001here. Gonzalez Thomas present. Present. Meadows present. Slagger present. Pledge of allegiance. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right, Tom. Any items to add or remove to the agenda? Uh, yes. We will be removing celebrating successes and BPS partners as both groups will not be able to attend this evening. So, um, both will come back in July 40. Okay. So, that skips us all the way down to 4.1. Any public comment? No. No public comment. Okay. Thank you. No BPS partners today. So, look at this flying through the meeting today. All right. Consent to get a job pointing to board policy. We designate a portion of the agenda as consent agenda
002for those items that usually do not require extensive discussion before board action. These items are generally routine, reoccurring, and can be grouped together for efficiency. Brad, would you please take us through? Absolutely. 5.1 is the approval of the May 20th meeting minutes. 5.2 2 is the approval of the May 20th close session meeting minutes. 5.3 is the approval of the May 29th special meeting minutes. And the same thing with 5.4, but that special meeting was held on June 10th. And then 5.5 is the approval of the June 10th, 2025 close session. 5.6 is the personnel report. 5.7 is our normal payroll and bills. 5.8 is the approval of donations. So thanks to the Battavia Mother's Club, JBN PTO and Betavia Youth Athletics. 5.9 is the designation of authorized depositories, the banks that we use. 510
003certification of hazardous bus routes. 511 is a New Zella CNI software renewal. 512 is approval of the consolidated grant application. 513 is the authorized renewal of phone support. In 514 is the approval of the consent agenda. Anyone have any comments or questions? I have a question about the newella. Um I looked at it and it looks like it used to be free but now it's feebased and I'm just curious if there are still, you know, a good amount of teachers that are taking advantage of that. Yeah, we just went through a process of looking at all of our software. We spend a lot of money on software nowadays. Um Dave has nifty piece. What's it called? Light speed digital insight. So it tracks everything that's coming in and out of the district and who's using
004what. Not like in a big brother way, but like what's coming in and out of our our internet. So we can see basically because a lot of these software companies have really poor reporting as to like what's the true usage. Maybe that's on purpose for them. So we looked at that. We used um Dave software to look at usage. We think with changes coming to ELA, this is something that's on our list that may not be here next year, but we didn't want to pull this away from teachers at this point. The free version has limited usability. When you pay for it, you get a wider library of the leveled readers for students. All right. So, I have a couple apologies for not sending them earlier, but uh so the personnel report and I know
005that Steve's not here, but I'm glad that we have a lot of the hirings and I was just curious if you can get it to me later. Um just how many licensed positions we still have open and then how many pair of positions we have open and there any positions that we anticipate at the start and then I don't think which is fine. I happen to know because I asked his team earlier today that about the pair professionals and um we've been making progress on that. We've had several recent hires and at present there are 12 or 13 vacancies for pair professionals. Uh that's just because I haven't asked today, but the others will get you the information. I know we're really close on licensed staff being done, but I don't want to say that
006too loud because then something will happen. Don't jinx yourself. I don't want to say that on camera or anything. Um, and the next question is the 5.9. Are all those um, investment managers, dealers, brokers, any of them new or have been using them? Nobody is new. No. And we like them obviously. Um, and then 5.10. Are any of those routes newer? Like this is the first year they've been on them or are these kind of always been our Uh, that's unfortunately a good question for Mark. None of these are new. Um, but there I think is one that is newer and within the last two years, but I don't remember exactly which one it is, but we can have him clarify that. That's all I got. Okay. Any other questions? Okay. I want to entertain
007a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented. So moved. So moved by Danielle, second by second, second by Aaron Cy, please lead us in roll call vote. Yes. Meadows, yes. Gilbert, yes. Swiki, yes. Gonzalez Thomas, yes. Yes. Arlu, yes. All right. Thank you. Reports foyer Tom. Um, as you see, there's um kind of a consistency uh over the last couple months, just a higher volume than we normally receive for foyer requests, but um the reports being shared with you here tonight. Any questions on it? Okay. Treasure report, Tony. Uh nothing out of the ordinary for the treasurer's report this evening. Any questions for the treasur report for our treasurer? Okay. Committee updates. stop. Um the one update uh you know as you know it slows down a little bit here in the summer. Um
008so CAC was one of the groups that did not convene in May but they have arguably a lot of things that they've been working on and so they met they've actually met a couple times here in June. But uh that's kind of the overall summary u that they share out and that's the work that they've done. Um, you will see one of the items on the agenda later tonight is one of the the big ones. That's that's the big one that they have definitely been uh um pouring their hearts into in terms of effort. So, um but yeah, uh they've done an incredible job. If I can say anything to all the members of our CAC team and the salt teams, uh just being able to observe some of the conversations they've been having, it's
009it's uh really admirable to see how much they really care and pour thought into what they're using. And thanks to Jen Hicks for her leadership in that role, too. All right, any questions? Okay, summer construction update. Rob Schmidt is here to provide an update on all the goings on throughout the district construction. Storm storm might need you over at the podium so they can hear. Sorry. Um, I met with the uh project manager over at HD Storm yesterday to get a the most current update possible. Um we are on schedule as of right now. Um the exterior door frames are being installed. Uh you can see the new windows for the main office are cut open. The lintils were installed today and the tuck pointers have finished all the grinding of the grout and they
010actually started putting uh grout back in the new grout back in. So we're moving along with that. Um, roofers will be staging their equipment this week and start working on the roofing. We've already had a lot of the mechanical systems have been delivered to our storage facility. There are some that we're waiting for still and some that are um a little bit behind schedule, but we're going to work through that hopefully. Um, if you want to go to the next picture, as I'm sure you guys remember, we're redoing the main office, the new entry, uh, secured entry. We will have the three new kindergarten rooms, new art room, new music, new OTP sensory, uh staff bathrooms, rest bit, uh new conference, and new work room uh for the staff over there. Uh next slide, please.
011Uh before I go any further, we'd like to uh publicly thank Bulldog Moving Company. They do a lot of great things in the district and in the city of Bavia and they came through and we literally had one day to move everyone out of the classrooms that they were in because the schedule was so tight to the end of school and we had everything moved with the help of our team uh and maintenance uh by 2:00 the same day. So, it was really quite impressive. So, we were able to get done in time and and it worked out really well. So, thank you to them. They did a they did a really nice job and nothing got broken as far as I know, which is even better. Um, that picture on the left uh is
012the old main entrance. Uh, you can see there after the doors were taken out. Um, the area the two pictures in the middle are where the main office used to be. Uh, as well as up on the top right and then on the bottom right is where the new main office will be. That used to be the music room. um that's been completely gutted and the new window openings put in. Uh for those of you who are not familiar with construction, it is amazing to watch demolition crews and how quickly they move through a building and get rid of stuff. It's it's incredible how fast they move. So that was nice. They were in and they were out and now we already have walls up and it's just it's been really nice. Next slide. So,
013as you can see there, that's the uh the main entrance to Storm on the left. Um we're going to keep that verbiage up there for someday whenever anyone takes the wall down. Um they can see that that's still up there, but that's new walls going in. Um the uh center picture is the on top is the music room and then the bottom one is where we tied into plumbing. Uh all the floors had to be saw cut out. not all the floors, but a large number of floors needed to be saw cut in order to run piping to the new kindergarten rooms and the new staff bathrooms. So, uh that was quite a bit of work, but they knocked that out pretty quickly. And you can see in the top right, uh the new plumbing
014stubs coming out of the out of the floor there. Um and then more of the where the main office used to be. That's where the music room is now in the bottom right hand corner. left one, that's where uh that's the B pod. That's where the classrooms used to be. Those are all gone now. And the middle top one, when the lockers were removed, that really uh interesting art design on the wall was was left behind that never got painted over. So, that was kind of neat to see. That's got the 1970s flare to it. Uh bottom center is the B pod where the new kindergarten rooms will be. That's been completely demolished and there's new walls there. Now, uh top right, uh is where the old uh that's part of the BP pod um
015where the bathrooms are. Um that all that flooring and in that area will be all redone as well. And then in the bottom right is the old computer lab and that's again where they sock the floors and tied into the uh the new uh bathrooms. And here's some shots of the new kindergarten rooms, the walls going up, the plumbing in. Um, yeah, nothing much nothing much more exciting there. That's just all the kind of the integral plumbing pieces that are in that those shots. And then does anybody have any questions on the storm as it's moving along? Okay. I have a general question, but I think I'm going to wait till you Okay. finish up. Um, and then the LRC's, uh, high school in Ro. Uh, that's what they used to look like. You can
016go to the next picture. This is, uh, the high school. This was, uh, uh, about a week ago. So, there's nothing left. If you look at the bottom right corner, that's what it looks like right now. Um, the there used to be a couple of classrooms that had doorways and windows into the LRC. Those have already been filled in. Um, and then in the very on the bottom right corner in the very back, um, the new walls are up and that's where the new Chrome Depot and there'll be a new tech office and tech workspace back in there. So, we moved the Chrome depot over there because there was an existing door to a hallway. We can now isolate the LRC from the Chrome Depot. Um, before you could have access to both areas all
017the time. Now there's we can secure the library or we can secure the Chrome depot separately. So that that'll be helpful and I know Dave's team needed some space to do some work and so that'll be much needed and much appreciated area that we can utilize there. Next slide. And then this is Rotolo. Uh everything's there still a little bit left in there. Everything's gone now. It's completely empty. The one picture I'd love to show you, I know everyone knows the history of the windows and all the problems we've had with the windows in the LRC. If you you look at that detail in the top right corner, it's amazing that they didn't leak more because there was really nothing there supporting the windows or it just was not constructed correctly. It just bad detailing
018all around. But that'll all be corrected now. And that's all I have for pictures. Any questions? had actually two. I think one has nothing to do with this really, but uh with the hail storms that we had, did we have any damage to our buildings or anything? No, nothing to the buildings. Some of our mechanical units, the coils on the outside get the fins get bent. So, our guys have gone through and we have tools in order to restraighten those those coil the fins on the coils out. So, we've walked all the all the roofs. We dodged the bullet. Uh AGS got beat up the worst um you know from tree dam tree trees down uh and the courtyard flooded a little bit but we were able to get to it and and get it
019cleaned out right away. So great. Um and then maybe even for Holly a little bit. Have we or maybe we're planning to do this, but have we ever thought about like showing creating a video or maybe a picture, you know, role that like this is what this looked like before and then as you were talking about, you know, watching a demolition was kind of cool thing. Kind of walking through interested parties through that and then then we get to our final outcome and like share that with parents and stuff like that. some kind of, you know, video or picture montage that, you know, we can communicate and show people like what's what's being done here. So, we did that last year with AGS um and just pictures of some of the people working inside and
020what it looked like outside and then did an after like a before and after. So, it was more of just like, hey, this is what happened over the summer in case you know you haven't been here. So, this is something that we did. and then kind of before you come back, this is what you should you're going to expect. Plus, we have to redo the drive up and pick up and drop off videos and the plans on how to instruct parents, stuff like that. So, we kind of focus on those school communities with that type of um communication. But, um we did posts over last summer about like kind of oh my gosh, look what's happening over at. So, I'm sure we'll start doing that here as soon as we get more. It just so
021this stuff is on the inside of the building. So we usually like to do pictures outside, but get in there. Any other questions? Thank you very much. Thanks. Nice job. Thanks, Rob. All right, tenative budget 2026. All right, so just recapping where we are in the budget process. Last month we showed you the preliminary budget. This month we're looking at what we call the tentative budget and in this state it will remain until adoption in August at your regular meeting on the 19th. Uh one of the things that we're required to do is to post and make publicly available a tentative budget. And so we have posted on the website anybody who wants to come visit us here at the office may review the budget itself if they're so willing to do so. will also
022hold a public hearing for the public to come and address the board on the budget at your next meeting on July 22nd. So that's the process overall. I would say that this budget has changed more more than usual between the preliminary and the tentative and there's some reasons for that that I will explain. Uh so if you did review the the preliminary budget, uh a lot's changed in the last month. Overall, what we're anticipating at the moment is total revenue of 132 million with expenditures at 140. That's the total revenue and the total expenditures across all funds. And that includes what are called our on behalf payments and revenues and payments that are made for our teachers by the state of Illinois. That money does not pass through our coffers. It's just we have to
023report it for um financial reporting reasons. So we can account for the standards in U governmental reporting. What we focus on is the operating revenue and the operating expenditures and that includes our operating funds only and that we expect to be 100 million1.8 million in revenue with 96.9 million in expenditures. However, we are transferring out of those operating funds $14 million through the capital projects fund to fund in part and over a period of time our warm safe drive project. So that makes for a $10.3 million deficit in the operating funds for this fiscal year. And overall our deficit is 8.3 million. And the reason why we make those transfers to the capital projects fund is it's very challenging to anticipate exactly when bills are going to come due for construction. So, especially with the
024scope of construction that we have going on right now, some bills come early, some bills come late, and we're straddling two fiscal years in the summertime. So, we're ending one fiscal year, starting another on July 1st. And so where those bills fall exactly get a little tricky, but it also helps us account for how much we're setting aside for construction. And it functions as sort of a a piggy bank more or less. And so that's why we make these transfers. Um what we're doing in some ways is preunding some of that capital projects work the warm safe dry, but we're going to have to continue to contribute more and more to those funds over time so that we have adequate reserves there to pay for those projects. The good news about those projects as in
025this plan as it stands now is that um it doesn't require us to issue debt. But I'm going to talk about some of the implications of that. By the way, our debt status, we will not have any debt after this fiscal year that we're coming into 2026. We'll have paid off all of our debt and taxes as a result of it will go down. So we'll have two successive years of taxes going down. The last being this one coming up because we have paid off all of our debt. Next slide please. H. This is a look at all of our funds combined. So this is total revenues, total expenditures including those on behalf payments that I mentioned earlier and it also includes our ending fund balance. And so blue is revenue, green is expenditure, and
026you can see that line, that yellow line is our overall fund balance at the end of the fiscal year over time. And so through COVID, we were accumulating some fund balance in some ways from a financial standpoint. CO was good to us. Uh and that's the only way it was good to us. Uh and you see that, you know, our revenue stood proud over those expenditures and we were saving money. That's why our fund balance increased, but in the current fiscal year that we're in, it's getting pretty close. And then next year in 2026, we're going to be spending more than we take in. And that's planned and that's in that those capital project fund because we're paying for warm, safe, dry. You can see that yellow line dips down. The challenge, however, is is
