Hudson Schools - June 8, 2026 - Regular Board Meeting

001We are in session for tonight's movie tonight's Tonight's school board meeting on stand for the pledge of allegiance. We will start off with spring sport or three spring athletics recognitions with Aaron That's that's a first Senior GPA, but the many right in that same ballpark this point because as I'll mention as we go we've still got plenty of teams in the mix and then they're out there presentations but to this point our conference season is done we ended up with conference champions and we also I think I added it into the slideshow was we had some individual champions as well and boy a great conference somehow is becoming a norm as we have six up there right there next weekend for the and then we have boys Saturday and both to that point one really

002special of senior recognition realm but also just Secondary life time management was a five star award which is five bar speed letters and no violations UIA scholar and one last I just wanted to thank Tim chuckle. He's actually on a vacation right now. We sent him off right away 30 years of service tremendous the softball captains. I'm Paige. I'm Carly and we started with a little bit of a rough season We start with three split series, but we found a groove and we had an 11 game win streak after that Which hasn't happened in a long time And we also beat a team we haven't beaten in seven years, Chippewa, on their home field. So that was a pretty big deal. And then our starters were losing like one to one and a half starters

003that are seniors. The rest of our team is returning next year, and a good chunk of them are current sophomores. So we're going to have them for a little while. So that's pretty awesome. And we know that there's some freshmen coming up, so that'll be really exciting. So I'm going to talk a little bit about our accomplishments this year. Our conference record was 11-3, and we ended up getting second place in the BRC, which hasn't happened in softball for a long time. So we ended with an 11-game win streak, and we had seven players get recognized for all conference, first team being me and Paige, second team, Kalia, Allie, Brenna, and Izzy, and then Honorable Mentions. And out of all those recognized athletes, we have the captains. I'm Nate Anderson. I'm Ethan Swanson. Chase Vernon.

004We had a historic season, so we won every duel that we had in the BRC, which has never happened. Won the BRC tournament for the first time since 1988. Then we won the section to go to Team State, which has never happened. As Chase said, we were section champions. Then we had three state participants, me, Chase, and then his doubles partner, Ben Bruski. Every player on our team was an all-conference. Me, Chase, and Ben, Ethan, Evan Schultz, and Avery Toulinjo were all first team. Then our second team was Tyler Novak, Eli Feeball, Nick Lines, and Kim Lynch. Yeah, so I just want to speak on a little bit more. unconventional not like in the physical stuff tangible things you can see like our team has really built a culture which I think is most important

005for us you've kind of taken our team and our coaching staff as well has really molded it into a team that can really continue to produce this kind of result on a year-to-year basis it's a lot more fun and like you've built that's about it and then one mention of tennis Love tennis. I played tennis in high school before I realized I wasn't going any further but What's that? But um, but just building the culture like you said, you know creating creating that that Opportunity or that from that experience this year mean it's it's huge for the program for that So good as a lot of first there. Congratulations The girls team is having another excellent season. We just finished a regular season 12-2, which includes being undefeated in Wisconsin. We played a really challenging

006schedule, including the top ranked Wisconsin teams and two of the top ten Minnesota teams, along with a number of other great squads. We are in our mid-playoffs right now, with four wins now thus far, and we'll face off in Sun Prairie and State next Saturday. This team has been a team through and through from day one, celebrating each other's successes and supporting each other through adversity, as well as keeping our integrity playing throughout the entire season. Our accomplishments from this season are we're regional champions and we're sectional champions. And then we have the state game, like Moen said, this Saturday. And then we have one all-state first team, Josie Jones, and then two players, second team, me and Reagan Kugler. Congratulations. Good luck. Olivia Burkhart. I have a question. So our team has 83 girls

007this season, and we worked really hard to grow each day as athletes and teammates. And the support that this group of girls had for each other was amazing and one of the team's greatest accomplishments. Accomplishments were, as a team, we achieved 369 personal records this season, athletes in the top 10 of their event by grade. So this is one of our things that we look at. So we have an indoor season and an outdoor season. So what she's talking about is we separated each grade and see who made it into the Hudson top ten history, like record book. And so freshmen, indoor and outdoor, there was 29 girls in the top ten. And then sophomores had 21, juniors had 36, and seniors had 19. So that's pretty cool to see. We like to look at

008where you're placing and how you're improving throughout your season. So that's what that one's about. And then conference, at conference we had four individuals and relays placed in the top three. I'm TJ Pennecock. I'll start us out with our season summary and values, and then he'll finish us off with accomplishments. Over the course, we had a strong season. We worked every day together, and I kind of grouped it into different sections of values. We get better every day. We have recorded 340 as-of-state individual PRs and 16 relay PRs. And we kind of worked as a team to improve every day, get better, get stronger, and faster. We overcame adversity this year. Our season was not without injury. Many varsity athletes that have been with us through the years. And that kind of impacted us greatly

009in relays. It was good to see a lot of more JV guys or newer guys step up to the opportunity to race at the varsity meets and become better and step up to help the team. And then also we learned to embrace the experience. Competing is... one thing of track, but it's also there's also kind of building a community and building connections and friendships that you're going to remember far beyond your competition and times. Because when you look back, we'll look back at the experiences. So we had a couple of spaghetti dinners. We got pizza as a team after sectionals, which was super fun. And also we played some hacky sack, frisbee, football after some competition and practices just to have some fun and lighten the mood. For accomplishments, we got fourth in a conference

010as a team. And then the individuals, we like conference championships, were 4x800 meter, 4x200 meter, 800 meter TJ, and then the two-miler was Ryan Keller. We also had 14 sectional qualifiers, and three of them advanced to state. including two school records that were broken by Ryder in the 400 meter and TJ in the 800 meter. For the soccer captains, I'm Natalie Rampton. I'm Matea Langanol. Our slogan this season was step up together and we really showed what that means because we had four returning varsity members and we have 20 girls now well around like 23 with postseason. We put the team first. We've done a lot of mental work this season to overcome the adversities and we hope to continue playing. the accomplishments we got first in the BRC shared with River Falls we are

011now in the WIA tournament play with playoffs we won regional champions yeah this Saturday and then our next game is this Thursday against Wausau West and then we're not done with our season so all conference we already know boys lacrosse has their state championship game this Saturday The next one in boys golf, they are currently at University Ridge in Madison. And my last one in baseball, they play tomorrow. So they have practice tonight, they have dinner. They play tomorrow in Chippewa Falls. And if you don't know about baseball, one of the more unique qualifiers in sectionals, you have to win two games in a day. So they play at 10 o'clock tomorrow morning in Chippewa Falls against River Falls. A little bit of a rivalry to start sectionals. And if they win, they'll play the

012winner of the 1 o'clock game at 4 o'clock. to go to state. And I know we've got Raider streaming, streaming that one if you want to check in and see where everybody's at. But a couple of plugs for this group. One, I think they're kind of taking on this challenge to see how many miles they can make me drive because I'm about to, and I could have already been on quite the tour of Wisconsin, but between lacrosse for track all the way up to Madison for golf and over at Madison again for tennis. Madison up to Appleton for potential baseball back down to Milwaukee for soccer. It's not like we live right next to metropolitan area. So you could see quite the mileage reimbursement coming in shortly. But it's a ton of fun. The biggest

013plug I want to make about this group, I think they have a different energy and it's been a ton of fun this spring. And every group's great. You know, we talked about not only their seasons, but beyond. The next topic we talked about is normalizing and defining what hard is. and trying to just draw in as many of those tangible successes as this group already demonstrates and only can build on from there. And the last thing we talked about is what do you do with accomplishment? And this group has embodied that to the max. One that we talked about, we identified it as a checkpoint, and that's how you get to be potentially seven teams, a really special group, and we appreciate your support. Thank you, Aaron. We have a citizen's request to speak. You're

014released. You're not going to stay. First we have Debbie Alms. My name is Debbie Alms, and I'm a parent of two Hudson High School graduates. I no longer have children in the district, so why am I here? It's because I'm concerned about how decisions regarding online learning are being evaluated and the impact those decisions could have on Hudson families and student retention. On February 12th, 2024, the school board was presented with positive information about the online learning program for Hudson High School students. And the board's response was overwhelmingly positive. The program was described as innovative, flexible, supportive of students. Important for retaining families in Hudson. The presentation explains students choose virtual learning for many reasons. Complicated logistics, independence, flexibility to get a fresh start, staying on track academically. It also emphasized that one of the

015original goals of the program was to keep students enrolled in Hudson rather than losing them to other districts. And then last month at the May 11th, 2026 meeting, much of the same program was presented, but through a negative lens and the response shifted just as quickly in the opposite direction. And that concerns me. The May presentation focused heavily on selective negative statistics, but provided very little discussion about the broader purpose of the program, the students that serves well and the success stories connected to it. When the direction of the conversation changes so dramatically based on how information is framed, without deeper discussion or examination of broader data, it creates the appearance that conclusions may be accepted too quickly rather than fully explored. One board member commented during the May meeting that this discussion appears to

016be growing into a more substantive conversation and we should dig deeper into the data, and I agree. Both of my children benefited significantly from online learning, hybrid schedules, and release opportunities. Not because the courses were easy, but because the flexibility allowed them to grow and succeed in ways that worked for them. I am asking the board to pause, request additional data points, review the information critically, and ensure decisions are being based on the full picture, not just isolated statistics or concerns. Before removing opportunities that retain students and provide alternative learning environments, I respectfully ask that the board fully reevaluate the goals and long-term impact of this program for Hudson students and families. Thank you. Thank you, Debbie. Next is Emily Alms. My name is Emily Alms. I just graduated from Hudson High School. During high

