001I don't think we have much information. Good evening everyone. I now call the board of education special board meeting to order at 5:30 p.m. Is there a motion to approve the agenda for Monday, April 7th, 2025? the board of education special board meeting as set forth and each item is considered ready for discussion andor action. So moved. Is there a second? Second. All those in favor say I. I. All those opposed, same sign. We have one public hearing for the Cedar Rapids Community School District tonight. That is for the fisc year 2026 certified budget. Board Secretary Stiken, have we received any written correspondence related to the public hearing on tonight's agenda? We have not. Thank you. Do we have anyone who has requested to address the board this evening regarding the published hearing related to
002the budget? We do. We have one speaker. Okay. Thank you very much. You will. Our one speaker will have five minutes and you may go ahead and call our speaker, Kaylee Mulbower. on budget. She needs my whole. Hi everyone. This is also Shane. Uh there you go buddy. Okay. Um hi. My name is Kaylee and I am a teacher in the district. My address is 230 Stephen Street in Tiffen. I'm here today uh um to address the budget and right sizing, staffing, all of the above. Um so I'd like to begin today by expressing my sincere gratitude to the board for your continued for your continued uh support and dedicated service to our district. I would like to address the impacts of right sizing and the budget specifically on our atrisisk students. According to the
003Iowa Administration Code, an atrisisk student is defined as any student who has been identified as needing additional support and is either not meeting or is not expected to meet the established goal of the educational program, whether academic, personal, social, or career vocational. At risk students include, but are not limited to, those in the following groups: homeless children and youth, dropouts, returning dropouts, and potential dropouts. The Cedar Rapids Community School District has a significant amount of atrisisk students across multiple buildings. Many of these students come to school with multiple adverse childhood experiences, which can significantly hinder their ability to focus on school work, build healthy relationships, and succeed in a traditional academic environment. These students frequently require additional support from educators and staff, as well as a tailored approach to their educational needs. However, the district's
004proposed right sizing model overlooks the unique needs of these students, including a smaller studentto staff ratio. According to the National Dropout Prevention Center, the studentto staff ratio should be 10:1 to reduce the risks of students dropping out of high school. Currently, the proposal for the new right sizing ratio for atrisisk students right now is 15 to1. These ratios are set at the beginning of the academic school year. However, this neglects the significant fluctuation throughout the year as at risk students are continuously placed in alternative settings, not just in August. All too often, these students are treated as an afterthought. And unfortunately, it seems that this trend is continuing with this model. Research shows that a single connection with a trusted adult can make a profound difference in a student's outlook on school. According to the
005988 lifeline, suicide is the second leading cause of death for individuals aged 10 to 24. Engaging with a trusted adult in the school setting, can reduce this risk by up to 40%. The right sizing model, which significantly increases the studenttoteer ratio for at at risk students, will drastically reduce the time available for one-on-one interactions with these students, rendering it impossible to provide the adequate care that they need, therefore exacerbating their challenges. As more details have emerged regarding teacher surpluses and reassignments, students have already begun to express negative emotions and reactions. I've personally heard students make statements about not returning to school, their anxiety and depression symptoms worsening, and their diminishing trust in the school system. I strongly encourage each member of the school board to visit the schools that are serving at risk students and
006engage directly with the staff and students about this right sizing proposal and its effects on student outcome. You will gain valuable insight into the vital role that staff student relationships play in fostering a sense of belonging and motivation to achieve academic success including graduation. If we as a district are genuinely committed to the vision of every student future ready. Thank you. It is imperative that we look at every student including the marginalized. There you go. The right sizing model does not support at risk students in their ability to succeed in school and beyond. These students matter, their voices matter, and their ability to succeed and become future ready to support our community is put directly at risk with a computer aided right sizing model for staffing that cannot possibly account for the complexities that these
007students present. Thank you for your time. Thank you. And thank you, Shane. Uh, the public hearing is now closed. We have two items under cons consideration tonight under administration. The first, excuse me, the first one is our fiscal year 2026 certified budget. Carla, it is all yours. Hello. All right. So, today we'll be going over the uh proposed certified budget. Um last week we held the first public hearing regarding the proposed property tax notice with a maximum tax rate of $13.84. Uh tonight um we held the second public hearing um of required of two um so over the full certified budget that was proposed in the gazette um on March 26th. Um, and that publication uh held a current estimated tax rate of $13.65. Um, and I'll go over um SSA plays a part into