027that you see that yellow line. It seems kind of straight, but it's kind of angling down in 2029. It means that we're going to be looking at a deficit in 2029. Last time we did a projection, we were expecting a deficit in 2030 and beyond, and it's coming closer to us. And for reasons I'll explain in a little bit. So, we go to the next one. Now, we're just looking at the operating funds. So, that what does that include? that includes the education fund, the operations and maintenance fund, the uh working cash fund, and the uh transportation fund. So, those are the funds that we use to really operate the district on a daily basis. You can see that there's a pretty significant decline in the fund balance in 2026 because we're moving a lot
028of that money out of the education fund and out of the operations and maintenance fund and into the capital projects fund. So that's coming out of the operating funds. You also notice how those blue and green lines are getting close to each other. But you also notice on this graph other financing. So you see those red bars and those are negative. Those are the transfers and that's what's driving that yellow line downward and that's the reason why we're um seeing that downward trend in that yellow line is because we're transferring money out to fund those capital projects. Go to the next slide just to summarize again just to make sure that we're clear about what our total budget is and our operating budget. Our budget is balanced. We're spending more than we're taking in, but
029it's balanced in the structural sense because we're using one-time funds from our fund balance to fund these capital projects. We're transferring out $14 million and we're drawing down our reserves. When you saw this preliminary budget last month, I did not have the forecast in there and I was Josh and I have been working extensively on that forecast. You see those numbers in there now. Um, we historically have not done a forecast at the time that we adopt the budget. Those of you who have been on the board for a while, we usually talk about the budget and then some months later once we have our audit in, we start doing the forecasting. And the reason for that in part is because we have we know more about what happened in the prior year, we're closer
030on some of our assumptions. We're not guessing as much and we can have a better forecast. However, uh it's also good to do some projections in terms of where you see the future being when you're adopting this budget today. So you're not making decisions today without incomplete information on tomorrow. Information on tomorrow is always incomplete, but we want some at least to inform some of those decisions. And so I think it's pretty helpful that we're doing some of these uh forecasts now, but the forecast isn't so rosy. In 2029, we're looking at a potentially a $1 million deficit. And that's driven by a number of things. And if we go to the next slide, hey, stop you one second. Could you go back to the previous slide you showed because I knew you were going
031to say that. So just so I can understand yeah this document. So if we go to 2029, blue is revenues, green is expenditures and the yellow line is expenditures. So you're probably going to get to it. I should have cut you off, but No, no, go ahead. When I look at that, blue is above blue is above the green, but you have to include the red that's next to it. Okay. So the red is essentially more green. So you have to add the green and the red together. Yeah, you have to add the green and red. And I don't know how I one of the things I really struggle with is how can I show what's really happening in a graphic form and there's a there's there's just nuance to this. I'm trying to make
032it as simple as possible. But yeah, you look at that and say, well, your green bar is lower than your blue bar, so you're you're good. And the reality is we could be good if we weren't transferring that money out, but I can't include those transfers because they're not revenues and they're not expenditures. And what happens is we're transferring money out of one fund and we're putting it in another. But we can't call it a revenue because we would be counting the money that comes into our district. Taking it from yourself and we can't call an expense because we're not spending it twice. So it we have to treat them as separate categories, but it makes for makes conversations like these a little bit more complicated. Thank you for that explanation. Yeah. And so on
033the same chart, this is where and you're probably going to explain it, but so what I'm struggling that yellow line is it's saying the ending fund balance is positive, right? The ending fund balance, we do have our reserves. Yes, we have we'll have money in the bank in all years, but that line because it's trending downward just slightly. I mean, you'd have to really pay close attention to it and you look at the actual numbers when you look at the charts. It's slightly trending downward just the slightest bit, but that's a million dollars because our budget is $134 million. And so it doesn't take much for a million dollars to be imperceptible. Okay, I get it. But like to me, I don't if I was looking at this chart, I I would think there's nothing
034really wrong here. That's why we have and I like to spin a yarn when it comes to like doom and gloom, right? And make everybody Yeah. you know, uh, well, for me, Tony, you mind if I just make a comment to that? You know, one, I think you have to keep in mind that the board does have a board policy on what has to be maintained in the reserves. And so, even though there might be that money there, it it's approaching the minimum balance, okay? And that's the concern. All right? Because this district had much more in reserves a few years ago, okay? And that's what's being depleted because of the warm safe drive plan. you'll hit the minimum part and then we won't be able to move money anymore. I see. So, what is
035our minimum balance around 30 million or uh 35? It it actually changes every year because it's a percentage of revenues, but it would range between off the top of my head. It would range between about 30 to $40 million. That's what we that's what the target is. So, we're almost that makes sense now. Yeah. Uh the second thing that gives me pause is typically when you all see forecasts being projected financially, they're in a fiveyear ahead look ahead window. And as long as that five years keeps moving out with each progressing year, typically that's good. The problem here is this window is now four years. It stopped moving back. And you know, I think at some point we have to have a conversation about the rising costs of some of the things that we're looking
036at with capital projects um that are increasing at a rate that's faster than that was anticipated two years ago when the board approved the plan. Uh we also have just other mitigating factors. I know Tonyy's going to get into so I'm probably stealing some of his thunder. No, no, at all. Those are excellent points. Um those are all excellent points, but a couple one couple more I want to add while we're on this topic. One, I I talked about this last month and I talk about it every year and I'm sure people are tired of hearing about it, but it wasn't so long ago just like prior, you know, here we go. I got you know, people roll their eyes and but this is really important for the for the exact reason that Tom just
037mentioned. Yeah. Is it a couple years ago, not more than a couple, about five years ago, we had to issue tax anticipation warrants because in the middle of the year that yellow bar was so low that we ran out of all money and we could not pay our bills. We couldn't pay our payroll and we couldn't pay our bills because there was no more cash left in the bank to be had. And we issued these tax anticipation warrants, which was essentially a payday loan on our property taxes so that we would pay interest to the lone sharks so that we could pay our bills. And we don't want the board said like once we got off of this, we're never going back to that. We're going to institute a fund balance policy so that we
038have enough cash on hand. We're not wasting our money borrowing money in the middle of a school year. So that's why Tom's point is a good one. We don't want to get below that balance. Um, and one more point on that, Tony, while you're on that subject. So what would be instances where the district would consider dipping it below that threshold? I would say there should be no instance. Okay. And the reason being is because um when you get below that amount of money um and you introduce uncertainty into a system as to where your revenues are coming. um you got to borrow money really fast to pay your bills and that would be chaotic and expensive and that kind of borrowing can't really happen quickly in an institution such as there are a lot
039of controls in place to ensure that that can't happen and so um that's just a very perilous situation to be in and that's why quite frankly I modified this budget as much as I did in the last month is because I was paying very close attention to those percentages and this is as close as I feel as though we should get to the minimum imum amounts. And that's not to say that we shouldn't and continue to invest in warm, safe, dry over time. And I I'm confident that we can and we will, but I don't want to pull more cash out of these funds than we ought to so that we don't put ourselves in a perilous position where we have to borrow money. We can slow down warm, safe, dry, and that will cost
040us money and it will probably also make our schools a little bit more uncomfortable for a couple more years until we get that work done. might slow us down a little bit, but that's far better than the alternative, which is financial instability and insolveny. So, if I'm and again, I probably should just let you continue with your presentation, but no, I these are excellent questions. Please. So, kind of how I'm interpreting what you're saying is that by 2029, um, we will no longer likely will no longer have the fund balance to take big chunks to do bigger projects. It will have to be we'll have to maybe reassess and be smaller in scale and push them out a little bit. The primary driver of why our plan on warm safe driving must change now is
041that we're losing $1.2 million estimated from state revenue that we would otherwise have gotten under the old model. The state of Illinois is facing financial pressures of its own and they have decided to prioritize funding the evidence-based funding model. And to be clear, they're putting more money into education this year or in the coming year than they did last year. But it's going to needier school districts. It's going into that funding model, those tier one, tier 2 school districts that are short, far short of adequate funding for their schools. We're tier four, which according to their models say we have more than enough funding. We have 104% adequate funding, which means like, hey, you don't need any more money out of the EBF model. But the other challenge is because they're putting so much money
042into EBF, they're not putting as much money into what we call the mandated categoricals that reimbures us for our expenses in special education and transportation and food service. So when we spend that money, we get some of that money back. So they're putting in just as much money as they did last year to those funds. And everybody, every school district is facing rapidly increasing costs in those areas. So that means that when everybody turns in their receipts and they have just as much money in those funds as last year, everybody's going to get less than they got last year because they put all their new money into EBF, which we're not going to get. So that alone we anticipate being a $1.2 $22 million and that carries forward in 26, 27, and 28 and 29.
043I don't think that money is going to actually come back to us. It could actually get worse. It could actually go down faster. And if it does, we're going to have to be in a position where we're going to have to fill in those holes and maybe slow down, warm, safe, dry even more. What I don't want to do, or I don't recommend the board doing, is pulling more money out of these funds where we might have to go back to the tax anticipation warrants. I want to avoid that. So what you're showing us the projection includes the current plan from warm safe dry. It does not anymore. Okay. No, unfortunately it does not. So even with adjusting it's still the scope of warm safe dry remains intact. The timing of when we execute it
044is now fungeible. And what was a five-year plan is probably a six, probably a seven, maybe an eight-year plan. And it's probably going to cost more because every year that you tack on time to construction is inflation. And the last five years, inflation has been really, really painful, especially in school construction. So, it's going to, to be clear, it's going to cost us more money and it's going to take us more time, but we don't want to run the risk of the alternative, which is not having enough cash or being able to put teachers in classrooms and like all the other things that we have to make decisions on regarding our priorities. So, this is a little bit more funible, but still really, really important. This is work that is not exaggerating to keep our
045schools quite literally warm, safe, and dry. We really don't have much of a choice. It has to get done and it has to get it done in a reasonable time frame. And we may need to consider as a board and as a community whether or not we issue debt to get some of this work done. There are some mechanisms that the board can consider to do that where that would not necessarily require voter approval, but that's something to think through and that is a conversation for a future day. Now, I'm estimating that we're going to lose $1.2 million in re mandated categoricals. It could be 1.6. It could be.5. I don't know. I don't have enough information. I do know what the state budget is, but I don't know how these reimbursements are going to
046look. Nobody does. Nobody can tell you that right now. So, we're going to have to walk through this year by year and make adjustments and kind of be nimble and flexible as to what we what we fund and how we prioritize, how we react. So, the next slide, one more captures those trends. The other thing that I'm afraid of is that we're seeing some instability in federal aid. By example, um the state does not have allocations for title two, which is teacher quality grants, those sorts of things. We don't receive a lot of money in title two. Um not much to even really talk about quite frankly. Um but it would be a loss nonetheless. Um we're receiving less than we would otherwise anticipate in title one right now, but I suspect that that might
047come back. I'm worried about Medicaid in particular because of the challenges that revolve around funding Medicaid and the availability of those funds in the long term. So, in addition to losing state funds, we could be using federal funds and this budget doesn't anticipate us losing any federal funds yet, but I'm sure that's coming for us. So, we'll have to be considering that in the future. We're seeing transportation, our benefits costs for health rapidly increasing far faster than inflation as well is the case for special education. We do have some support staff shortages that we keep trying to work through. As I mentioned earlier, we have some vacancies for pair of professionals. What's good is that our enrollment is stabilizing and we're also working on an enrollment study to better project what that might look like
048in the future and how we use space in our schools. But the good news is is that we can continue on our capital plan without new debt. Problem is is that we're going to have to stretch it out over a longer period of time and that's going to cost us more money. Can I ask you a historical question? I mean, you've been with the district how long, Tony? 20 years. Uh, this is my 30th year on the payroll. 30 years. Okay. So, in in your time using your memory, I know I didn't ask you this question beforehand, but how rare is it for the district to have a period of time like this where there's zero debt? This is um I don't think I don't haven't gone back to our records, and I think it
049would be very challenging to do so. But in the 14 years of our existence, I don't think it ever has been the case. That's what I was trying to say. This is a very rare situation where we're debtree which is a good thing. Good situation. It's where we want to be. But if you know we have to ask or consider that that wouldn't be like an unprecedented thing or uncommon thing. Yeah. Can you explain the Medicaid thing? How how does that affect us? We receive money for services rendered to students who are eligible for Medicaid and the services with which we provide to them that might would be reimburseable. And quite frankly, that is the hardest area of a budget to um anticipate. Like it's almost impossible to budget for. It's I it's if you
050can budget for Medicaid and reliably understand what you're going to get from the feds in any given year, I would love to know what your approach is because It's fascinating, but we're increasingly relying upon it and it's increasingly becoming more unstable. And that's because we you hear in the news with this bill that they're trying to pass through right now that there's going to be a lot of Medicaid cuts. So that's this is what you're thinking. Okay. So some services like speech pathology and some others are reimburseable quote unquote through Medicaid. So when those go away, some of those services that are supported by that have to come out of some other operating rate category. So the next slide captures some highlights. Enrollment is down and it's been down for the last decade, but we
051do anticipate stability moving forward. It's challenging to predict, especially with the new developments that are in the offing, the timing of those new developments, how many students they'll actually generate and the like. Um, our FTE is relatively stable from the prior year as it stands right now, and class sizes are expected to remain at a the exact same number, which is 23. Overall, taxes will be dropping in 2026. our portion of the tax bill will go down by roughly 10% in total over the the last year and this year. I'm sure taxes will go up overall for the average Bavian, but our portion of the taxes will go down. Um, and that we will pay off all of our bonds in 26. As I mentioned, at present, we have 96% of our bonding capacity available.
