change in how they wanted them processed. It makes sense. It's just not something that was available like all other claims that when you put it in, it automatically routes to myself, then it routes to Cassandra, and the food service program doesn't have that capability. So that is a correction that we've already made and put in place, and we got the sign-off from the state. A corrective action plan was already approved. Otherwise everything came out clean next year. I would anticipate that they will be choosing our IDEA and Probably one of our smaller grants on that side They usually fluctuate title one in IDEA because those are our two biggest grants that they receive any questions for Mrs. Axelrod Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr.

068Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Member he made the motion number viewer second in the motion to approve the regulatory basis agent audit fiscal year 2026 With Gorans and associates LTD as presented discussion Okay, do I have a motion in a 2nd to approve the non re, employment

069resolution of the end of year full time. Temporary teachers effective 2025 through 2026. School year as presented. Okay, remember how made the motion. Remember, Miller, 2nd, of the motion to prove the non re, employment resolution of end of year full time temporary teachers effective. School year 2025 through 2026 as presented. Discussion. Okay. Roll call please. This is how Mr Mueller. All right. Mr. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi.

070Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi Effective for your 2025 through 2026. As presented move number Mueller made the motion number how 2nd of the motion to approve the non re, employment resolution of end of year. Full time temporary teachers affected 20, 25 through 2026 school year as present. Part time, I'm sorry end of year full. Our time teachers effective 2025 through 2026. Okay, real call please. Mr. Mueller. All right. This is how I used to do some minor. Hi. Hi. This is young. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi.

071Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi Okay, number of Mueller made the motion member, December 2nd at the motion to approve the non. Reemployment resolution of end of full time teachers. Effective school year 2025 through 2026 and present. Discussion just a moment. Here we go. We're going to restate this. So number of Mueller and number of. Remember Miller made the motion member to smile 2nd in the motion to approve the non renewal 1st, 2nd, or 3rd year probationary teachers effective the

072end of 2025 through 2026 full year as presented. Okay, roll call Mr. Mueller. Hi, Mr. Hi. This is young. Hi. Mr. Hi. This is how Mr. Mr. Herrera. Okay. Motion passes. Do I have a motion and a 2nd to approve the resolution for educational support personnel reduction and force as presented. I move. Okay, number of you alert made the motion member. He's seconded the motion. To prove the resolution for education of support personnel. Reduction and force as presented. Okay, roll call please. Mr. Mueller. All right. All right. This is young. Hi, Mr. Hi, this is how Mr. career passes. Hey, do I have a motion in a 2nd to approve the 2026 to 2027 administrative contract for 10 months? South. Middle school assistant principal as presented. So moved member piggy made the motion member house.

073Seconded the motion to approve that 2026 through 2027. Administrative contract. For 10 months, or stop middle school assistant principal. For 3, or back as presented discussion. Okay. Roll call please. Mr. Mr. Miller. Hi. Hi. This is young. Hi. Mr. Hi. And I would just share, I don't think we have Katie here with us this evening, but we know that Katie served as principal at Perry Elementary School and has decided to step into this role as South Middle School Assistant Principal moving forward for next school year. We did work with Katie on that. She is excited to take on that role and excited to work with that. Do I have a motion and a second to approve the 2026 through 2027 administrative contract for 10 months? Seth Whitman elementary school principal as presented. I move member

074empty made the motion member Peggy seconded the motion to approve the. And when you're 2026 and 2727 administrative contact contract. And what's the contract for Seth Whitman elementary school principal. Time you've given as present discussion. Okay, roll call, please. Mr. Hemke. Aye. Mr. Piggy. Aye. Mrs. Hope. Aye. Mr. Dusselmeyer. Aye. Mr. Mueller. Aye. Mrs. Young. Aye. Mr. Herrera. Aye. Okay, motion passes. And do we have Mr. Gibbons here tonight? Yes. Mr. Gibbons. All right. Welcome to D100. Mr. Gibbons, anything you wanted to share with the board? I just appreciate the opportunity to take this challenge on and go ahead and district the 100. We're excited to have you here. Thank you so much for coming out this evening. And looking forward to have you join the Seth Whitman team. Welcome, Mr. Gibbons. We're looking forward

075to having you. Thank you so much. Okay, do I have a motion and a second to approve the 2026 through 2027 Administrative Contract, 12-month Contract for Director of Bilingual Services as presented? I'll make the motion. I'll second. Okay. Remember, the motion member, young 2nd, and the motion to approve the 2026 through 2027 administrative contract contract to director of multilingual. As presented discussion. Hey, roll call please. Mr. I, this is young. Hi. This is how Mr. Mr. Mueller. All right. Mr. Hamkey. All right. Mr. Herrera. Okay, motion passes. And we do have Ms. Laredo with us here as well today. We are very excited to have Consuelo in this new role. She has just spent a year in the secondary supervisor role, and the secondary principals have so appreciated her leadership there. They're going to be

076sad to lose her there. We are really, really excited to have her in this new role. We think her leadership is going to be terrific. She's a D100 rising star, so really excited to have her in that position. Congratulations, Ms. Laredo. Anything you want to say? The following items have been added for discussion or will be coming up for further review and are possible action in the future. Background information can be provided and the board may ask questions and or request clarification. At this time we will have our polling results and facility master plan updates. All right, we have, I believe, Peter Leatherman is here from the Morris Leatherman Company. As you know, the Leatherman Company has administered a poll to our community and he is here tonight to present those polling results. Mr. Leatherman,

077can you give us a couple minutes? Absolutely. Sure. We're just going to break for a couple minutes. Anybody need a... Quick break, take it down now. Very good. We'll give you a 2nd. Yeah. Yeah, we have everybody back Mr. All right. It's a pleasure to be here with you in person. I didn't know that was going to be possibly yesterday. Well, we had a Minnesota, so let's sit down here also. So just to review with everybody if we go to the 1st slide, let's talk methodology. There's always lots of discussion about methodology, how we do what we do. We've been doing this since 1982. This is actually my 32nd year doing public opinion research. There are two different kinds of methodology. You can do a telephone random sample, or you can do a self-selected computer,

078internet, or mail-out survey. The self-selection has inherent biases. On a mail-out or an internet, there's inherent biases up front. First off, an internet survey across the country, 10% of people don't have access to the internet. On the flip side, on a mail-out survey, an 18 to 24-year-old doesn't know where the mailbox is, much less are they going to go take a survey out of the mail, fill it out, put a stamp back on, and send it back. But then you have the biases on the back end, on self-selecting. You opt in. And historically, when I started doing this in 1994, the opt-in surveys... Internet surveys didn't exist when I started doing this. The mail-out surveys tended to skew 10 to 15 points more negative. If you had an issue, you were going to share it

079with whatever entity was doing the polling. If you were a supporter, you might fill it out, but the vast majority of people are not going to take the time. They don't have an issue. On the on the what we found though in the last 10 to 15 years when you look especially at internet surveys with the self-selection certain groups try to win the survey. They opt in. So they feel it necessary to, and they motivate. The classic example is our hockey parents. In Minnesota, if you put on a question on hockey, 75% of your sample will play hockey when it's really 5% of the population. So really the only way to get a reliable survey that's projectable to a margin of error that we have is through randomness. Because the margin of error is driven

080by the randomness of the sample. You can't, and that's why there's a lot of bad polls out there right now. We all see them during the presidential races. If you look at the methodology, a lot of those polls are online surveys. And they don't call it a margin of error, they call it a confidence error. Now, my business partner, who was my statistics professor back in college, He has never heard of a confidence in her. It's something that's been made up for self selected surveys. So we still do it the old fashioned by telephone cell phones are included. You can see them up there. Cell phones. We've been including cell phones in our sample since 2007. Now, how is the random sample generated? I go to an online database that has everybody. It's not just

081registered voters. It's maintained on a monthly basis by utility hookups and disconnects. And then I just tell it, generate 400 names for me. There's no biases. So I have no say in who comes in. The survey knows the person lives in the school district, in the city, in the county, in the state that we're doing. Now, what 400 sample is projectable to plus or minus 5% in 95 out of 100 cases. What does that mean? So, if we have a 50% result, it's either 45 or 55% 95% of the time. That's the confidence. If you redo that survey 100 times, 95 times, it will fall within the range of 45 to 55. The margin of error is driven by the size of the sample, not the percent of the population. So a 400 in this

082district, a 400 in the county, or 400 across the state is always plus or minus 5%. What do you have to do to get to plus or minus 4%? Talk to 625 people. What do you have to do to get to 3%? Talk to 1,000 people. It's determined by the size of the sample through the statistics. That's kind of the short version of it. I took two years of college statistics to understand it, but to try to make it understandable, hopefully that helps. The average interview time was seven minutes. The non-response rate was five and a half percent. They were conducted, this is hot off the press, the last calls were completed last Monday. And that cell phone only households are 68%, landline only 10%, and then 22% have both landline and cell phones. Any

083questions on the methodology before we get back into actually what the survey says? How many calls did it take to get 400 samples? 424. Because of the 5.5% non-response? The 5.5% non-response rate. People care about their local government. And we don't do it, you can look at the window of time. You also look at a lot of surveys out there. What they do is they're called over the course of two nights. Okay? Whoever answers the phone. If you take whoever answers the phone. You're going to have over 60% will be over the age of 55, and you'll have almost 70% women, because men don't answer the phone. And then what the people do is they go back in and reweight the data, because that doesn't reflect the demographics of whatever community they're sampling. So they

084force the data. So if women are supposed to be 50%, They'll discount women by 20%, up the men by 20%. But we believe that there are differences between demographics and actual opinions and attitudes. A person with an active lifestyle who's not going to be able to take the survey the minute you call them is very different from the person who answers the phone every single time that it rings. And so, you know, one out of ten people answer their phone the first time. You leave messages. You set up appointments. That's why it takes longer. And as we go through the next set of demographics, I also set quotas. Because we know from census updates, even the census has a margin of error, though. But the census is pretty good on things like homeownership versus renters.