008why that rate is significantly less. Uh, so I'll go over that here as we go through the presentation. All right. Um, move we're moving along in the budget cycle here. You can see we're at the public hearing um before we get to that April 28th board meeting where we will uh propose to adopt and certify our public hearing uh before that April 30th um deadline. Um assumptions we've made on the revenue side um as we've developed the budget proposal um are listed here. Um, we are using a 2% uh supplemental state aid rate um for the certified budget and I will use this as as an opportunity to make a plug for SSA. Um, to date the state has yet to uh set the SSA rate for school districts. Um it is one of the
009main components in uh being able for school districts, public school districts to be able to um get through the budget process, make their budgetary decisions and plans for the next fiscal year. Um, it plays a huge piece into knowing how we can fund and support um, annual staff uh, wage increases, how we can support curriculum uh, purchases and material for student instruction. Um, it helps with energy costs uh, to be able to keep our lights and heat um, on. So knowing what that rate is is so important um, in this process. Um and the frustration is um and the challenge of school districts is we're having to continue uh through this budget process and make decisions and meet our deadlines um when it doesn't seem to be met on the other side um when it's
010a key piece of information. So my ask is as board members, community members, staff members is to please reach out to state and local representatives. let them know how important it is to not have not only have the SSA rate be known, but to also let it be enough so that we can really uh support our district initiatives for student education. So, get off my soap box there, but so um that 2% SSA rate um assuming that's what it would come in at would get the district about 1.88% unadjusted new money or about 2.4 4 million. Taking open enrollment into consideration, knowing that we have net open enrollment out um would result in uh actually a decrease of 0.3% um or about $355,000 uh decrease in new money next year. Um and that's based on
011our enrollment trends and a decrease of certified enrollment of 18.8 8 students and our net open enrollment increasing by 318.2 students um the prior year compared to this year. Our management fund levy, we are maintaining a $13 million levy to support our uh management uh our risk management um and um our early retirement incentives. And then uh key piece on save and ple fund is $45 million in bond sales to uh support the uh starting the high school projects. Um and it's important to note that here that $45 million is not an increase or an ask um to property taxes. It's just of borrowings against future earnings in those um different funds. um knowing that there's a steady revenue stream there. Um on the expenditure side um you know we are having to estimate negotiated
012um we are having to use estimated negotiated settlements knowing that SSA um is not set and that plays a part in um how those um negotiations can uh pan out. Uh but we have um but we will see about a million dollars of insurance uh medical insurance savings. Um having changed our plan uh from M.Y.I.P. to uh True North will now be our facilitator uh for the um or our consultant for those. Um we are also um our model also includes uh um our staffing realignments and reductions throughout the district. um and at the administrative levels. Um as well as budgetary reductions to the operational expenditures and uh our cost savings um and efforts that we've planned through the uh education or through the administrative uh zerobased budget model. Um management fund. Um, we are
013looking at about a 15% increase in our property and casualty insurance or about a uh $500,000 increase in those premiums. Um, but we are looking to bring back our equipment breakdown and maintenance insurance at about a $ 1.5 million level. um which will help support um some general fund expenditures, give us a strategic um uh plan to be able to shift some expenditures. Um and then we are also looking at reserving about $4 million out of management fund to help um cover any catastrophic losses um associated with the wind hail um since we do have a 1% wind hail deductible across the district. And then the save and ple um like I had mentioned our larger ticket items are $25 million uh to work on our elementary mil um building projects. Um and that is
014current existing save funds that we that we currently have access to and then that $45 million uh towards our college and career pathways at the high schools. Um this is just our general fund um dollars as it relates to the supplemental state aid and enrollment trends. And um as I'd mentioned, SSA plays a huge part in how public school districts are funded as well as our enrollment. That's kind of one A and 1B um of importance um to how districts are funded. And so here you can just see kind of paint the picture of what our um total served enrollment you can see has gradually declined over the last um 25 years. And then our open enrollment out trends. Um you can see again steady increase in open enrolled out with a kind of a
015larger uptick there at the end as we've um seen um the state initiative for school choice um the um ESAs and vouchers for private school families as well as additional charter schools within um the district. So you can see we're kind of seeing that bigger impact there um in the current year. um open enrollment in um you know has not fluctuated nearly um as much as open enrolled out. Um and then finally have we have our non-public schools um you know does trend to um does tend to trend along with our enrollment but you can see a little uptick there at the end with the introduction of the ESAs and vouchers. All right, the current fiscal year, uh, we originally estimated about a $9.7 million deficit. Um, we are currently at about a $9.8 million