017school, I took online classes every year from freshman through junior year. By my senior year, with support from my counselor, Sarah Engstrom, and my parents, I was able to do a hybrid schedule in the fall and fully virtual in the spring. I'm speaking tonight because I want you to understand that the virtual program is more than just numbers presented in this room. My experience showed me that online learning can be a valuable option for students. Through virtual classes, I discovered that I was more interested in psychology than nursing, which is what I originally planned to pursue. That realization may save me significant time and money in college, and I also developed important life skills like time management, independence, and communication. As I prepared for tonight, I rewatched Mr. Ballard's presentation in May of 2026. One

018point he made was that online students spend less time on coursework than in-person students. But the data being tracked only measures the time students are logged into the program. That does not include time spent researching, completing projects, studying, or working offline. Because of that, the data is incomplete and does not accurately reflect the rigor of online classes. He also shared an example of one student completing a course in six hours. Using a single example creates a misleading picture of the entire program. In my own experience, I spent more time in some online classes than I did in several of my in-person classes combined. Another point I mentioned... Another point mentioned was that online students have the advantage because they got to create their own schedule. And I completely disagree. Online students have to advocate for

019themselves, stay organized, and manage their time in many ways that in-person students never have to. I ask the board to look beyond incomplete data and consider real experiences and success of students who benefit from this program. Thank you. Thank you, Emily. Next Richard Thompson. I hate to follow up the positives of all the team stuff with what I'm about to say, so I'll be brief. The closing of the Holton Elementary was wrong. I went to the closing celebration. It was so wrong how it was closed. You had a meeting for people to talk about keeping it open, but you had already made up your decision to close it, so I don't even know why you had the meeting. The reason that was used lacked really honesty and integrity, in my opinion. I will say that.

020It said you're going to save a million dollars, but it doesn't. By the time you add busing, et cetera, it doesn't save a million dollars. Plus, you're spending $4 million to add on to another school. By the way, that's less than 1.5% of your budget. Really, we closed Holton Elementary, a recognized school, for less than 1.5% of your budget. You have a $59 million budget. So if it really was about money, people here don't know how to do money very well, and they should hire people that do. I think the school board, if they don't have this financial ability, should kind of not run again, and someone that does should. Or it was something else. What it could have been, I have no idea. Was it closed because it was old? Was it closed so

021you could sell the property? Was it closed so you could disseminate the staff other places? I don't know. But whatever you believe it was, if it was money, that's not a valid thing. 1.5% of your budget. If it was something else, that lacks honesty and integrity. I don't know how many of you were involved in the vote, but if you were involved, I would suggest that maybe you don't run again. This was just so wrong the way it was done. I spoke twice at this thing, but I was pretty careful about what I said. See, my daughter was in school and I was a teacher, and I didn't really need a target on her back or a target on my back. But she's going to college now and I'm retiring, so I guess it's time

022to put the target on my back. It's time to start speaking up again. I used to speak up a lot. I was reserved for the last 20 years. I don't need to be. I know I'm gonna go to Menards, this is televised, two people are gonna come up, shake my hand and say, you wanna run for the board? And two people are gonna swear at me. That's okay. It's okay, I can be there, okay? Because I guess it's time to start coming to these meetings and speaking up, because the whole closing of Holton Elementary just was wrong. The way it was done was wrong. And I know people feel the same way as me, but they don't wanna come and speak because they don't want the target on their back, or they don't want the

023target on their kid's back. You constantly complain about not having enough money. That's because, in my opinion, you put your wants before your needs. And you have all these wants that you want, and you don't have enough money for your wants. But, you know, prioritize the needs. I know that I've just offended some of you, and I'm really sorry about that because that wasn't my intent. But I think it's time that, you know, people start speaking up. And the closing of Holton Elementary was wrong. And I don't really feel comfortable being up here doing this, but somebody needs to. Thank you, Mr. Thompson. Next is Andrea Schindler. Really brief. I noticed that working meetings are no longer recorded and published, so I would really like if that would be resumed, the recording and the publishing.

024Mondays are really busy for me. I guess they're busy for other people too, and I really... Thank you, Andrea. Daniel Sampson. in the effort to engage in matters of our school district is important but cannot always be done in real time. As a parent of young kids, I've greatly appreciated being able to view the recording meetings later in the evening after the kids are to bed or a different day entirely. Hearing discussions between the board members provides context that agendas and meeting minutes cannot. Recorded meetings provide transparency and credibility. They create a clear record to go back to. I know I've personally gone back to watch parts of meetings. and in doing so I've been corrected in what I thought I remember what I said, what I thought happened. And I think it's good that

025we're able to do that. The last working session on May 26th is an excellent example of why meetings should be recorded. From the agenda and meeting minutes, we know that there's an update on the budget projections for the next five fiscal years. The document linked to the agenda showed a projection that looked worse than before the vote to close two schools, even though we closed two schools. Next, there is a motion to approve an increase for a two-year period. 2.63% increase in teacher compensation. Following that, the minutes state that there was a motion passed to approve a 4.02% increase for all other administrative and support staff. There's a lot of important questions left unanswered with the lack of a recording. How was the budget outlook discussed among the board? What questions did you ask and

026what were the answers? Regarding compensation, how is all other administrative staff defined? Was the cost impact compared to the 3.5% assumed in the budget model? How was this discussed in light of the projected? All of these questions can certainly be emailed to you, but do you really want a bunch more emails to repeat what you said in the meeting? Instead of the saying, this meeting could have been an email, you'll be feeling these emails could have been a recorded meeting. If motions are passed that impact the budget, these meetings need to be recorded and available for the community to watch. I respectfully ask the board to reinstate recording all regular meetings as they are and working sessions for efficiency, transparency, and accessibility. Thank you, Danielle. Kate? Good evening. My name is Kate Spadino, and I'd

027like to respond to the issue of the online learning in the virtual school that was discussed last time. I'm a Hudson resident. I have five students in the Hudson School District. We have been in two elementary schools. We've homeschooled. We've been in WVS. We've been in Trittany Academy, the middle school, and Hudson High School, and also fully online virtual. I have a senior, junior, sophomore, freshman, and a seventh grader. Out of all these programs, the one that has worked best for our family has been the online program. At last month's meeting, I heard the statement that in-person learning is the most effective and efficient way for students to learn. I respect that it may be true for many students, but it hasn't been true for ours, and I want to share that personal story and

028have it heard. My eldest enrolled in fully online in 10th grade after two years, so I guess it was 11th grade, after two years at Hudson High School. And he just wasn't finding his place. Although he got all A's, he needed something else. And he was asking us to go out of the district. And instead, we heard of this online program and we went to Sarah. And the first thing she said was, how can we continue your academic success? And he went on to graduate with great grades. And we had more communication with teachers through the online program than we actually did in person in Hudson High School. And most importantly, he learned how to be efficient with his time and to advocate for his needs. This past year, however, when my daughter started online

029program, it was communicated to her that their priority was that she was in school. And that was the goal for her. Instead, she chose to be fully online and found a lot of success. Oh, I'm so nervous speaking to you. I'm suddenly talking to teachers again, you guys. I got the jitters, you guys. So I just wanted to share her story that she was asked to be in school instead. She was online and she was very, very successful. I'm concerned when I see the board moving away from successful online programs. And while I know that our student or my students can go full-time online, hybrid is really unique. It's really innovative. And I don't think we have enough data to cancel that program or change direction based on what was heard from the last meeting.

030I think there are true success stories out there. And I think just because it appears that many, you know, I heard it say that some people just want some students might just want the release option. I think that's unfair to our students. I do. And so I would just encourage I would encourage the board to ask for more data and to think more critically before you cancel a program that has been so beneficial to our students, to my students. Thanks, that's it. Thank you for coming. That's it for citizens request speak now you can move forward with reports Start off with community relations Yep, I'm actually covering the first three of these items It's been a busy year, as you all know. So we started the year launching a new website for all of our

031schools. We did that in six months time, which is unheard of for the scope of or the size of the websites that we operate. Part of that was training our building administrative assistants on how to edit the websites. It's all a little bit different this year, so they have more flexibility with what they are able to do on their own. We also supported the school closure communications, ensuring, based on our goal, that everything was posted within 48 hours of decisions made by the board. and we were successful in getting that done. We supported the closure celebrations at Holton and Willow River Elementary School. I will once again thank the parents who were integral in making that happen, parents and the community members. We couldn't have done it without them. Supported the alignment of the new

032elementary attendance boundaries and shared stories through Our community newsletter and social media posts increasing Facebook followers by 11% and 24% for Instagram. Regarding our team, we supported this year the new hires in school-age care, community ed, and IT. We have an IT specialist that works and supports community ed or Fund 80. We held meetings with the school-age care team as they were transitioned as everybody else into new sites for the next school year. We produced four community newsletters and one annual calendar and then ensured compliance with state school safety regulations and completed the school safety assessment in partnership with the Department of Homeland Security. And you'll get that report later this summer from... David Melby who will be giving you that report. Additionally, we worked on updating the professional boundaries presentation that all of our