085Households with seniors. Households with children. And so we're targeting... Those to be within the plus or minus 5% of what the census is, and we're monitoring it throughout. Sometimes we get to the end of the project and typically, if we have to do any screening, we'll screen for renters. In order to make sure, but we did not have to do any screening. I know. Yeah, absolutely. Anything else? All right survey says. Like I mentioned, demographics are 2 full. First off, we can compare the sample against updated census information. Second off, we can look at differences. How do households with children feel versus seniors? How do homeowners feel versus renters? So the first set of bars asks the folks, how long have they lived in the school district? 29% have been here for 10 years or

086less. 26% have been in the district for over 30 years. So the typical resident comes in right at 20 years is the typical. 12% have a preschooler or an infant in the household. 30% have a child attending the Belvedere School District. And 66% are empty nesters. Now, empty nester does not suggest an age. It's just lack of presence of a child. So if there's a 26-year-old without a child, they're classified in the survey as an empty nester. So your key constituency for the school district is 3 out of 10 folks currently. 19% indicate their renters. You can see the self assessed home value. This doesn't necessarily line up with what their actual home value is. People are tend to be more optimistic of what they think their home is valued versus what's actually on the

087tax rolls. If we go to the next slide. And even divide an educational level 31% are high school grads or less 34% have some college experience and 36% are college graduates and that includes post graduates The financial situation of the household is asked this does not ask about income this is simply if you think about your expenses and Your income how do those match up? You are on the low end of what we're finding in the first quarter. And when I'm going to talk about the norms, we do surveys. I just look at an upper Midwest. So Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota. It's kind of where we are. I'm not going to include Pennsylvania or anything else like that because different types of living in different types of economic situations. Your financially stressed is

088a little bit lower than what we're finding in the first quarter. What we're finding right now is about 35% of people saying they're financially stressed. This has continued to come down. The high that we've had post-pandemic was in the first quarter of 2023 when we had over 60% indicating that they're financially stressed. So things are moving in the right direction. But it is important you're still a little bit higher. The Pre pandemic norm was about 25%. Even in good economic times, you don't have everybody saying they're not financially. Stress it's typically somewhere right around 25%. The geographic, the city of Belvedere was 50%. The township was 23% in the remaining areas of the district were 27%. And then finally, on demographics. The age of the respondent 18 to 34 year olds were 18%. 27% were

089over the age of 65. the typical resident comes in right at about 51 years old and then women outnumbered by 4%. So. Survey says on the overall quality of education. Now, we look at the atmospheres upfront in districts to understand how people feel towards the district and ascertain, you know, is there a reservoir goodwill or is there a rip tide of negativity behind facing the district? So, a couple of things up front. What do they think about the quality of education? You're right in line with what we're finding over the last 18 months. We've kind of settled into this post pandemic. In 2020 and 2021, everybody was focused on virtual versus in-person, masking versus not masking, social did all of those things. Where the concern now settled is on quality. Before the pandemic, it was

090about 90% favorable. We've now settled down into the high 70s, with 22% indicating only fair or poor. The excellent rating. It's hard to get anybody enthusiastic about anything. Post pandemic, so the excellent rating used to be at the low 20s. It's now down to about 10%. So this is in line with what we see everywhere. If we look at. To open ended, what do they like most about the school district? Now, they could tell us anything and we collapse them down into categories. Good teachers, 22%. I'm going to lump a couple of these together that we would traditionally see. Variety of programs and broad curriculum, 22%. Good academics, excellent academics, high achievement, 17%. Those tend to be the three major categories. Who's teaching, what they're teaching, and how well they're teaching. Some districts are very

091focused on programs some on the quality some on teachers You are a statistical tie going back to the margin of error with those three You do have a very unique result on this though And that is the community feel the sense of community that the school district creates is what they value That typically, especially when we get outside of large metropolitan areas, it might get into the highest. Years, it's actually 2nd, 1 and 5 talk about the sense of community that the school district. Brings to them now, if we ask what they like most, what's the most serious issue facing the school district? Sorry, not much. Stop it. I was trying to do that to start all right. It doesn't matter where we are either lack of funding is going to be at the top

092of the list. Typically, though, it's 20 to 25%. Facilities issues, though, is unusually high. Even with a school district. And I've, I've worked on over 500 by reference over my career. At the start of a discussion on facilities, to have one in five people coming in and saying facilities are an issue here, really kind of was the first result as I'm typing the survey and saying, okay, this is going to, moving forward into the survey, there's going to be a high level of awareness of what's going on. Declining quality tends to be right around 10% everywhere. It comes back from the post-pandemic. Lack of discipline, 8%. High taxes, it's about half of what we typically see. But we're going to talk about taxes specifically in a few slides. Then poor spending, overcrowding, staff shortages. The

093unsure and the nothing, the nothing is separate from the unsure. The unsure is, I don't know. The nothing is, and this will be a surprise to you. There are no problems in the school district. Everything's wonderful. That's about 5 points higher than what we're seeing. So, it's what we call us a reservoir of goodwill out there. They're boosters. They're supportive of the district as we walk through the survey with them on multiple things. Excuse me now. We go to the next slide for specific state. So we can ask a quick question. Absolutely. The previous slide and please interrupt me on a slide. If you have any questions on it. I'm sorry. What is the scatter present at 6? And idiosyncratic responses that don't add up to more than 1%. Then that'll be on open. And

094it's there just some things that that slide had approximately 22 codes. But, yeah, if it's, you know, 1.2% or whatever. I'm not wrong now, so it just collapsed them down. Feel free instead of getting to the end and saying, go back to slide 6. We'll go to the next slide. So specific perceptions. Does the district spend taxpayers money effectively and efficiently? 74% say yes, that's about 12 points higher than the norm, right? Does the do residents get a good value for their investment in the schools? This is among the highest I have in the last 18 months. Because the value proposition asks people to think not only about what they're paying, but what they're getting. And we know they're concerned about the quality, and at the same time, they're concerned about their property taxes. So

095five years ago, that number was 90%. Now it's about 75% rating the value positive. Does the district do a good job of involving the community? That's about six points higher than the norm. And then are they satisfied with the decision making? 72 to 20. It's almost it's a three and a half to one ratio. The norm on that right now is a two to one ratio. Now, why do we focus on those four? We know from all our from our database. That the, the, uh, for, uh, take out the value that's interesting to see. It's the spending taxpayers money effectively and efficiently. The good job of involving and the satisfaction with decision making. If you have a person that agrees with all 3 of those statements. They are extraordinarily supportive of the school district. You've

096checked the box on fiduciary responsibility. You've checked the box on listening to the public. And then that leads into the decision making and a trust in it. You've made several references to the median to the norm. I assume you're referring to other surveys you've done with many other districts when you say that. Yes. You're saying we're better than many. Yes, the upper Midwest norm that I mentioned earlier. Okay. Thank you. All right job performance ratings. The board and administration, the board 72 22. the current norm right now is 60% favor. The superintendent and administration this 1, we look at a ratio because there's a lot more uncertainty on superintendents and administration. You actually don't have a lot of uncertainty. It's better. It's almost 3 to 1. The norm on this is 2 to 1. This

097also tells me that it's a well-functioning school district. Because if I walk into a school district and the board is here and the administration's here or vice versa, there's a disconnect and the public is aware of that. They see the governance and the administration as one unit here in the Belvedere School District. And then the closer you get to the kids, there's always much more favorability. Your teachers actually are over 90%. Teachers took a hit post-pandemic. Oftentimes with no fault of what happened in your school district, but you hear about a strike or you hear about this. So the normal teachers is in the low eighties right now. So, on all the job performance ratings, they're above the norm. Overall assessment, then a financial management. 55% positive 40% negative norm on this is 52%. So,

098on the, this links back into spending taxpayers money effectively and efficiently the district you do have financial you've seen as good financial stewards. In the minds of the issue, it doesn't matter where I'm at right now. The property tax is a concern. You have 58% saying their property taxes are very high or somewhat high. Norm is 60%. So you're right there. You also follow, though, the same pattern I see everywhere. Because we follow up and ask, find out what you feel about total taxes. How do you feel about your school taxes? It drops. The high goes from 58% to 47%. So this tells us that if they have animus on property taxes, it's not focused at the school district. It's the city or county. Back when I started doing this, we always asked, who do

099you blame? And then cities and counties got really mad at us, so we quit asking it this way. So we just know that if the concern is there. It's not focused at the district but for the most part if a district if anybody's going to go and ask the voters for property tax increase it's going to be a school district instead of a city or a county. Do you have a question? No. Okay. All right. Is the district adequately funded? Nobody knows. You know plus or minus 5%. It's basically 45-45-10 is the result. What is interesting, and now this kind of is the second piece that comes in, we follow up with a no and ask, is there an area that you believe is not adequately funded? Classroom education, the buildings, athletics, or something else.