016deficit or I'm sorry, a $8.8 million deficit. Um we are using um the current fiscal year coming off of that ESSER funding cliff um and knowing that we have a healthy general fund balance. This is kind of our bridge year to have been able to make some budgetary decisions and strategic plans uh to be able to um shift and work on our budget for next year and get back to a balanced budget. Um estimated as of now we are at a $2.56 million surplus for next fiscal year. Um, and we are looking at that and using that as um, kind of a reserve to be able to still plan as we monitor for open enrollment trends, knowing that we do have additional charter schools uh, coming to our area and as well as kind of
017monitoring and staying on top of legislative changes that can still make some impacts to school funding. Um you can see our cash reserve levy uh slowly de uh increase over the last uh few years as as our general fund balance has increased. And then finally I've um laid out kind of our federal dollars our larger uh federal dollar um revenues. Um ESSER you can see uh trickle off as um those dollars have expired. Um, Title One, um, is a large re federal revenue source, uh, for our elementary, um, student instruction and interventions in math and literacy. Um, there was a little bit of a drop in the current fiscal year uh, due to um, our decline in enrollment as well as the federal funding formula shifted a little bit. So, we there was a little
018bit less per pupil that came with that as well as that decline in enrollment. And then finally, I have our magnet um revenues um listed there. We've um been able to as the ESR dollars um kind of trickled off. We've been able to as a district um seek active efforts in be being able to replace those federal dollars um and find programs that really support um the district initiatives and um implement uh different programs. Um, so you can see we do have the two um $15 million magnet grants um both over uh five years. One for the elementary and middle school magnet programming and then we have the um the second one to support our high school magnet programs. So through all of this um you know we've taken a lot into consideration as far
019as the budget goes and um we feel pretty comfortable um that we've been able to manage a balanced budget uh going into next fiscal year. Um taking everything into consideration and knowing that you know things are always shifting. We're always having to forecast and evaluate. Um so you know as a business services team and as a district we are staying on top of the everchanging uh landscape. Um and then here we've uh seen these slides before but this just kind of illustrates the largest rate impact to that tax rate. Um you can see the cash reserve levy decrease as our general fund balance is in um increased and then our instructional support levy fluctuates as it relates to the Iowa um state income tax changes. And then here we have just um that orange shows
020what we've been able to cash reserve levy that plays a a big piece in that property tax rate. So, as our general fund balance has grown um along that blue bar, you can see the orange, we've been able to cash reserve levy less um knowing that we're capped at 20% of prior year expenditures less that general fund balance. And then finally, we just have a couple um property tax rate trends. You can see over the last five years, uh, the school district's, uh, property tax rate has decreased, um, over those last five compared to the five years prior where we were relatively flat. And then that second column just shows where our current tax rate sets compared to um, surrounding districts within Lynn County. Um, we're currently lowest in the county and anticipate that trend
021next year uh, with our $13.65 um, property tax rate. So with that questions or comments? Thank you. Uh there there's a lot of interesting data there. I guess I would start with the fact that um SSA was supposed to be determined more than 60 days ago um by law and it hasn't been which puts every school district in the state in the same situation we are in. trying to figure out our staffing, trying to do negotiations when we don't know what help is coming from the state. So, I appreciate you trying to do some magic there with all those numbers um and figure out the best case scenario for us. I would open it up for questions or comments. Derry just commenting on um you know so SSA I think the way you said it
022it's for it to be known and for it to be enough. So just appreciate even that articulation because it's consistently not enough. Um but lately it's we don't even know, right? So it's just guesswork right now on that budget and I think you know the optimism of the 2% you know the reality is they could that they could in fact come in lower than that. Um, and I think you've shared that data of like what it's been for the last quite a few years, certainly since I've been on the board. Um, but it's been historically low. Um, the other thing I um I think because we sit on the finance and facilities committee, so I had the opportunity to see some of this earlier. Is it possible to break down a little bit more on
023that open enrollment out? Um, that was a number that's continuing to grow. I know there's questions from some in the community about the impact that vouchers have on public schools. So it would be interesting for us to see um you know where exactly students are going um you know and how that impacts the budget. So yeah we can get a more um detailed breakdown where exactly kids are going. So we will do that and yeah regarding the SSA yeah just ask for gentle persuasion um towards our representatives. Thank you. Okay. Do we have other comments or questions? I do want to call out a couple of the slides that you had up there. Uh the one about the district's tax rate over over history. Um the last five years, how our property tax rate for
024this district has declined substantially and that is due in part to good financial management and being able to stretch the dollar um as best we can. So I I appreciate that. The other slide that I would draw attention to is all of the districts in Lynn County. Um, and I don't know if you can all tell, but we're the second bar from the left. We are the lowest property tax district in Lynn County. Um, and I know as we're all getting our assessments in the mail, um, it's sometimes easy to lose sight of of the facts up here, but we do have the lowest tax rate and it has gone down significantly in the last five years. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Our second presentation is uh concerning the bond survey results. And Chad,
