Board of Education Meeting March 20, 2025

001Order and approval of open session agenda. We need a motion to approve. Motion second. All in favor? Any opposed? Motion carries. All right, moving on to 7.3 pledge of allegiance. We have a special guest today. Grant Barkage, first grader from Dwell is here to lead us. 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. Thank you. Thank you, Grant. All right, moving on to recognitions. I'll hand this over to Superintendent Bishop or Bin. Okay, Brenn, all yours. This month, we're celebrating our dedicated school board members. Communities across the state are honoring the dedicated service of their local boards of education month. Our board members devote countless hours to making critical decisions for the

002schools in our community. We recognize the importance of these men and women and the vital role play. We are pleased to take this opportunity to to thank each of you for your time and commitment to public service on behalf of all of the students, staff, and stakeholders in the Wsville School District. At the table as you walked in, you will find a small token of our appreciation from the Wsville School District. This year, your gift is comprised of items created by Hol and Timberland High School students. Now it is my pleasure to introduce the Dwell Trouble Makers Choir for a little recognition showcase. Thank you so much. That was exceptional. I have goosebumps. I absolutely love that. Uh so moving on to public comments. We have eight speakers tonight. Um Sophie Pena is our first

003speaker. I hope I said that correctly. You'll have to push the button and Yep, there you go. Okay. Do I start? Um, good evening. My name is Sophie Pena. I am a sophomore at Liberty High School. At Liberty High School, we have a group called Students Demand Action. Students Demand Action is a nonpartisan organization centered around ending gun violence. Gun violence is the leading cause of death for young people in the United States. You might be wondering how this relates to Proposition L. I did thorough research on Proposition L through the Wville School District website. Some of the money from Proposition L goes towards safety and security in our district. Some of these upgrades include the final safe defend phase, upgraded security cameras, and intercoms is needed. SDA is trying to change things on the

004local, state, and national level, but we can't do this overnight. So, until then, we must plan, prepare, and prevent. Proposition L helps us as a district do just that. I ask that we continue to endorse Prop L as it will help keep the students, staff, and educators of Wville School District safe. Thank you. Moving on to our second speaker, Rebecca Messik. Good evening. I want to address the rampant attacks on the teachers union from members of the board and also current board candidates along with gross amounts of misinformation that are being spread online. Here are some facts. The Wsville NEA is a labor union that serves WSD staff. We have a unit for certified staff, a unit for nurses, and a unit for ESC's. I have confirmed that all three of our units currently hold

005the majority of these staff groups. The Wentzville NEA has five officers, nine members of our exact board, 54 building representatives, 30 members on our negotiating committee, and 10 members making up our pack executive board. That's over 100 volunteers just serving in leadership roles of the WNEA across the district. All leadership roles of the WNEA are staffed by volunteers who are also teachers in the Winsville School District. Nobody outside of the WSC is running the WNEA. So then you can see why it is so damaging for board members and candidates to be speaking so poorly about our union. In the last month, I've heard that we are grooming or indoctrinating children or pushing subversive ideologies. We've been called crazy and a cancer to our schools. Our union is just teachers who care about our students, our

006district, and the future of our profession. So, just know that when you or someone that you like or follow on social media calls the WNEA a cancer, you are directly referring to over half of our staff. More facts. The endorsements of our schoolboard candidates are made from our pack executive board, which is a group of volunteer teachers. Our pack funds are donations collected separately from our dues. And how we spend those pack dollars is also decided entirely by our volunteer committee and then voted on by our leadership. Nobody from outside Winsville is making any decisions for our pack. Contrary to recent comments that the WNEA has infiltrated the board by filling it with our endorsed candidates, only three of the current sitting members of this board were ever endorsed by the WNEA. Last school year,

007only one sitting board member was. However, regardless of which board members are endorsed by us, once you are elected, we strive to work collaboratively with all members of the board. President Lizac and Director Lewis, though never being endorsed by our union, have both sat down with me personally to talk about issues as well as sit in on our union negotiations. And yet, when board members communicate with the union and respect our opinions, they are mocked online and it is said that they are in bed with the union. If the union is the staff, why are we mocking a collaborative relationship? Online, board members were called communists for approving a union contract. It does not have to be like this. The WNEA has been in Wsville for 50 years and has never had so much hate