100Normally, it's classroom education by a lot, 60 to 70%. You actually have 52% saying it's the buildings. That are the concern that aren't adequately funded right now. This is the only school district I've ever seen that result that had a majority pointing to buildings. As the source of not being adequately funded. So, an overall rating of the buildings. 56% rate them favorably. 37% rate them unfavorably. This is this is hard to do an Apple store apples to apples comparison because every district has buildings at different ages in their life cycle. But typically we see the excellent and good somewhere between 70 and 80%. It's the vast majority of districts people will say they're good. But you do have almost 40% at the outset saying they're excellent or they're only fair report. You only have 4%

101rating them excellent currently. So this kind of goes back to what we initially saw in that most serious issue. There is an awareness out there about the need for improvement of the district's facilities. Now, comparable spaces between buildings. First off, how important is it to ensure comparable spaces between school buildings? It's a core value in this district. Okay, 82% say it's either very or somewhat important. To ensure comparability that each child has the same experience as another child in different parts of the school district. Now, do they believe that there are comparable spaces between school buildings in the Belvedere school district? 56% say yes, 26% say no, and 18% are unsure. Now, the 26% that said no, we follow up with an open-ended question. I did not do a chart for it because it is

102only about 80, about 100 people. We asked if there's a specific building that doesn't provide comparable spaces. And just short of half of them said Perry. Unprompted so about 13% of the public are aware at the outset going into this discussion exploring boundary changes now Boundary changes for my career closing schools boundary changes school start times all difficult issues but In concept people like boundary changes until it impacts them Okay, then if their neighborhoods selected to be part of a boundary change, then they'll have an issue. But at the outset, and folks were read. The district could explore attendance boundary changes to provide more comparable experiences for students and create efficiencies in the district's operating budget. Those 2 statements think back to what they tell us. Comparable spaces are a core value and my taxes

103are too high. Okay, so this is seen as a potential solution for some of some of their concerns. But at the outset 63% support 20% of posts and 17% are unsure. Like, comparable spaces if we go to the next slide. How important are early learning programs? This is this is the no brainer in the last 15 to 20 years. Before the recession, early learning was. Kind of a buzzword, but people didn't necessarily see the value. And especially over the last decade. It's seen as really important part of the district's education was 77% rating the importance of early learning programs as either very or someone important. Only 23% said not to or not at all. If you look at the intensity on it, it's 23 to 3. Better than 7 to 1 if somebody feels strongly

104yes versus strongly no. So, folks were told as you may know the district's early learning childhood programs are located in Washington and Caledonia elementary schools. There have been discussions about building an early childhood center to house these programs due to expiring debt. There would be no increase to your property tax rate. Would you support or oppose the construction of early learning center? 77% support. Only 14% of hopes. Strong support to strong opposition is 12 to 1. Because it goes back to a value. The importance that they see in early learning programs. Plus, it doesn't increase their taxes. What's the reason for their position? It's because it's fundamental. Early learning is important. 18%. It's not going to raise my taxes. It's cost effective 4% good investment 4% helps young families. What's the reason for opposition? It's

105not needed. They want the tax decrease. It would disrupt families or they don't have any children. Now, another part of doing a responsible poll. Is that you don't lead the respondent. You don't tell them information that they wouldn't necessarily know to try to influence their decision. So we asked instead of telling them upfront in that introductory paragraph, the why we just told them the what. 1 of the reason 1 of the wise we tested with the opposition was would you still oppose knowing the district has a waiting list for early childhood programs due to a lack of classroom space. So the 14% were asked that question 72% said yes, I still oppose That's 72% of 14% So with this argument the core opposition drops to 10% Now we tested one other argument And that is,

106would you still oppose knowing the school district can't offer full day classes due to a lack of classroom space? The same 14% rest that question 78% said I still oppose. So, it's 10 or 11% of the district are against the early learning center. The remaining supported. Now, let's go to closing period residents for the respondents were read. Turning to a different and unrelated decision facing the district. The district is considering closing Perry elementary. Just the what would you support or oppose closing Perry elementary school? We have 56% that support 25% that opposed and 20% are unsure. So, the 20% unsure. I was curious who are they? They are new residents and they live in the rest of the district. Okay, that's why you have 1 out of 5. it's not an issue that impacts them.

107So, for those stating a position, the 5625, it's roughly 70% support 30% opposed. If they hold the position now, what's the reason 25% say it was bold and outdated. 22% say it's too costly to update. 12% said it saves the district money, and 6% the kids deserve better. So they are making a financial decision on this. What is the reason for opposition? You lose the sense of community. It may cause overcrowding. It's a historic landmark. It displaces families. The district should update the building. And it would create longer commutes for parents to get to the schools. Now, when I talk about push polling. A lot of pollsters would have asked, would you support closing query knowing this information? Now, we found out what their position was 1st. And now we're going to follow up and

108give them a piece of information and see if this impacts their thoughts. Would you still oppose knowing the school was built in 1897 and needs 14Million dollars of maintenance and updates. So, the 25% were asked that 60% said yes, I still oppose. So that's 15% of the community. At the end of the day that oppose it. You actually have more people unsure. At this at this juncture than opposed. We asked folks a series and we asked folks, the district is also making improvements to buildings across the district for each 1. please tell me if you strongly support support oppose strongly oppose the use of the capital projects funding for that project. Due to expiring debt, these projects would not increase your property taxes. Well, then the bell goes off everything's going to be really good

109here, but not surprisingly. Athletics are always going to be at the bottom, even when it's free. They're at the bottom when they have to pay for it for athletics for education. They're at the bottom when they're free. But even athletics have 71%. We tested replacing HVAC and air quality systems, 91% support. Update special education classrooms, 90%. Save for more secure entrances, 89%. Replace electric and plumbing systems, 89%. Replacing roofs, doors, and windows, 89. And remodel and modernizing classrooms, 86%. A very strong mandate because it goes back to the concern about the investment needed in the facilities across the school district. And then finally, a couple of questions. Where are folks getting their information? Your grapevine is alive and lush in the district. It's actually the number one source of information. These next two questions are

110open-ended. One in five, they get it from somebody. The local newspaper at 18%, district mailings, social media, which is a form of... The grapevine also, just the electronic form. So it's a third of residents are relying on that. Email at 13, the district website, teachers and staff, and the television news. This varies from district to district. It very much depends on if a district has a mail newsletter. Especially as local newspapers have disappeared. And if they haven't disappeared, they don't cover local government like they used to. You're not going to get somebody who used to read the local newspaper to go on social media or to go to the website. It requires them to do something that they're not interested in. If you're a 60-year-old person without kids, you don't really need to get the

111news unless there's some reason to get the news. And that's where we see the grapevine explode. Because that instead of doing the traditional grapevine in a school district tends to be elementary school parents or a youth association parents. Those are the 2 primary. What's happened is the build on of the older folks that really the print isn't there for them anymore at the levels that it used to be. Because at the end of the day, what's the most effective way for them to receive information? Just look at this electronic versus print. Do they want to hold something in their hands? 45% the news, a newsletter or local newspaper. Do they want to push a button? It's 50%. It's an equal divide. You can see only 2% actually say that the great finds the most effective

112way to receive information for them. So even they're aware that it's not the most ideal way it just divides and if you look at the demographics is over the age of 55 on print and it's whether you have a child on electronic so That's the last slide. I think in summary I would say as I started out talking about the atmospherics in the district you have a very positive environment here Um, this actually the most positive years is about, I think yours was the 17 survey I've done this year. So far for school district. This is the most positive. When you look at everything you have. The political capital, um, I mean, I'm. There are there are districts that are going for funding requests in April and November that don't have results like this because

113when you go out to the public, when you make difficult decisions, you have to have political capital. To make those decisions, ask the public for something. Um, and if a lot of school districts don't have any political capital to start with. Okay, because you burn political capital when you make difficult decisions. So you really do have a reservoir of goodwill out there combined with the high level of people that are aware of the facilities needs that are really looking to the district to make decisions on how to improve the facilities for the kids. So I'd be happy to answer any questions get this result all the time It's like drinking water through a fire you present it very well and very comprehensively You leave a little little to question And usually I have, I have

114lots of questions. Well, my experience is always there'll be questions that pop in in the next day or 2. Feel free to reach out because he knows how to get a hold of me. I'm not aware by the hour. Yeah. And you presented us the process over the over the web call last couple months ago and that helped us to understand. And build our confidence in the process and you just. So, by that, I think you can. Um, what's your demographics and statistics are there? Yeah, it's not something my understanding is. There's not a lot. We've been pulled with driving. I flew no here to about about here. I know we did a survey for Arlington Heights. We've done multiple surveys back around the time of the recession. And then Illinois didn't do surveys for