033staff are required to review annually and have that as part of Frontline, which is just our system for staff to access trainings. We held two staff trainings on child sexual abuse prevention with 68 staff participating in partnership with the Ministerial Association and several other community members. We also provided that training in the community for folks who work with kids. In partnership with the Hudson Area Chamber of Commerce, for the second year we hosted a job fair at Hudson High School in August and anticipate doing that again this year. And then we were fortunate to have the governor visit in August, so we facilitated that. Moving on to community ed, our numbers hold pretty much study in community ed, but just so everybody understands, we have in the fall and winter classes 1,400 individuals who participate

034in our classes. Right now we have to date 440 participants in spring and summer, but we have a lot of summer left, so that number will likely go up. We had 409 moms and sons participate in the annual Mother-Son Night of Fun. Our numbers increased for our January Puzzlepalooza. So we had 84 individuals or 21 teams. And the big number, the 1,300 participants in the Daddy Daughter Dance, which continues to be one of the biggest events that we have at the high school. So if you think about... the senior all-night party, prom, all of those things, this event is larger than that event. We have over 50 instructors who offer classes through Community Ed. So that is the Community Ed specialist working with all of those instructors to make sure that they're successful in what

035they're doing and our participants have a good experience when they... are part of our classes. Finally, school-age care. Today we welcomed nearly 500 students into Willow River Elementary. By nine o'clock I think I had all my steps in getting all the kids to the right place where their backpacks needed to be in their first class. Bev Hagen, this is her first summer taking school-age care all on her own. And Bev's doing an awesome job. She's done a wonderful job in creating a culture in school-age care where that teen feels seen and heard and valued. We had 614 children served during the before and after school care program, 61 kids in the 4K RAP care program, and again, just under 500 for summer. We have 19 year-round school-age care staff, and we invited in 37 temporary

036staff for the summer. So we have a large group at... Willow River this summer. This is the best score we've ever had. Can't get any better than 100% of our families agreeing or strongly agreeing that school-age care staff provide a safe and engaging environment for our children. Overwhelmingly, our families report that what they like best about school-age care is the variety of activities that children are provided through that program. That's three programs in one. Thank you Yes, Tracy, I feel like we needed to pause between each of those three sections Thank you so much for all of your hard work that you have done all year long and your team Okay, thank you. Thank you Tracy moving to building reports we have a Rivercrest Elementary All right, good evening, everybody. Thank you so much for

037letting me come and speak to some of our highlights from Rivercrest this school year. I just have to start by saying, you know, in those last few days of school, when you take a look at where our kids are at then and how far they have come, it really is so great to see how much growth we make in a school year. And I just have to start by giving a big shout out to my staff. They did some excellent, really hard work this year. Great job to them. So we'll start with just some things about our students, starting with some academic achievements. We had 81 students in grades three through five participate in keyboard and karate, where they're working on their accuracy and typing fluency, where they can work on getting different belts of

038karate based on how quickly they can type. It just motivates them a little bit. 35 of our students in grades four and five participated in Battle of the Books. We had 27 students participate in Choral Fest, all students who wanted to. Kudos to our music teachers who made sure that anybody who wanted to participate was able to. We had 65 students participate in our second annual Rivercrest Scott Talent talent show. Anything from comedy to dancing. We had a pogo stick this year. Very cool. Those kids are so brave to get up there and do what they do on the stage. That was really neat. We had 43 students participate in the Storybook Theater production of The Little Mermaid. We had 52 of our students receive Impressed at the Crest nominations for going above and beyond

039our school-wide expectations. And one of our fifth grade students made it to the state level for the spelling bee. All of our students at Rivercrest participated in an Olympic math fact journey where classes were kind of competing against each other for the highest participation in the math fact fluency practice. That was something that our staff identified as a need for practice for our kids, so we made it a fun challenge in the building. Some building specific celebrations. Our fifth grade students continue to take on their variety of leadership roles, doing bus patrol for us, helping to make sure our kindergarten students get to the buses safely every day. Our building is quite spread out, so that's a big task that they take on for us. And they also do the Rivercrest News for us every

040day. Our kindergarten students, they came in after they learned about the weather and they joined in on the news. They gave the weather report for about the last month of school. It was really fun to watch them do that. Our student council, fourth and fifth grade student council members, helped support many building-wide initiatives. We had many PBIS reward days. We did a red carpet day where students could dress like whatever made them feel like a star. Hat day, game day, those are always really fun days for our kids. Our students studied the seasons by taking many visits across the street to Camp St. Croix as well as using the nature trail that surrounds our building. And then we wanted to make sure that our fifth grade students had different opportunities throughout the year to work

041on teamwork and kind of that team building skills. So they started the year with their trip to Camp St. Croix. In the middle of the year, they all got to participate in a bridge building activity with the Department of Transportation. And then they did a culminating team building rock climbing experience at UW River Falls to end the year. And what was kind of neat about that was the UW River Falls aspiring Phi Ed teachers ran that, and then they came back to River Crest and did some more classes with us in the building. That was really neat. So you can see on this slide just some different things that our kiddos got to do. The bell, the book's on the bottom there. On the top, you see our student council members ringing the bells. The

042bridge building right in the middle. And then you've got our state spelling bee participant there as well. So lots of fun things to celebrate for our students this year. And then our team, I kind of broke this down into a couple different areas here. Starting with building staff community, we continued our partnership with our therapy dog team, Maureen and Ember, from the You're Not Alone organization. They are just such an amazing addition to our building. I cannot speak highly enough about them. Maureen is just one of the most amazing and supportive people, and the kids just love to see Ember in the building. So we're really, really thankful to continue on with that. We had a series of underground dress-up days scattered throughout the year, and Maureen and Ember always participate in those too. They're

043always dressed up for the event. Many of our staff members participated in our interactive all-school meetings that are themed like game shows, so always fun for our students to see us in a different light, just having fun, acting, being silly up on the stage. And then this is just a little tidbit, but I had to throw it in there. We had a mystery staff member who distributed little pieces of a gnome garden throughout the year. Started with a teeny little gnome that was holding a sign that said, you're amazing. And throughout the year, it's our little gnome gardens built. So by the end of the year, everybody had a little one on their desk. And it was just a hoot because everyone was trying to guess who is the person who was doing this and

044also what was coming next. And for any of my people watching, no, it was not me. you'll have to figure out the mystery for yourself. So you'll see a picture of that on the next slide. Professional learning is the next area. We had a couple different focuses for our professional learning this year. One of them was our special education team led a series of collaborative meetings to help build a developed, kind of a shared understanding about the IEP process. So this kind of came out of the... meetings that Tara and Fafani have been doing with their special education staff and they wanted to get that going with our general education staff as well. So just kind of building that shared understanding of the development of the goals through the implementation and how we can all

045support students. We were also hearing from our teachers that students were needing, you know, we had to change up our movement breaks a little bit when kids need to take a little brain break. So we paired with our occupational therapist team. They came in and every month they let us in our staff meetings through not only different ideas, but just the why behind we do different things with kids. And then they built a bank of those strategies that teachers could tap into throughout the year based on maybe this. student needs something particular or my class needs something different and then they ended up by the end of the year they were going on the news every week to share those with kids as well we had those pre-service teachers as i mentioned that came and

046completed hours with our river crest staff And then lastly, we were in full implementation of our new ELA resource, CKLA. So in K through five, all teachers were teaching that. And I just have to give a shout out to our teachers for helping students gain the full experience with this, with culminating unit celebrations. They did a lot of relevant field trips. And then they also used the virtual reality goggles to give them different experiences with the knowledge that they were learning. So really cool things there. And then lastly, our building goals here, you can see how they're tied to the different parts of the strategic plan. The first one was ensuring accessible multilingual school-to-home communication. So we did a survey at the beginning of the year just... gauging staff's knowledge and application around different tools

047that they could use to communicate with our English learner families. And we raised that from an average of 40% of understanding and application in the beginning of the year to around 80% understanding at the end of the year and application of those tools. And then lastly, our last two building goals were around our reading and math. We achieved both of those building goals, increasing our percentage of our third through fifth grade students who scored meeting or advanced on the forward exam. And there's just some pictures of our team. You can see the gnome guard in the corner. That's just how it kind of built up over the year. And then we have Ember up there in the top corner. You see some of our underground staff dress-up days. And then one of our teams wearing

048our Better Together shirts in the corner. All right, then lastly, our school community. Our PTO sponsored many great events this year. We had the movie night. Bingo night's a big hit at Rivercrest. It's always full in the cafeteria. They did March Madness this year, which got some great feedback, and then they also sponsor our storybook theater. We hosted an Olympic-themed family math and literacy night. We did this in the winter this year, and we had about 350 people in attendance. It was very well attended, and I think families had fun there too. One of our River Crest committees planned and executed story time around the world. After we knew that Celebration of Nations wasn't something we were doing this year, they kind of took a spin on that and decided to do something in-house. So

049classroom teachers, we kind of chose one story a week based on a different country, and then we had a different activity that went with that. So we had an Ecuadorian band come and visit. We had a fellow student who recorded a video, or a former student who recorded a video teaching students how to write hello in Korean. And then we had a Mexican churro treat in the lunchroom one day. We hosted our monthly all-school meetings in the game show format. And then lastly, we hosted the two open house events to welcome new students and families to Rivercrest. And I'll say the last one that we did here was pretty well attended. And one of the coolest things was to watch new students coming into the building, seeing each other there and saying, oh, you'll be