025we will turn that over to you to introduce your team. [Applause] Good evening. Thanks for letting us come out and give you the survey results. Tonight, I have with us Darren Severs from School Perceptions. Um they're the company that did the uh survey for us. he'll jump in in in a little bit after I start off the presentation. So, we also have some other members from Shy Hatterie with us tonight. Um, and so we appreciate them supporting us through this. Um, so we sent out a survey um regarding the proposed bomb plan, but it's good to kind of figure out how did we get here um to this point and to kind of do a level set on that. um in the spring of 2024 uh we did a post-election survey um after the previous
026survey that went out in November of 2023 uh was unsuccessful and school perceptions also um provided that survey for us as well. Um and so we gathered a lot of information from that survey that we utilized as a u we moved forward to form our new bond plan. Uh in the fall of 2024, we uh formed our task force which uh included 80 plus members from across our um city and our district uh to help inform um um the plan that we wanted to move forward with. Um we also took all the data that uh Shy Hattery and MA plus put together as they surveyed all of our buildings. um in January and December, uh we proposed a plan and we sent out a survey to over 70,000 different um registered active voters across our
027district uh to give us feedback on that. And so the task force themselves provided feedback on that proposed plan and helped us develop that proposed plan and then we invited 70,000 people to the table and we'll get into those results here shortly. We know that we have some challenges that we um face. Enrollment challenges, uh aging facilities, the cost of operating our buildings. Um and we also know that uh we kind of were tasked with three um values that we want to make sure that we take a look at as we build this bond plan. Being fiscally responsible is the number one thing that we're trying to to accomplish with our plan. uh honoring our historic uh buildings, our magnificent seven buildings and making sure that they remain as a part of our fabric of
028Cedar Rapids and then also that equitable educational experience across our district. Um we feel as a district we could and can um address being fiscally responsible in in our historic buildings. We need the help of the community to be able to provide that equitable educational experience across our district knowing that we don't have enough funding with the two buckets ple and save to be able to fund all the projects that we want to do. Um through that process we developed a draft of a master facilities plan. Um and this shows kind of a long-term plan for our district. Um the purple being the PPE funding. Uh the the orange being the ple and save funding together. the teal being the save funding on its own and then the green being the uh bond plan if
029we if it were to pass. I do point out that Roosevelt is uh in purple there. Um if the bond were to pass as proposed uh today, we would be able to um garner back ple projects that we would not need to um partake in because of the impact the bond could have. And that would allow us to g gain approximately $26 million to renovate Roosevelt in the anticipation of bringing over Wilson students. Here's the bomb plan as we have laid out. McKinley renovation, Wilson renovation, the new middle school in the northeast side, Kennedy High School, Freshman Academy and Commons renovation. Um, and then knowing that that plan would cost us approximately $210.6 million. Um, however, the savings on that over 20 years for the district would have been or could be $236.9 million for
030the district. So, we needed to make sure that we got feedback from our community. We invited all of our uh community through the survey to give us feedback. Um, the plan was developed by the task force, presented by the task force, and then we were able to ask again 70,000 plus people to give us feedback. Um, and so what did we learn from that survey? I'm going to hand it over to Darren now. Yep. Good evening everyone. Thanks for having me. My name is Darren Severs and I'm a project manager with School Perceptions and um I'm in my third year with the company. Prior to that, I worked in education for 27 years, uh, a variety of roles as a principal in the last 10 as superintendent of a district that actually was a customer
031of school perception. So, I've been where you're at right now, trying to fine-tune a plan that will have community support. Uh, we even used the company to do we had something in Wisconsin called CO back in 2020. And so, we did a community survey to gather feedback about what it would look like to open up after the pandemic. And so, I really value the this process that you went through because it gives your community voice. So, I'll explain our methodology and then give you your results tonight and take any questions you have about the the process and our findings. So, um, little background about our company, then we'll talk about who took the survey, who responded to the survey, and some results. Um, so we've been doing this for 23 years. We've conducted 3 million
032staff, student, parent, and community surveys in all 50 states and five foreign countries. So, uh, surveying is what we do. And, uh, we've helped over a thousand districts with this referendum bond planning process that you're going through right now. Um, so your survey deadline was on the 5th of March. You had 7,850 respondents and that gives you a statistical margin of error of plus or minus 1.13% which is important because we're trying to provide you uh a projection of voter support so you know whether it's something that would be uh valuable and supported if you put it in the ballot or not. Um, something that's different about our methodology is we are not a random sample company. Most survey companies conduct random sampling which is completely statistically reliable. Our philosophy is one where we want