115a while. So it is, it's not necessarily in the water. Where it is, you know, Wisconsin, Minnesota. Uh, Indiana other areas much, much more just used to your survey results. Could you explain 1 more time? Why a 400. Sample size 400 respondent sample size is statistically. Valid. and a 95% confidence level. In a couple sentences, the example I would say is you build the margin of error from the bottom up. If you think about flipping a coin, 50-50, heads or tails. If you flip a coin 10 times, what's the chance that it would come up eight times heads? It's possible. If you flip it a hundred times, what's the chance it comes up heads 80 times? Unlikely. And so as you put more people into your sample, because at the end of the day, the

116sample is a bell-shaped curve. The math model is built on the probability of these responses falling within the bell-shaped curve and how many times are they going to do it. That's the 95th confidence level, 95th confidence interval. So when you have that, what happens is you put more people in, the belt, the curve gets narrower because you're taking out those. Those ends of the extreme part of the pie, that's kind of the best description I can give on word without putting up formulas on the walls here on the probability. It is a probability based. Math, so that's what statistics is. Okay, thank you. Yeah. You assume that just by virtue of somebody accepting the call and you've told them that it's going to take 10 minutes or however long. You do you consider that enough

117to. Know that that person is really engaged. Not just trying to get and then how do you, how do you know. You have a good sample of really actually engaged. It's not a sample of engaged people. It's a sample of the public. And it's also not a test. It's public opinion. Um, you know, oftentimes, you know. You can tell if a district isn't. You know, I presented in the district a couple of weeks ago in northern Minnesota and like, on how would you rate the board? 25% I don't know. How do you rate the superintendent administration? 30%. I don't know. How do you rate the financial management? I don't know. That's telling me, first off, you have a communications channel, which is going to be hard to go out for a funding request. So that

118tells me, how do I know I have a good sample? The demographics. That's the key piece of it. Because public opinion, I mean, I used to say public opinion before the pandemic, change could be glacial. Every 1824 months, maybe. I mean, there were times during the pandemic public opinion was changing every 18 to 24 hours. We've now kind of stabilize. It's not back to 18 to 24 months. We're probably more in the 2 to 3 month window. That you can have big changes of public opinion, depending what happens at the macro. The stock market did I get my property test? There's differences. When people get their property tax statements and open them up for the new year and look at it There'll be a five to ten percent increase in the four weeks after that

119and things that will go back because the spotlight is on it But the key for making sure that the sample I'm confident in the sample is looking at the demographics That's a little bit you mentioned you conducted this over 2 days or how many days it was. Approximately 10 days. Yeah. Okay. And then you left messages. Yeah. And then at what point did you decide how many times would you wait. For those how long did you wait for those messages return from call? And we don't reach her. Well, we tell them we're calling back. Okay. And then at what point do you decide that and then set up an appointment? We don't even take no for an answer. I have 2. Grandmas on my staff that my average phone has been with me for over

12012 years I have two grandmas on the staff if somebody refuses we only do this for school districts and cities Because if you want to talk about the state government or the federal government, I'm not you have every right to refuse My two grandmas will call back and say we understand I think you refused It wasn't convenient for you to take the survey at the time we call it's really It's really important and they can get 8 out of 10 to take the survey. And say no to a grandma. Well, that's 100%. Yes, that is exactly it. There's a method of the madness on this. Because it's important that, you know, at the end of the day, when I, wherever I go into, I don't live in the community. I just am here to give

121you. This is what the community thinks. And I want it to be as accurate as possible. Question on the demographic. Empty nesters at 66%. Financially comfortable at 68%. Is there a way to tell that they were hand in hand? Oh, yeah. That the empty nesters were the ones that were financially comfortable? Yes, historically. When you go back to... Better economic, we'll go back to Pre pandemic when we had about 25%. It tended to be 70 to 80% of the financially stressed were younger parents. Absolutely. The correlation, they went up to 90 or 100% when we got to 60%. And then you have a whole bunch of empty nesters now that are financially insecure. And interestingly, it tends to be the younger empty nesters too. It's that next generation, like my 25-year-old son, as they're starting

122to adult. Those are the ones much more likely to say they're financially stressed as opposed to financial comfort. Any other questions for Mr. Leatherman? I guess I had 1 quick 1, so of the nesters, obviously the childhood early childhood. Development could you you couldn't separate that out of the empty of the empty masters. I can't. With the data file, I can just yeah, I could I could run cross steps by any. So, how do households with children feel how do you empty masters feel? But I mean, the empty master, it was actually. That was the switch, like, I mentioned. Kind of 1520 years ago, the early learning, it's like, do we really need to do this? It tended to be the empty nesters because that wasn't their traditional experience. You didn't have a 4 K

123or a 3 K or whatever sort of program. But especially with discussions on achievement gaps. And disparities on that, it's like early learning programs now are almost seen as an insurance policy. Not necessarily that they'll be successful, but we want to, you know, I was associated to. 1, I don't remember was a Ted talk or anything kind of the theory of early learning programs is. Instead of trying, it's almost impossible to make sure everybody crosses the finish line at the same time. But let's get them to start at the same start line. And that's kind of the sea change that's happened on early is you have 80% of people that or is it more so now that we're having 2 parents in the working force and looking for. I don't think that that is any

124more than it was 2025 years ago. With the dual income working outside the home. Type thing I think it really has to do a lot more with the academic outcomes and some of the research that's come out on enhancing or closing those achievement gaps with our Just want to make sure I understood correctly. You're using that term empty nester, not in a traditional sense. It's not just people that have raised their children and they're no longer any children in the household. It could be a young couple or young people with no kids. That's an empty nest. Lack of presence of a child. Okay. Can I just ask how come they don't all add up to like a 100% of your. Okay, I let it because you can, you'll get 10 and a half percent 12

125and a half percent. So, between 99 and a 100. Okay. With rounding. Have you noticed the empty nesters numbers going up over the years? Yes. Yeah. And there tends to be. It varies the state, the region. But across the board. I would say, you know, in the last 12 to 15 years, probably across the board, 4 to 6% drop in households with children. If you just whether it's so if the district used to have 25%, it might be about 20. If you look at the historical data, you can be like, if. Go online for the census.gov data facts. It's just some interesting things and trend lines, but I yeah, I think there is a lot of 4 to 6% drop. And demographics also show they're just and they're having children later. They're having less. So,

126they're less good falls in line with everything else. Yeah. Any other questions. Okay, all right. Thank you very much for the pleasure. Yep. Thank you. All right, the other part of this update was facility master plan updates. You really heard that during the secure entrance. Presentation where we've heard some feedback on phase 1 and the other phase 1 projects. Are there any questions about that or anything you would like? Our representatives from access to elaborate on there. Seeing none Then really this is the board's opportunity to discuss those poll results The administration is seeking feedback from the word about what next steps are Regarding phase one specifically so thoughts comments questions directions for the administration so it's interesting that based on the survey know how important buildings are it just aligns with the need of

127of um more attention to our building thing if you will i mean that's clearly what we're seeing here some level of importance um is it more so buildings or building i think it's building at least that's how i know that's how it was in the survey but yeah i was just yeah i think you know the The 10 year facilities master plan needs that were identified certainly seem to be on target with the survey is telling us, right? Yes, I mean, I, I do think that it's important to note that we did go out and. Gather a group of stakeholders. It's not surprising that people understand that we're working on. These facility master plans, I certainly think that's been out in the public and. We did seek to recruit a variety of diverse voices to

128really look at that. All the way back to 2022, 2020. I think the positive atmosphere questions, the reservoir of goodwill, he says, I think that. Supports the. Confidence in the in the respondents. Um. That they're responding with a. With a feeling of already being favorable about how the district is. Administrating and operating and running itself and. So, I think that sets the credibility of. Some of the subsequent questions establishes the credibility there. So, I think that's important. I think that was a very important aspect of this survey. Pretty strong input on early childhood as well. Pretty strong results there. Yeah, very, very high on that. Yeah, I think we definitely didn't know what we were going to get in terms of those results. And certainly that first part of the survey regarding confidence level was.

129I mean, I think there's been a lot of. A lot of work being done in this district by a lot of fantastic teachers and staff. And that was clearly really reflected in the results. And that was really, really good to see. And good to hear that while we might not be an outlier, we certainly were leading in terms of that positive confidence. That 91% for the teachers, I think, really reflects the good work that's happening in our classrooms every single day. Yeah, for sure. That's a very high number. Let's say something about our teachers. Thank you for the work that you do here in our district. Um, clearly it shows, you know. The job performance at 91%. You know, it's typically 80%. It says something about our district. It says something about our teachers. Said

130something about the, the, the, you know, the people, right? The people teaching and so. Again, that was clearly. clearly defined in this survey so other thoughts comments feedback From the board on this and again, we really need to know what direction we're moving in terms of phase 1, which was the biggest reason that we gave this. Whole was to find out what it was that the community was. Thinking about those phase 1 projects and what we wanted to do in terms of next steps regarding that. If so, the feedback on early childhood was certainly very strong. But the board doesn't need to make any decisions on that right now. That's not a part of phase 1 and isn't related to that phase 1 work in particular. But that would be something that would come. Around