050here too, and just kind of welcoming each other in that way. That was really neat and beneficial for them too. So here you can see just some photos of some of our family nights, our storybook theater, the Ecuadorian band is in the middle, and then a fundraiser we did with the Epilepsy Foundation. So those are just some of the highlights of Rivercrest in a nutshell this year. Thank you again for the opportunity to speak about it. I just wanted to say thank you for the presentation, and I love that you guys did battle the books. I think that's so awesome that that continues to go, so kudos. celebration of nations was missed this year, but what a great way to bring literacy and celebrating all of the different cultures into your school community. So a

051lot of innovation there. Thank you. Okay. Next is the North Hudson and Holton. Good evening, everybody. Thanks so much for having me here. I was so excited to be able to come in and present on both schools tonight and just speak with you about the amazing team and students and families and community that we have. in Hudson just so blessed this year to be able to be principal at both these buildings. And as you'll see in the presentations, there are a lot of similarities and pieces that you'll see overlap. but a lot of differences as well. So it's exciting to kind of pair them together. So hopefully you'll notice that. And then kind of the undercurrent flowing through my first year as a principal that I feel super passionate about is shared leadership and a

052culture of collegiality. And I think you'll see that kind of screaming as they try to do a lot of shout outs for staff and their leadership. And obviously it can't be in two places at once, so it really takes that whole team effort to make all this success happen for the year. So super proud of everyone and their efforts. So starting off with our students at North Hudson, we did North Hudson Loves to Read Month, and we had 162 North Hudson students were able to fill their bookmarks, and they received a free book of their choice based on our PTO funds. That was awesome. And our color run continued this year, and our students raised over $26,000. And so that will help us purchase some new risers for the school, some playground pieces, as well

053as continues to fund field trips and those types of things. Our kindness retreat did occur this year for North Hudson and Holton fourth graders because of a donation from a community member. So that was pretty awesome. It was one of the shout-outs that our fourth grade student presented at the end of your assembly. They said that was their highlight. So that's really awesome. Raiders of the Month, this was our school-wide monthly celebration. Student recognition program and you can see kind of the different topics there that were highlighted so teachers chose one student They received a certificate and then every couple of months we would have a red carpet Celebration where they got to walk the red carpet and be recognized for their being Raider of the Month Husky Headlines was run by our fifth grade

054students as well as Miss Warren, our media specialist. And one of the cool things we did this year was we featured Multilingual Mondays. Lori Palm, our EL teacher, coordinated that. And so we had a student either speaking in Thai or Spanish. And so other students could learn some new words. And math masters, we had six students participate in fifth grade, and one of the teams earned first place in the March tournament. And battle of the books, we had 68 participants in fourth and fifth grade. And then just a highlight of some of our early data that's coming out from Forward, super excited that over 80% proficient and advanced in both ELA and math at North Hudson. are for third through fifth grade students this year. So that's our students. And lots of photos there. I

055actually had a hard time choosing photos. As you can see, they even spilled into the margin there. But just so many amazing things. And I think, you know, pictures can capture a lot of that. So everything from CKLA end of unit celebrations, like the first graders in the upper right corner, to all of our amazing concerts put on by Mr. Scholl's track and field day. That's our reading in the middle there. You can see at the end of... North Hudson Loves to Read Month, the students formed a reading chain across all the hallways. In the school on the last day, Camp St. Croix, we had for World Language Day, we were able to, that second grade classroom was able to learn more about Thailand. Bottom left corner is the Battle of Books teams kind of

056just doing their thing. And then some of the examples there of the art adventures that you'll hear about later with the community connections that we have. Our team. So we were able to welcome four new teachers to North Hudson this year and that was super exciting. One of the great things I was able to do is 30, 60, 90 day interviews with those teachers and kind of make sure we're helping them along. They have mentors. Hudson has a very supportive way of bringing on new teachers and when I met with them for their summatives at the end of the school year, we also took some additional data, questions that we asked of them. And they all had an amazing year and spoke super highly of the support and the professional development, the resources that are

057so rich in Hudson and that they benefited greatly from in their careers. Retirees, this is a huge shout out actually at both buildings. You'll see this again. Mr. Kanoki, Ms. Shavey, Ms. McGee, and then Dean Skoyan. It's been so amazing to be able to work with retirees and have them continue to serve our communities and bring their knowledge and wisdom back to our students and staff. Instructional coach leadership, just huge shout out to all the amazing things from our instructional coaches, engagement strategies, PLCs, backward planning, CKLA implementation. You heard a lot about that from Paula as well. So Kelsey, but also Olivia, Grace, and Jenna have been critical in that support this year. Our specialist team at North Hudson took on this all by themselves. They said, hey, our students are needing more breaks. You

058kind of heard Paula talk about that too. They need some more breaks in their day. And so they were able to create a resource for our teachers and share that early in the school year so that students could have 30 seconds to two minute breaks throughout their days as needed. And they kind of kept that resource coming all year long. District Y PD presentation, Ms. McConnell presented a CKLA and forward exam presentation to our third through fifth grade teachers in the January professional development and just did an amazing job with that and helping teachers to realize that forward exam preparation doesn't need to be and shouldn't be a standalone thing. It needs to be embedded into what we're doing each and every day. And her classroom definitely showed those results in the forward exam. And

059then kindergarten literacy morning, we had families come in with their kindergarten teachers and other of our professionals and were able to dive into the science of reading. STEAM night, leadership provided by Mr. Burbach. And finally, a really fun co-teaching opportunity at the end of the school year with our art and fifth grade teacher with social studies collaboration. And they studied totems, Native Americans in the upper Midwest, northwest and created totems and learned about those and and the culture of the pictures so You can kind of see all the fun things that we did this year. And I'm just super excited that our team has so many great celebrations throughout the year. So Literacy Morning in the center, Kickball Champions, the teachers beat the fifth graders. There's some color run photos there, Turkey Bingo. And then

060one of the big things this year was obviously how Dean Skoyan, she was there one day a week to support me. but also throughout the end of the year, Sue and I have been collaborating and will continue to do that through the summer to make sure that we have a strong transition for students for next year. And finally, our school community for North Hudson. So completing renovations, the media center, the drive up and walk up procedure. One of the big things with our school community was that they wanted to retain the ability to be able to kind of congregate and talk with one another after school. And so we created kind of a walk up line scenario in addition to the drive up that Nick helped me with at the beginning of the school year

061because I'll be honest, I was very scared about that drive up at the beginning. the school year, but it turned out to be beautiful, worked great, and we worked out the kinks throughout the year. Supporting transitions, April 22nd, we had over 100 students visiting North Hudson and some great leadership from our fourth and fifth grade students as they presented all about our school and the amazing things to help new students feel welcome and supported as they make that transition for next year. Celebrating togetherness, you can kind of see some different things throughout the year from our pep band visiting in the fall. PBIS rewards and school assemblies and our fifth graders being kind of just those role models, whether it's crossing guards, whether it's their school news program and all those initiatives that they take

062on. Serving others, stuff a truck, Valentine's for veterans, pop top collection, feed my starving children. So lots of ways that students can kind of see how they can impact outside the walls of North Hudson. And then learning from our community, I mentioned the art adventures lessons with parent volunteers who come in and talk about the history and cultures of art pieces from the Minnesota Institute of Arts. And then DARE lessons with Officer Kelly and Chief Richard and those DARE graduation ceremonies for fifth graders at the end of the year. And then finally, maximizing school facilities usage. This was really neat to kind of see how we can leverage those new facilities at North Hudson and use those for district-wide open gym events for elementary students, as with Tara and Sally. So they had four of

063those and also partnered with Power Up in February and March. and then hosting community education classes for a variety of different stakeholders and then providing dedicated space for Hudson High School gymnastics team. Pictures on the next slide. And again, just really exciting things happening in our school community. And like one of my favorite ones, there is the middle left where the kids are having just a dance party because we had a few extra minutes between. inflatables being done their teacher picking them up and so the teacher just said let's just have a dance party so they were they were having a great time there um that's the k literacy morning so the kind of group of folks that showed up for that that was exciting and um dare as well as a school assembly there

064and some color run photos as well i just want to thank you for uh fighting for the uh social aspect of an omali and i and probably kate you want to know what's going on north hudson as a parent you stand out in front of that elementary school school you hear a lot so but that is important for the first page so that's our entire school and their tie-dye shirts you'll see those a lot throughout the presentation it's a big part of Holton and a point of pride I will say and something that I'm hoping maybe maybe some other schools will pick up that tradition So again, you'll see some similarities, but again, some differences between the two schools. So Storybook Theater, twice upon a time, we have 50 students in grades three through five

065participate this year in that, and they did a really wonderful job with that presentation. Math Masters, 11 students in fifth grade, and a first place team in the April tournament. Battle of the Books, we had 38 participants in fifth grade, and one of the teams placed 24th out of 235 teams. That's very impressive. Wild About Reading Challenge with Kim Paulson leading that. So there were a variety of activities that we did leading up to our all-school field trip to the Minnesota Zoo. So this occurred at the end of April and early May. So they had door decorating contests, lots of different dress-up days, and virtual visits all over the world to famous libraries, one of which was Honduras, and we have a student from Honduras, so that was a really neat connection for our school.