008and hostility. I continue to be ignored professionally and then constantly attacked online. I have been called a villain and a liar. Please remember that you set the tone for the community as a board member. Please stop spreading false narratives that our union is evil and doing anything other than what's best for students. And think twice before you call the WNA names. You're probably talking about your kid's favorite teacher. Thank you. Uh, moving on to speaker number three, I have Charles G. Good evening, members of the board of education. My name is Charles DRO and I am a student here at Liberty High School. I run I am the founder of Students Demain Action Liberty Wentzville, a student-led organization which advocates for gunsense legislation both at the state and national levels. I want to emphasize that

009Students Demain Action, the national organization we align with, is a nonpartisan organization. I will restate a nonpartisan organization. This is not about politics. This is about protecting lives. As students, the last thing we should have to worry about is gun violence in schools. But the reality reality is that America has a gun violence epidemic in the form of mass shootings, gun homicides, non-fatal assaults, unintentional discharges, and firearm suicides, which have affected schools just like my own. Every student across the country walks into the class with fear that they might be next. But why do we have to live like this? We need meaningful action, not just from elected officials, but from our entire community to keep us safe. That is why I'm in here on support of Proposition L. While it is ultimately up to

010the voters of our district to pass this measure, the school board has the ability to lead the conversation to inform the community and show that school safety is not just a priority, it is a necessity. Prop L is the opportunity for Wville to take action. Proactive steps towards making our school safer. It provides funding to enhance security measures, improve safe school facilities, and ensure that every student in our district has the right to a safe learning environment. And it does this all without raising taxes. That's an investment in my future and that is an investment for everyone's future. Spinning from students, teachers, parents, and the entire community. But this is bigger than just one vote. The schoolboard has the power to pass resolutions, provide critical information, and set a standard that other districts and the

011state leaders can follow. When students, school leaders, and communities come together to advocate for gun violence prevention, the uh prevention and school safety, we send a powerful message that the issue cannot be ignored. As young people, we are ready to take we are ready to partake in this change. We cannot do this alone. We need our schools and our communities to stand with us. So tonight, I urge everyone listening, not just a board, but parents, teachers, and fellow students to support Proposition L, to speak up about the importance and vote in favor of making our school safer because at the end of the day, our safety should not be up for debate. Thank you. [Applause] [Music] [Applause] Thank you. Uh, speaker number four, Jason Goodson. Good evening board. I'm here to speak about the continued

012rhetoric about the WNEA. Not the state or the national group, but our employees. It's very simple to me. To be anti-WSD, is to be anti-teer. Let me humanize this a bit. The WD WDNA president, Becca Messik, has been a teacher for 15 years in various subjects. She's volunteered her time across multiple committees to better WSD. She has two children in this district and her and her husband Matt have been here since 2010. I can personally attest her family is amazing. Her daughter runs track with my daughter and she's one hell of an athlete. WNA pack chair Trisha Mahoney. She's been a teacher in our district for 19 years in special education and credit recovery at Pierce Hall. She's a parent of a Holt grad who has two other kids in North Point. She's volunteered on

013numerous committees. Outside of work, you'd find her and her husband the last 20 years volunteering in Winssville at the St. Patrick's Church, Girl Scouts, and youth sports. VP Lenel Gilpin, she's been teaching for 22 years in our middle schools. And as she says, middle school is not for the week. She's also volunteered on numerous committees. She spent she enjoys most coaching the cheer squad, chaperoning, numerous school nights, fun dances. You'll routinely see her at her at our own students activities, sports, and clubs. I could go on. There are 700 plus members of the WNEA like Becca, Trisha, Lenel. They want fair pay, a voice at the negotiation table. Support from this board and this administration. This board sets the tone for how the community reacts to staff. Our unions and a select few of you

014do a terrible job. The fight over papers, copers, time doing union work, fighting with leaders on social media is a terrible look. It fosters comments from the community that we've seen time and time again. You see people saying that they are scum, that they're indoctrinators, that they're pedophiles, that make videos mocking them, calling them, you know, communists from China. You turn a blind eye to this and refuse to stick up for your staff. You hide in your echo chambers and ensure ensure you're only positively reinforced on your social media pages. This whole community should know the facts. Never once as my time as a board member did I see our WNEA pushing any of the national headlines you see today. A clear example of this should have been during COVID where that organization was neutral