033to give every resident, every voter voice. And so our survey goes to every household in your school district so that every citizen has the opportunity to weigh in on what you're projecting. So we processed we launched a lot of surveys and uh processed a lot of survey results for you. uh which is exciting because that's where I get to give the the results of those findings. So we can disagregate your data a number of ways. One is by age. So we can study different age groups where there's better or worse support within different age groups which is important. Uh 65 plus maybe have a very different vision of what they expect of their schools than those prime parenting years of 35 to 44. And we can also study the data based on whether they're staff
034members. 10% of survey takers reported themselves as staff members and 24% of the respondents were parents. Uh we use a lot of census data to measure your community. Less than 1% of your eligible voters would be staff members. So as you can see they're a bit over represented in the survey which we like to see. We we want the staff to respond at a high rate because these are their working conditions. And as you you know well, talent pools and education are probably shallower than they've been in decades. And working conditions, safe working conditions and well well- cared for working conditions are one of the big big factors that'll influence whether an employee will join your team or maybe a school district down the road. Uh right on on par with your census data, 24%
035of of the respondents were parents. Uh 25% of the community are are are voting parents. And so they're they're right in line percentage-wise with their composition within the community. So these next few slides are the background of the plan that that Chad talked about um and the the timeline that we followed and we outlined for the community the problem. We tried to write very efficiently for you. Uh response rates plummet when you get really wordy and you use all kinds of paragraphs. We tend to use a lot of highlevel bullets showcasing the key ingredients of the building project and what what the problem is, what the facility challenges are, outdated classrooms and labs, the aging infrastructure and and safety. And then we put in front of the the community the $210 million bond referendum option.
036And this first slide shows staff support. So 52% of staff uh said that they would probably or definitely vote yes to the project as outlined. 15% were undecided and 33% said they probably know or definitely would vote no uh with regards to the project if it were put on the ballot. The next group are your parents, the 25% of your community that send the kids to school every day. 51% of the parents said that they would probably or definitely vote yes. uh 36% said no and 13% were undecided. And in case you're wondering, those undecided numbers very very typical. As we've tracked our data for 23 years, uh 11 to 12% undecided is is the average. So that is not not unusual. And then finally, 75% of your community are non-parents, non-staff. So they're not
037working there and they're not sending kids to the system, but we would need their support in order for any plan to pass. This is where the data landed on the non-parents, non-staff. 36% said they would definitely or probably vote yes. 49% said that they were against the plan and again slight uptick in the undecideds at 15%. So, as we summarize all three groups where the survey landed at the end of the day, as we studied your results, 41% of survey takers were in favor of the plan, 15% undecided, and 44% said that they were likely against the $210 million bond referendum plan as presented. There any questions for me while I'm here about the survey process or any of of our findings? I have a I have one question. Um the 52% of our staff
038support the bond I believe was your statistic. Yeah. Can we pull that data out and maybe look at those who don't support the bond and maybe what their comments were? Like we collected we we allowed free form comments at every survey we have and those were studied uh by our team and by the shy team and so there there are some themes that have emerged and quite honestly we can disagregate by any factor on the survey. We could study comments by age groups by staff by parents. So any way that you want us to do a deeper dive, that's something we can do for you. Okay. Yeah, I would be interested in hearing from our staff um particularly those who do not support the bond and why that might be. Yes, by all means. And
039just so the board is clear, this is a very very confidential process. We use a alpha numeric 16digit code. Only our head programmer could really deep dive down and trace it back to an email uh potentially, but we pride ourselves on the confidentiality. So when we're looking at these comments, we're studying it by staff that they identify themselves as staff, but that's other than that, we would have no idea who made those comments. I just want to be sure that the staff understand that we're trying to give them study their comments, give them voice. You bet. You bet. Okay. Something else I know has come up is also just where these residents are located. Um, so you know, if there's a segment of the plan in a certain neighborhood, there's a lot of people voting
040no in that area. Are we able to kind of pull some of that data geographically? If you remember on the survey any factor that we had them answer municipality they live in um that is something that we can disagregate and study for you. It's funny that you're asking this because we had a just had a project $75 million project in western Minnesota where they had 29 municipalities and their board wanted a breakdown by each one of those municipalities on where people stood and then that's what we did for them because they had a couple of pockets of activity in those municipalities that they wanted to be sympathetic to and go to those community, village, township, what whatever the title they use for that municipality and give them voice and have them understand where they're at.