066And then Ms. Ambrose and Mr. Olson, their classes won pizza parties for reading the most chapters, and so they had lion heads that they were trying to fill up, and they won that, so they got a pizza party. that's always a big treat and then again the kindness retreat with our fourth graders and Raiders of the Month was also something we celebrated at Holton this year and they were recognized on Hawk Talk and they had their certificates out in the hallway so that all month long people would be able to see what their teachers wrote about them and how they were being safe respectful responsible and following our PBIS expectations And then ELA and math achievement also really excellent at Holton. And so over 83% proficient and advanced in ELA and over 91% proficient and

067advanced in grades three through five math. Very impressive results there. And again, just packing in the pictures. We have the, that was from our Wild About Reading door decorating contest. A challenge there with the balloon, keeping it up in the air. Talent show. I believe it's over half of our school participated in the talent show. It was so funny because you have the audience on the floor, and then you have the participants up in the chairs, and it's literally half and half. It's quite amazing. Everything from guitar to dance to talking about birds, all sorts of great things. great things that our kids are doing. It will be so exciting to see them go through Hudson schools and see all the contributions that they will make. We have the concerts that are always amazing, Minnesota

068Zoo, there's Storybook Theater, the baby chicks that got hatched in fourth grade. Celebrating our seniors is always one of the best days of the year. It's so amazing to see. their excitement and the kids really looking up to the graduates. And then bottom right for World Language Day, we had one of our students able to be on Hawk Talk. He's a kindergartner actually. And so he got to be on Hawk Talk with the fifth graders and present a little trivia for the school to our team. So again, welcome some new teachers to Holton Elementary School. So those are... art teacher, a counselor, and our speech and language pathologist who split between the schools. Again, many retirees who helped us out this year. So Ms. Rizzardi, Ms. Persinger, and also Dean Wasson, who actually started as

069a second grade teacher for long-term sub and then transitioned to dean. And it was so amazing having her by my side this school year. literally could not have could not have made it without her and she has such a passion for holton so it was just a great way for her to i told the students on the last day of school she retired not once not twice but three times so that was really fun uh school therapy dog miss pearson our counselor collaborated with the handler nicole and our dog Eddie. Eddie also got to be part of an art lesson where second grade students learned about movement and texture and got to be a model for the students. That was really a highlight for me as an evaluator because I got to see that lesson

070in action. The Anne Marie Foundation grant, Ms. Gorman received STEM discovery kits. All school monthly assemblies, leadership was provided by each grade level team and their students. And so they took that on and figured out what they wanted to happen and presented it each and every month. And it was just a great way for our students to build their leadership skills and become comfortable with speaking in front of audiences like I'm doing right now. PBIS, supporting and celebrating those positive behaviors and school-wide goals. with our holts and hawks and then so students got to you know frost your own cookie or have a disco dance and all sorts of fun things throughout the school year Our leadership team at both buildings, but I highlighted it here, we did some work around K-5 vertical alignment of

071ELA priority standards, looking at the forward exam, seeing where we needed improvement. It actually was the same at both schools. It had to do with finding evidence and details in text and then using that evidence to back up your reasoning. And that we found was consistent through grades three through five, consistent between both buildings. And we were thinking, you know, this is in the curriculum a lot, but maybe it's just not being taught to our students in the classroom in the way that they're seeing it on the exam. So then we had examples of that being brought in by K through five teachers. So we could kind of see the progression throughout the student school career and make those connections and then see kind of the simple ways we can embed that into instruction. And

072then the semi-quincentennial activities. So this was something we had to do district-wide. Leadership provided by Ms. Young, again, at both school buildings, that classrooms had choice board activities, so maybe designing a license plate or hearing stories or just a variety of things related to 250-year celebration of the United States. Some great photos here again, you'll see a lot of the tie-dye shirts, but our team playing volleyball we beat the fifth graders See that happened at both schools. That's always good. That's a big deal, right? And I I will just say that Elementary schools takes the end of the school year to a whole new level I have never experienced it before and it's quite different and It's a whirlwind. It's so much fun. The kids have a blast as well as the staff. And it's

073just a great way to end the year. You're kind of holding your breath a little bit, but also just enjoying the ride. And so I think you see that represented well here as well as Turkey Bingo there. There's a little tiny that we had to stick in there. And finally, our school community. There is nothing like the school community at Holton. I feel so lucky that I was able to experience, especially as I was listing the traditions, the school traditions at Holton were amazing to witness and be part of. Shout out for Hawk Talk, as I mentioned a few times, under the direction of Ms. Juneau. She was a new teacher this year. She did art. She did media. She did some coding. She did Hawk Talk. She was like the Jill of all trades.

074And I just told her what an amazing job she did coming in and taking all that on. The school traditions, some of my favorites, the bell ringing, of course, the all-school skates, kite day, and I would say the tie-dye shirts. Those are some of my favorites that I got to experience. The garden club students collaborating with those master gardeners each week on Thursday during their lunch time so there would be a couple students from each grade level classroom who would be able to go out and work in the greenhouse, work in the gardens and sometimes take things home or create gifts for teachers for teacher appreciation. All sorts of great things coming from there. And then celebrating Holton's legacy. That was just a huge effort done by our current and former Holton Parent Association, mostly,

075but just a lot of community support and just a huge undertaking that they went to to honor the story, the history of Holton, put on an amazing program, a lot of fun as well, but just a very... Very fun day to be a part of and to see just everyone coming together. We had, I'm guessing there were maybe 500 people. Yeah, okay, sounds good. That's what I thought. So, yeah, I was very, some of you were able to be there. And then finally, the end of the year field trip, the Minnesota Zoo. We took the entire school over there. I was a little bit nervous about that, but it all went really great. And the kids had a good time. And we had a lot of parents join us at the zoo as well. And

076they were able to either stay with kind of their group with their leader or take their own child to the zoo. So that was the first time that's ever been done. And I think it went really well. So a few more pictures to share. Upper right is the kindergarten graduation or farewell, which was really fun. The Hudson High School band and athletics come out, just have a great time during homecoming week with our students. Some examples of the all school assemblies with the veteran speaker, the bell ringing, our old school skate there. Last day of school, the hock-tock in the bottom left, live. and then some signing of the t-shirts on the last day of school as well there with kiddos and then kite day. So just a beautiful community to be a part of

077and thankful for your time. Thankful for my privilege of being principal this year. And just thank you all too for your service and for listening to me. It's been a long time of me speaking up here. So now I'm done. Yes, Kate. I just wanted to thank you for your leadership of Holton this past year. I know it's been emotional and there's so many things to celebrate, but there's also been sadness. And so I thank you for honoring that piece of it and really looking at both schools. I'm sure it's hard to be a principal of two schools, but you made both of them uniquely. I think that's really special. So thank you. Brian. Thank you. I just wanted to acknowledge, obviously, as a Holton parent, it's been a really challenging year in the Holton

078community, but as we just saw during the school day at Holton all year, it's just been an incredible year, and that's no doubt testament to your leadership and, of course, the staff there. I wish you could stick around in our district. You've done an incredible job. You were an incredible principal for our school in the last year, so thank you so much. The way you take pride in crushing those fifth graders, we should have had you speak earlier with the athletics group, maybe. Next up, we have a preliminary budget report with Bonnie. Well, it's hard to follow that. This is not the most exciting time. I know. Do we have some cute kids we could bring? So last month we updated you with our projection model. This month we're giving you a preliminary budget. I

079would stress it is very preliminary. This year is a little bit different because typically we could roll over staff, just code them the same way, but because we have so much turnover, we basically just clean slate and are starting over. Every staff member has to be recoded to their new location or their new grade level. we're not quite there yet it's only been a couple of weeks since you adopted the compensation for the teachers and the support staff and everybody so we're working on that i did attach a preliminary budget it is an estimate of where we think we're going to go and it aligns with the budget projection we did increase expenses in the salaries and benefits to reflect the increase above that three percent so this does reflect that to that 4.02%. The

080other big one is our state aid. We do not get an estimate until July 1, so using the Baird model, this is what our best guess is. for that estimate, but that is just kind of the preliminary budget for you. Some of the assumptions we had was the $325 per pupil for the revenue limit, per pupil aid, 742 per pupil. The special ed categorical aid, it says 40, it should be 38. I need to correct that, so I apologize for that, 38%. Again, July 1, we should get our equalization aid. Our student enrollment estimate for our September count, we're estimating 4,737. Property valuation, a 4% increase. We will know that number hopefully in August of this year. I did attach the previous year's budget reductions as well as this coming year, just so some historical.

081perspective for you to take a look at. Go down to him, sorry. The model I attached, that was the one that we brought to you last month. The settlements we updated, as I just said, that took place in May, and then the health insurance contributions. We weren't able to bring you a report this month because the meeting's quite a bit earlier than normal, so we'll bring that to you in July so you'll have that. But we're running about the same 1.03%, so we're a little over budget in that, but not as compared to last year. And something to take note, you know, people ask why did the budget projections change? I mean, just this year we were anticipating getting 42% special ed reimbursement and 45% for next year, and now we're looking at... basically 38

08238 is that about right so when you start to look at that it starts to change by not just thousands of dollars but up to millions of dollars when the state legislature doesn't do what they said they were going to do what they were planning on doing last last summer when we built these budgets so and i know there's another topic later about budget projections one of the other big thing was we did not have the sale of the district office or holden on our initial those have been built in as well. So we'll go over that later, but projections are projections and as things change, we try to update them, but it does make swings and it does change, but we're trying to give you the most accurate information as we can. Mr. President.