052We'll have 100% at the conclusion of this fiscal year. And that just to be clear, we're going to have to be really careful with the timing of warm, safe, dry. I don't think the scope of warm, safe, dry is much negotiable. These are things that we identified as being the the barest of bare essentials that must get done. It's just a question of when we can afford to do so. Tony, could you explain what bonding capacity is? Yeah, there's every school district has a statutory debt limit and it and it's calculated based off of your equalized assessed value or the taxable value of of the property within your school district. And it's a it's an equation. And so you can only tax up to you can only issue bonds or debt that you have at
053any given time up to 100% of that capacity. Otherwise, it requires a an act of the general assembly, the state assembly to it lets you exceed it. So that that's a mechanism kind of to prevent someone from putting a question out for a building bond and saying we want a billion dollars and then people vote yes and then you exceed your bonding capacity because yeah you could mislead the public say hey I want a billion dollars to do this and yeah that sounds great but you know that you could really put community in peril by overt taxing them that's to say that you can't overt tax if you went to 100 you know any percentage of that but it would it's considered from a mathematical standpoint beyond your means. This is kind of like, you
054know, when you look at your gross income in your home and you're, you know, maybe you're buying a car or a home, how much what what is your relative debt limit? What you can afford to pay interest, you know, debt payments on, debt service on given your income kind of thing. So tax rate dropping, but tax base is increasing, right? Tax base is increasing. And the other part is that's ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch challenging to anticipate is how much will these developments increase our tax rate base. Um that's very challenging to predict and especially with timing, but surely that will happen if these developments come to pass. Uh it doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to be adequate. It just means that there might be
055some additional money there. And I think that's the last line. Other questions? Have you gotten any updates on the current development that's uh by AC storm by storm? No, I haven't heard anything lately. I don't know. I don't know if they're supposed to tell us or uh we you know uh in conversations with the city and then sometimes we have incidental conversations with developers, they'll let us know. U but I haven't asked lately, but it would be interesting to know. I know they had their models up at this point, right? Just curious. The one on the key seems to be people are moving into that one. Like people are moving in to the houses and stuff. Yeah. The one at Winding Creek. I don't know what the name is. Yeah. On the other side of
056Randall. Yeah. There that one's almost done actually. Almost built up. Tony, is this doc the document the preliminary budget available for the budget to review? Yeah. If so, where would they be able to clarify? Yeah. There's two documents. There's the official budget form that we have to submit to the state and that's our official tentative budget. that's available in the uh it's attached to this agenda item. And then linked in the agenda item is also our um budget summary which also includes that new format that I'm proposing to use. And um I'm hoping that it's more narrative rather than relying upon numbers and that it provides more background and information context to both the board and to the administration and to the community. So if you have any feedback on that document in particular, uh
057I would be I very much welcome it. I want to make sure that this document helps people understand the district's finances and um understand how we allocate resources and and the like. So would appreciate your feedback on that. So, real quick, right, because I know you said this was a proposal and you're going to have the next one in July. I'm just curious, you want to feedback. So, the page 55 or you're determining or still under the development. Will that can you let us know when that one is done? On page 55, I think you're talking about the metrics related to academic performance. Yeah. Yeah. I plan on having that done by the time we adopt the budget in August. Um, what I'm going to focus on in the next month is one, I did
058get some feedback that we could probably do a better job of communicating where we are with warm, safe, dry, kind of the longer term uh, capital projects. I'm going to incorporate that in there. And I'm also Josh and I are going to work on refining that forecast so that we can be certain as reasonably certain as we can that that forecast is accurate. And those are going to be the two priorities for the next month so that if we need to make any adjustments to the budget, we will. And then some of the cosmetic stuff like that, which I think is important context, will build out by the time we get to the adoption in August, if that's fair. Um, I also plan to put it on moving it out of a a Google doc
059and putting it into a website, but that's taken a little bit more time than I expect, but that might I'm hoping if we don't get that done this year, we'll get it done for next year. But hopefully that will make the interactivity of the document a little better. So, just to be clear, this is just tentative. There is no action. But next month, we'll hold a public hearing. The public is welcome and encouraged to come and share their thoughts on the budget. And then we will continue to make modifications to it until the time of adoption. That's all I have. Any other questions? All right. Thank you, Tony. All right, we are now going to be adjourning to close session. The board will go into session. We will have an action item after the close
060session. You're welcome to state if you like. You decide to leave. We want to thank you for coming. Uh the time is 7:47. I will entertain a motion to move to close session. So moved. Uh motion by Katie, second by Danielle. That was Raquel. Oh, Raquel. Okay. All right. All right, Cindy, please lead us in a roll. Coobo. Yes. Thomas, yes. Gilbert, yes. Yes. Meadows, yes. Sligger, yes. Yes. All right. Thank you. We shall be back. The time is 8:16 and we have returned to open session. I will now take the role. Cindy, you want me to do it? I want you to I got it. Here. Here. Thomas, present. Here. Present. Cider present. Present. Thank you. All right. Resolution action item 8.1 resolution authorizing purchase agreement and due diligence for the 18 812 Main
061Street property. Tony, would you like to give us a brief summary? Yeah. At present, the board of education owns the property at 804 Main Street and under consideration is the purchase of the adjacent property of 812 Main Street. These properties were um operated as one facility historically and uh have been separate in their use for the past 10 or so years. With 812 Main Street coming for sale and its close proximity to 804 and its immediate proximity to 804, it's very challenging to operate these facilities independently. includes um access traffic concerns through the property and uh on 812 the actually the water feed for the sprinkler systems at 804 are fed through the property at 812. So they're inseparable properties. So there's access issues, there's um fire suppression issues and we use we do lease
062portions of 812 for storage. We started doing that during CO and we use that pretty extensively. So we recommend that the board acquire or at least give us authorization to do a purchase agreement and due diligence to acquire 812 Main Street for a total amount of 1,128,000. Okay, any questions? As everybody knows, there have been closed sessions about this topic. So, um I know we've gone back and forth, but we've decided to let Erin kind of characterize and provide a summary of the thought process of it. So, we are going to have a vote and everyone's going to vote with their conscience, but um I just want to communicate to the community that making a purchase of this size is always uh a difficult decision. and we just had a pretty robust discussion before close
063session about the the headwinds the district will be facing and that we never enter into an agreement like this lightly. However, there are u a number of factors that I will speak for me in this case I believe makes it prudent for us to move forward with purchasing the property. One of them being that the property has been appraised for uh a little over $1.4 $4 million and the negotiated pion price would be about $280,000 below that. So, it's um in my opinion uh a strong value. We're getting a lot of bang for our buck on our dollars. There would also be some strategic advantages beyond the purchase price, which would include uh securing permanent access and essential building systems for 804 main, eliminating lease uncertainty and stabilizing long-term occupancy costs, expanding in-house fleet maintenance
064capabilities, consolidating core operations on a single contiguous site, so we'll have two buildings working in unison, and also avoiding potential future capital costs related to the fire system infrastructure as well as if uh someone else purchased the property we would have to go and secure additional space which is uncertain at the time where we would be able to uh acquire that space. So, uh, there are a variety of factors and pieces of information that the board has considered, uh, going into the decision, which again, I will only speak for myself. Everyone will have to vote their conscious, but I think for the long-term health of the district, it is financially prudent for the district to move forward with purchasing this property. Everyone comfortable with that summary? So, okay. Thank you. I will entertain a motion
065to adopt the attached resolution authorizing the superintendent or designate to execute a purchase agreement and advance due diligence activities related to the acquisition of 812 Main Street, Pavia, Illinois, subject to the terms outlined in the letter of intent and pending final review of legal, financial, and environmental matters. So moved by Raquel, second by second second by Katie. Sydney, please lead us in a roll call vote. Yes. Yes. Meadows. Yes. Gilbert. Yes. Thomas, yes. Gerals, yes. Arandu, yes. Thank you. Motion passes. All right. Item 8.2, curricular field test, elementary ELA. Brad. Sure. So, one of the biggest projects that we've worked on this year is really taking a look at our English language arts, our reading scores, and understanding the state's new Illinois comprehensive literacy plan and what those impacts are for us. So, we've had
066a group of of staff, elementary staff and administrators who have spent six days um learning together, making decisions about how to move the district forward and then their recommendations go to CAC, but CAC is really interested in being a process manager and not necessarily making the decisions themselves to make sure that the process that we've designed is followed. uh because we really trust the people that are on these teams that invest themselves in these subject area leadership teams. They've gone through that learning process. So, CAC is involved, but really we're letting the ELA salt team and the teachers that are a part of that lead the way. So, they did extensive learning on the Illinois comprehensive literacy plan. They did a gap analysis of where are we currently and what is that literacy plan asking
067us to do for our students. We determined at that point that there were a lot of gaps between where we're at now and where we want to go in terms of student instruction around reading at the elementary level. There were differing needs from like primary grades to intermediate needs, but we saw gaps in that because of that. They looked at different resources that would help us to fill those gaps and to have more comprehensive literacy instruction within our schools that aligns to more recent research. That team looked at a number of different resources. I think they looked at five in total and did our interviews of those vendors. They as a team decided to bring back two vendors uh for about two and a half hours each. So they went through two products uh very
068extensively. They used a rubric that was designed by the state and then augmented by us to make sure it aligns with where we want to go and not just a a feeling that we had. They were very good at that. I really appreciate the teachers using that rubric and using their expertise to help us make these decisions. They selected one product amplify CKLA um that they thought would be appropriate for a field test. We have purposely not used the word pilot because pilot's very confusing. Um, we've had a lot of different ways that we've done pilots and we said, "All right, let's put all that behind us and really design a process." So, CAC designed a process for doing field tests. The team, the ELA salt team, just wants to field test the one product
069they feel most align with where we want to go as a district. This will be a change, I'm going to say fairly significant for our instructors at our elementary level and in the way that they teach reading, but I'm really excited about the potential progress that we're going to be able to make using this resource. That team met a couple of weeks ago here in June, the salt team and then CAC met after that last Friday. Um, but the salt team designed what this field test would look like, how many teachers would be in involved in it. We really kept it tied to the ELA salt team members themselves because they've gone through all of this training, this extra training, and then the teams that they're with, their grade level teams. We have representation from
070all grade levels and all but one school. So, you'll see there that Hooverwood is not represented. So, this is probably the best response that we've gotten to assault team because there's a lot of interest in what this is going to look like and teachers stepping up and leading the way and being a part of this team. So, we really appreciate that they made those decisions about uh doing a full year kind of trop field test. the data that they would collect. They've determined what that's going to look like and they are excited to get going, but that would require an expenditure of about $80,000 to provide all of the materials that they're going to need to do this field test. There was one other product that we looked at more in depth. The team could
071have decided to try both. We said we need to be careful about expenses. the team decided they just want to try this one. It's it met the most criteria that they've come up with. Um so we're looking to have your authorization to spend $80,34 on the field test of Amplify CLA third edition. All right, questions. I have a couple questions. Yep. Um so it says like the amplify CKLA it says alignment gateway meets usability gateway meets foundational skills 754 and building knowledge so what does I just don't know what does the foundational the 75 out of 84 and then the building knowledge the 178 92 like the other ones to say meet so I don't know what those what are those bottom ones yeah one thing that has been really cool in education is you
072get a lot of these companies now there's one big company that really looks at alignment to standards right so these are scores that we see in the literature around this particular product. So, um it's not just Betavian teachers who have said this seems to align. There's other companies out there that do testing of educational resources that are saying this meets that. So, there were 84 points on foundational skills. 75 out of 84 they felt were met through that process. building knowledge 178 out of the 192 components or score that they give it was what they they saw. So is it a perfect resource? Nope. And we've talked to the team extensively about that. There is no perfect resource. What teachers do is more than a resource. They are the experts. They bring a lot of
073expertise. They know their kids. They know pedigogy. Um so to me their instruction is the best thing that we can do but I want to support them with a resource that really matches that at the level that they want to go. And then um do I guess two questions is uh one the ISBY curriculum evaluation tool did they has that been out there a while and do we use it consistently if it's been out there? The one of the nice things that the state has done with this particular initiative is they've put a lot of resources out there very quickly. So the comprehensive literacy plan is probably 18 months maybe 18 months old and usually the pattern would be they would launch a document like this and then it would be three or four years
074before we had resources. they really flooded the zone with these resources, including um that rubric to help districts in this process of aligning their curriculum to the Illinois comprehensive literacy. Now, if you look out on social media, you will see there's they call them the reading war. So, there's lots of different opinions on how we should be doing reading, right? So, this has shifted over time, but there's always been these like sways of the pendulum back and forth. And I really appreciate the state kind of stepping and saying, "No, this is we've had so many stakeholders involved and they're not on one side or another. They're more towards the science of reading side than they were previously, but they're kind of in um a good stasis. We're still far away from where Battavia is at,
075but they have come to a middle ground which has given us kind of a guiding light and they've provided these resources. They have actually really good modules to teach teachers about the the comprehensive literacy plan. So if teachers are watching and they want to spend, you know, about 8 to 12 hours watching webinars, there's actually pretty good ones online to to help learn about the comprehensive literacy plan, but we're going to do our own PD um for our elementary teachers. Again, we're going to keep the field test for a smaller group of people and at the same time be training all of our staff about what is comprehensive literacy plan looks like. What is that um how is that different than your current instruction within your classroom? How are the materials going to impact your
076classroom? One of the things that's really going to be interesting to watch is that CLA only gives grade level text. So, you just authorized the purchase of an $80,000 software tool that if I'm at this grade level, that's great. It gives me that text, but if I'm below grade level, it gives me a different text at my grade level. So, this is where all kids are getting the same high quality resource and we have to scaffold and bring all kids up to that standard. It's really about having the team was really excited about the high expectations this is going to have for our students and um for the classrooms that are going to use this uh resource. Are we then expecting the students to meet or excal like how they just did the presentations last
077week, you know, are are we expecting them to see an I guess an uptick in those? Yeah, and I think that would be our long-term goal. So again, I typically look over about three years. We might see a little implementation dip, right? We're trying this. It's new for us. Our students may not be used to being exposed to grade level text. So we might see an implementation dip, but I think our students have and our teachers have the ability to really show a lot of progress with this tool. It will be something that we're monitoring. This is for a year, you said, right? Yeah, they're going to they're going to pilot. There is the option because um of cycles here that we may start to introduce more teachers later on in the school year once
078these teachers have said yeah this works or here are some of the challenges and we can plan for some of those challenges. We didn't want to roll it out too quickly and overwhelm teachers. There's always a process of getting used to it. Um there's a lot of materials that are going to be in these teachers classrooms too. So like even going through all the boxes and stuff like that it's going to be a challenge. So, one of the reasons we're bringing this um you know, they just met a couple of weeks ago and I would typically wait till July was because we have staff here in the summer that can help organize some of these materials for the pilot classrooms so that when a teacher gets back in August field test field test. Thank you.