131during those phase 2 efforts, so we would, I think, talk a little bit more about that. But the phase 1 projects have a lot more urgency. I think we see the really strong support for H, back and for some of the safe and secure entrances. approved the secure entry plan or RFP that went out tonight. Do we want to continue down that path with all of those phase one projects? Yeah, I think so. Definitely. So, we will, and that's pretty much what we've been doing. I see I lost nexus, but that's pretty much all we've been having nexus do is continue down that pathway and we will continue then that work and those timelines. And the other big question has been, what are we going to do regarding Perry? Are we going to look to

132make the investment in Perry? That is required as a part of phase 1, which is that 6.8Million dollars for phase 1 or are we going to look at the possible closing of Perry? If we are going to look at the closing of Perry. We need to do it right away in terms of urgency. I know that that's clearly we have people in the room waiting to hear what direction we're going to go there and. We, we would need to move very quickly if we were going to make a decision on that 1 way or the other. If the board thinks that we want to potentially pursue closing. We would need to schedule 3 public hearings and we would need to do that. Sooner than later, so definitely looking for direction on if that's the route

133we want to pursue. Or if we want to continue down the phase 1 path. With that 6.8Million investment. I guess to me, I mean, we owe it to our people sitting here to be transparent and make a decision and move forward with whatever we're going to do. We can't leave them hanging, I guess. That's the only thing I think. I think we have to take them into consideration and let them know. I mean, transparency is the biggest thing. If we're going to go that route, we need to go that route. And if we're not, then, you know, so I guess I don't know how everybody else feels, but I just feel like we need to tell them one way or another. It's never easy and it might not be a great decision, but we need

134to make it. Does it cost the bowl to look at other options of not spending 6.8 million in it? It is. And really, I. Where did Nexus go? Yeah. I mean, I'm assuming they're the ones that came up with the 6.8 million to begin with. Correct. So it was in again that initial scope. So that was in the phase 1 projects that were approved. And as I've said, you know, a number of times the previous board felt like it was important not to, you know, sort of band-aid approach this that we needed to either invest in Perry or say we're not going to keep Perry open. And not do a project here do a project there. Can the board. You know, put a roof on Perry and continue to keep the doors open. Absolutely. Is

135that the best long term plan for Perry? I think that is the question that we're going to have to answer. I mean, I think, uh, again, that is a building that has significant deferred maintenance. Uh, and continuing to push that down the road by making minimal investments in Perry. Um, I think it's going to be, it's going to be really challenging. But the board has certainly the ability to make that decision. I don't know to put 6.8Million dollars into the building is to open up. A can of worms of a 19 or 1898 building. It's just going to compound and data. But it is a structurally sound building. It is functioning purposely just fine. It has been for the last 120 years. It's not going to blow over tomorrow. Who's to say we can't spend

136the roof that was supposed to be put on, but wasn't put on because of the extent of the. Remodel that was going to be planned to do. that it can't be done and keep it open through until who knows I don't know early childhood put down next door or something I well there's not the space for that I want to thank the Perry teachers that were at the tour the other night because I very much value that and I thought that was wonderful they did a great job they do a great job with their what is available to them I hadn't been in the building in a few years. There were some things that were very eye-opening to me. I guess I never knew that our kiddos had to go to the basement for the

137library. Now, is the library beautiful and have they made it festive and made it welcoming? 100% they have. But I don't know that we're being equitable for our kids when some kids have to... to go to school in that building versus a different building. I don't know. I haven't seen all the buildings yet. Again, I've been in them years past. I don't know. I think our teachers are amazing and I think they're doing the best that they can with what they're given. But I don't know if we should be giving them something different. I don't know. I'm not sure. I didn't realize how close that playground was to the street. Like I walked out there last week just walking around and the street is like right there. I look at that playground compared to what

138Lincoln has and what Meehan has. I don't know. They're going through a lot over there, just with the playground. I just get concerned about safety and how close that road is. That was really eye-opening to me the other day. Can we hear again about that percentage? Like if we do the bare minimum, like when do we have to move into that next year? Like the percentage, you've changed so much percentage of a building and then you have to go all in with the ADA. I believe it's 50. I have to go look at those FAQs again. And is the roof count in that? Is that part of the 50%? It's any renovation. Yeah. Any improvement. And I know the secure entrance, we want to work on that because we've had issues this school year with,

139breaks in that security. So secure entrance requires the movement down to the lower level, which is moving the classroom up and then going down to across from the gym. Sean just went up there. Okay, thank you. No, that's okay. I just wish we could get you better answers. All right. Thank you. They're on their way back. Thanks. Sorry. So I wasn't part of the board. Was it just two years ago that this was the vote? Yes. I was not part of this, and so I don't know what happened then, and I don't know what the logic was behind it. But were these same numbers there two years ago? Yes, they were. So the phase one was at that $6.8 million. At that time, and that, I mean, the board definitely took a great deal of

140time to explore a number of different options. A number of different Perry possibilities and again, I think there were 4 different models that were presented and this is sort of the 2nd of those models, which was a status quo. Renovation basically not a tear down rebuild not the things that would address some of those. Other issues in the plan, like the kitchen and the gym and those sorts of pieces. And again, that was what the board at the time decided was that we were going to go with that 2nd option, the enhanced status. And again, they explored a number of different options. I really feel like they did their due diligence to it. And. I don't know Mr. Herrera if there's anything. You would want to add to that at that time as a board

141member. So, just to add on to that, I mean, there were options we discussed them. There was a process through that process. We went through the public hearing process. As well, which included 3 public meetings, the public. There was plenty of opportunities to hear gather information. Ask questions, so, yeah, that was a couple of years ago. Right? And. Yes, so now we're presented right at this time with. Really the question we are looking at is. Based on this information based on the number of the funds that we have. Are we prepared and this is what we're looking at? Are we prepared to invest. In the phase 1, and if we are, we are, if we're not. Probably need to think through why that that's that's. Those are reasons and it could be a variety of

142reasons. It could be. It could be possibly that we're, you know. Even at the phase 1, or even more will it equate to a school that's going to be comparable and equitable to the other. It's a lot of money and so, and I think what I'm hearing what we've been hearing, how do we make it equitable for our kiddos? Our students there, how do they have opportunities. That the other students as well. I think we're also hearing is it's about the people. Right. It's about the people and that makes a difference too. And so, so that's that's what we're that's what we're. We're looking at really is, you know, are we going to move forward with an investment? Otherwise, in terms of where can we utilize. and help our kiddos prepare for a better experience.

143I wouldn't say better, but more fulfilling experience for those kiddos. And so that's what we're, yeah, that's what we're gonna, unfortunately, we're in this discussion. So thoughts, feedback? Yeah, those of us new on the board, we've been doing a lot of our own investigations trying to look at. What happened last time and then also trying to formulate our own. Education behind what is the best thing for the stakeholders for the district for the community, especially for the students. So they're the number 1 stakeholder. And, um. I probably don't have all my ducks in a row, but there's many things that that, you know, I've been asking. Um, in addition to having 2. Substantial tours of the building, so I looked in every. Crevice and every every area of the, the, the mechanical systems and the

144structural of the building. And. Then the asking questions such as how much because the student count the student enrollment continues to decrease because of. Parents for 1 reason or another sending their students to other schools, either for the language or for other special needs. And so, when I look at a couple of things, such as the cost to operate the school per student, it's the highest of all the elementary schools in the district. The cost of necessary repairs per student served is. Astronomically high compared to all the rest of the schools that were also do that are also being served by the master facility plan. We saw in the survey that. Buildings is like 1 of the number 1 things that people are concerned about in the district, which was really surprising to me too.

145So just the cost that we would be spending and when I look at that building, it's well over 100 years old and it's like an old car that you better have a good bank of cash to support the thing that you don't know is going to happen. And then the next thing that you don't know is going to happen. There's a lot of uncertainty in what the true final cost would be to bring that school up to up to. What it needs to be to be equitable to to serve the students the way that the other schools can. So. So, that's where I've been sitting and. I've listened to all of the parents and the community. I really appreciate that and it definitely tugs at the heart. But I'm also, I was elected to. But

146what I think is in the best interest of the community and the key stakeholders. So. From my perspective, I, you know, I would, I feel that we should. Consider voting to not continue spending money. And the, and also, I believe the results of this study. Solidify that as being, uh. An opinion that permeates through the community in general as well. I feel like I'm making a making a decision that. And also, uh, it hears to the demographic. Other thoughts comments and then before we ask. Next is on a question. Yeah, 1 quick 1. so there's what? 175 some students there are enrolled of those. Do all those have the option of going somewhere else currently? Have they been presented to give the option of parents can take them if they provide transportation to another school?