083Yes. Bonnie, with regards to equalization aid. What do we typically see in that? I'm assuming that's typically we take a hit in terms of money taken away when we think about equalization, but maybe could you correct me if I'm wrong and share a little bit about historically what happens with equalization? Yeah, I mean, you, I would say probably about 15 years ago, you used to get, I wasn't here then, but I believe you were like two-thirds funded by the state and one-third funded by the district, and since then it's almost the opposite. Anytime we spend over a dollar, we are actually lose more than a dollar in state aid because we're in the negative tertiary. And basically what that means is we have high property wealth for people. And because we have high property wealth

084for people, they take aid away from us and we give it to districts that have lower property value per student. That's just the system it is it doesn't make a lot of sense because it doesn't take into account You know the needs of our students are any different than other kids, but that is a system we work with So we have steadily declined in equalization aid and maybe that'd be a good thing to bring next month just to give you a 10-year history of how that's impacted the taxpayers. Yeah, I have Megan speaking in the back of my head right now. Yes, please bring that. That would be a great topic. I think we brought it last year, but we could definitely update it and bring it again. I think it would be great. Yep.

085Love it. One other quick question. So in terms of staff compensation, what this accounts for is the agreement of... Nick, correct me if I've got this percentage correctly, two point what percent increase and then an additional $1,000 step to bring it to an overall 4.02% when you roll everything together. Correct. Bonnie, if there's no other questions, we'll move on to enrollment update. Yes, this one is. That is mine. I'll take this. So you'll see up on the screen, you're going to see this at every meeting. We started showing this about four meetings ago. We do it every spring. Kind of where we're sitting with enrollment, this snapshot was done last week. I think on Friday it was updated most recently. So you can see where our class sizes are based on number of sections. We

086do have roughly 86 sections to play with right now. We're only utilizing 84 sections. and we're keeping an eye on things as we move forward. Right now we don't have any sections that are over the class size guidelines as it sits as of last Friday. Now, again, this is a fluid number because on Wednesday, some were over. By Friday, some were under. I mean, it's just constantly moving. And I try to remind people that just because we get over a student on a class size guideline, it doesn't necessarily mean we pop a section or anything along those lines. Usually it's when we get up, you know. At least one or two students over class size guidelines across all the sections being offered in that building is that we we look at that This is also

087inclusive of our open enrollment numbers and our boundary exceptions, right Tim. We got all these in here So all students are placed You know placed in the district and where we're sitting so Still sitting we have just you know perspective. We have 90 classrooms Right now we're utilizing 84 of them buildings that will be open in the fall so but we do have the ability like I said original plan was to go down to 86 sections but based on where enrollment is sitting because our kindergarten numbers are not even as what we were projecting they're they're a little bit less we're seeing 84 sections any questions about enrollment update or class size projections or anything along those lines No, just an observation that we're 10 less at North Hudson compared to the last enrollment and

088We're up 69 kids for 4k. That's pretty positive Yeah, and that 4k number is gonna kind of kind of bounce around a little bit on us until we get really close to the start of school and part of that is just For folks that are on their second or third kid in 4K, they get their kids enrolled this spring, and we know who they are. But for some of those folks where it'll be their first child going through school, they're not really thinking about sending them to school until about August, and then we start to pick up some of those numbers as well. But the kindergarten numbers are much more dialed in. We used to have that same challenge in kindergarten, but now with the 4K programming, we have a pretty good handle on what

089our incoming kindergarten numbers are going to look like. We were really kind of hoping for that number to be a little bit higher You know, we may pick up a few more kids Across the board but like we said one of the things that happens is we'll pick up our ads over the next month and a half or so but some of the folks that leave they don't always tell us until we get the records request or or when they don't show up on the first day and so We just will kind of kind of watch it It would not be uncommon for us right now at this point to have a couple sections that are in the red and so this is probably less common to have no sections in the red at this

090point in the summer. So we're sitting in a pretty good spot. Any other questions for Nick? Okay, moving on to topics of discussion and possible action. First, before I ask for a motion for the consent item of approval, I'd like to recognize we have two people in the room today that will now, this is their last school board meeting for Hudson. That would be Tracy Amichalene, our communications director, and... Tim Miner, our executive assistant for Nick. So I know both of you guys don't like, you know, tears and all that, so I won't cry. But it's been very nice working with both of you over the years. I've known both of you for many decades, in fact, and, you know, job well done. And what else I can add to that? So with that, I

091would accept a motion to... approve the consent items one through three. Mr. President, before approving the minutes, I want to make a quick clarification about the May 26th meeting, particularly item F that's listed as the non-teaching staff pay increases for 26-27. So in the communication, I'm seeing a few different terms being used, non-teaching staff, administrative and support staff, and Hudson lead. And referencing in the agenda, the meeting recap, and the other communications that I've received, it would be really helpful if we could clearly define who is actually included in that group on item F so we all can have a shared understanding of the terms. because they just don't appear to be used consistently. And if it's not, it's just not clear if they're all referring to the same group of employees or not. I

092also want to just note that based on the way that it was worded on the agenda and the language that was used at the time of the vote, my understanding of non-teaching staff did not clearly reflect all of the groups that ended up being part of that vote for me. And I just think clarity in how these items are presented is really important for both the board and the community moving forward. So I would just like to seek clarification for the community being that this is recorded so we can confirm exactly which positions were included in that item F and in that category of how those employment categories are actually defined. Nick can address that please. Yep. There was a motion that was made by Rudy that called out all three groups, called out the

093teacher group, called out the administrative group separately and called out the support staff group, made sure that if you guys were going to do one motion that all three groups were called out individually, they were done at that time. There was a second made by Rosowski at that time with all three groups called out and then the motion carried. So, so it would be basically the 4.02% increases for all employees of the Hudson school district. specifically asking about how non-teaching staff is defined is my question. So non-teaching staff would be any of our, it would be both Hudson lead and it would be support staff. So it'd be our hourly staff. So both our administrative staff and our hourly staff. Um, but in all the presentation documents that we put towards, uh, in front of

094the board two weeks ago, uh, we did carve them out both separately Hudson lead and support staff so that you guys had that information separate. My point is it wasn't on the agenda as listed. It was listed as non-teaching staff pay increases 26-27. And then in the meeting minutes, it was recorded as administrative and support staff. And then the communication after that said Hudson-Leed. So that's, I'm just, I'm a little. Yeah, and Hudson-Leed and administrative, we've kind of used it as they have been interchangeable. Hudson-Leed is kind of the. group we call it, inter-district. We have Hudson Lead and Hudson Learn. Hudson Learn would be administrators in the district only focused around instructional side of the house. Hudson Lead would be all administrators in the district as we work through that. And so I believe

095the minutes are accurate as to what the motion was, but I guess I would yield to... Mr. President. Maria. As I was the one who made the motion, when I made the motion, I referenced the document. Tim, I don't know if you could bring it up, if you have the document that lays out the different categories and specifically calling out column G, specifically calling out each of the type of categories of staff that we were referencing. And the 4.2, 4.02% was reflective of the... agreement of a 2.63, Nick please correct me if my memory's wrong, 2.63 agreed upon cost of living COLA increase with an agreed upon $1,000 base pay increase for each of those categories coming to a total of 4.03. When the discussion was made, there was questions from both. board member Garza

096board member Rosowski and board member Dahl asking for clarification so that they understood exactly what my motion was. And then the motion was open for discussion, continued discussion. And then we had a vote. I was present and I, that's not how I recall it, but that's okay. And I just wanted it clearly stated on what that category covered because it was not recorded. Nobody can actually go back and see that so just wanted to clarify that before we approve many minutes that's it yep thank you yep taken um so do we have a motion to approve the minutes then or consent agenda for one through three mr president molly i had it here sorry my apologies i move approval of the consent items and that the chief financial and operations officer be authorized to pay

097bills in the amount of one million $603,662.31. Do I have a second? Second. Kate? All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed say nay. Motion carries. Next on the agenda is second reading of the student use and or possession of personal electronic communication devices. Tara. This is the third time that you've seen this. No changes since we've discussed the last couple times. This just for your, because it's been a while, this is a current policy we have. We do all school districts by July 1 have to make sure that they have one. We just went through it, updated a couple little tweaks, and so that's what's presented in front of you for approval. Okay. Ask for a motion or any comments first or a motion? I'm just curious, Mr. President, where it talks

098about the middle school in this. I just, is that currently the policy that they're following with their cell phones where they're not using them at luncheon and passing or are we just tightening that up? That is the current. Okay. Yeah. Good. Thank you. Any other questions? I'd ask for a motion to approve. I'll make a motion to approve the policy 443.5 student use and or possession of personal electronic communication devices as presented. Thank you, Erin. Do I have a second? Second second for Molly all those in favor say aye aye aye all those opposed say nay the motion passes Next hour again with overnight travel. Yep. We Brought this to you last month. It feels like last week, but it was last month wasn't it last month? You guys did have a few questions on

099overnight travels, so Luckily Aaron moan was here earlier. He's gonna stay and open it up to any questions or I don't know Aaron Do you want to share a few things or you just want to take questions? I'd rather do than spend my time with this group You already warned us about the travel expenditures Mr. President I was gonna ask mr. Moan if he's got overnight travel tonight Are we holding him up getting on the road? Nope, I do not. Headed to Chippewa Falls in the morning. But I'll just give a few kind of initial points and kind of the overall philosophy. But I know at the bottom of the tab, if you wanted to look, there's a little bit more in detail. But I think there's a couple of things at play for Hudson