079I really appreciate that. A hard time to break the teachers in the field test are ready to go that we have those materials organized for them. So, they have actually like workbooks and so forth too. workbooks, books. Yep. Lots of text will be in the hands of kids. It's a combination of digital and yeah, both and in hand. Um, so if this field test is successful, um, do you I mean obviously you kind of said it now, you roll it out maybe six months if it's successful. And I I just don't know, do you do we need anything in like the middle school or are we good at the middle school? Next year, part of the CAT work will be looking at middle school and high school. We did all of the learning together about
080this, but there were completely separate needs. The elementary was ready to go because they were dissatisfied with their current resources. So, we focused on that with this team, but we have secondary people who are going to be investigating what this looks like at their level as well. So, I anticipate changes at the secondary level. I just don't know what those are yet. R, could you explain who's on the salt team? Who what's the population that comprises that team? Right. So, you can see the salt team members there in that third column. So, we have kindergarten representation. Um, each of the grade levels, we have two second grades because there was a lot of interest there. Second grade is really a tipping point in reading, right? So, primary teachers are very into um teaching reading. That's
081their comfort zone. Um but when you get to second and third grade you start to go from uh teaching reading to reading to learn and so we got a lot of interest there at the second grade level. So those are the teachers that have been a part of all of the learning and then they are facilitated by a consultant that we use and then Jen Hicks and then an elementary principal who is Mike Wall from Louise White. So those are the administrators that sit on that team as well. and then they're they're going to bring along their teams uh that want to be a part of this 22 people. You have more questions. I don't want to so my comments would be I will say on my time as a board member that I have
082had people come up to me with concerns about our ELA curriculum at the grade school level. So I'm excited that we're looking at it and um maybe going on a new path there. And what I like about it is this is collaborative with our teachers because if the change is hard and if our teachers and our teams out in the buildings are not enthusiastic about giving this 100% it will not succeed. So these individuals listed on the slide, I want to thank them because this is going to I assume mean a lot more work for them that they're volunteering for rather than just the status quo that some of these people have been doing for years and years. So I appreciate them going above and beyond to to uh work with this uh field test.
083I also want to point out that implementation of this wouldn't align with one of our strategic uh plan goals enhancing teaching and learning practices. So it is this is how it's supposed to work. We have a goal and now we're implementing processes and programs to help us uh achieve those plans. I guess my question is 80,000 again every penny now that we're spending we have to really scrutinize. So, walk me through this. At the end of the year, we spend the $80,34 and um is it like a past fail? We're going to we're not or is it like it's mostly good? We can modify some things. And that's really where we've tripped up before. So, mistakes we made in the before, it's like we say, "All right, we'll try this out, right? We'll pilot this."
084And then people are like, "Yeah, I don't like it." Or, "We're paying a lot for that. It doesn't do exactly what I need." There is no perfect product out there. So we went through an extensive kind of process as a CAC team saying all right how should this look so people don't feel burned or that their voice wasn't heard as a part of this process. So they design u this field test process where the salt team gets to make a lot more of the decisions that CAC used to make or I used to make um with my team. So it's really putting in the hands of these teachers as to what this looks like, what data is collected, how much time we're going to ask of these people. They have had extensive discussions about all
085of these pieces, which to me is great because you're right, Erin, if the teachers aren't bought into this, there's no point, right? So, they have to be a part of this. Um, and not everyone when we rolled this out districtwide, not everyone might be happy with this. So, as teachers, they're also saying like, "No, we think this is the right way to go." So to me, this is a great example of teacher leadership and them um putting their voice out there when their colleagues may not be happy with it. But we're really trying to plan for those eventualities. So we used to kind of say no, we'll ditch it and then we'd have to start these processes all over again. It was a lot of uh time. We think that this is the right product.
086We've been super extensive with that and we want to see how we can make it work in Betavia. So, is it a a 100% deal? No. But we're pretty confident this is the direction that we need to go. Along those lines, Brad, what what is the criteria for success? How are we going to determine at the end of this field test that this is the direction we want to go? They um I don't know if I put it in here or not, and if not, I can. So, I just put it very succinctly. So, they're going to do focus groups with the students that are experiencing this. They're looking to survey those teachers throughout this uh field test period. We're going to do some beginning of the year benchmark assessments, so things that we don't
087normally do to kind of see where students are and then where they might end up. We're going to continue to use that evaluation tool and then the team is going to look at student work samples and observational data. So um so this is at the end of the school year. This this is throughout the field test period. So we believe we will have a lot of data by mid year by December in order to to make some further decisions. It would be nice for us to know the decision to be have a plan to move forward mid year so we can start that process because we have a institute days. We have time with our staff more in second semester than we do in first semester. So it' be good to get a jump on
088some of that learning that teachers are going to need to start to implement and then out of that ultimately the salt team will say this is our recommendation. Y okay. They're going to look at all that data and I appreciate them u not relying on standardized assessments in this because those aren't going to measure how quickly this is going to be implemented in the field test. So them taking a look at student work samples through talking to kids I think is the right move for them. They didn't consult me but I think they made the right decision because it's going to be more sensitive to the actual implementation. So the 80,000 is for the field test materials. If at the end of whatever period they choose and they're like, "Yes, this is what we want."
089Then we'll have a bigger purchase to have to 700,000ish, which that number is in the budget. 700,000. I think is that correct, Tony? in your document. I believe there was a number listed that yeah numbers he's like I thought I was done but we do have an amount budgeted for this is successful. Sorry. It's in the narrative document. Yeah. I'm just saying it's in the it's planned. It's planned for but it's a lot. It's a lot. Yeah. It's a lot. So if this works to our MA, you know, this even in exceeds our expectations like what will could be the impact for our kids. How does this help Betavia students, BPS 101 students? Tomorrow you're going to get a look at some of our data and with math we're doing gang busters. I'm just going
090to give you a little sneak peek there. Uh because we've had a good resource, a solid resource aligned to the standards and our teachers have had a couple of years to implement that. So now we're seeing a very upward trend. I know our staff and I know that if we get them the right resources and the right training, we're going to see the same thing because right now we're not seeing that. Our teachers are working really hard and we're kind of stagnant, which I'm sure for them and for me and for our community is frustrating. So I want to empower them with these resources so that we can see that upward trend. Really quick too, sorry. Um if this is successful and you know, so next year we're sitting here and We want to do
091this for everything. That could also potentially though maybe remove some of the resources that we're currently using right now. Yep. So we're not spending maybe money on this because we're going to be implementing this. Do we know? Do you have an idea about how many if successful how many resources we would maybe not renew? Well, in my mind, that 80,000 that you just approved would not be on the list because there would be other things that come with this product that would probably be better and more aligned. Um, the problem is we're we've I've continued to spend money on old resources up until this this current year because we would add a classroom, right? So, like, hey, we're going to add a new kindergarten section at AGS. Well, you're the board's paying for the teacher,
092but we're also outfitting that classroom with those materials. So, even a resource I knew we were going to get rid of, I was still spending $4 to5,000 per classroom just so they had materials. So, to me, it stops wasteful spending and can get us on the right track. Any other questions? Okay. I will entertain a motion to approve the expenditure of $80,34 for field test to amplify CKLA third edition. So moved. So moved by Danielle. Second by second. I think that was Kristen. Yes. All right. Sydney, please lead us in a roll call vote. Gilbert. Yes. Gonzalez Thomas. Yes. Yes. Harland. Yes. Meadows? Yes. Susiki? Yes. Sligger? Yes. Thank you. Motion passes. All right. Next is item 8.3. Approve updated board agreements, board meeting request, decision tree, and board and superintendent communications relation and relations
093document. Tommy, lead us on this. Yeah. So, um, on behalf of the board, I created this agenda item so that you all could have this conversation. Um, just for public record, we met on June 10th, went to close session for the board's self-evaluation workshop. And out of that workshop, we did have several things that were agreed upon by the board. We had some things that were still left for further discussion. And then we had a few items that were left that did not get u discussed or addressed yet, right? And so I think we wanted to make sure that we had space to talk about that. Um, we did get our notes from our field trainer from the IASB, uh, confirming some of those items. So, what was fully approved, I went ahead and put
094that into the motion for action tonight, uh, per her recommendations and then everything else is up to you for discussion. Um, and so really, you know, it's a good opportunity for you to kind of, I don't know, as a board look at what you want to continue. Um, you know, do you want another meeting? You know, again, that's something that Cindy and I will work on if the board uh kind of tonight has a consensus that they'd like to look at another workshop to be scheduled to continue the discussions. Yeah. So, it's a pretty open place there for you if the motion needs to be amended to include something that may have been not included that came. I did go from Laura's notes. So, but if there's something there, we could make an amendment to
095the original motion. Um so space for you to talk. So there's three there's three different components to it. One of them is the action that's before us on those particular items. One of them is really do we feel like it's another session within the bounds of whatever the state and laws and and availability allows us to do. And then third is to kind of touch on a couple of the items that we didn't get to or feel because that might be related to meeting with her again or B that we felt at the end of the meeting would be reasonable to have an open session discussion as opposed to really fall within the boundaries of the closed session. So those are three different it's the way I see three different components of what's before us
096for discussion. So do you want to kind of save the motion part for last? or do you want to move on to that and then we can kind of talk about the other things first? I'm going to do the motion first. Okay. Just get that out of the way. Yep. That's fine. So, does anybody have any comments or questions in regard to the decision tree, the boarding communications, and relations document? Okay. All right. So I will entertain a motion to approve the updated board agreements board meetings request decision tree and board and superintendent communications and relation documents as discussed at the zoom June 10th 2025 board self-evaluation workshop. So moved by Raquel second second by Rob Cindy please lead us in roll call vote. Yes. Yes. Yes. Sliger. Yes. Gilbert. Yes. Meadows. Yes. Thomas. Yes.
