001is the Pledge of Allegiance, and this evening we have Brody Waylon and Parker Counterman to lead us in the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Moving to 6.3, we need a motion to approve the open session agenda for April 23rd, 2026 as presented. Motion. Second. All of those in favor? I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Moving to recognitions. So, we're going to press hold on the recognitions for about 5 minutes here as we're trying to get the There's some information that we need. So, we're going to move forward first real quick to district updates. Um today we announced Scott Swift as the principal at South Middle School as our
002administrator of the year. Scott's incredibly deserving as evidenced by his over 30 nominations for this award. Also, Scott decided to bring an end to his illustrious career uh after serving 18 years as a South Middle School principal. Uh congratulations to Scott, and we appreciate all he's done for the district. We also recognized Mrs. Jen Wall as our district substitute teacher of the year. Jen was nominated by the staff of Boone Trail Elementary, and subs as an IA, and really in any capacity needed. She's been working in the district uh on and off since 2015. Jen provides consistency to the BTE community, and has become a vital member of the BTE team. Congrats, Jen, on her also recognition. Our WSD Volunteer of the Year is Darlene Davis. Darlene was nominated by Crossroads Elementary, where she has
003been a frequent volunteer. Darlene shared that she is 85 years young, and absolutely loves being able to work with students. She said during the summer she longed for the school year to start so she can see her students again. I'm excited to say that she plans on returning next year when she'll be 86 years old. Congratulations, Darlene. Our Parents as Teachers team celebrated their move to the new Reach Adaptive Learning in the Samuels Early Childhood Center last week with a well-attended open house. Uh welcome to your new home, PAT team. And don't forget, oops, skipped one. Uh all WSD middle and high schools took time throughout this week to honor and remember the lives of those lost and impacted as a result of the Holocaust >> [clears throat] >> for Holocaust Education Week. Don't forget,
004we are currently enrolling for kindergarten. Visit the WSD website for more information. All right, when I call your name, you can come on up. We're going to start with our Distinguished Student Leader Award winners. Um Timberland High School students Grant Beaty and Audrey Rogers. Uh Aubrey Rogers received the Distinguished Student Leader Award from the Missouri Association of Student Councils. Way to go. Okay, up next, uh Liberty High School student Ellie Force was selected for the prestigious Missouri Choral Directors Association All-State Choir. Congrats, Ellie. Congratulations to all three of our students. The prestigious leadership award was put through the Missouri Association of Student Councils. Uh terrific award, very difficult to earn, so you should be very proud. All-State Choir, outstanding. Uh takes a lot of talent to do that. I was begging her to sing, and
005she would not cave in, so maybe next time. But, congratulations again to all of you guys. Next up is public comment. We did not have anybody sign up for public comment this evening, so we already did district comment, so we will move to consent agenda. We need a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented. Motion. All right, we have a motion and a second. Any discussion? All right, all of those in favor? I. >> I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Moving to section 11, old business. We need a motion to approve the August 2026 ballot language as presented. Do we need a We need a motion first, don't we? Actually, we'll let Tim present first. Okay. Good evening. Um we're going to start off uh we we talked about this a little bit quite a
006bit last month. Um going to start off with some review information, um and go through a little bit and have a discussion hopefully with the board and and determine where what our next step should be. So, starting off uh as a review as I do a lot, just reviewing the fund accounting structures that school districts are required to use. Fund one, general fund. Fund two, teachers fund. Uh those really Those two funds really impact students and teachers. Funds three and four are more more facilities and equipment. So, fund three is debt service, and that's what we're really going to be discussing tonight, and that's our principal and interest on bonded debt. And then fund four is capital projects. Um So, these slides you've all first few slides you we've seen before over the last 2
007months as we've talked about this. Uh we look at our capital funds versus bond funds. Capital funds are the pay-as-you-go annual budget allocations, small to medium-size projects. That's repairs, maintenance, equipment. That comes out of fund four. The bond funds are voter-approved financing, longer-term borrowing, large-scale projects. That is funded by our levy in fund three. Pays for our bond funds. Um as we've discussed, we have we've identified a large amount of facility needs. This 309 million is for our our buildings that are over 25 years old. If you remember back to our discussion on our facility needs assessment, we have just under another another 400 million uh in our buildings that are in that 15-to-25-year range. So, lots of facility needs that we've identified, and if we look at over the next 4 to 5 years,