041I had another project in in Wisconsin where uh the the the new ambulance center uh for the city had just been passed for the city residents and was was raising their taxes in advance of the school asking for a new pool and gymnasium. So, by all means, any of that deeper dive into your data is something we'd be glad to do. I'll just work through through Chad on on these requests and and we'll drill down as deeply as you need to better understand where the results were were better or worse. That's great. And more specifically because we are um we're talking about certain schools that are in very specific neighborhoods, right? So if there's some correlation between the nose and that one project, that would be great. Yeah, by all means. Yeah. Amazing. Thank you.
042Okay. Thank you. Other questions, comments? Okay. Okay. And if we have questions for Darren after this, we can always bring them back up. For sure. In addition to um the data that uh Darren just shared with us, we also wanted to make sure that we shared with you some of the qualitative data that we were able to garner from the survey. Um these were we had over 2,000 plus comments um on that one question of do you support the bomb plan as proposed? And so we kind of came we did come up with some themes that came out of those um those comments. The financial burden or economic uncertainty. Um, another theme was maintain existing versus building new and then also the concerns just about middle school and high school. Um, I think it's important
043I'm going to read a few of these uh quotes for you to hear exactly what those comments were. Uh, first, please pursue smaller bond referendums that support a specific thing you are trying to achieve. A bloated bond referendum appears as a money grab. Um, I do agree with all the updates and needs our schools need. Unfortunately, res residents cannot afford our taxes to go up. I believe more residents would or could support this if the amount was lower. In the theme of maintaining existing versus building new, um I see good things happening for students at McKinley and Harding, but at Roosevelt, we have an aging building with many issues. There's no way our building can accommodate more students without renovation. Consolidate schools and renovate. No new construction. Cost is still too high. I agree with
044updating and consolidating old buildings etc to reduce waste and update outdated facilities. I like preserving the old buildings and repurposing them as the plan states. And then the final theme like the plan to rearrange schools and make better use of facilities, but no one likes to hear of taxes going up. Roseville needs help. Our building has many issues and we are assuming Wilson students will be absorbed into us. But there's no way our building can accommodate these extra students without renovations. might support the renovation of Wilson, McKinley, and Kennedy projects. Hard know if the new school to replace Harding is involved. In addition to the survey that we performed, the economic alliance also performed a a survey alongside of ours to also gather gather information of support for the bond within our community. Um the
045the difference between their survey and ours was they were able to do a little bit more of strategic questions asking. We had one question. Would you support the bond as proposed? They were able to ask things like, um, if we did this, would you be more likely to support it? If we did this, would you be more likely to support it? And so, um, they were able to get a little bit further down into the weeds with their with their survey. They found that 55% of the respondents would likely or definitely vote for the bond referendum. Um, still short of that 60%, but again, showing that we're making progress as we move forward. and continue to vet this process. They also said that if if we were to improve school safety and accessibility, uh how
046would that likely make you vote? 64 to 74% of the people that heard that if we made safety or ADA accessibility a primary focus, they would support that bond, which gets us above that threshold obviously. And voters were also compelled by cost and making sure that we are fiscally responsible. 61% of the people saying we would be more likely to vote if the focus was on fiscal responsibility. So we know that we have some things that we need to uh address some challenges um those things there on the left budget shortfalls declining enrollment and other things. We also know that uh we got feedback from our community um saying that we have to look at cost. We need to work with what we have already and address the concerns that we have at some of
047the middle school and high school concerns. U we also know that at our current situation um regardless of what happens with the bond we will need to consider our buildings and maybe possibly looking at consolidations as we move forward. Um this is the plan as it's laid out. Um the reason we put Roosevelt on there is because we also understand that Roosevelt needs to be renovated in order to make sure that it's ready for Wilson students to come. Um, if the bond were to pass as presented today, as proposed today, we would be able to again recoup that money from PPE. If we have to modify that, we may need to consider uh whether or not supporting Roosevelt on the bond plan. Next steps for us um from today's after today, we're planning to meet