097Right. Thank you. All right. So, item number two on that list, I guess, is the do we feel that it would be good to reach back out to Laura to see if there's further another session of something similar to kind of continue the discussion of things that might be more board evaluation related. I I would uh enjoy another workshop. I think uh that would be productive for the board to have one. So I would be in favor of that. Okay. Do we have any sense for how long that would take? No, we can find out from her and then we will try to find the right. We'll do it as a special meeting so that we don't have people sitting here and waiting that sort of thing. So we'll do it as a part of
098one of the things we discussed which is try to target when we think these special meetings might occur and those would be on nonregular board days right so I think that makes sense I think like you know if we're talking about committees who's going on committees are we doing committees that would need to be done sooner rather yeah and I think that's more of an open that's one of my things that I' of the ones right now I think that's one of them that we felt could be an like we could right if everybody felt like we had time we could kind of have that discussion and give me some direction so that I know this is how we want to proceed on that and a couple of these other topics. So is there anything
099on the agenda that was originally the agenda because I know not everything is listed here. There's a couple missing things that wasn't like was on our agenda going into the workshop that would need to be close session really. I'm trying to if you can help me remember those I'd appreciate it. Let me go. Oh, it's your email, I think, is what it was. Okay. I knew someone was going to ask or workshop. Okay. Um, we had um polling and getting items onto the agenda. Um, our meeting dates. Meeting dates, right? Like if we want to move it to a different day. Uh, pledge of allegiance. I think we resolved clarity around board disc direction action items consens consensus and I know that we don't have anything about the action items or any kind of like
100to-do list that's listed in this agenda but we did kind of talk about it um board officer term length that was one of the items I mentioned earlier I think I mentioned it so let's see okay yeah um board member school assignments which I think is on here um committee assignments and then board matters effectiveness which obviously we have um taken off. So I mean all those seem to be to me based on what we talked about with her things that we can talk about in an open session right in our close session what do you feel like maybe just so we can talk about like our group like how we're working together dynamic kind of stuff. Yeah. Yeah. That would be type of things. Yeah. Yeah. I think there was general at least and
101some of the impression discussions I've had with people as they called me on the board was we kind of got there but we didn't quite like resolve it or kind of get into a real open conversation about it at the end kind of started hitting at it but didn't quite get all the way there and it seemed like Laura and our kind of feeling seemed to be at least what I took from it is we can talk about it in open session it seemed like none of these would have to be closed. Yeah. the the group dynamic and how we work together. Definitely a close thing. Yeah, these other things I think we could we one is to talk about them all today. Two of them two is to and somewhere in between is to
102just say yes, I want to talk about it. Please put those on a future board item so that we can talk about those at a board agenda item in the future. Right. Yeah. I'm not suggesting we have to do either. I'm not suggesting it's an all or none. It could be I like like the committee one. I'm just going to pick that one right now for like the committee one. What I generally heard was people liked being on the committees. They wanted to be on the committees. There was a little bit of a recognition that maybe not all committees need a board member on them for every level. So I think if you guys are okay, I can work with Tom to try to just bring that out and say, "Okay, this is it." And
103then we can kind of look at who might be best fit for that or make sure there's coverage one way or the other for that. The only thing I have with that is I don't I'll just say like let's say like we decide that we don't need anyone on rack. Yeah. I don't want rack to feel slighted. That's fair. Because we're not there. I just want to make sure like if if you take us away from a committee, they are okay with it. But if they would rather have a board member, you know, I don't want them to feel No, that's actually a really good point. I think a part of what we could do just to react to that a bit is to reach out to find out how they feel board members impact
104their ability to make good decisions, right? like if they feel okay we don't we do good work and we would like you know some parameters about board members like there are some committees that maybe you should have been a board member for a couple of years so that you can get your feet and understand you know Tony's lingo you know on rack or whatnot then maybe that's kind of so we can reach out to them to kind of get some general opinions about whether they feel that it's been particularly helpful with the kind of the new format of the notes on that and then um can give an input because they are effectively just to be clear for people watching on TV. There's two types of committees. There's board committees which is the only one
105we have is policy committee that's a regularly meeting one and then the other ones are superintendent committees that are advisory for us that we sit on at our discretion effectively and it's a good point. So if everybody's head nodding and we can touch base with those committees to make sure that they feel we're effective positions there. Yeah. So the what we're saying is we're going to reach out to all those committees. Do you like having a board member or we're going to get feedback on if it brings value and then that will be presented back to us and then we'll and then we'll have open discussion about it. Yeah. Okay. Because we don't want these things to linger too long. If it starts to get like yes I think it is then we'll just get
106somebody assigned to that. Well it probably be good to because most of them ramp up when the school year starts. you want to have a you think their answer to do you like to have a board member on there is going to be no I mean they might be like yeah they're I don't know I I I that's just my opinion oh you think it's sort of a loaded question I think it's a loaded question it's fair it's a good question Rob and I think that ties to what Raquel's saying but I'm going to flip it let's make sure you don't feel bad if they say it are you going to be Okay. As a board. That's a good point. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's two twofold, right? One of them is there's a number
107of committees and we all have limited time because everybody else other than us is effectively being paid to be on that committee and has the time allocated for that committee. And and we were getting to the point where it was two, if not three committees were being assigned per board member to do that. And that's why we came up with like BIC was like BIC I think is a good one for a board member to be on and that's why BIC we this year was a change that Tom about starting to circulate board members through that instead of having a single board member that was at every meeting so that they got an opportunity and you everybody here got an opportunity to kind of see what BIC was like. That meant quarterly quarterly and um
108I thought all of you that participated did a great job. I I think they appreciated having you there. Okay, we have the committees down. What's next? Yeah, committee's down. All right, school school assignments. School assignments. So, for everybody watching at home, historically board members have been assigned to a specific school. Only rule was you couldn't be assigned to a school kids are at. So, I mean, I'll share I've thought about this a lot. I was kind of thinking two ways we could do well three ways. We could do it the traditional way we've done it where everybody gets assigned to school. We've discussed that everybody gets invited to everything and then we'd have to figure out a way to manage that because that would be a lot of invitations. Maybe we talked about the vice
109president. I've talked about it but then I was like well boy what did I sign up for because that would be a lot of volume. Well, we would figure out a way to do that so it' be manageable. And then the third way I thought and this I could I'm spitballing here but maybe because traditionally uh the president isn't assigned in a building and everybody else gets assigned a building. Uh well I guess that wouldn't work. No it would that maybe the rest of our members get assigned a grade school and then everybody gets somebody invited to middle school and high school events because everything metriculates up to that. Interesting. So that would be like a third option. That makes sense. have six grade schools. Yeah. So it would work. So there there has been
110some discussion on this with um Drew and them at the at the kind of the occasional meetings we have. one I think if there's assignment I'm not this is not a pro or con or any judgment about an idea is that if we're assigned to that there has been kind of commentary that some board members are able to get to their elementary schools some of them aren't able to get to their elementary schools then how does that kind of give the impression of who's you know good board member bad board member time involved everything else so that's one consideration in total, but I'm not saying it actually. I mean, that's a really interesting logic there of being able to kind of assign everybody or the president to one and then everybody kind of gets picked
111up. The other thing that was discussed at those is to there's generally speaking at the beginning of the year there's kind of a calendar of events that are kind of known that are going to be kind of at that level. And this doesn't prevent anyone from saying, "Hey, I would like to go read into a classroom. we can work through that, but it's it's intended to be, hey, these are board level, like it's the middle school, you know, Veterans Day event, and we just make sure that we have coverage of somebody going to those. And uh like one way we could do that if everybody got the calendars, Tom and his updates could sort of highlight like, hey, these are some bigger thing like the Veterans Day or like uh you know, just some bigger
112things that are bigger that you know, hey, this is on your calendar. look at this. This is pretty cool. Uh I mean it' be up to your discretion, but you already kind of do that a little bit. So that would be a way to manage maybe that. You know, my fear is it's like a fire host coming at you and it's like, oh, you know, I got 20 invites every week to go to. It could feel a little overwhelming, but maybe we see and it's not that bad. It won't be that big a deal. I don't know. For me, sometimes uh how I determine what to make sure I put in in your um kind of headsp space, right, with my updates is when I get an invitation where they're like, "Hey, it's kind of
113a marquee event for us. You know, we'd love to see you there." And then I think like, "All right, let me put that out to the board as well in the event that someone's free and you want to attend that, right?" like the uh the the joint BEA best and admin end of year uh retirement celebration and service awards, you know, and I put that on the calendar in the weekly updates just because, you know, that's a nice little end of year marquee event and if you're available and would like to join, you know, everybody there would love to see you there and it was kind of like that makes sense, right? So, a weekly reading event, you know, probably not. They may want to invite board members to come and read if you want,
114which is cool, but it's not maybe something I would say like, "Hey, attention everybody." Anyway, I'm struggling with the negative thing about assigning elementary schools as a new board member, there are elementary schools that I've never stepped foot inside that I've never seen. It would be nice to see them all. Um, and if I'm assigned to one, I'm probably not going to be going to the others. And it is hard. I'll say as a parent of a elementary kiddo, I wasn't able to go like Louise White to their first day thing for the like most of their stuff fell on days that I was going to my kids stuff. And so I do love the idea of us sharing um the ability to visit or I guess I could if we open it up to
115say, "Hey, if I can't go, let me let the board know." I I would I do we feel like I think like the school admin would be able to like use their discrepancy to say I'm not going to invite them to everything when they can like you know what I mean like I feel like they're capable of not overwhelming us to just be like invite invite invite in maybe I'm wrong but I I feel like I have trust there that we're not going to get I mean it's going to be a lot al together but I I don't know I like the idea of the third your third idea a bit but then I get worried about still the coverage. I kind of like the idea of just we're all in the no and if
116a couple of us can go out on one thing, cool. If one of us goes like we just kind of make sure for the big things that we have at least one person. I'm kind of leaning towards every you know let's try for a year everybody getting invited to everything because I will say so I've been a board member for four years and I've been on both sides of the river. When you get to go to different buildings if you go enough times you get to understand the cultures a little bit. you realize how diverse our community is and the challenges and needs and so it makes you sort of think about the district and that is a you just understand like it's pretty complex because different people need are need different things so I
117think there is an advantage to your point of getting more exposure across the district and um you know we just have to figure out the mechanism but I don't think that that would be a logistical thing that we could figure out pretty easy be a little bit of a learning curve we'd get up to speed pretty quick. I think it sounds like we're all interested in attending as many things as we can, right? So, I think it would probably all shake out in the end if we did it that way. Okay. So I think I think what just needs to be fleshed out is looking at if there's a like a district or board calendar that people would get kind of invited to and then to manage time like since you brought it up as
118a vice president kind of role thing is to just make sure there's coverage like hey guys we don't have anybody for this particular one and I don't know the social calendar on everybody here but sometimes you go to things and I'm like dag on gone it I wish I'd known about that you know and And because you tend to go to a lot of those type of events, you know, so my instinct would be probably then maybe collaborating with Tom like he's saying like the things that like a little higher level like maybe and it might just be Tom just like let's give a little shout out. So I know we're busy but hey, you know, if you can even if you're just popping in for a half hour, this might be of interest. Does
119that sound good? And some events maybe just one person, but there might be others that more people could attend like the that you suggested. Well, and there'll be events where Danielle's kids are there, so she'll be there already, probably. Right. You know, and so if we show up, it's just it is what it is, right? Right. I don't think it's the end of the world if we can't do every single 100%. Right. But like obviously I will say right now I will not be at 100% of the events. No, not you personally, but it's a collective. Not you. No, I think there's u definitely recognition that everyone has lives of their own to live out, right? And so that's a I think a fair like look at if you're the person assigned to the high
120school every time your mental one's mentality that probably the high school's got 90% of the events or you know 60 70 80% of the events that you have to go to you don't have to go to but then like you feel that burdens on your shoulders to go to those things and you're not going there anyway because you couldn't be assigned to the school if you had kids in the school. So therefore in my head this is a way to be able to kind of make sure that there is coverage because like you said Danielle kind of gets spread amongst all of us to make sure that someone tries to make it to that event which maybe then it's kind of like there's a there's like a this tier event that like we want to
121make sure there's coverage and these will be the nice twos and maybe we can start creeping into those a little bit. So okay so what I am hearing is that we are going to shift our whatever it is procedure it's not a policy but a procedure on um school assignments so that you can work you Tom and I like can work together next meeting maybe we can kind of present a preliminary idea of what we think it might look like to everybody else. Is that acceptable? Okay. All right. Um, is there a good kind of trying to turn through the other at least the other two items? There's three. There's the to-do list, too. Yeah, that would be like a good actually a really good example to go into the to-do list is if we
122had a to-do list, we could add that item of next board meeting, hopefully introduce some sort of mechanism. Um, I mean, if not, things just fall off. Not intentionally, but so I don't know if we want Do you guys want to talk about that? I think we talked a little bit about it. I don't have a problem with talking about it. Well, let's just do this. Who wants an action item list after every meeting? I mean, not that we could take a vote, but yeah, we kind of I think everybody wants it. Well, I mean, I shouldn't say that. Yeah, I think the consensus I think. Yeah. move it all. So, who who maintains that list? Is that a board position like an officer that maintains it? Is that shouldn't it be maybe I mean
123if she's okay with it the secretary? I'm I'm putting it out there for discussion without volunt I think it would make sense and I'm happy to do just kind of an ongoing action items thing. Um I'd also be happy to organize letting everybody know about events and stuff like that too. I'd be happy to help with that. Um, if that's helpful. Let's try it with let's let's split the split the fund a little bit and we'll let Aaron try the event thing for a while and if he needs to call an audible to have you help, he's got you. Sure. Sure. Sure. Yeah. Okay. So, I can maintain an action items or just really followup I guess for Yeah. And and and I think that's a good point, right? So, that brings up one of
124the other things we kind of talked about. What comes with an action item list is being very clear about what everybody wants everybody needs. So, so for example on this does everybody feel that yes it would be good for Aaron to bring back because I also want to be clear that we're trying this is some of our board work not necessarily their work per se. They may be a resource for Erin and whatever. So Erin would kind of bring back as a part of one of his comments or board comments that kind of to talk about that item. Make sense? So if we do an action item, I'm just talking out loud. So then we have to agree on the action and the timeline for the deliverable. Correct. And that is something where I think
125sometimes in some meetings we've left and I think we've had different understandings of what was talked about. So I don't know if like Katie after a meeting if there's so many days following everyone I don't know if we're going to have like a word document but something where all of us can look at it and say yeah that is my understanding. And if not, we can then talk to Craig, talk to Tom and be like, "Hey, I thought it would meant this." Because there's been instances that I think that would have been really helpful and would have stopped misunderstandings. So, I don't know if it's just to try to be clear in the moment and also all of us have that ability to review it just to ensure it's what we did understand. And if
126not, then we have the ability to ask some questions. So counterpoint a bit for discussion purposes, we have our meeting minutes and our meeting notes. I'm not saying we change anything. I'm just bringing it up that has the generally speaking the context of the discussion and that you could go back and look at your reminders as it were right at that. So do we need a separate document when we have them commented that way? I'm hoping in answer to your other question about is it clear that having kind of Katie kind of keep a record of that and kind of then looking at the meeting minutes and confirming that this is what we understood and if there's a discrepancy she would reach back out to me and to say this is unclear to people. Yeah.