008we probably have somewhere between 42 to 92 million available in our capital funds. That's our fund four money that we can project out. Um so, this these needs cannot be met with our existing budget. Limited funds available, large facility projects that are uh required. Looking at our our debt, our ability to borrow, uh State of Missouri limits school district to not having more than 15% of their assessed valuation in outstanding debt at any one time. So, that with our our assessed value of in 2025 at 3.7 billion puts our debt limit at at 550 558 million. Uh outstanding debt is about 231 million. Um so that puts our debt capacity somewhere around 330 million is what we are would legally be allowed to borrow in the state of for the state of Missouri. Okay. So
009we have the capacity to issue some more some outstanding debt. Okay. We showed this last month looking at our potential bond phasing. Um phase one we projected being at around 175 million and that's kind of the breakout of where we were at when at this point last month when we discussed this. Um Heritage, Holt, Wentzville Middle, the big big three pieces and then some safety upgrades. So this was phase one. After the meeting last month, we asked uh Horner to really refine these numbers. Make sure that we are on target. We're thinking correctly on these numbers. What do these numbers look like so that we are um you know, giving the board as much and as accurate information as we can. So um First of all, what are we including in the renovations? This is
010not just a um you know, a renovation of some ceilings and flooring and lights. We're looking at window roof replacement, the flooring, ceilings, lights, doors, new HVAC system throughout these buildings, new electrical system. So like the electric electrical service coming into the building, updating that, getting that to a new service, uh new fire alarms, data improvements, new plumbing, the plumbing service entering the building. We're really looking at fixing the guts of the building the and and also updating the things that people see. So um you know, when we talk about this, I view these as these are 20 or 30-year improvements to these buildings. If you do these things, you probably likely won't have to touch these buildings for another 20 or 30 years. So this should be a long-term fix for these uh buildings
011that we're looking at because we know we have other needs coming, right? So we want to take these, we want to fix them to to where they need to be, get them into a modern learning space, and then be prepared to move on to our other facilities that we're going to have coming in the future years. Um So looking at what are what what Horner has developed for us, some updated cost opinions. Okay. Um So the Heritage renovation, just looking at a straight renovation of the existing Heritage building. That's about 50 million dollars. Okay. If you remember uh when we had prop our prop last April, we had talked about adding a storm shelter and some classrooms around that storm shelter and then uh taking down the oldest wing of Heritage that's not ADA compliant.
012So to do that, that structure is about another 30 million dollars. Okay. So that's where that total of 80 million dollars for the Heritage renovation comes from. The 50 50 million for the renovation of all existing facilities and uh 30 million for that storm shelter and classroom additions. Okay. So then we had them look at what would it what's it cost to rebuild on the Heritage site? Okay. So looking at our standard plan that we use for elementary. So think of Journey Elementary, that's our most recent elementary. You could build that footprint on the existing Heritage campus. It would be phased in a way. Uh we would start with the end of the wings and go out towards Academy Street. Uh start in the very back and so we would start building some of those
013and then once those got built, then we could tear down part of Heritage, move students from those classrooms into the new classrooms, and then continue with the phased approach until that's completely done. Um so this would include a storm shelter and we've also uh included some some funds in there for the renovation of the Academy gym building. So that's the old the existing the original gym that's there with a I think there's seven or eight classrooms that surround that. That's right there on the corner of Academy Street. Uh so that would stay. It would be freestanding from the from the existing from the new building that's built. Okay. We could determine how many classrooms we want to leave, but to do all that, that's about 65 million. So that would put a brand new building
014on the Heritage campus. Uh no ADA concerns, no uh elevators, you know, it would eliminate a lot of our uh issues that we have at Heritage with being spread out. So a couple options there to think about. Um Looking at Holt, nothing didn't really change much, went up a little bit, but like 65 million to renovate the Holt campus. Okay. Same thing Completely renovation, uh updating electrical service, plumbing service, all the interior things, you know, again, these should be 20 to 30-year renovations for those facilities. Wentzville Middle, about 35 million. Uh and then we asked them, what if we put a storm shelter at Wentzville Middle? Uh came up with a a plan to add a a storm shelter and about eight classrooms off that would be the north end of Wentzville Middle right in