147I mean, currently they don't have that option. If we were to close Perry Elementary School, we would be looking at placing... I think 122 students that we would need to find an elementary school for those students. And we would utilize a process to help them choose the elementary that makes the most sense for them that we would be able to place them at. So we do have a specific process that we worked through last time, and we would work through that process again this time. Obviously, there's space and other considerations we have to make, but we would do. Everything we could to help support both, uh, Perry staff and Perry students in terms of what those placements would look like for next year. So, if I was a parent. Perry, and I decided I don't

148want my students to go or my child to go there anymore. Do I would I have had the option? I want to take them to me or. Another school. Right now, typically, no, we have a registration process with boundaries. So students are typically placed in their school. We do have things like overflow when the spaces are not available. 8 students or more we typically have another section that opens up, but otherwise we do have some overflow to other schools, but no, it's not just what school do you want to go to? I choose Perry. It used to be a relationship between Perry and Washington where you choose Washington or Perry. That is no longer the case. Although we do have some students in some of the older grades that. I chose Perry or chose Washington

149my answer to your question Scott. Yes, currently if they're at Perry, they need to go to Perry. They live in the boundaries. There's not an open option to attend somewhere else. I just know some students that would normally be in Belvedere South are now going to Belvedere North. They have the option of going to Belvedere North. I don't know what the process is. I didn't know that. It's probably unique individual situations that maybe would warrant a transfer request, but in general... Barring anything extraordinary you would attend your zone. Okay, we had a question for next. Yeah, before we move forward, if if we were to go down this road of really asking this question period and saying, we want to close it. You know, I think one of the gentlemen tonight that made some comments

150had some really good points around what do we do to support the students? What do we do to support the staff, the parents, the neighborhood? If we were to go through such a transition, because all the comments we've heard, and not just tonight, but meeting after meeting, the emails we get, it's a very close-knit community. It's a very heartfelt, sincere feeling. And we'd want to do everything, I think, in our power to help with the transition. And that is absolutely 100% the case. We would do everything we can to prioritize the placement of Perry students and Perry staff at the location that they would most like to be at. We will do what we can to preserve cohorts. So, for example, if second grade students at Perry decided that they wanted to go to Lincoln

151School and there was space available at Lincoln. We would keep those Perry students together in the classroom. So they would have that sense of community very similar to what happened when school was closed. We would do everything we can to support the students and staff in that transition to a new. Elementary school, we do recognize. that for the staff and for the families, this has been an ongoing difficult situation. And we really do want to make any transition as seamless as we possibly can. So there would potentially be a possibility for, this is my first grade Perry class, but I'm housed at Washington, or this is my third grade Perry class. With my third grade Perry teacher housed at Washington. Again, we would need to ask each one of our students and our families where

152it is that they wanted to go. But yes, whatever we can do to preserve that sense of community in a different school, we would absolutely do. And again, I know that's what they honored him when they transitioned Kishwaukee. I'm not sure I agree with that. Okay. I'm very hopeful that I would insist that I would be the first one there making sure that didn't happen. No, I think maybe it was said it was going to happen, but it 100% did not happen. And I feel like that to me, before I can even make a choice of a possibility, I would need to know what the plan is. Like, how are we going to take care of them? I mean, I see some value with moving forward to ask maybe the question, but until I know

153what the plan is, I don't think I can give a reasonable decision on it. I mean, I see the value in why we're doing it, but I... I think there's more to it, I guess. Well, and I absolutely appreciate that. And I absolutely think it's important to understand that. I know that's something that the Perry staff and the Perry students and families are looking for. So we can do, we can spell that out. We do, again, have the pieces that we put in place last time. And there are a lot of those on that FAQ. We do have that FAQ document that will be able to be released, I'm hoping, tomorrow that we'll have, again, some of those. pieces specifically in there as well. Sorry, I wasn't about to say. I wasn't about to say.

154You were not here. But things did not happen the way that they said. I know that. Ask me why I know that. And absolutely, I understand that. I'm sorry. It is personal to you. It is personal to all of them. And I absolutely understand that. April 1st is registration for April 1st is when registration begins. Yes. And as it stands now, because if they will not have an option of where they're going, it's going to be based off. Okay, that is correct. Yes, we would continue to move through the regular process in terms of where those school zones are. I just registration opens on April 1st. So at this point, we would move through registration. Dr. Johnson, do you want to speak to this a little bit? Yes, sure. So one, we just want to

155encourage we always want to encourage everybody register on time. It's in April. It helps us plan for staffing and all of that. But that would continue its normal process, encouraging that everybody register in April. What we do in any year then is it. will show us, the dashboard shows us where there's spacing available. And to me, that's where some of those opportunities would come into play. Like Dr. Shug was talking about, if there's particular buildings that have more space, we've already started to explore seating because that's what we normally do this time of year. It might be more natural for students to attend some of the schools where there's more seating opportunities, thus allowing them to stay together. And same thing with staffing. Dr. Ady and I have already started looking at elementary staffing. That's

156what we do normally at this time of year. Looking at staff where there's vacancies, some staff move, all of that type of thing. Just being able to try to look at where there's opportunities for staff as well. Would there be an option of... Of letting the parents of Perry decide if they want to keep their kids at Perry or what other options would they have of sending their kids to Washington? Well, we would open up all of those schools, but what do you mean? What do you mean? Let the parents of Perry speak, I guess, is what I was kind of getting at. I mean, if they had the option of sending their kids to Seth or Washington or wherever, I don't know how the boundary lines are going to line up. Have letting them

157have the option of actually picking where their kid goes. That's the plan What I mean if Perry were closed or you mean in general? I guess in general at first to see if you know with 70% of the students don't want to go to Perry anymore then obviously it's a black and white thing of closer, but if we have 175 students stay there and want to be there I guess has there ever been a poll of do the parents want to keep their kids at Perry? I don't. We have not done a poll of that nature. Certainly. That's something we could explore doing. What we have said is that if Perry were to close again, we would do what we can to honor those choices that the families are making. We have not. I don't

158think in any of our schools ever said. Sort of open enrollment, you can go wherever you want to go. There's obviously a lot of. Transportation issues and things like that that come into play in terms and in terms of a lot of kids either. I mean, obviously, when we're close, how many students were a garden period at the time. I feel like I get where you're going with that, but I feel like if you do that, then what if I'm a Seth parent and I really wanted my kid to go to Me-In, or if I'm a Me-In parent and I really wanted my kid to go to Lincoln? I feel like school choice is not a great choice. School's not getting closed. Again, we can ask the question. That's not been something that we have

159done in the past or tried to facilitate in the past. What is that going to help? Lots of parents decide if they really want their kids to go to period. I guess that's what I'm getting at. What does that help? It helps decide if we need to keep it open or not. Obviously, the survey says we need to close it, but how many of the parents... How many of the people surveyed were in that community of 200 students? Exactly. Do we have enough funds to do all the renovations at Perry that we need to do, plus do all the renovations at the other buildings? I mean, financially, can we afford to do both? And I guess that's where I go back to Texas. And my question for him was just, like, how, what's the... I

160mean, I don't I don't I guess I don't think we can do the bare minimum, but what's the bare minimum at Perry? To keep it function of all without having to do all the stuff without moving forward. What was that? So there was different tiers presented. If you remember from the report that was done previously, and I think tier 2, I don't have all of that. Yeah, I didn't either. And I apologize. You know, I think tier 2 was the one that was selected right? That was the basic stuff. The secure entrance is the elevators to make it accessible, which. is something that is required you know what's the percentage that we like if you do a certain percentage of improvements you have to make it ada accessible that's correct there's different levels of improvement

161that needs to be made and if you um if you i believe the number is 50 of the facility is affected um you have to bring the entire facility to ada other than that if there's a lesser amount i think it's between 10 and 100 000 you just have to bring the area that you're designing to ada right so it does there is tiers to that as well Okay, it's financially driven and it's square footage of how much in the building is there and the basic tier 2 provides you the elevators, some special ed remodeling a secure entrance. The drop off is a little bit tricky on that North side. Right? In order to get a good parent crop out and the site is slightly limited for parking. But as you kind of go up

162different tiers, like, to bring it. like new or equal with other buildings on the district, obviously the price does go up. And we did present those numbers, and I can get those back. Well, I think Scott had asked about if we just put a roof on it. and be done with it and let them stay how they are, then we wouldn't have to do all that ADA accessible because it's not, is that not part of that 50%? I mean, is that? Yeah, I think you're right in that. Okay. Because it is just a repair of the roof, right? You aren't really renovating the inside. You aren't moving walls and things like that. But the tricky part you do have still is ADA access, right? Elevators for the different elevations, some of the floor issues that

163would need to be corrected. I think you'd want to still do some, some pretty substantial material. Structural things for, like, the floor that's thinking the webinar and stuff like that all of that stuff takes takes money. Obviously. Yeah. It can all just be staggered up and then so it just be kicking it down the road to do it at the next board to come in and decide what you know and like we were talking last time the building envelope is being looked at too as well right now and we'll have those results shortly because it is a 130 year old building right it's it's it's it's done quite a bit of service so it would need some refreshment. I know the roofs and the wall leaks are being investigated. Yeah. Anything come of that? It's

164that's part of the building envelope because the roof goes to the wall right? And then water runs down the wall and what what has to happen to that? Honey 130. Year old building envelope right to make it realistically, you know. Probably another 30 years right? How long does the building want to want to stay as part of the elementary right? And we're here to support any and all and work up options. But. We also did provide budgets to rebuild the same square footage on the same site and then you still have kind of you're still a little bit landlocked for again parking and things like that. You're. You have the mercy of the of the boundaries of that area, right? And then also, we also looked at if you moved it to another site and

165rebuilt it, you know, so there's, there's, there's graduations to what you want to do to accommodate the student population there. It doesn't feel like just replacing the roof is worth doing at all, just in and of itself, because there's so many other issues behind the scenes. Yeah, even beyond the roof and the envelope. We'd have to recommend you still continue to do some of the sinking floors in the wood floor area where there still is wood structure. No, sprinkling the building from a fire protection perspective, and you have so many levels there that you want to make sure that for all students to be able to get around the building. And then we looked at a couple different options for trying to get that that secure entrance and. There is so many elevation so that