127You know, so you're saying for us to review the mini minutes? No. I mean, we're But what if Katie's understanding of what we talked about was not the same as my Do you know what I mean? Like that's still accounting for her to understand an action item only. Am I not So, so um I'm listening and processing here. You know, Cindy takes what is the board's official minutes and submits them to the she is our record keeper and archive person. The minutes are reviewed with Katie prior to coming to a board meeting so that there's a common understanding. So that could be a natural relationship of teaming up together to confirm those. And I think to your Danielle, your point is but if amongst board there's still a little bit of that misunderstanding, right? You're
128saying even though if the minutes line up with what Katie's tracking and that's all aligned, you're saying, if I'm hearing you correctly amongst the board, people still may have some misunderstanding. Communication is hard and we're counting we're counting on this large group of people to communicate in a way that every person here understands. It's flawed to just say it's on one person, two people and their perspectives of what they heard. Cindy's taking a lot of a lot of notes, great notes, and then she's going to read it. But again, that's all accounting for hopefully they understood my communication. I know my communication isn't always heard correctly or or is not clear all the time. And so I I just I guess personally I don't see why we wouldn't have every board member have that ability
129to say, "Yeah, that's what I understood too." Or or not even to have to verify it, but bring up a a question about it. I would love us to make sure that we're all on the same page all the time. Maybe after Cindy, I'll keep during meetings an action item, like I'll be listening for that like, right? Like, okay, that's something that we need to follow up on. And then after Cindy sends me the minutes and I've reviewed that and I make sure that jobs I can send right to the board like okay and then I think this was what we agreed were our okay outstanding items right right so after each meeting because at that point everything seems to jive right and then I'm looking at the minutes and I'm making sure I'm not
130repeating or whatever right about what's the timeline that she usually two days so that happens pretty early in that process so then what keeps that I guess my my followup to that is what keeps us as a board from not getting we're all busy, right? And we're like on to the next thing, on to the next thing to ensure where's our accountability piece on that. Are you going to be looking at that every me? Are we looking at it? Because we can have that list, but if we're not actually like reviewing it and looking back at it, we're just going to have an action item list that actually has nothing holding us to that. So, how are we ensuring who's ensuring? Oh, can it be added to the agenda as hey, you know, like just
131a blown the bullet points like a review like review action item list or whatever we want to call it. Mailed a couple days after the meeting so that we can all look at That's what I was kind of wondering is the that's what she's what I think Katie was suggesting is it kind of goes out and says okay this is it of that this is what this is our kind of agreed upon moment and then if there's some confusion everybody has a chance to do that and then additionally if there's something assigned to a particular person then Katie could follow up with them and say hey are you going to be prepared for this at the next meeting so I I'm sorry go ahead Chris sometimes those items might not be for the next meeting
132might be three months just so that keep it on everybody's you're reading it and you're saying you know hopefully everybody's been opening it at some point and going okay I'm perusing through this and seeing so it's like an ongoing document so we can she might float it on her side and now you're you're asking is that something everybody can look at. Yeah. So like if it's a week before the meeting and I'm like why did we what was are we do are we do I need to do anything as part of that I can open that document and be able to see it. So my thought would be because now I have a deliverable for the next meeting like I would want feedback relatively early in the process if I'm delivering something and I was
133under the understanding I was going to deliver something and then Monday I get an email saying no that's not what you're the board thinks you're supposed to do. I might not have enough time to be responsive to deliver. Yeah. So, I would say my thing would be because most of the communications we get are kind of on a regular basis so we can anticipate them. So, I'm not trying to put pressure on you and Cindy, but like it would probably be better if we're going to do that that it came out like the if we have a meeting on a Tuesday, like by that Friday or the following Monday while the meeting's still kind of fresh in our minds that we'd have it. That way, whoever's got the deliverable before they go down a path,
134if there needs to be a course correction, they have enough time to either get it done or say, "Just so you know, now that I understand, I'm going to need more time." And that deliverable, which I thought I could do, now needs to be pushed out another month or something. Sure. Yeah. Because I I know some, you know, we're busy sometimes, you know, uh, you need time to react to it if you 100%. And I'm I probably won't be 100%. No, I know I won't be 100% consistent getting them immediately out, right? But that's why it's there so that if once in a while I'm like, oh, wait here. I forgot to send you this or Yeah. I'm more concerned about like it coming out like Monday night and then it's like uh I don't
135think I don't see it as something that's like do this now or right like it's just sort of like these are our outstanding, right? Like I don't know. I don't feel like it's a there's an urgency attached to it necessarily. Yeah, I do. And I I if if I can just uh hone in a little bit on some of the training principles, I don't think it's going to be an exhaustive list because you're a governing board. You're not supposed to do too much. Yeah. I mean, like you're you're um there and governing and monitoring, having conversation and discussion, but you know, like it's our work to do the presentation tomorrow night, not your job, right? Like that's not your work. your work is to listen, process, ask questions. Yep. Right. Um, and so to me,
136it's like I wouldn't personally if this list is getting too exhaustive and overwhelming for the board, I think we got to huddle up again and talk a little bit about there's probably something structurally wrong with what's going on. I think it's more moving and like where my point of view and we've talked about this is there's been a couple things that I know that have not happened that I've asked to happen, right? And I feel like having a list would help that. Um, instead of it just being on the person, one person to just kind of like follow up, follow up, follow up. And, you know, I just feel like whether it's something that we've talked about tasking admin with, Tom. Well, we only task you Tom with. Um, it's something for us to remember,
137too, like, oh, yeah, we asked for that. and you know if we have questions or if we need to add it into an agenda to to talk about it or whatever we're making sure we're doing that to be an effective board. Uh yeah I think I think the list I don't think anybody's at least I'm not disagreeing about the list. I think the topic because I think we decided that a list is going to get kept and Katie is going to keep a list right and that's whether that's internal to the board or that's a direction to Tom about something we as a board are asking him to do. Right. Well, you were just you guys were saying the list was for our items. So, I was just adding that in for other parts of
138it. Okay. Okay. So, then I think what I'm asking is the real question is does this list persist for anybody to be able to look at at any point in time hence forward. Right? So, it's like a Google doc of some sort. That's what I think it should be. I think it should be a Google doc and this shared with us. So, let's say Let's say I'm tasked with something, right? And you know, so I put in my comment like, "Hey, I I have the slide ready to go next board meeting." So then you guys know, okay, hey, she's ready. Or if I had something come up, hey guys, I'm have to push this out. Yeah, I just put the comment in there a section. So we have to be careful. is what I'm going
139to ask about is we should check with our attorney about the inadvertently having a board meeting through a board doc and I'm not sure we can do that. So I think what we could potentially find out is that is there a document that Katie keeps that just has that that people can go view it and be only and then if you have a thing you can let Yeah. And if there's something somebody disagrees with then they reach out to Katie and say hey I don't think that represents what I remember or I don't have time. I think as Aaron said is because there are people doing work related to that and I think this is a viable option for things that we're asking Tom as the things to bring back later on is hey there's
140a potentially a question or comment deadline you know in order to make sure that people have brought the information or asked their provided their additional so like in a lot of it may be hey okay we talked about this thing and if everybody's like I still think I need some more time for in the meeting tonight like for your example right of what we're talking about if everybody wasn't all in on this school assignment thing and how that mechanism if you have input I think normally speaking comments by the following Tuesday give it a week gives you a weekend to think about it after that kind of as a procedure it is what it is and whoever's been assigned it gets three weeks to get it done so just kind of hang on because I
141think so like right now on tonight's action item list let's just call So, it's we got Erin's got one and then so then well Katie put like okay Craig you need to get the you you and Tom need to work with the groups to see who wants to the committees who wants to be on the committees and the deadline for that is next meeting. By next meeting the and like we would do that by the next meeting. Yeah. And then my to that action I I would say if somebody has an opinion about what questions I might need to ask or anything else it would be you need to let me know by next Tuesday if you if you if you feel that you changed your mind on a topic or there's additional information you
142feel I need to know on that topic. So the rhythm is uh Katie posts something a certain date and there's a time to review and then after that review date we're just assuming everybody looked at and said that's all right. We're all in agreement. Yeah. That was your it kind of has to be because otherwise you're right. If you wait if you you know Monday night you say ah that's not what I remembered well it's too late. I mean the person can't react to it if there's I I feel like there should be a little bit of I don't for I that's because you want to do when it's fresh exactly like how you're saying fresh in your brain. Let's say someone had a traum like just like oh my god life emergency. I think
143we need to be able to not be just black and white like okay if it if it doesn't affect that person horribly and it's past the one week. I think we can use like yeah I got you like I'm I'm giving that oh I'm not I mean if something happens Katie has something I'm formulating something I mean every we got to be civil to each other right? So if you're like hey I've been out of town all weekend I didn't get chance to get to it. Can I get a couple extra? You're like, "No, because it's not." No, we're not doing like I just want to make sure. I'll speak to myself like if I don't have a deadline then I just have a tendency back burner thing sometimes. So if you had kind of
144know in your mind like well I should try you know and roughly I should try to have this out within a week and you'll probably establish working with Cindy like this kind this is the amount of time I need the stuff you'll figure it out and I'm just saying rather you know if it can be sooner rather than later that would probably and I think we would assume that any action item would be like for action at the next board meeting unless otherwise indicated. Well I think that's part of the process. I mean this is what I do at work. Someone gets assigned something who's doing it when's it due. Yeah. The particulars of what's going to happen, like how it happens, that's for whomever's involved in that to figure that out. So Tom, does
145that sound reasonable to you? Because most of the actions are coming from you and your team. Is that a reasonable timeline of this is the action list, this is time for discussion. If this is what we all agreed upon, just verifying it and now it's like here you go. Yeah. That would that work for you? I think so. And then, you know, like we've talked about, if I'm making something up here, um, you know, let's just say, you know what, let's say we're heading into the uh close of the school year, but at the May board meeting or April board meeting, you all are like kind of having some great conversation, great ideas about something, but it's like, Tom, do you think the May board meeting is too aggressive? I might have to say, yeah,
146yeah, we're all tied up in the ending of the year, right? So, can we can we look at June or July? You know, absolutely. So, good to go, buddy. We're done with that one. So, what I'm hearing, just to recap, head nuts, Katie's going to keep the list. The meeting that list is going to get confirmed with the meeting minutes that Cindy's going to put out that it's hopefully going to be done by the end of the week or very soon thereafter. and that if anybody has any because hopefully coming out of the meeting we will have a very good idea of what we think it is that if there's any deviations or any further questions we will try to follow up by the following Tuesday respective people need time to get the work done
147that what I'm hearing headlines yep yes thank you okay uh that's that one last two remaining is officer's term um and then meeting Oh, what about polling and how we get items on the agenda? I thought we were talking about that in the open session right now. We can do that. That's what I thought we were that's what I thought we would do. Okay. Hey, we I want to get this on the agenda. What do we think? And yes, so that's happening. What I thought come out of the meeting was that we were going to do that in our meetings kind of like we're doing literally right now, right? Yeah. But we don't want to go slow at what you were picking up and saying, "We're not doing polling." We're doing this. I realized it
148halfway through my poll. We're not going to pull him anymore. We're going to have an open discussion about it. Is that happening in board comments? Is that where we're going to be being like, "Hey guys, I blah blah blah." Right. Which that's kind of Yeah. Where that's kind of like what it sounded like that at least when I judged what Laura kind of reacted to when we said comments, right? was, you know, hey, this is, you know, we were like, oh, why are you not commenting on those things? It's like, oh, nobody ever has, so I never even thought it was an option, right? You know, yeah. So, I don't I don't mind it being board comments. I guess the question is from a structure of polling. Is that a someone brings it up themselves
149and asks? Is that they kicked it to me so that it's more of a generic question and then everybody gets to provide a thumbs up, thumbs down because like right now we're talking about these things, but historically what would typically happen is the board would then have cons a consensus on yes, we're going to talk about that. That will go on the next meeting, right? We're not going to be prepared to talk about it in that meeting. So really, it's just a yes, I'm interested, no, I'm not. And like someone maybe presents a pro and con discussion on that to try to keep it fair and keep it open to everybody. I don't know how to handle it. I'm just trying to make sure that when we're doing these polling, we don't talk for an