015that grassy area out there. Uh so that would be about 15 million. So that's a a a 50 million dollars. And then that if you did that and the renovation at Heritage all three of those buildings would have storm shelters, would be fully up updated. You know, again, you wouldn't you wouldn't be looking at going back to the doing anything at those major at those campuses for 20 or 30 years. Okay. So then we started piecing these together, right? What are some options? And this is just this is just our discussion. This can be we can do anything that the board wants to do, but I've put together some options for you to think about, discuss, and you know, decide what how we go forward. Reminder to be on the August ballot, this has to
016be decided by May 26th. So doesn't have to be decided tonight, but can be decided tonight what that ballot language is, meaning the amount and the language that goes in there. So uh one option. So if you did the Heritage renovation at 50 million, Holt renovation 65, Wentzville Middle renovation without the storm shelter, so just we go in and renovate those three existing campuses as is, no additions, and do some upgrades of district-wide safety, you're looking at a total of about 155 million. Option two. Um if we do the Heritage rebuild and the storm shelter and keeping the Academy gym, that's about that's 65, Holt 65, Wentzville Middle same thing, no storm shelter, district safety upgrades, 170. Okay. So same thing as the 170 as the previous slide, we just added in that 15 million
017for the Wentzville Middle storm shelter. Takes us to 180. And then our fourth option that we came up with is if we did the renovation with the storm shelter at Heritage at the 80 million and then all the other things from the previous slides takes us up to 200 million. So again, those are some options. I'm not saying that's the only options. We you know, we can parse this out and discuss that and that's what uh the the purpose of this is. So here's kind of a summary. And you know, it it just basically is a review of the last slide. So option one at the 155, you get the Heritage renovation, Holt renovation, Wentzville Middle, safety upgrades, no storm shelters. The 170, rebuild Heritage, Holt renovation, Wentzville Middle renovation, and then so the only
018storm shelter you're really you're adding is at Heritage. Option three, the 185, rebuild at Heritage, Holt renovation, Wentzville Middle renovation, and then uh that includes the storm shelter at Heritage and Wentzville Middle. And then option four, the 200, the really the only difference is you're instead of a rebuilding Heritage, you're doing a renovation at Heritage. renovation and storm shelter. Okay. So in the in the board documents, there is some bond language. This is proposed. Uh I I had two copies in there. One was 175, one was 185. This is an this is one with the uh amount blank. Okay. So this is the part for discussion and questions. Where do we go? And that's what we're asking for the board to discuss and give us direction on how you want to proceed in in this
019endeavor. Be happy to answer any question. Yes, sir. Director White, when you're speaking, can you speak into your mic, please? Is that what you're looking for? Yeah, so I I like that rebuild at 65. Is there any other way to do that type of work at Holt or the middle school? You know, is there any way to like save some of the building and rebuild some of the buildings at older or the middle school? We we haven't really looked at that. Um you know, I I don't know that you have enough I mean it would it would take some investigation. Uh you know, and the reason we haven't is those buildings aren't the age of part of Heritage, you know, so Um I'm Brian, if you want to jump in on that. Yeah, we did
020briefly kind of run it through Horner and just say what are your thoughts? They they thought to rebuild either one of those structures would be significantly higher than a than a renovation. Um to be quite honest, we were pretty shocked when the numbers came back at the the rebuild renovation at at Heritage. Um what the reason that is is is the footprint of Heritage is massive. And so you're you're you've got a lot of space that's been added on with different elevations and everything else that presents some challenges that that are there and then like we talked about earlier, costs have just gone up for renovation and different things such as that. So Horner's you you know, that's why they said here's the information, that's what the number is. I don't think we can do
021unless we really want to talk about an astronomically high bond. Uh I don't know that I would be I mean if you just look at Hollow North alone Um and what what happened over there that the cost of that building was pretty significant. So I don't think we can do it. I don't know that the like Tim said, the building's old enough. I think it's it's definitely able to be renovated better than what a a Heritage would be. We struggle with Heritage just cuz there's so many levels of it. It doesn't mean it can't be renovated and and I would preface everything by saying this. I either way we go, whether we set a number or not, to me it's priority to get the Heritage community, the Wentzville community's input on where they kind of
022value this. So when we give this I you know, I think how important are storm shelters. I think the community needs to tell us that. You know, I think we need to say knowing the cost of a rebuild versus a renovation at Heritage, we know that Heritage has some some meaning and some sentimental value to people. What is that value at? Are you better off again trying to keep that sentimental value and rebuild and refurbishing it or you better off just putting a more state-of-the-art building in there. So I definitely want to get community input. Um if you look at that, we can do both options at about that 180 to 185 million 185 million, but that's that's where we're looking for the board. Is that the appetite or not? Hey, just one more question.