166it's tough to try to sandwich something in that East side, but the North side is the 1 that would be the most conducive to providing that secure entrance. But then trying to integrate the drop off to that is a little tricky too, because you have the residents across across the street. So kind of putting a cut in for student drop off and all that, which is what we'll look at. You know, the design is slated to start. In July currently part as part of the plan, they had in the plan, it was about 400,000 to put a rough on and. Yeah, repair chimney, replace shingles, restore entire EPDM roof was, yeah, $440,000. And that wouldn't put you over the amount to have to do the elevators and so forth. That would just push that down

167the road again. So, I mean, all of this at some point has to be done. So just putting a roof on it isn't going to make it. If if we do updates to this building, what's the max capacity? Like, how many students is Max Max we could put in that building. Currently, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

168no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I don't know, Max, how to see off the top of my head, but definitely I can add that to the FAQs. I want to say it's probably about $225. $225. And I guess my... $325. $325. We just go back to what Brian was saying then. For 325 students, what's the cost per student at the maximum? You know, for 325 students. And I don't have a right answer for this. And none of this is easy. None of this is the... You know, I've been in this district a long time. I saw Lincoln closed. I saw Logan closed. I saw Kish closed. You know, I had kids that got split buildings. One that went, you know, to south for a year then had to go to central

169when that opened. I mean, so I get it. It's not an easy decision and it's not something that we want to make lightly. But again, if our max capacity is 325 kids and we have to spend that many millions of dollars, our cost per student. And then are we taking away from other students? I mean, we have 7,000 students in this district, I think, right? Is that right? Somewhere around that? 7,400, yes. And, you know, to look at, I want to make sure that, one, I want to make sure that the 175 or the 325, whatever, at Perry get everything that they deserve. But I also need to make sure that the other 6,500 students get everything they deserve as well. So I get I I don't know what the right answer is but I'll

170just throw this out there that if we're gonna go to a vote What do we have to do to where we can get to that place where we're gonna make a vote? I guess are we voting on closing it or are we voting on not spending six point? Well, and those are those are different questions. So the board is going to have to vote on every project and every investment that is going to be made in Perry that is over $35,000 in cost. And so having a plan for what it is you want to do with Perry is going to be really important. And if it's going to be put a roof on it, I mean, we can absolutely do that. But I do think we have to consider that long term. One of the

171biggest complaints about Perry has been that they have not gotten the attention that they have needed and wanted. And by putting a roof on it and not addressing all of those other issues, at some point, a board is going to have to make an investment in that. So that is why we really have to fundamentally decide long term. Are we going to make the investments that are necessary in Perry, which are we're looking at about 14 million dollars in phase one and phase two? Or are we going to say we're going to close this? And staying in this current state, I think, is part of the ongoing frustrations with this. And I agree with what I am hearing here completely, that we deserve... The public deserves, the staff deserves, our students and families deserve an

172answer one way or the other. We are not tonight making a decision on if we're closing Perry or not. But we would be tonight advising me in terms of what do you want me to do as next steps? Do you want me to, you know, you can funnel to me absolutely every question you have and I will do everything I can in cooperation with my team and with Nexus to bring back every single answer. And that is, you know, the capacity study and the information we have there. What is it for just a roof? What is it for all these different pieces? I can do all that, but what we can't do is push this out another year or two years. Design is going to start in July on this, and we need to give

173direction to Nexus on what we're going to do there. Or we're going to... I have to make a decision on closing the building. So, I think, uh, uh, board member young. Ask the question about what needs to happen to close. For decision, I'm closing it. So, I think I think, um, I'm sorry. I'm just trying to, um. Because you asked different questions, I think I think 1 question was answered. I think the other 1 was now. I think maybe the question is what needs to happen? I guess to close right? Is that public forums is that public meetings is that I guess what is you can well logistically if the board wants to make our Doesn't necessarily want to close Perry, but wants to make a decision on this. The only way to proceed to

174close the school is to have those 3 public hearings. So we would definitely need to have those 3 public hearings at those hearings. You would hear from the public on. You might have the average in here from people who were pulled. You would certainly have the opportunity to hear from the people who are here. And then you would be able to schedule a special board meeting. to take a vote on if you were going to close Perry or not. So that is logistically what needs to happen. I can facilitate that. I can be in communication with Mr. Herrera and Mr. Diestelmeyer in terms of those timelines, exactly what that looks like. But what I need to understand, first of all, is that if you want me to proceed with that. And second of all, what

175additional information do you need in order to be able to make a decision one way or the other? And we can spell out that plan again. We'll release that FAQ. So we're going to have that as a part of our website. You'll see all the questions we had last time, all the questions we have this time. about how it is we're going to navigate those pieces. At the end of the day, we need to know what the Perry families want. I mean, there's going to be unknown factors until we actually proceed down that pathway. But yeah, we can provide whatever information you want. We will do everything we can to provide it. I just need to know what it is that you as a board would need. From my team, so we can make sure

176we have it in front of you and we're not, you know, calling nexus back into the room or, you know, saying numbers that may or may not be accurate. I want the information to be accurate. We can move forward with the public hearings without pulling the school. And that is exactly what happened last time we had 3 public hearings and the board decided not to close Perry. You are not tonight making a decision. To close Perry or not, but I do think. You want to be comfortable with, I mean, we don't want to proceed down that pathway if there's not a chance that we're closing Perry because it is an emotional, difficult path to go down for all of you, for the administration, for the families. So it's not a decision I want us to

177make lightly on the one hand. On the other hand, you don't have to sit here tonight with perfect clarity and say, I know what I want to do. Is it something that we could throw on the enrollment or the registration? Obviously, the registration is going to happen between now and the hearing. Correct. So the Perry parents are realistically going to have no idea where their kids are going to go. Correct. But can we put something on there that if Perry is closed, where would you like your son or daughter sent? Yes, we can and would do that. Absolutely. And that would clarify kind of more of who wants to stay at Perry and who wants to. Can can we give the option? I don't care where they go. But I want them to stay in

178a cohort and can we. Can we commit to offering that as an option for all of the class cohorts? To be able to stay together if they want. Even if we don't yet know where it's going to be, but we can we commit to. Letting classical words stay together through the end of their. Elementary is that something that we can commit to offering logistically with that? I mean, logistically I, I want to say, you know, yes, obviously we're going to do everything we can to make that happen. But logistically, I need to look at our numbers and see. Where it is where the spaces are where in so I want to do that I want to know that answer at the same time that we have public hearings because it's like that's the same time

179we also should have all the other information that we need the public hearing is just another facet of the Another piece of the puzzle. Yep, I can we can do that We can honor at registration choices And you, I am obviously available to all of you. You also don't need to have all of this information for me tonight. You can email me and I, I will get that information to you as soon as possible. Do you want me to go forth with scheduling hearings and providing this information to you? I see Jermaine. I see Barbie. I'm looking at you, Scott. I mean, either way, I guess if we're going to close it, you need to have them. And if you're not going to close it, you're going to have them anyways. But you're so realist.

180So, yes, proceed with the hearings, but that's not a decision to close at this point. Am I hearing you right, Scott? Well, in my opinion, if we're going to schedule the hearings, it's all obviously people are thinking we're going to close it. So by making the decision... But like you said, last time that didn't happen. I feel that as of making the decision of having the hearings, it's going to be closed. But can we have the hearings but then still get that information at the same time and just keep the train moving but just move forward with the hearings as well? Yes. Kick the can down the road another month. Well, I don't think we can, like I said, I really don't think we can kick the can down the road another month. I mean,

181we have to make a decision. So, yes, we can do those pieces simultaneously. Last time when we were having these discussions, we were having them much earlier, before registration, before all these pieces. So, again, there is urgency around making a decision. That's where I feel like it was, yeah, transparency felt like it was kind of, hey, we're going to close it type of thing. I feel like we should have had more time to, as Jorge had some other options of other areas close to Perry that could have been whatever options there were three years ago or two years ago with early childhood and new school. And again, I can lay those options out again. And I do really want to say the board did look really critically at all those options. I know this has

182put you in a really difficult situation because... You are executing on what it is that the previous board decided and it is I just struggle with spending $7,000,000 on a whole building. I cannot disagree with anybody saying that we shouldn't do that. That is. We should, but it doesn't need 6.8Million dollars to keep functioning the way it's functioning because it's been functioning the last 2 years. The way it is. And obviously the roof can't be leaking that bad when we had Caledonia flash flood. That's right. It isn't. I disagree with that. I mean, Perry is full of deferred maintenance. Everybody's been telling me this. I walk through the building. What is deferred at it? Not to get defensive or anything, but can anybody tell me? What is the deferred maintenance? We got a boiler system

183that's not met its lifespan. We have obviously things in the attic that are too hot, but ventilation could be done or whatever else. There hasn't been a list presented to any of us saying that these are the things that have to be done if we don't do the $8 million remodel. Well, if you do anything to secure the vestibules or into structural changes to the building, we're going to have to do some ADA compliance, right? And the minute you start doing that, you're looking at close to $7 million. That's the tax. Correct. Now, we don't want to have a building without secure vestibules. We just don't want to have that. We heard that in the survey. And we did have an issue at Perry already this year. Yes, but it was a parent that was