048with a lot of different focus groups. uh several different buildings across our district, parent focused groups, teacher focused groups, uh different districtwide um advisory cabinet um groups, and to keep honing in on where we're at and and what we can do to make sure that we can come to you um in April 28th with a proposed bomb plan or couple of them for you to consider and to make a decision hopefully on May 12th for what our language would be as we move forward. from May 13 through November 3rd, we would start to gather signatures and start ourformational campaign. Um, as well as hopefully there would be a community group that would be a yes committee running parallel to us. We as you know, we can't ask people to vote yes for a bond. Um,
049but we can have a private group that would have a yes committee to do that. But from our perspective, we would start ourformational campaign. November 4th is the bond vote at that at that point. So that's my presentation. Uh again, if you have any questions for Darren or myself, I'd be more than willing to answer anything that you have. Do we have questions or comments from the board? Yeah, I want to say thank you for conducting all those focus groups. I know that there's still a number of um conversations to be had and um to better understand and um I think it's worth noting we all spent we had a special work session. We spent four hours together today. So we did um um we were able to also learn a bit from you. So
050thank you for your time on that. Um and then I think it's worth noting that um when we're talking about you know if if economic uncertainty is the main driving factor which is uh very understandable um given where we are the fiscal responsibility piece the savings over 10 years I think that just anytime we can uh reinforce that what is I think have 286 million savings over 10 years does that sound correct over 20 years. 20 or sorry um just talking about our building inefficiencies and what that actually looks like long-term savings I think is um important to just note that at every turn. Um and then also just um something that's come up is just the rising costs, right? So it's more important than ever to band together now to support our schools and
051our facilities because it's not going to get any easier. So I think the comparison that was shared of um just drastic change in the cost of the same square footage um for an elementary school um and that's maybe going to continue rising. So um the timing of this is very important. Chad, this is a bond task force. Um and then we this board had a work session earlier. Can you maybe just share uh with the community some of the things you've learned from uh from the engagement from those folks? Sure. So, um number one, I I would say that we have very dedicated people that were part of the task force. Um when we would meet on a monthly basis, we would have 80 plus 45 50 people there every time. And it was a
052lot of the same people, but a lot of different people would want to join and would join us. So, I commend them for the work. It was hard work. Um it wasn't um always that we saw the same uh saw it the same way. There were some uh definitely strong conversations in the room about what would the the priority priority should be uh which is important to understand as well. I also would commend uh um those that I went out and spoke to with our different staff. Um, I've been in several buildings to just to present this information about the bond to them and the staff that we've talked to all are very dedicated to making something positive happen within our district when it comes to facilities. Um, and I think once they were able
053to see um the reasons why we are doing the things that we are doing, dealing addressing enrollment issues and addressing addressing fiscally responsible decisions, uh, they they had the light bulb go off and they were able to say, "Okay, we understand and we get that." The overwhelming thing that I keep hearing from people is how do we get this information out to the to the community because if they could hear this information then it becomes a pretty easy decision to um support our um our our schools. Um one last thing I would say is that the other thing that I I continually hear is um we show a graph periodically when we present about the buildings and the years or the age of those buildings. It was um my parents were the first year of
054the baby boomers. My grandparents' generation invested in all the buildings that our students are going to right now for that baby boomer generation and now it's our our our turn to invest for the next generation or the next three or four generations. And that really hits home for a lot of people when we talk about it that way. Yeah. I think I think the fact excuse me that we have 75% of the community that is not directly involved in school. Um so how do we do what you're saying? get that information out there to them. Help them understand the importance of modern, up-to-date, safe, secure facilities. Facilities do matter. And and we need to honor what they told us in the survey. Um and and that's an important thing to remember too is that we
055are exactly where we said we were going to be when we started this process back when we hired Shive Hatterie. We said we would come to a a conclusion with the task force on what our bomb plan would be. Then we would take that out and ask the community to give us feedback. Then we would decide what to do after that feedback came in. And so we're in that decision-making process. Once we have a bond plan that we are going to present to this board and and allow you to make that decision, then we would go into much more um uh heavily um campaign of information where we would start to do a lot more campaigning and getting into different uh areas of the city and talking to different groups of people. Um, but we