023On the rebuild at Heritage, is there any elevators in the rebuild? No. It would be the same It's the same plan as Journey Elementary or Journey, Wabash, all of our newer elementary are on that same footprint. So it it's it's that same design as what we are currently using. Have been using. The one thing we may do is add a few classrooms because of the size of Heritage, but it's the same exact footprint or same exact building, you just add a couple to the end of one of the the legs. So um one thing I just want to kind of just clarify. So tonight we're not saying this is what we're going to do. Like So we're not deciding which route we're going. We're just deciding on the ballot language for the amount we are
024seeking from taxpayers. So just because we say we want 85 doesn't mean we're stuck to this plan specifically. So I just wanted to clarify that for everybody. Yeah, and again, we don't need a final decision until till May 26th. So our next meeting is you know, if you don't want to make any decisions tonight, that's fine. We're just trying to get some direction on what do we want to do? What's the board's appetite? What What's our next step? Are you ready to make a decision? Do you want more information? Where are we at? Other than the value to the community, is is there any value in the refit versus the rebuild? Like is is there any mechanical value there? Like are you thinking it's going to last longer? I I have to think the new
025building probably lasts longer. So I'm just wondering like what's the juice squeeze equation here as it relates to rebuild versus refit? You know, I would think and Josh, I don't know if you have any thoughts on this, but I think that obviously the if you build it new, it's going it should last longer, but it they're also concrete block structures. I mean there's not it's not like they're going to fall down. We've done tuck pointing. You can do work. We've done the work to keep it in decent shape. So uh it's not like it's going to have to fall down or it's going to you're going to lose any anything on the the rebuild the renovation side of it. Um but obviously yeah, when you rebuild with modern construction techniques, you gain some efficiencies. Uh
026you know, one interesting thing, we compared the uh electrical usage at Journey our electrical bill at Was it Journey or Wabash? And it was it was half the cost of what it is at Heritage. Mhm. Um just due to the efficiency and and due to you know, there's lots of hallways. There there's extra hallways in uh Heritage because of the way it's spread out. There's more space that's not used efficiently. And so uh not to say that if you know, renovating that's going to definitely lower our electrical usage, but it's not going to get it to that same spot you are in a brand new building. I think the other thing to add with the renovation, if you leave like if you do the 55 million renovation, the there's no way to make the the
027one wing ADA compliant. You can't do it. It it would not be cost effective. You have to extend the building out and and drive it that way. So you would if you do renovation no matter what, you're still going to have one area of the building that that is not ADA compliant, which it is legal, but just to be aware when we're talking about that. So question or a couple questions and a comment. I would agree with what you're saying Brian with I mean we can make the decision, but I would love to hear from the community to find out would they rather rebuild, would they rather you know, retrofit what's there? Um Tim, help me out. I was trying to remember. I thought Horner said at one point we touch a building, do we
028have to Once there's certain things we have to do and I thought a storm shelter was one of those. Like if we do to go to renovate something, there were certain things that we were going to have to do. If you expand the building, you have to add a storm shelter. If you just renovate the footprint, don't change the actual footprint, then you don't. But if you expand the footprint in any manner, then you would be required to to add a storm shelter. Okay. And you were kind of mentioning too with either option, it sounds like both of them can happen while students are still in the building. Like we're not having to look at displacing students to other schools while it's being renovated cuz obviously this wouldn't be a quick build by any means.