184let in. Well, that's why we want to secure our, because they can just, well, I don't know. Once they get in, right? They can go anywhere is my understanding of it. I don't know. It is not as secure as we would like the entrance to be. I think we try to not talk too openly about that and the specific procedures around that. But yes, it is not as secure as we would like it to be. I do think we have the list that was presented by Nexus in terms of what would happen with this particular phase one, and then the second list of what would happen in phase two, which is going to include everything from HVAC to the PA system. Like fire protection system. The fire protection system. Fire alarm for code compliance. Casework,

185all of those pieces that do need attention at Perry. And again, Perry can continue to function there. I mean, I think your statement is accurate. It can absolutely continue to function with a roof. I just think that at some point these... Repairs need to be need to be made and the investment needs to be made if we're gonna keep Perry open I do believe we need we owe it to our Students and to our staff to make an investment Yeah, that's right. I love the staff there. How many are sitting in the audience? A large percentage of the PERI staff is in the audience. I don't want to guess a percent. 85% maybe of our PERI staff is sitting here in the audience. Does Nexus have that deferred maintenance list? Maybe not with you today,

186but... I thought I put together before in the past in my correct. I think it was, uh, was it the last board meeting or 2 board meetings ago when Hans presented basically what's included in this 1st tier 2 and then what would be additional ones that would recommend it to get closer to parity with some of the other schools. And then what would be the next tier to get it in pair have parity with other other schools in the district. So that should be all put together enough we can get to. Yeah, and we can definitely have that in the FAQ. We have all the presentations prepared for the FAQ. And that should coincide in part with the original needs assessment that was done. It's just where are we today? And that has the one

187to four years of immediate needs and the five to seven and then the seven to ten that were identified back in 2023, I think. So, there's a running together as I get older. But that was the initial assessment that you did where we were today and that would have that's before the master plan was done. That was kind of the basis of that needs assessment, which would show some of that deferred maintenance. And that's where they took in and kind of melded that with the thin sum that you keep hearing about. And we have gone through and identified from that needs assessment. because we couldn't afford 110 million dollars you know four years ago so we picked priority projects in which we sold the bonds for and moved the capital funds and those funds are

188still Allocated to the projects in phase 1, we do know that they came in at a higher cost. So I don't want the misunderstanding that funds have been reallocated from projects. Nothing. Everything at this point is still what the board approved. And so the funds that have been allocated are still there, but we're 18Million dollars short of what the new cost is with the inflation and what the board agreed to with the redefinition of that scope. So, what we sold bonds for, and what we transferred is still exactly what we did. Those projects are just customers. So, it was the original needs assessment that I was referring to them. Thank you. Yes. Thank you. That's where kind of highlight the deferred maintenance. People for that school and many of their money better school. So it

189wasn't just throughout the district. I guess it would be nice to know from nexus if there was other ways. Instead of remodeling inside to have a secure entrance. There was any other yeah, from, you mean, look, look at again to see how other 6. Other locations for the secure address is yet 2 were considered kind of the East side. And basically when you come in, you can kind of go downstairs or up to the split level. Right? So how do you carve an entrance when you can either go up or down? There's really no way to have a function to happen. And the south side, you kind of drop down to that, the newer edition, the fifties edition. And there's really no, no drop off right from a, from a parent drop off perspective. There's

190really not a whole lot you can do on the west side either from a secure entrance perspective. So it kind of drove us to the north. Which is the most cost effective and probably 1 of the only locations that you can have that where you kind of take that room across from the gym. And then cut in a drop off for parents to drop off. And then, um, kind of, uh, we have kind of an awning or, um, kind of. Some building identification there, so we kind of make the entrance to the north instead of the East. So, and that all will get kind of fleshed out during the design process, which is scheduled to start in July again. Are there other options other than remodeling it though for, I don't know, for sure. Yeah.

191In addition, you know, you can put an addition on the, on the East side. Which is something we looked at as well, which is, um, it's a lot more expensive. Right? But it does give you a new build, but it is again tricky to get. How do you get that parent crop off on the East side? Um, by without tearing up that yard and how do you maintain the facade kind of the. The beauty of it, right? You want it to look the same as you bring it out. So you move that out and then we're looking at you put an elevator on the outside of the building and you kind of have big shafts there and it kind of takes away from what you want to keep the building to look like. Right? Yeah.

192So, yeah, there's, there's many, many options for security cameras or some type of cameras or something instead of. You know, what we throw apart for all of the other security agencies to have the very same entry sequence at all of them from a consistency and from parity. So that's how we approach Perry as well. Because of the understanding, they all walk through the office to get into the building, get checked in and then get buzzed into the building. Buzzed into the building check in and buzzed in again to the building itself. Best of your office office building. Do all the students walk through that way as well? No, sir. In the mornings in the mornings at drop off our doors are open and. So, essentially, it's just buzzing in after drop off hours correct? After

193the bus time, which is typical. Every school, so why couldn't cameras. Suffice that need of seeing who's at the door to buzz them in. Well, you can write to get a buzzed into the vestibule. But you have another compartmentalization where you get them in the front door. Check them in through your system and then buzz them into the building itself. So there's basically 2 stops versus 1. So you would be giving up 1 of the stops by not having that. 2nd compartment, so to speak, I guess that's all. Yeah, I can buy some more volume with the hearings just to hear what. I'm supporters we're moving forward as well. Yeah, I think it looks like there does appear to be consensus or hearings. In addition to gathering. There is point other action other options that

194we're looking at. Looking at other options, we're discussing other options or learning about perhaps maybe some past options. Yeah, you might have mentioned earlier. Um, so. Information might be helpful for board members. At least in the interim to explore that, but we're gathering information and if we're going into moving into the public hearings. Having all those options review and whatever other information. If Dr showing your team can provide, we just for, you know, relatively soon. So, Dr, you have the direction that you need. Yeah, I have the direction that I need for right now and I will work with Janine tomorrow on releasing that initial FAQ, which is going to speak to a lot of the questions that came up tonight. But also we will do a Google doc where the board can submit additional

195questions so that. We can make sure we're getting at all those questions as quickly as possible. So that the board has all the information that you need to feel as far as I feel like you're making a responsible decision at the conclusion of the hearings. Okay. Thank you for the feedback and. We will, we will take those next steps. I know that this is difficult for everyone. So I appreciate the feedback and we will start moving forward down on that pathway. Dr. Stern, would you like to cover administrative reports? My team is saying thanks to me. Do you want us to push that to April? I am thinking we may want to push some of those pieces to April as we are sitting at 924. I know last month we pushed out a little bit,

196so I won't go through all of my comments and whatnot. I do just want to give you an update on Caledonia Elementary School. I just really want to give a shout out to our whole facilities team for their quick action and their work. Mr. Bell's team in terms of responding to the flooding occurring in the I. T. Closet, the least opportune place for that flooding to occur. The entire central office team that dispersed to help to assist with families being able to pick up their kids. The Belvedere North High School team. That served as an offsite location for those Caledonia students to be transported to and miss Carter and Dr. Bowman who I mean, this Carter stood out in the rain and united families for an hour plus on that day. And as bowman coordinated

197with all of her early childhood students that were in attendance on that day, it was truly a phenomenal team effort. And again, Mr. Winters and his team. Leading that so that it was a far less egregious disaster than it could have been. So we have a fantastic team and we're really, really fortunate that we were able to respond as we did. We also had our very 1st ever. remote learning day in response to a weather emergency. And I thank everyone for all of their patience as we work to execute that effectively. But all systems went and we were able to do that. And I think it was certainly a day when we weren't going to be able to attend school, but it was really nice not to add another day at the end of the

198year. So again, the board supported that movement and the team worked really hard to make that operate smoothly. And we were able to execute that today and I will give the rest of my superintendent comments next month. Stay tuned. It's going to be 3 whole months of comments. So get excited right now. We will also wait on our strategic plan updates. I know, Ms. Fabianczak, you wanted to hit some of the highlights of the special education updates. And there might be a good opportunity for that because I will be bringing a contract for our related services. So there might be an opportunity to just kind of go through that at that time. All right. And we're also going to have the results to the inclusion study, which will come in May, correct? Correct. So that'll

199be a nice prelude to that as well. So, all right. That is going to be my very brief admin reports. Does the board have any questions on any of that? Anything, Dr. Carson, Dr. Johnson, Ms. Fabianchuk, Dr. Ady, Mr. Bell, Mrs. Armstrong? I think we left the Cal staff out and they were also instrumental in that day and moving books out of the library and getting that. They were a huge part in getting that process done. So the staff did an excellent job. Thank you. Mr bell. Absolutely true. And again, the, the ability to save so much of the classroom furniture and the books and all of that was really because they stayed and. Moved things and just really chipped in. So thank you so much for mentioning that. Mr. bell, the entire staff at

200Caledonia, early childhood, general. Custodial staff, everybody amazing. Any questions for Dr. moving on for a list of upcoming board meetings and events please refer to the board of education calendar. At this time, do I have a motion to adjourn the meeting? Member young motions, they motion and number 2nd, and emotions are just a meeting all those in favor. Say, aye. Okay.