056obviously need to have a plan in place to really start that process. Okay. Community voice is really, really important. And so, thank you for the work that you've done already to um get those feedback. I'm really excited about the list that you have of the groups that you will be meeting with, getting their feedback as well, and then bringing that before us. It'll be interesting because they are our voters. Um, and so, yeah, that list right there, right? So, I'm I'm really interested to see um what they're saying. Those are voices that are really really important and that matter. There is one is there a teacher group on there as well? Yes. So, we we do have um the voluntary teacher staff meeting. Okay, there it is. Here. And then we're also going to hopefully
057add I think it's if it's not on there, the uh superintendent's teacher advisory uh board that we would present to as well. Yes. that we've presented to several times to that group for sure. Awesome. Thank you. Yes. I'm maybe this was addressed and maybe but again back to that 76% or 75% of no children in the district and the voting base. Is that is that pretty standard um from what you see? Is that high? Is that just an extra challenge that we have here? Very very typical. It's very typical. Okay. Sometimes we'll see an maybe an older community where it's 80% non-parent non-staff or maybe a a young growing community where it's it's 3070 but 2575 is is I would tell you is probably three out of four projects that's that's the percent that not
058not staff and not not parents and of that the majority I'm assuming is at 65 plus but I'm curious al also um I think something came up before is just that if they're a younger demographic will they have um children in our district as well. So understanding what the future of that group looks like. Yeah. No doubt that we that's why we ask that 65 plus questions because that we we try to be sensitive on behalf of boards to the the the fixed incomes retirees are on and that any tax increase is is a change in their budget in the retirement years. So again, that's all all age groups we can study for you. Wonderful. Thank you. And I would just say we really do want to hear community voice. So as you see this
059list here um please accept the invitation to come to these meetings and share what you are feeling and how what what your expectations are with the bond so that we can take that into consideration because that is important to us. It it is definitely um community effort that makes the difference with these things. So please take a look. I'm sure this will be on the website and community, please come out and support these meetings so that we can hear your voice. Not that we all have time to read through uh hundreds of comments, but I am curious about um just reviewing more of the comments. Do you have those compiled somewhere for the board that's visible? Yeah, we can definitely get those for you. Okay, thank you. Thousands, not hundreds. Yeah. All right, I'm up
060for it. All right, sounds good. Anything else from the board? Director Kaminsky. Yeah. Um, you may have already said this, but so the survey seems to show that we need 60% to pass and it seems clear that the 210.6 is not getting that 60%. So all these meetings we're going to have, is there a plan to have another survey based on this information and like what would that look like? Yeah. So unfortunately um for school perceptions we wouldn't have the timeline to be able to use their um survey um in the the intense way that they do their survey to g gain that. We are feeling very fortunate that the economic alliance would also support us with an additional survey to see where we're at with um that new plan that we would possibly come
061up with. Um, we're also going to vet uh through these focus groups what would a plan be that would be supported by the community and hopefully get to a a pretty good solid plan for that. The follow-up question if I can the margin of error on um school perceptions was 1.13 and I forget if like it I mean that's the that is pretty good. Yeah, that's it's completely a formula based on number of respondents. So I at that district I referenced in Minnesota earlier in the week or last week 865 uh respondents very different than your 77,000. So their margin for error their data is going to be a little bit more quite a bit more turbulent than yours. So that's a low margin of error for sure. Great. Yeah. Okay. And if I could
062clarify the the the comment about the the comment study that you would like us to do. Um I know Chad said he could get the comments. I want to support him in that regard. Do you want all of them? Um, and I would just caution you that that this is an opportunity for everyone to have a voice and so it's a lot. Or what we could do do for you is do a theme study and and compile for you the most commonly commented on themes that would add uh a little bit deeper understanding to why the data is what it is. That'd be amazing. The themed version. Thank you. You bet. Other questions? Okay, Darren and Chad, thank you very much for your presentation. Do we have a motion to adjourn the meeting? So moved.
063Do we have a second? Second. All those in favor say I. I. All those opposed, same sign. No. With no further business, we adjourn at 6:22 p.m.