150hour about whether we should talk about the topic. No. Yeah. I think it's not a question of like, do we want to discuss it? It's do we Yeah. Do we want to discuss it later, not right now? Yeah. And I think anybody could say that any right. I don't think it's fair to Craig or whoever the president is, but for you to we've ran into like how do I phrase what you're trying to say Danielle and you know I I think it's just easier for the person who has whatever they want to bring to just and just say this is what I'm interested in and then you get the consensus without having a whole conversation about it. there is there precedent with other boards or could uh you know could uh Laura give us like
151a like a mechanism for how if other boards do this how they structure their meetings to accommodate it. I feel like we asked I think she said board comments because we said that we just talk and no one we don't really have a discussion. She was kind of like yeah I she wasn't a huge fan of board comments just being an open period. Yeah. Right. Right. Right. So I would probably say she'd support that being use of board comments being agenda time. Yeah. Because she was a supporter of the idea as a board if there's an individual board member who would like to see if the board's interested in having a topic discussed that you would all provide a consensus whether it should be placed on the next month's agenda. Right. And then at that
152time it would that's then when you would have the bigger discussion. Right. Right. or a whatever month is appropriate because if there's things I'm just putting out there there may be topics that come up this with everything else needs to be decided on what meeting is coming up and also how much back like work others may need to do to be able to prepare us to make a good decision well we wouldn't we would be having on the next agenda for discussion not for any kind of action right and right like because we're saying I want to talk about this so next you put it in the agenda but just for discussion and I I think if you needed action then you would definitely want that may even be a follow-up meeting after that because
153Yeah. Yeah. I mean but there's going to be I think there's going to be agenda items that maybe just for discussion like you said that we may need some education to us from staff to help us get up to speed to understand all aspects of it to be prepared to have a discussion not necessarily make a decision. I'm just trying to say that there maybe is it may not be the next meeting because of whatever the topic is. Yeah. I don't think I don't think there's like a sense of urgency around it. I think it's just more like a is everybody else interested in talking about this at some time. Well, I would but then we would have that on the action item. You would it'd be in so many places. Yeah. I I don't
154want to use the sometime like I don't think you meant it literally, but I would ask that like what So what is our parameter around that? So, if we say, "Hey, I want to pull Craig." You're like, "I'll find what agenda it falls in." I think we need to be able to have that on our our list so that we make sure it gets onto an agenda. Yeah. Which one? Yeah. But I don't know what that looks like. It would stay on the action. I think it just do an action item. The action item is future agenda item. We're interested in talking, you know, bicycle locks or whatever. Yeah. Okay. You know, at schools or whatever it is. And then so when does that get updated with the month or whatever? So that that person
155just again so that if I'm asking for it to be uh I pull yes I know it's going to be put on agenda and I don't have to follow up. Correct. So but how does that what does that Yeah. So it can do you mind if I ask another clarifying question too to Danielle's point is uh did I hear that you would want to put it under action? No we're trying to we're saying it wouldn't be an action item. It's a discussion only. Yep. Okay. So then Danielle you're saying if there's consensus Yeah. that would then go to the next let's say I pull in March and we're like there's no way that we're going to talk about this before May and we're like okay and there are June agenda like that's all I'm saying
156is like could that be part of our yes to-do list thing yeah well I don't know do you make that decision I don't know who makes a decision but if you all have consensus on it as a board there's a a majority consensus that you bring it up in March but yeah we all agree we're going to talk about it in June right yeah then I think on that list we track it out We have a board agenda tracker document that we use as a cabinet team with Cindy. Um so it it we kind of also are tracking things and I think it's fair to say okay let's just we'll target it for the next meeting if something comes out. Yeah. It's incumbent upon me to say hey we we identified it for this but
157because of X Y and Z reason we'd like to postpone it a month. Does anybody have a particular concern? So nobody is surprised about it. That's my responsibility as board president in my opinion for being able to manage that part of the agenda. Okay. All right. That Okay, this is good. Okay. All right. Poll any meeting dates? Yeah. So, Tuesday nights, are we still the first Tuesday after the 19th or we the third Tuesday? What's our official date? It's generally the third Tuesday with with exceptions. What do we clash with? What is the sometimes park district, but they seem to be earlier? And then don't city council. Aren't they like a Yeah. Well, they do committee of the whole one day and then council the other day. Yeah. Okay. Monday, Tuesday. I looked at there's
158a lot of days we don't overlap with them. Yeah. They have a lot more meetings than us in general. Me too. I personally have like set my schedule around what's going on right now. So like you know what I mean? So like if we change it that might throw off some stuff but I'm person. Right. I would say personally for me I've kind of done the same and I kind of like even with my work right and I also think we've been doing this way for so long there's sort of an expectation of the community that they sort of people that are engaged that's what I that's why I I've brought it up is because the people who are engaged have a very hard time floating between the various meetings on the same day right
159it's hard to stay informed when you can't go to them if they when they do fall on the same day I think lately they haven't been somehow but there's been tons of days where they are on the Um, so I think for some people who want to stay in front, they got to pick one or the other. Or for us, I can't go to park or I can't, you know, I'm not going, but if I wanted to go for some reason, we can't do it. And that is the only reason why it was brought up. And if I'm one person, so if y'all don't The only thing I can think of is our meetings are already set for the next year, right? Yeah. This is for like next year. I think maybe maybe this will
160be an action item. Come next February, we'll talk about it. Okay. I mean, I think that's just when the when the I think that's a good when the next one comes up. I don't know if it's like next February floats out there for seven months. You're the first test of the system. Yeah. When do we Yeah. Yeah. Actually, the parameters we follow isn't really the third Tuesday, although they tend to fall on the third Tuesday. The parameters parameters we follow is preferably after the 19th. Yes, the first Tuesday after the 19 duties. Um, which actually institutes a bit of a randomness in it that pushes it around a little bit. I will say the Tuesday thing, the administration and Cindy and Tom and others do a good job pulling the board book together by that
161Friday. And because of the Tuesday date, we actually more time to review it, right? Than would now if it was Wednesday, it's a little too early to ask them to issue it on Tuesday on that Friday because that's well far in advance, right? Right. So then now they're not going to issue it till Monday. Friday is a death nail to meeting dates. Thursday, I probably would just have a hard time getting to any meetings because every other municipality, libraries, and whatever also pick Thursdays for some reason, like a lot of other ones do, you know? So, it's it's I I feel like the Tuesday actually gives us extra time to review and sit down and kind of consider things and I think we get better questions because of it. Maybe it's something we just monitor
162over the next year and see how many questions there are or if we get additional feedback from I mean maybe that's the other thing is I mean I know you said you hear from people that you're you discuss and work with but I don't hear it from anybody. Yeah. You know and that's why we record it so they can watch it two days later and they can certainly send us an email if there's something they don't like or reach out. So because actually a lot of school districts don't actually record their meetings like we do. It's amazing. Yeah. Okay. So currently keep them on Tuesday. No change on that. Do we need to uh what what do we decide about adding in that day for special meetings? I think we decided it we would try
163to identify particular topics that are atypical and we would do special meetings for that. I think we just figure out what works calendarwise for people to make sure they can attend. discuss setting a meeting because of I think Tom Tom spoke to it because of our need to post it because if it is a special meeting and so I I don't know if it was Laura I don't know who had talked about that we just have a day every month and if we don't use it we don't use it just cancel but it's slated but I don't think we finalized I mean if we we could do the first Wednesday of the month to try to get it off of a Tuesdays for a special meeting date and then try to we all try to
164block it out or something and then we go there. That was the discussion. Thank you for reminding. Yeah, that was try to identify if we're going to do a special meeting, it's going to be on that and everybody tries to clear their calendar for those nights as needed on the alternate dates. That was what was put out there. So, so like the presentation we're having tomorrow would always we'd have days that would be like a placeholder for those candidates. We would say the first Wednesday of the month or the Wednesday after the board meeting, whatever it may be, is the special meeting day or if like we're if if we're getting something that we need to um have action on, but we feel like it needs a bigger discussion than what our because the problem
165that we were talking about was how our agendas our discussion usually fall at 9:00 at night, right? Okay. And so like it was a way of for us to take items to have a meeting just to have a discussion about various things that we may be taking action on later in the month. Um but also could be used for like the presentations. But yeah, because right now we're we were talking about like we just like DMG we we smash that into a full agenda nine o'clock at night and we were like we don't really have time for discussion when it's in our regular. Would you want to consider as a board starting your meetings at 6 instead of seven? I would say no for me because sometimes I'm traveling and I'm coming in hot and
166so that extra hour makes their Okay. And I think people work and so six o'clock would be tough for people to maybe tougher for people to arrive. You're still having a discussion in a in the middle of an agenda too or at the end of an agenda. So like you're it's not intended, right? But like I think a lot of times we're like, "Oh, we got to kind of get through this." Because there's things on top, on bottom, and and it's not for everything, but for things that maybe some of us feel like I want to have a bigger discussion about this. I don't I don't know how you frame that to be able to make it consistent and equitable for deciding what's going to need a discussion and not need a discussion, per se.
167can't figure out a mechanism that you would say okay this because sometimes we don't know the topics are coming up in our board we do we try to get identifiable items I think Tom we Tom and and company have done a good job of trying to identify ones that we think are going to need more intense longer discussion and we try to push those to two to new dates and see how that works. But I don't know if it's really dis I'm trying to figure out if it's a discussion as it relates to future action items. And unfortunately, one or two of the instances that happened this year were due to unpredictable circumstances that resulted in a very long close session. Uh that was out of everybody's control. You would not have predicted why we
168needed to go to close session at the start of the year. If I may interject to I've been attending board meetings for almost 25 years and I've noticed that there's a pattern with you know the issues that the board faces and um the age of the members who serve on the board. There's just there's a certain cadence and it changes some for for a long time. We go through really short meetings and then we go through a spade of really long meetings and it it's not it's not fixed. It has the tendency to kind of come and go for what it's worth. How does everybody feel about topic one even having alternate meeting dates? I'm be really honest. I'm white. So I offered up things that we could just pull them for future meetings. Right.
169I like right now I can't think about how I'm going to do scheduling. I know. Yeah. Yeah. So, I think there's just too much unknown in people's lives where I would I Yeah. I would say also like um because I'm thinking again like now we've opened up calendars to get I'm just hesitant to put another date on the calendar where we might be blocking things out. Like I think what I would hope is as a group we could identify like with these presentations there will be to to Ty's point there's going to be things that happen that are we can't anticipate that we'll necessitate very long meetings and we'll have discussions late into the night or early morning but then there are definitely things that we'll you know as a board we've sort of identified
170like these presentations from the buildings and from Tom that we know are definitely going to take so we're going to we we're making space for that But to put on the calendar another day just because then I'm even wondering like well what's our process for determining what goes on what goes on it a consensus I'll use the um strategic plan as a perfect example I know it's again these aren't things that are happening I don't want to say they're every month I think it was brought up to have a a meet a day because of the the need to have something scheduled yes it was whatever Tom you had brought it up and I think Laura and you were I don't know about what a special meeting what the notices, but it was different than
171our normal meetings. Yeah. I I would I think what we were just trying to highlight was if you're planning something where you know you want to have two meetings in a month, you know, when you plan out next year's calendar dates, for example, and if the board's like, you know, on this month and this month, we're going to be holding two board meetings, it's really actually two regular board meetings. And um there are just different parameters that I think Laura and I were just trying to explain that you can operate as a board from where there's a little bit more flexibility when it's a regular board meeting versus a special board meeting is when you're convening because there's something that was unanticipated or an emergency or something that you had to convene as a board.