029No, it wouldn't. I will say that the rebuild would be faster than a renovation. Cuz renovation we're we're mainly looking at summer. Uh that's when the work's going to happen. So you're you're talking multiple summers of you know, cuz you're our summers have We're we're we're two months really right now. I mean by time you mobilize and by time you get get ready for kids to come back, you're at two months. So you're looking at two months of work at a time in a building that's at capacity. You know, Holt probably has some has some capacity to move kids around where we can have some work that that areas that we can work in and continue during the school year. We did that at Timberland uh this year with our HVAC replacement. We've been able
030to move students and teachers around and have areas that we can continue to work, which has sped up the process than what we originally anticipated. So But Heritage, the way it's laid out, that that's not really an option. Um Yeah, and I just one of the things in as I was wondering when you said like renovation, like what's left? Like what what are we keeping? Just the concrete blocks? It seems like we're replacing everything else if we're we're renovating it. Um and I remember slide from a couple months ago that Horner showed us of just the envelope and you touched on it of like just the energy consumption these old buildings have. Um it's not just a 15 million one time that's the difference. It's it's an ongoing energy um issue in that building or
031any older building that we have too that we've got to keep in mind as well. I have a question for you about um any future building renovations and basically where the money would come from that. If we are lucky enough to have approve whatever amount of from from this discussion tonight or or for the August ballot. Obviously that will not cover the cost of everything that we need to renovate, you know, forever. So what would the future like let's say once this money is is it it just be up to future boards, future community to continue to approve that sort of thing? >> Yeah, I mean it goes back to the the phasing that we that we presented last month. Like you know, you're at the district is at a point and again, in our
032estimations that we put out there last month were extremely conservative. We were looking at 2% growth and and we were we were basically doing 175 million bond issue every four years. So that is well within the capability of of where the district is at at its its current levy. Um that would be up to the future boards to decide do we go to the public to continue with this pro- process. What's the needs? How does that look? You know, we will continue to take our existing capital funds and do the projects that we can, but those funds are extremely limited, right? We're that 40 to 90 So, we're looking 40 to 92 million over 4 5 years. So, we're you know, we're talking at 10 million or so dollars a year that we can uh
033possibly do. So, that takes a long time when you you're looking at numbers at uh 50 million for one building. Um so, it's it would be hard to do this without doing the the capital uh planning and and bonding strategy that we're we're we're looking at or some type of bonding strategy. Anything? When we go back in looking at our fund accounting, that's what that levy is for. That levy is there to take care of our buildings for 50 years. These buildings are meant to to last these kids of the Wentzville School District for well past any of us. And that levy is there to take care of those. We just have to go to the voters and get approval to continue to use that levy for that purpose. I'm [clears throat] I I guess
034I'm curious. How do we ensure that we only dig out once? Is Is the concept here that we have these phases, we implement if we're afforded the opportunity to do so, and then the improvements or renovations or rebuilds allow us to not have to be in in sort of this deferred maintenance situation that we're in now for a very long time? Cuz I think that's that's where my head goes is like, how do we ensure that this concept is future-proof? So, I think part of that comes down to and again, we've talked about this. Wentzville experienced such a massive amount of growth that the the bonding capacity was used to build new buildings to house students. And if you start to see that growth level off, which we have in the last 4 years, even
035though new developments are coming in, our enrollment's been stagnant. So, it's it's it's interesting to see, you know, we're going to do a demographic study. We talked about a redistrict. So, if you're not in the the spend mode of having to build new buildings, which is why I showed uh last month, I think it was, where we had 5,000 seats available still in classrooms or in buildings. The idea would be you continue then to use that that the capital budget to improve things and things like that. You come back. You're not ever going to get to a point in a district this size where you don't have to go for bond issues. The idea is you hope that these bond issues don't have to be at this level because you're replacing HVAC, you're replacing roofing,
036you're replacing that. And so, as long as the district has a plan to continue the deferred maintenance and keep up with the maintenance plan, you you should, once we get on top of it, have the ability to do that. Um the one thing we laid out, too, is that roadmap. And it it shows the map kind of the age of your buildings. And our buildings are definitely chunked together. It really showed that well. Um and we know there's a big ticket items coming with with Timberland and all of those as well. And then after that, you're hitting Liberty area where that's going to be 20 25 30 years old as well. So, once you get past that, you have to continue to maintain the buildings. That's really what the capital outlay's for. That capital projects,