100and our challenges with where we live in the state. But we do try and balance and understanding that overnight travel is a cost. It comes from a combination of fundraising and district budget dollars. We want to be responsible in that sense. There's also an equity piece to it that we try to uphold and do the best we possibly can with that. You know, but the regional components I speak of are typically more in the athletic setting where we have things, for example, like a seating meeting. If you don't play, for those of you not familiar with the seating meeting, before playoff starts, you go and you develop the brackets and that's where everybody gets their number, who's home, who's away, and where all that flows. If we don't play any teams that might be in

101our division, which unfortunately are a ways away from us outside our conference, we're at a little bit of a disadvantage to the rest of the state. But at the same time, we don't need to do that for every non-conference game. We do capitalize and utilize the Twin Cities Metro. Many of those opponents are 10 to 45 minutes away. A lot of them are closer than our farthest conference opponents. So when we sit down and do scheduling, that's the approach we try and take. We try to limit our individual programs to two overnight trips where possible. Some have a little bit of a different format and I'll use, um, cheer and stunt as an example. Um, they don't have a head to head where they're going to go do a competition against, um, Wausau West. They

102go to an invite and those invites are pretty routine and standard throughout the state. Um, So they typically along with right errors or March band might have an overnight More than others just due to the fact the other component at play would be an example like girls soccer There is no Minnesota spring season for girls soccer. So we're a little bit more Rigid and who we can play and how we can play them Because we can't play any Minnesota schools. There's a little bit more travel there. It still doesn't bring them above the two limited overnights all athletics are kind of in that bucket. Um, but that's, that's the component there in terms of the funding. That's the other part I want to just make sure everybody kind of understands, you know, as our foundation

103and how we've operated up to this point, everything regular season, um, has been fundraised for and, um, in terms of hotels, because we're going to transport them regardless, uh, post-season play as they qualify. most overnights aren't going to happen until we get to the state tournament series, which is where we are right now. Um, and you'll see those start to pop on the list as we go, just because my admin assistant has done a great job with this list and getting our Google calendar populated and making sure everybody's got all of the transactional documentation and rooming lists and health information and things like that. Um, so right now what's represented on 26 27 is our upcoming fall and winter. So That's where we're at right now in terms of the athletics to clubs and organizations.

104I know that conversation came up. I think it's a fair question. In a general sense, they just operate incredibly different in terms of their overall structure. So that kind of feeds into the overnights dependent on. Not only where their competitions are as you'll see for FFA is on there a lot Not every student goes to every single FFA event. It's dependent on their category But there's not many of those on this side of the state And and if we compete in Minnesota our students aren't recognized in their Wisconsin chapters which can impact their accomplishments in a cumulative season Clubs also have nationals We do have nationals for rate errors that they've had on an every other year basis. But our clubs and organizations have nationals. That funding over the years has been a little bit

105challenging in trying to figure out how we balance that with how many students are achieving that accomplishment and ultimately qualifying for nationals and also understanding back from there. the costs and the numbers of kids and how they compete is just very different than in the WI sports. You get X amount of kids and that's how many kids can compete in the tournament. Um, so it's much more fluid. So from a funding standpoint, the platform to this point that has really worked is our per program per student rate. and that rate is calculated on a budget that we sit down with the advisor on and map out. This is what it costs to execute this regular season schedule and then beyond that, this is what they know it's gonna cost to go to regional, state, nationals

106and beyond. So each student has a little bit of a different rate that way and those run through their 21 funds. So at least wanted to kind of just get some initial understanding because I know. when you look at it on paper, it can be a little bit confusing on how it all ties together, but ultimately want to answer questions and open conversation that you have. Kate. I still, it's jogging my memory as we're talking about what, what questions had come up when we talked about it initially. And I think that it would be nice to have an example, like say a student in DI, what is funded for them to go to state, let's say. as far as transportation and overnight and how that club might fundraise versus a student in soccer. Because I

107think what we were wondering is what the equity is for all of them. And so I think an example like that might help me anyway, kind of wrap my brain around it. Sure. DI, I'm not trying to leap the question. DI is one of our kind of like isolated, it's elementary through high school. So that one's a little bit different where we require. parents to travel and stay with them. But the funding piece isn't all that different. We have, I would say, a pool of money. It's a small allotment of money right now to help supplement some of that travel. And supplementing it in a way where we're not able to pay for everything based on our current budget. If it was... asked to, hey, can we put together something comparable for our clubs and

108organizations, that's something we could have discussion about if that's the direction this group's looking for. But historically, we've ran as I mentioned before, where we're collecting the student fees, and those student fees are going into 21 funds. For our clubs and organizations. So with like lacrosse as an example, we weren't sanctioned. It was a club sport Yep, so that has changed now is that handled similar to like hockey where we play a lot of Minnesota's you just because there's not a lot of sanctioned teams in Wisconsin Yes, absolutely in that sport. Yeah How about like girls wrestling being new same thing? I mean, I mean again We want our kids to be competitive and have opportunities, and it looks like they're making their own opportunities, so I can't really complain a whole lot about their

109successes, right? So I don't want you to think that at all. But I just was curious, like, those new sports, you know, and how they... Girls wrestling is actually in a really good position. We're in a region of the state that has high participation numbers. But lacrosse is absolutely the example where they used to make four or five overnight trips a year when they were a club because they couldn't play sanctioned teams in Minnesota. For those of you who were around during that kind of onboarding, us bringing them on allowed us to reduce their travel significantly. We make one overnight now and play mostly Minnesota teams. with a couple Wisconsin teams for that seating meeting mentioned earlier. Kate, that was a great example of trying to unpack the differences that we were talking about. The

110other, I think, in jogging my memory of the conversation was just questions from parents trying to understand when can they fundraise to support most of the sports have. parent groups that do extensive fundraising to support additional stuff. And I think some of the clubs and parents that have kids primarily in clubs are saying, is that something we can do? How would we support that? What might that look like? And so is that possible? Has that been done before? And I just putting that out in the ecosphere. In terms of adding more groups? No, well, no, no, no, no. In terms of, so like sports have groups, booster parents, like swim or football or soccer to support and raise additional money for additional equipment, whatever that they need to pay for a special type of bus

111here and there or support a meal after a... I think the questions that I've gotten from club parents is, is that something club parents could do to support potentially additional teams going? So thinking of like Science Olympiad, I'll just pull that one out, and what teams, how many teams they could send to state versus not. Is that something, is that a potential? That's where the question was coming from. Yeah, I think. We have a lot of sports that operate like a club in that sense, with the difference being their schedule is just very regimented and set through a conference and the WI tournament series. But back in it from there, we have multiple sports that operate without a group that are able to fundraise and work through that same process. And their funds go into

112the 21 fund. And if they wanted to. Order pizzas and have it delivered to the bus We have p cards that that they can check out and be able to do that the same way the clubs and organizations could What I guess just can you clarify your science Olympia question and state teams? Sure. I maybe it was the wrong club to choose but just perception that not all clubs can send a number of teams to additional competitions or to competitions and how that decision gets made and the perception being well, maybe it's a funding issue In order to allow more kids on the bus to go do some of those competitions Which might be even more limited for some of the club things that happen and so how What could they do is really the

113question that's coming from parents Yes, I'm not aware of a group that's not able to send whoever qualifies if that's the point I Think what you're asking is could they create could we create a funding? like a fund 21 account for a specific club versus a and could they have a booster club that raises money that would be put into their Similar sports, maybe that's what you're asking No, okay. I think you've answered it But as far I mean could is it possible for if there were inequities or there were a lack of funding for a Club group or a parent group or to fundraise as a group that would like FFA and di and science limited as a group I mean, from a, from a, we kind of got two buckets going here from

114a, like a community booster group fundraising, whether it's coach led or booster group led. I don't, I mean, I don't think anybody's being held back by our structure. You know, I don't think there's a. a competitive club or organization that's like, oh, we can't go to this because we don't have the funds, at least not that I've been made aware of. We have a beginning of the year meeting with our club advisors that I have the same as our fall, winter, and spring athletes, or sorry, coaches. And in that meeting, we talk about the same policies, fundraising and communication, and we work through our list. And in that also, It's what help do you guys need? Where are we at with our competitions? Most of them, Science Olympia, FFA, Quiz Bowl, have their similar regimented

115schedules that they're working through. But I feel like if somebody was having a gap or we can't send this. We would be able to have that conversation, but how can we make it work? You know is it more fundraising? Is it a booster group is it you know? Re-evaluating our budgeting you know whatever that might be I I'm just not aware right now if somebody not being able to go somewhere I mean because the parents are the ones involved the parents are the ones that know we don't I guess so just, you know, we rely on you to, you know, let us know if there's gaps or something where we could. I would say the challenge that, I mean, we're all kind of dealt with and isn't right, wrong, or indifferent is when you're looking

116at another program, you might not always understand what, you know, goes into it or, you know, football gets brought up. Well, they play in this big, beautiful stadium on Friday nights. it's really hard to sit and say, well, football gets way more than science Olympiad or whatever club. You can pick either sport or club and try and do it that way. But it's important to note, too, that there's tons of fundraising that goes on outside. And I think from the booster side, I think that's good for you guys to know that we've had really incredible conversations the last two years in our annual meetings. We're about to do our third. booster organization meeting where we get together and just talk about how we can do this and be efficient with it and what district policies