015on masks. In negotiations I sat in for two years. Not once was any of the national rhetoric you see brought up or put into a contract. This body could relay those facts instead. Instead, you put gas on the fire and wonder why staff don't like it. There's a reason your favorite question is, "Why don't you like me?" The WNEA is not a boogeyman. They are our teachers. They are your kids' favorite teachers. They are not your enemy. Stop making them out to be. Stop with the political crap and support our staff. Vote Prop Bell and go Missizzou. [Applause] Thank you. Next up, Dale Schaper. Once again, thank you very much for letting me come before you this evening. First of all, I'd like to start out by spelling heritage. H E H E R I

016T A G E. I hit that Y coming off the T. Why? Because I have some questions for you, I guess. And I didn't want to talk about H possibly. What was Oh, sorry, Dale. Louder. Sorry. Louder. My question is on heritage is as we talk about renovation. I'm not against renovation. I always when I sit on this board want to make sure all our schools whatever it was was kept in a good shape and we should do that with heritage. But I do have a question. One side we talk about heritage on one hand that we want to renovate. On the other hand we have rooms that we want to tear down. I don't understand it. We have a cafeteria that we that we want to expand. We're going to lose two rooms by

017that. Overall heritage, we over the last course of the last few years, we're talking about what the rooms that we lose is probably 12 rooms. We've lost eight kindergarten rooms. We're looking at 20 rooms. That equals roughly 500 students that we're taking away from that building. Then we're going to turn around and we're going to build something. $6 million I believe is in there to create a traffic lane for students to enter and leave our school. We did this 15 years ago and we have less students today than what we have at that time in Heritage because we have less rooms that will be handling students. What concerns me when we start tearing down buildings that provides classrooms? Let me back up a little bit. We're going to tear down 10, but we're going to

018build 10 new ones. I'm not against this gym idea. If it I I can live with that part. But when we start tearing down buildings, when does it stop? At Heritage, it was going to be eliminated totally. It's not about the heritage of the building. It's about providing classrooms for our students. Then if we get done at Heritage, their next oldest school is Wville Middle. part of is a 1964 model only seven years after heritage on some of it. I I just don't understand where do we stop tearing down buildings. On one hand, you say you want to look for ground to build more buildings. We do have room for about 5,000 students yet in our school district if if we do our boundaries right. And and then on the other hand, we're tearing down

019buildings. This is an important time. I'm going to close with this. Our public I'll say it again. Our public education system is under attack. It's going to follow to Jefferson City. The decisions that you make on this board is going to be what drives our school in Wville and the public education system. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, Julia Lucenhaus. Good evening, President Lizac, Mr. Bishop, members of the board of education, and members of our community. My name is Julia Lucen House. I've been teaching in the Wville School District for 25 years, 33 years total. I have given my heart and soul to this district. And while watching last month's board of education meeting, as well as the vitrial that is flung on social media by those who know very little about what they're actually

020preaching. So true to my heart, I thought you might need a little lesson. You see, as a district, we're focusing on our legacy buildings, among other necessary improvements. But there's another legacy in this district that some of our board members and some in our community have actually forgotten about. That's our staff. Over and over again, I have seen my affiliation with the NEA mocked and bashed, myself, called more names than I even care to share, and been told that I believe in things that couldn't be farther from the truth cuz no one ever talked to me about it. Walinier is one of the charter locals in M&A, forming in 1974. Yes, we've been around here for a long time, and we continue to be the voice for our educational professionals. We are a local, which

021means that we run our organization. And by we, I mean your teachers, your counselors, your librarians, your nurses in our buildings. That truly means that we come together to make our decisions. Separate from the state and the national, we, your neighbors and your staff, make decisions collectively about what we do. Our state organization is available to offer guidance and almost more importantly to keep an eye on what happens in Jefferson City because we know all education decisions are not local. Our national organization attempts to make sure education is a priority at the national level, which is now an extreme concern. We choose our candidates. They don't they don't tell us what to do. We put committees of people who live and work here and they're the ones who make those choices based on our conversations

022about education, our students, and our schools. When it comes to ensuring that all students have access to a quality education, we take that very seriously. We carried that fervor into our conversations with our district leadership. Over the years, we have worked with the district on countless issues to look for solutions that support our students and in turn our teachers. The bargain document and process that was attacked last month is a full legal binding document that was created over decades of conversations, meetings, and cooperation protected by our state constitution. That doesn't mean we have to always agree and God knows we haven't. But we have continued to work the work continued the work that is so vital to ensuring that we have a great district. I'm dedicated to that legacy. I know all my fellow NEA