037that that's to replace playgrounds, that's to do the smaller HVAC, that's to keep roofs up to where they need to be. And then if you need to replace full roofing units, then you come back and you say, "Okay, this is outside of the capital budget. We need to go back and do that." Hopefully, those numbers aren't to that same level. Um and that's what we were mapping out when we were trying to show like the facilities improvement plan, the bonding strategy plan, and we're trying to marry those together so they that it it keeps the district moving forward. Again, like Tim said, well past us, the plan will be in place for them. Anybody else with any questions or comments for Tim or Brian? Just uh just a couple follow-ups. Um how roughly, assuming we
038get this if this you know, if we as a board decide to do this, put it on the ballot for the voters decide, if it passes this fall, renovations would start next summer? Roughly? And then or how soon how soon would the renovations start? And then roughly, how long would we be looking at this phase taking? Again, ballpark. Yeah, uh some some level of renovations would be able to start next summer if we pass it in August. Uh that's what we talked about in that first meeting that if we wait till November, you're you're probably not ready to get any work done this summer. Um the if you do a new construction item, that's obviously going to take a little bit longer in planning, permits, some of those type of things. Uh so, that may
039not start right away in the summer, but definitely some of the uh roof replacement, HVAC replacement, that stuff, uh you know, if if we had have approval in August, you can get that stuff out the door and ready to go in the in the summer. Uh again, it's going to be several summers of renovation if we're looking at this from a renovation standpoint. I can't say I would say it's at least three summers um depending on what we're able to do uh you know, new uh Holt being 170,000 square feet. It's a it's a large facility. And if you're looking at a total renovation of that facility, that's it's just going to take a take some time. So, it's going to be multi-phase, multi- uh year approach. Uh again, the new construction is obviously going
040to go much faster because they can continue working uh the entire entire time. It doesn't have It's not dependent on summer work. So, I I I kind of talked around it, but it's multiple multiple years. Um and then just one more. I know we saw and I think in something that you guys shared with us just how from last fall to now, how much the costs have gone up. Is there concern that but depending on where we go with 175, 185, somewhere in that neighborhood, will those costs stay roughly there or we thinking things could still go higher? Like will we still be able to do what we want to do if we pass or approve that that number to go to the ballot? We have built in contingencies in these numbers that we think
041will cover that. People that were doing that in 2019 thought they were going to be covered until 2020 came, too. So, I I mean, but I think we have we have been very conservative in the budgeting and we've allowed for uh phasing, extra dollars in there for phasing, uh you know, the ex- escalation of cost, we've built that in. Um so, we've put money in there for that. It's hard to say. I I I feel pretty confident about or feel good about the numbers that we're showing you and the ability to do the work that that we're saying. Um I'm not going to say today that I guarantee it, but I I feel really good about where they're at because we have put put money in there, but you know, a global pandemic happens and
042costs go out of you you just can't guarantee on on that, but we have considered that. We have built in cost escalations. We've built in phasing escalations. We've built in contingency. We've we've put dollars in there to account for those uh those costs, yes. All right. Any other questions? Um I guess is there any um benefit to choosing something tonight versus the May [snorts] board meeting in terms of an amount? Um Is there a benefit to to deciding that today or next month? I I think, you know, if you're going to ask my recommendation, this is what I said when uh President Scott asked about a motion. I I lean towards let's let's wait till next month. Let's get the information and see what the thoughts are. Uh kind of do it ala carte. Now,
043if we think that the number's 180, then you know, we present that number and we say, "Here are the options we can do." Um and and go that route. So, you know, I think the big the big discussion for us is when you look at it it what's the board's appetite here? Like what I would say is I don't want to go out there and say a rebuild's an option if we're saying 155 million's the number. That that's not that's not what we're looking at there. That's just renovations across the board. We're not going to be able to do more than that. Um I also don't want to say that I think 200 million's the right way to go cuz I don't I don't think we should go with that number. Um I think that's