117and practices we need to you know account for so that the next person when they come understands how all this works and ultimately tying everybody together to like i mentioned in the beginning be efficient understand what we're here to accomplish so that we can keep everybody in a similar realm and not have somebody shooting out way in a different direction mr president Erin, I have a question. I'm seeing the costs, they say individual costs, and from all the dates on the bottom, they look a little bit different. I'm wondering if, as you're talking here, is there a way we can define what each club needs per cost? I mean, obviously the football team is much bigger than, say, the... you know, or FFA, well, maybe not FFA, but is there a way that we can

118define what those cost needs are, kind of just to break it down, and maybe just food for thought later on? I mean, when you do go for fundraising, I mean, North Hudson raised $26,000 on a color run. Couldn't we do a... District color run or something like that to raise funds and then divide them based off of what the needs are percentage-wise and have a Model going forward that this is how money gets dispersed because this is the needs of the clubs and as they grow Obviously you change that based on the number of kids that are in that but I don't know I'm just throwing something at the wall that could maybe be helpful But it would be helpful to see to me at least to see where those costs where those needs are

119Yeah, I forgot to mention that earlier. One thing that we're doing ahead of August 1st this year with both athletics and our activities, clubs, organizations, is a budget planning sheet. And I mentioned it a little bit from the student fee side of things because student fees are across the board and anybody who's an athlete as well, they may buy a team travel hoodie and sweats or whatever it might be. But it has four columns, and the first one would be school funded, fundraising. any booster donations should they have them and any student costs. So what you're pointing to is exactly what I'm trying to do is what does it take to execute this program season and do that with the coach first and foremost, just so they know, you know, however many rows we have.

120And then from there we go across and we assign that amount to that row. I will tell you it's going to be met with a little bit of resistance because it requires some transparency. And, you know, that conversation we are going to have in the booster organization meeting. Some are already aware. I've been having those conversations with our coaches in their postseason meetings. But to your point exactly, what does it take? And then honestly, most of that related to your color run example is trying to get fundraising to come this way a little bit. We have some that treat it like we can't go under this amount, like it's kind of a 401k situation. That's not what they are. And I think the greater good, everybody wants the best for our kids. It's just trying

121to make sure we objectify that and have a systemic approach. So then from year to year. Here's what we need. Are there any conversation points? This trip cost us this, speaking to overnight travel. Is there a closer place we could go that could cost us this? Because that might drop our fundraising this much. Well, it's such an awesome program. And to hear all the success of the students earlier and their continued success speaks high volumes for what we're doing here in Hudson. And I really just want to see how, I mean, as a board, we can help support that. Appreciate that. Thank you very much, Aaron. Appreciate your time. Thank you. So just kind of to bring us full circle, remember this topic was about approving overnight travel and it kind of bird walked into

122fundraising, which wasn't what it was noticed as. And so we're still going to need a board approval on the actual open. Mr. President. Yes, Maria. I make a motion to approve the overnight travel request for the 2026, 2027 school year. Second. Second from Kate. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed say nay. Motion passes. Now moving on to updated budget projections from Bonnie. So I did pull back. There was an inquiry about why budget projections are changing, you know, as we go through the year. And as we talked about when we did the preliminary budget, obviously things change that affect our budget, and we try to update you the best we can. What I did notice, which I think is a opportunity for improvement on our side, is we did four budget

123projections for you and they all look different. So I really think what we're going to do is, if you look at the February 23rd model, kind of just give you that format because it has the projection and it has all the assumptions. So when we go from each one to each one, it's fairly clear to see why they changed. but what I did do was go through each one. So from the June 14th through the October 13th, the main change of those were the October 13th reflected the actual third Friday count. So we dropped significantly more students than we had predicted. So that was the big change in that one. from October 13th to the February 23rd one, our enrollment projections, we initially were just reducing 50 students per year. We tied it to the

124MGT enrollment study that was done as part of the school closure because we thought that was a better use of data. We incorporated the projected cost savings for the building closures. We updated the special ed reimbursement and we added the district office building sale revenue for the 25-26 school years. So that really affected the bottom line. And then from February to May 11th, we updated the compensation projected at 3.5% going out versus 3%. We adjusted the health insurance and then we also added the Holted Elementary School building sale revenue. Although those don't seem like that huge of things, those are pretty substantial changes that we had just in a few months this year. It was a pretty changing year for our budget. But I think if you look at the February 23rd model, I don't

125know, it's the one that looks like this, and it kind of has the model on the left side, all the assumptions on the right, and I think it's a really clear picture for you. So when we compare each one, the one before that one, yeah. I think that's a format we'll bring if you guys are okay with that. And I think it'll give you the information that you're looking for, why they are changing each time. And some consistency for the public as well, what we're looking at. So I appreciate it getting brought up so we can, you know, it was an opportunity for improvement for us, I believe. Thanks, Mr. President. Bonnie, first of all, thank you for putting this together, walking through from scenario to scenario. It's really helpful. I know well that... These

126things are dynamic and they change over time. I did, I was hoping to focus on the special ed reimbursement again. We highlight in starting in February, we reduced the special ed reimbursement assumption to 38% in the current year and then 40%. And I think that's our current assumption today. Do you mind speaking to... Roughly how much that took out in our annual revenue? We're estimating probably between 800 million dollars worth of revenue that we will be under Compared to that 42% correct. So per year about a million dollars Less money from the state. Okay, and again just you know We keep harping on it because it's so important. This is special education. We pay the costs that these students That the district incurs which we should and the state's reimbursing us at below 40% That's

127four to five percentage points per year lower than they promised us So and there's a lot of talk about how these budget projections change over time And why are we back to where we started before we talked about school closure? And this is the biggest driver. This is What we're dealing with we pay We have to pay for the 100% of the costs, but the state reimbursed us at less than 40 cents on the dollar. Kate? Well, and I think we have to look at what happens when we don't have enough money for special education. That then comes out of money that we are meant to spend on general education. So some people might say, well, I don't have a child with special education needs. It's still affecting you. It's affecting the entire school. So

128it's frustrating and seems to be ever-changing with promises made, not kept. So it's a struggle. I think one of the things with as difficult as a year it's been with the talk of school closings and budgets, it has engaged the public to a point where many people from any sides of any issue we've dealt with in the last year have acknowledged that, ooh, state funding is a problem, right? I hope it doesn't go back to again, you guys got to live within your budgets. The budget is on us, right? So I hope it doesn't kind of swing back that way because I think there was a lot of momentum with people in the community saying, we understand that Hudson is getting the short end of the stick on some of this finance, and other districts

129don't have it as bad. And it's not as bad because of our successes. Just to your point we can't turn that away that we're required to cover those students 100% That's part of our job, right? Yeah, absolutely And I know a lot of people don't understand that and it's something that we want to be able to do I just wanted to again. Thank you Bonnie for Providing this I always appreciate when something is done the same way each time Especially because that's not my job super interesting I went to a budget session at the school board convention and we're doing a lot of really good things according to you know whatever but this is also another step in clarity and understanding and also to give you kudos because things change and each one of these

130things on these budgets it's not if each one of them is super complex it's not you know like the 325 per pupil increase My understanding is that's just $325 we can tax additionally. It's not money coming from the state, correct? It's a combination of equalization. Yeah, see, it's all like, yeah, and like how we get to our numbers. Like, you know, you explaining how we back into the numbers and how things go together. I mean, my dad was a real estate broker. He's 90, and he understands still all that. He won't remember what he said yesterday. When I first came got on the school board he said I've been doing this you know for 50 years And I don't understand property taxes. It is so complicated and how we fund things So kudos to you,

131and you know we talked about last time we want to pay our teachers They have costs. We want to pay administrators. We want to support staff. All this costs money. Health insurance, a lot of it's out of our hands. And then we have all the other things we have to pay for as well, which, you know, what is it going to cost for us this coming winter for busing? We have to make all these projections. You're making them. I'm not. But there's a lot of things to juggle. So I appreciate it. I appreciate the clear format. the clarity, the good discussions about what's happening, your knowledge, because you always help me along. I appreciate that. So thank you very much. Okay. No other questions. Next up is the final deed restriction language for Holton Elementary.

132Yep. So linked to the agenda is the final deed restriction language worked with the buyer's attorneys and our attorneys as we came up with the deed restriction language that honors both with the board. asked for and was was reasonable as we as we look through this again it's still allows them to run you know religious education things and normal church activities and things along those lines but it is the period of ten years with no k-12 primary education as it's through there. So essentially what would be happening is you'd be voting on the deed restriction and then that authorizes Bob and Molly then to sign it and then on behalf of the school district. So what questions do you have about it? I don't have a question. I just have a comment. I actually really

133like the way that the section 1.2 is defining what it can and can't be used for. And it just goes to show that there's a lot that they can do. with that space, and I think that's important to note. So thanks for doing that. Yep. No other comments? I'll entertain a motion to approve those changes. Mr. President? Yes, ma'am. I move that we approve the final deed restriction language as presented for Holden Elementary. Second. Second from Aaron. Do I do a voice vote on this one? Yeah, you can just do a voice vote. Okay, all those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed say nay. The motion passes, so we will get that signed and put it in the works. That brings us to the end of our agenda for our regular board meeting.

134I'll take a 15-minute recess. Motion to adjourn. What? Motion to adjourn. Motion to adjourn, Molly. It's been a rough day for me. Second from Kate. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed say nay. We are now adjourned.