023members are dedicated to that legacy. A legacy where we look to the future. We look to improve. We look to respect each other's right to organize collectively to share our one voice with that community. And I truly wish all of our board members were listening. Thank you. [Applause] Thank you. Next speaker, Vanessa Hegedorn. Good evening. My name is Vanessa Higodorn. I encourage taxpayers to vote no on Prop L on April 8th. This may be surprising coming from an educator. Here's the truth. While the district may try to spin this as a no tax rate increase bond, there is no such thing as a free $135 million. It should be called by its real name, a debt responsibility extension. We are extending debt for future generations like our children. Winsville residents already pay an incredible amount

024of real estate taxes per year. In fact, we're one of the highest in the area. If you look at the real estate tax statement you recently received from the county, you'll see 73% of your real estate taxes go to this district. For the average family and homeowner, that's like writing a check to the Wsville School District for several hundred per month or more. The average family is struggling in this economy. More taxes or extending already high taxes is not the answer, especially when this district has proven time and time again it is not fiscally responsible. Remember the last propositions, Prop C and Prop S? It was supposed to increase teacher salary. Instead, the district froze teacher salaries but made sure admin got their raise. Or what about the $1 million plus dollars we threw at

025the incompetent superintendent for her early retirement? How about the 1.8 million we blew on corporate speak programs like Leader and Me? Regardless of how WSD wants to rename this, this is still a tax grab from stakeholders. And does this mean our senior citizens who just had their tax break will now see an increase in their taxes? Forbes magazine has a great article breaking down how this really works. It's called Yes, no tax increase bonds increase your taxes. It is simply tacking on more years of spending. I'd also like to go on record and point out that it appears this district is violating statute 115.646 by using taxpayer funds to campaign for Prop L. How much taxpayer money did the district spend on those fancy mail flyers asking taxpayers for even more tax dollars? Until we

026get new board members that don't rubber stamp everything and will apply critical thinking skills, we cannot trust this district with more of our money. Please vote no on Prop L, April 8th. Thank you. Last speaker, Donald Looney. Check. Check. Hear me? Okay. All right. Let's start. Uh, first of all, just want to say hello. It's been a while since I've addressed this body. Uh, might have thought I disappeared, but I'm I'm still around, still getting stuff done. Uh that being said, there are three things I want to touch on really quick and then I'll be out of the way. Uh the first one is this red I hear in our community talking about keeping politics out of our school district and things of that nature. I tell you the same thing I tell you all

027of my good brothers and sisters over at UAW local 2250. If you don't do politics, politics will do you. Why we talking about that? Cuz Prop L, right? Uh the districts basically, as someone said before, is asking for an extension to pay off some bills. Probably wouldn't have to do that if there wasn't a big lump sum of money taken out of the education budget at the state level by our newly elected governor who everybody seems to love. So, it's upon this district here to take care of itself, right? And I know y'all got different pockets and buckets where money goes, right? So, it can all get convoluted and for a simple lay person like me, I may not be able to understand, right? But when this district says they need an extension so they

028can take care of business, let them take care of business because it's all about the kids. All right, so that's that. Uh, number two, as always, when I step up here, I'm standing in solidarity with the members of the WNEA. Um, organized labor or the ability for laborers to organize collectively and negotiate with their bosses is a constitutional right. And so for all of our constitution lovers out there, you're being unconstitutional and unamerican when you badmouth a labor union, when you slander a labor union who is only uh doing what they're given to under the rights of the United States Constitution, under the rights of the Missouri State Constitution, and anywhere else you want to look. All right, so solidarity forever on that. Lastly, to the students and teachers of the Wesville School District. I

029love you all. You're doing a great job. Nothing is perfect. Nobody is perfect. There's always room to grow. There's always room to learn. I mean, that's why you're here, right? That's our slogan. Learning today, leading tomorrow. That's what we here for. Keep up the good work. I'm proud of each and every Well, I'm proud of about four of you. Keep up the good work. Look forward to seeing you next time. Take care. [Applause] Thank you. That concludes this portion of the agenda. Moving on to item 10, district comments. Superintendent Bishop, it's yours. Thanks, President Lisa. First of all, thank you to all our speakers for participating in the board meeting and sharing your input with us. We appreciate it. The transportation department is hosting walk-in interviews. Tuesday hosted one yesterday which had pretty good success