044too high and I think it it doesn't really It's not justifiable to me. So, I think the real question in my mind is you get into that between 170 and 180 number and you really need to know, what do you want to do with Heritage? I mean, do you want to rebuild it or do you want to renovate it? And then we also need to know the other key here is the storm shelters. I'm a big proponent of the storm shelters. I I think they're a huge safety uh benefit for our students. I I like that they can have that in in their buildings. I think it's important. Um but you know, we also have to decide, where does that rank in the importance level? So, that that's where I'm at. I I personally think
045we survey, get that information, but I I would say the benefit for us would be, do you want to remove any of the options so we know those aren't options? You know, I I was going to agree. I just didn't know if there was a benefit to deciding today cuz I think giving everybody a month to put their input in on what they think is important, do a survey, make that decision next month on, you know, what amount we think we need to go forward with based on what the community kind of tells us. I think that sounds good. Any other board comments on that? The one thing I would add there, it locks you in to absolutely must make a decision in May. Like they can't go past May or else you will miss
046the window for the August if that's what you want to do. And if we choose to do that, that's fine as well, just understand when you go in November, you're delaying the opportunity for summer work to occur by the time you do all the permitting and everything else. So that's the only thing I would say with that, just be cognizant of that. Thank you, guys. I guess if we have, you know, general consensus from the board, we will revisit this at next month's meeting. Sound good? Okay. All right. Thank you, guys. In new business, we have 12.1, approval of the 2025-2026 academic calendar seniors and last day. So due to unused snow days, the last day of school we're suggesting and recommending be moved to May 22nd, which would be the Friday before the holiday.
047And seniors, your last day would be Tuesday, May 19th. Um again, that meets all the requirements of the state requirements for academic hours provided, days provided, the attendance incentives incentives that come. So our recommendation is to adjust that. This language is called out in the union agreement as far as forgiveness of any unused snow days, so it is part of our agreement to do that as well. Do we have a motion to approve the updated calendar for seniors and last day? Motion. Second. Any other questions or discussion? All right. All of those in favor? Aye. >> Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Next, we need a motion to approve the Apple devices for K-6 and partial device refresh for staff members. Motion. Second. All right. Discussion? I can ask Dr. Brettschneider to provide some talking points
048at this time. Katie, will you do that? I also have the expert in the district, Greg Lawrence is here, too, and so he can help us answer questions today as well. We've really been researching and looking into what is the best transition for us going to be. We have something in the district called faculty advisory. We are working at our high schools just with Chromebook repairs and just some very aging devices. And so we have kind of been looking at several different options for our educational technology route. Last year, we had the opportunity in two of our elementary schools with some of our title funding to purchase iPads for third, fourth, and fifth grade and replace the Chromebooks that third, fourth, and fifth graders were using in those buildings. And so we had two buildings
049that went K-5 iPad system this year. Um just kind of to try it out and see how it went and start small to hopefully go big. Um And so we kind of we made that transition this year. We have tech coaches that have been in supporting those teachers, looking at different instructional paths for using iPad devices. We have gone back and forth with the implementation of keyboards and what that looks like with an iPad device. Um we also had conversations about using an iPad very similar to a Chromebook and that you can use that screen and you can use Chrome in a very similar way. Um but really our goal is to enhance our learning and not to sit in front of a screen and and do word processing. So we have decided that that
050transition moving forward to move the remainder of our third, fourth, and fifth graders to from Chromebooks to iPads because every year in our budget, we put money in our budget to replace iPads and to kind of bring up phase the old ones out and bring the old the new ones in. Um And so what this would do would it would take the old some of the older Chromebooks that are that are not in great shape. We're missing a lot of keys and some are falling apart. And replace those with iPads, take some of the newer ones and cycle them up into seventh and eighth grade and into the high school. And then roll sixth grade iPads into the middle school for sixth grade and keep Chromebooks seventh through ninth or seventh through 12th for next
051year with the [clears throat] intent of investigating what that looks like rolling forward. Um really where our goal is is we have multiple operating systems and multiple devices throughout our district and so it makes it very difficult for our techs to service and to help our tech coaches to coach our teachers when we have Chromebooks and Apple devices and window devices. And so we're really looking to streamline a lot of that. Our teachers have been on Apple devices for, are we going on five fish, six years now using MacBooks and Apple iPads and streaming on two televisions through their Apple TVs in their classroom really to make them more mobile in the classroom. The other piece to the benefit and we've been doing a lot of research with other area districts that have have gone