172And those conditions are really specific and narrow. They're much more narrower. Um, and there is just a window of time that you have to allow to set up for the meeting. I think that part is a little similar like when we have to post our agenda 48 hours in advance. So there's some similarities in that sense, but with a special board meeting, the reason why the scope of that meeting, the way you conduct that meeting is so much narrower because it's intended for a public body such as yourselves to do it under emergency conditions to address something that's come up that you didn't anticipate. That one. So going back to the example is like we had that in a May meeting the day before graduation and it was so late at night and there was
173so much that led up to that. We had a massive public um comment session blah blah blah. This is one of the biggest decisions that a board can make for the district and we jam-packed it in that night and then the next month we were supposed to vote on it I think and we said okay we're going to wait and the next month we went and voted on it but we really didn't have a board discussion. I I guess it doesn't does it not bother you. It bothers me that we don't sit down as a board and have very much discussion on really big items. I'm not talking about like our consensus agenda, consent agenda. I'm not talking about maybe some of these things and I don't know what the perfect example is. Um like
174bullying to me would have justified a really lengthy discussion. But what happens is that we're in the middle of an agenda where we can't give it in my opinion the time and the space it needs. And I think that's where we've discussed having a meeting would be like a special meeting for it or whatever would be helpful. Um instead of doing it at, you know, again 9 10 o'clock at night when we're all exhausted. Um and then we're supposed to come the next month to do action when we really haven't had discussion. And I think that's where I've I've asked about it. Are you confused? Is you're looking at me? No. No. I'm just listening. Okay. You look stupid. This is me trying to give you my full attention. Is that okay? Yeah. Yeah. Is
175it making you uncomfortable? I can pivot back around this way. No, no, no. You looked a little like No. Okay. Okay. I just want to make sure like that makes sense. So then I guess the question is we'll just take the strategic plan in in May. So, I guess that if we ever have this again or something like that, then we would just say in our board comments like, "Hey, I think we need to have a special meeting next month to do that because I don't think I can say Yeah, I don't think we should have a placeholder every month because we're not going to have something like I didn't want the placeholder. That was what was recommended." Right. I'm just saying like I think we said so we can just kind of do I
176think that way is in the board comments if you feel we need to have an in-depth conversation about this thing can we pull can we do that and then can we do another can we do a board meeting in two weeks right just to discuss right this item this topic that's it like how you doing tomorrow we're having a board meeting just to go over that presentation And that's how that happened. We can confirm that. I think that is because that is in trying to make sure we wanted to give it the right make the decisions in a timely manner in a time when people are kind of expecting them. So like if a budget item comes up and we need to really really have a big discussion about that, but we don't think we're
177going to be able to get it in a meeting then someone could say, "Okay, yes, that's coming up. I think we need a discussion on that topic." Like in my opinion, DMG should have been for me one of those times and we're we're working behind that. like if we had something in place, I would have done in my comments, hey, I would like to us to have a more in-depth conversation because it was again sandwiched in the middle. To me, it's a big deal and it's a something that deserves our attention in our discussion. Um, so yeah, I just didn't know when when we were talking about it in our workshop, it wasn't clear if we could if that would be successful. Like can it can we make that work and is that like timewise?
178Is that okay? Does that um or is that against any rules or I don't think it's I mean, we we'll we'll we'll bounce it off and see, but I don't think it's against the rules because it's a one-time thing for a discussion on a particular topic that I think we would and it would be handled a lot like the polling situation of I think we have an agenda item. I don't want to talk about that at a regular meeting. Let's talk about that at a different meeting. I think it is essentially it is polling. It's another form of polling. It's just a question to ask, right? Yeah. Does anybody else? And it'll be case by case. If it's like, hey, we can't do a special meeting on that. We got to do it with the
179other. Hey, the board the the the the admin. I need to know Craig Meadows. I need to know this information to be able to have that discussion. They can't pull that together in two weeks. So, but we got to be careful about it. Like, it's tough, right? Because it's this job. You got to make decisions sometimes with the least amount of information possible. And I appreciate you're trying to make sure you're as you and the rest of us are wellversed on the topic and have an opportunity to discuss it. Well, there's like there's certain topics that I'm okay like ELA here. Brad did a great job of walking me through. I've sat in C. So, no, but yeah, there's bigger things that are determining the direction of this district. Yeah. And I think the polling
180thing is a good idea because I don't what you think are big important ideas may not I may not even think of them as that way, right? So I wouldn't know right now to say let's make those a specialized discussion. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So then I think handling it as kind of a polling thing was a good way to deal with that and see how that goes. Yep. Okay. So I understand. So what we decided was that uh in our comments at the end if someone wants a board member wants to propose I think this deserves further discussion in a standalone meeting. We could propose that. We're not going to have a date on the calendar that says this is reserved for that. We would figure out when it would occur, right? Is that accurate?
181Based on availability. That's what I'm hearing kind of from everybody else. Okay. Does that sound right to everybody? Yeah. Yeah. All right. The only one The only one that's left is officer term. Can I ask actually? Yes. Of course. Was there consensus from the board that you do want me and Cindy to reach out to Laura to see if we can schedule a future workshop? What did we get consensus on that? I can't remember. No, we didn't. No. I heard I heard one I heard you say you really would actually one of the things I thought on it was the to-do list thing but we just went through that and figured it out. So So no Aaron you going to propose the question. I thought I did but if I mean I'm one vote so
182if the other six people don't think it's necessary then Okay. Okay. Not or have Yes. Oh your proposal you would want one. Yes. I'm indifferent. If people want them, then I'll go. That's how I feel. I go with the consensus. I go with the majority. If there's four people that are indifferent, right? What does that mean? Does two mean? Yeah. Two or three yeses. Take it because I'm just And that's that's a little bit of a point. We will be going to lots of meetings. If it's it's a pretty good idea to talk about it, go up or down. All right. I'm going to Can I change my bolt then? Yes, you may. I'm not going to hurt my feet. I'm okay with either decision. I guess I'm indifferent. In different. Yeah. What did she
183come for when we talked about like the superintendent tool? Was that just one of our That was our We do this every year. So, we would do another one with her. And on that particular one, we asked her to come in and talk about superintendent evaluation process. Okay. So, my opinion, we do these every year. We just do this one as a board evaluation. And because it's on the years there's new board members, it's always set up as a starting, right? I mean, it feels like we kind of got to the rest of the items today, right, that we would have needed to. I don't know. I mean, I'm okay that if we like, look, if anybody feels uncomfortable and wants to have that, then just hit the eject button and let's talk let's we
184can get in a meeting and talk about it. Okay, we'll table that one for right now. Table it. Table it. Okay, tabled. Thank you. Maybe we have to have a couple more meetings as a board to see how we jive together. There we go. To be honest, the only one that was left on the list was officer terms. Now, technically speaking, that's a board policy. That's a policy thing. So, one thing that could happen is we have a policy committee let them review what they think of that topic at their own meeting another day and come back with what they think pros and cons are of that list. July, we got one in July. We have one on July. So, we could put it on the agenda. Okay. Does that make sense? So, it'll be
185on the agenda as a policy. The policy talked about it and we had a big discussion and said, "Yes, we want to do it." Technically, it still has to go to the policy committee. Right. Right. So my opinion is let them talk about it first, make a recommendation if they think it should or shouldn't be. Then we can have our discussion kind of at the delay or just after or after hear from us about it or Yeah. Say that again. Do you want to hear from us what we think about it or is it Sure. Or it's also open to the public so you can come on it. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. It's posted. It's posted so other board members could decide to come to that. People have attended some of them. Okay. July agenda,
186but we won't. So, what we would do is we would talk about then we would come and wherever we land and we would have a discussion here about it, right? What do you guys I guess I know why I had that on the list. Like I I know some of my thoughts, but you guys have you're going to look at the policy and there's not going to be anything to update. It's a little different of an ask, I think, isn't it? Well, we would just say that I think the there's people on the current board that want to change the policy to the term years, right? So the pros and cons of it, you know, and then you bring that back to us. That makes sense. There's probably also like regulations about how certain things
187work that we have the lawyers look at possibly because that's there's legal updates like this is legal language you can't change because of this. Yeah. So they give us notes that we review before the meeting and then we review it with Tom and Tony or whoever Brad they're like, "Well, the law says this or the recommendation of ISBY is this." And then we have our discussion about it and then we come back and we share it with the group. Okay. They don't change the policy. There's no No, I know. I was asking if it would show up like on our agenda agenda how the other ones have like its policy and then they present it. I think so. Yes. I mean, it could it lists out all the policies that we're going over. There'll be
188quite a bit on there because there might be other ones on top of that. Yeah. That was the last one I was. Yeah. You guys covered a lot and it's still only 951. Wow. I'll keep my board comments short. Are you going to filibuster now? Brought the phone book. If anybody remembers what those are for a second, I was like, what? What the All right. So, thank you. That was good discussion. So, appreciate it. All right. Admin comments. Tom, would you like to wake anybody up over there on the No, I just I just hope everyone continues to have a wonderful summer. That's it. Wow. Board comments. Please don't pull tonight. I did have an item I wanted to find. Well, yeah. So, we had an email from a parent and they gave a really
189detailed I don't know if anybody went through it. It was Lauren Mloud's RMS uh presentation on cell phones and um what was the other thing? Recess at the middle school level. And then um another parent emailed us and recommended a book and my interest in the initial topic was based on this book that it was R.J. that emailed and said uh have you read this? So I just wanted to know if anybody was interested in talking about cell phone usage at at the district level. Um I'm not as interested in the recess piece of it because I don't know how I think that gets more into like scheduling and stuff. Um, but if anybody looked at that and wanted to discuss it any further because I think they're waiting for a response probably from us.
190I don't know. I would have to go back and read the email. I guess the question is is you guys might know better, but is Pritzkar going to sign a law? Was he going to sign something in it? No, it's not signed. It's passed both chambers and is heading to his desk. I think it's going to end up being a stack of things that he's going to sign off on. Should we should we wait until sign? Okay. And then we can discuss how it's going to affect our policy. I'm fine with that. I think we do just need to get back to that parent or those two. I will get back. I mean, I think there's some things there that were extenduating circumstances of not getting back. But Sure. Yeah. No, I just it was
191outstanding. I was very interested and it was a great slideshow they put together on their free time and it had a lot of really valuable information in it. I've had a parent actually give me that book, the great anxious generation. It's a great book. I have not read it yet, but um there is definitely I think the community it's I know St. Charles has had last year had gone through their thing. I think this next school year they're implementing something. So I think people in Battavia heard about St. Charles and they're curious and all of that. So, I know that it's something that the community does wonder about and um the book is worth a read. It's a great audio book listen if um you're speaking my language. Yeah, it is. I have I have
192been in line in Libby for like they keep like dropping me because I'm like 400th. It's it's like I can't get Yeah. No, and I was going to say I listened to it through the library, so I at some point I was on the list for it, but it's that's how I took in the information and it is very interesting information. So, it's primarily about the cell phone component of that. Yeah. And because I think you're correct in your assessment, the other ones kind of fall a bit out of board level, the recess stuff. Yeah. I mean, I understand the tiein to it, but I think the cell phone usage would be more in our So, let's wait to see what happens with that and then it gets looked at from a policy because in
193reading some of that information, I was confused if it was a policy issue or an enforcement issue, right? More than anything else, that's enforcement issue. That's not necessarily our level. Yeah, that is because it's reasonably prescriptive and then what's actually enforceable. So like trying to keep kids off of phones on buses is going to be nearly impossible 100%. You know, and I'll make sure the board is alerted to any make sure you guys get that in my notes. So thank you. Yeah, that's a that'll be one that a lot of people are talking about. Okay. Okay. So, is everybody good with that? Do you feel that addresses your question? It does. Yes. Thank you. Okay. All right. Who wants to start? Do you have other board comments? would you join? No, I mean thank you
194uh Brad and Tony for the nuance and the context around those two items, the budget and the the was really helpful tonight. So, thank you so much and I enjoyed our discussion about all of our follow-up items, too. Thought we did a nice job with that. All right. Anybody else want to start? Kristen, I got nothing tonight. Got nothing. Support young artists on your t-shirt. I do like that. Hope everyone's still having a great summer. But uh also thank you to Brad and Tony for your presentations this evening. So happy Pride Month, happy belated Junth, happy Caribbean American Month, and I hope everyone has a safe and healthy and happy Fourth of July. Uh I'll say thanks to Dr. Newkerk and Dr. Engi. We had a good discussion. I enjoyed our discussions as a board
195as a whole. That was productive. I look forward to tomorrow night. the presentations we'll have tomorrow night. I hope people Yes. tune in. And I'll just say I heard from a little birdie that Mr. Kim had a birthday last week. So, I just want to go on the record and say happy birthday to Tom. Oh, you're happy birthday. Good guy. Congratulations on another trip around the sun. Thank you. No one will ever know my birthday. Cindy knows. Don't ever have a cake. No, I echo uh thanks Brad and Tony for the great presentations and filling us in and yeah, uh hope everyone continues to have a great summer. All right. Um I'm just going to echo, you know, um one thing I do want to say about I've been noticing a lot on the with
196the Pride Month and other things, a lot of really good information and posts being come out. So Holly, thank you for that for all of that. It's been insightful and educational all at the same time. So thank you. Um and then I hope everybody enjoys their summer as it marches along and try not to think about two months from now. So, all right. I will entertain a motion to adjourn. So, moved by Raquel, second, second by Katie. All in favor? I opposed. It is now 9:57 p.m. meeting is adjourned. Has anyone ever opposed