052this route is the use of Apple Classroom and screen monitoring. That was something that our teachers are have really talked about that they are very interested in using and being able to lock down computers or push out computers when or push out apps and programming when it's time for kids to do that as opposed to them being on or going somewhere they're not supposed to do going not going where they're supposed to go. Um and so so those are all things that we've taken into consideration. Um We are open to questions. We can talk through some of those things tonight. We are happy to do so. I will probably lean on Greg. He has been working tirelessly with a lot of our tech coaches and our tech technical operations team. It's been a lot a
053lot of conversations and a lot of what if we did this? What if we did this? What if we So it's we've been going back back and forth for a long time. But really looking to get um a device in our kids' hands that they can create with and not word process with that they can kind of take their learning to another level. Um all within the restrictions of, you know, how the teacher is going to implement this and integrate this into into some of the things we have going on in the classroom. So. Thank you. Do any board members have any questions or comments about that? Um oh, go ahead. I just had a question. Are these leased or are these purchased? We looked at both options and we decided to go the purchase
054route just with some of the funding uncertainties and some of the things that we've been talking about at um at the government level, we we decided to go the purchase route just to ensure that we were making that one-time purchase and we wasn't a recurring cost we had every year that maybe we couldn't afford someday. So. Uh just a comment. I I think that unifying technology is going to make it a better companion to learning. Um and I just want to say thank you for putting this all together and bringing it to us because I I I really think that if if we look at technology as a supplement to student outcomes and not sort of just something that sits in front of kids in a classroom, uh this is super thoughtful. So I would
055just a note of thanks for this one. Yeah, and I just wanted to ask the the question just for for clarity, right? The intent here is to change the underlying device that the kids are already using for infrastructure they're already using for instructional things, not necessarily to introduce new instructional methods with the device. Correct. So we are we're not looking to introduce new instructional methods for our teachers. So our our classroom teachers currently are on MacBooks and they are teaching from they are mobile in the classroom with their iPads. What this would do would our Chromebook devices that we use for our Google Suite and things like that would then we would access some of those things on iPads and then all of the additional enhancements that we could have with iPads as well. Thank
056you. I do want to add some people have asked questions about keyboards. So as everybody knows, the iPad has its own built-in keyboard. If you choose to utilize it that way, that said, we also will be purchasing and we did in the elementary schools some external keyboards that can be checked out if the if the staff member or if a student needs one of those. What we found in the buildings that we piloted is they really weren't utilizing those. The buildings we visited at the middle school level really didn't utilize that either. The kids were very proficient on just typing on their iPad that direction. But if if the decision's made and somebody says we need an external keypad, we will have those that are that plug into the device as well. Any other questions
057before we vote? All right. We have a motion and a second. All of those in favor? Aye. >> Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you, Katie. And Greg. Thank you, Greg. Uh next is 12.3, the first reading of new policy 5218, cardiac emergency response plan and rescission of policy 2831 automatic automated external defibrillators. 12.4 is the first reading of revisions to policy Okay, 1610 protection of student rights. 12.5 is the first reading of policy 1621 title one program requirements. 12.6 is the first reading of policy 2100 non-discrimination and student rights. 12.7 is the first reading of revisions to policy 2150 searches by school personnel. And 12.8 is the first reading of revisions to policy 2230 admission of students residency requirements and exceptions. Last but not least board member comments. Anybody? I do actually have a
058comment. >> I just have one quick one. I just want to give a shout out to all of the Wentzville so Timberland Holt Liberty and North Point the students that all went to FBLA state last Saturday or Sunday Monday Tuesday congrats on doing a great job there. I heard lots of Wentzville schools being announced at the top 10 awards and good luck to all those that advance to Nationals. And I just wanted to thank the curriculum team. We approved a ton of curriculum on the consent agenda today and as I was reviewing it. I just was blown away by all of the work that has gone into each and every one of those and I know you guys have really worked hard to update that for our students. So thank you. Motion to adjourn. Second.
059Second. There you go. All right, we have a motion and second. We need a roll call vote to adjourn. Secretary Wiesenthal. I. Dr. Johnson. I. Director Way. I. Director Wilson. I. President Scott. I. Vice President Welsh. I. Dr. Schultz. I. Motion carries.