030and we'll be hosting another one on April 16th. So we're trying to promote that out there. Um the district will have an open house at Hold High School in the Commons to answer questions related to Prop L on April 2nd. On April 8th, the district will have two items on the ballot, Prop L and the school board election with four candidates running for the two open seats. We encourage everyone to go and vote. Tomorrow is the last day of school before spring break. I'm not sure who's more excited, our students or our staff, but they're both pretty excited. Uh, thank you to Hold High School, Timberland High School for making board appreciation gifts. North Point High School for providing dinner for the board tonight. And of course, we got to thank the develop troublemakers for

031their outstanding entertainment. I want to personally thank our board of education for the support they've shown me throughout my first year and for all the work and dedication and time they put in for the WSD. And finally, I want to make sure everyone has and wish everyone a very happy spring break. Thank you very much. Yeah. Um, moving on to item 11, consent agenda. We need a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented. Motion. Second. Any discussion, questions, comments? Yes. I would like to pull items 116, the link St. Charles County foster grandparent program 1113 Wsville Middle School Choices Program 11:21 Wagner Photography Services and 11:23 Memorandum of Understanding with St. Louis University to the end of new business for discussion. Separate vote. Anyone else? We have a motion and a second to approve

032the agenda as amended. Roll call. All in favor say I. I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Uh oh. Everything okay back there? Nope. Uh oh. Good job, Amanda. Okay. All right. Moving on to item number 12, old business. We have policy 5550, food service program meal charges. This is a second reading. We need a motion to adopt the proposed revisions to policy 5550. Motion. Second. Discussion. Director Lewis. Thank you. Just a question if I understand this right. In the past I and many other people I think donated money for the past two or the the the students that were behind. It looks like now it's just going to be written off so there's no need to donate money. Is that what we're saying? Can you maybe specified where in the policy you saw that? Well,

033it says now that it's just according to some rule law, it's going to write off. We're supposed to write off the loss. So, we would have to write off any loss. It doesn't mean that we're not incurring that cost. And correct me if I'm wrong with that, but what it ultimately means is in the past we had to become free and clean with them. And so now if we don't do that, we've got an issue there. But so we would write it off as opposed to paying it all out of debt. And again, I don't I don't know that that was really a big change within this policy. That's not what I've And again, Pat, I guess I'll have you jump in. You kind of created this pol or wrote it for us. So the

034the policy revisions are in response to an audit that was conducted by the uh by the state and one of the uh results of the audit was that we did not have any provision that provided for what we do when there are overdue accounts for student lunches. And there are specific regulations built in to the um to the food management service system uh for school lunches that we have to comply with. So the language that is being added to the policy uh complies with those regulations. I have a question if uh so we're not then excluding the possibility of there still being an ability for people to contribute to overdue or are we excluding that? We're not excluding that. So it's still something people can do. Well, I donated money so the kids could get

035a full meal. If you're just going to call it delinquent bad debt and write it off, are those students going to still be eating full meals? So, they lost the need for me to pay money if if they're going to get it anyway. That's what I was trying to get to. No, that's not the case. Um, it's still we would still do all uh collection efforts that we could to get this, but if we are not able to get anything, it's basically saying we can't use federal dollars to write off that debt. It would have to be local dollars. If as a district we came to that point where we cannot collect on it, we've tried all the methods that we can. a student moves, leaves a district, you know, they're they're not there. We

036don't have any donations to cover it. We would have to use local dollars to cover that debt, not federal dollars. Thanks for clarification. Any more discussion? We have a motion in a second. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Motion carries. One second. Now I got to go back. Sorry. Okay, we are moving on to 12.2, the early childhood center name responses. Uh, so we technically don't have a motion for this. I suggest that we collaborate on a name, come to an agreement, and make a motion to name the early childhood center. So, how about a Oh, yes. Yeah. I wanted to just speak for a moment on this. I was at an event recently and had a chance to visit with some of the teachers and leaders at Barfield and uh it was quite enlightening

037in what I learned about that and because some of the names that are being suggested for uh important people in the district. I didn't know them personally, but I'd like to recommend that given that this is going to be for Barfield and and the reach that we uh consider naming or that we name it the Mueller Center after the teacher, the instructor that was there and had a you know an end this year, I guess, is what happened. But I I think naming it after somebody that's important to the district and especially in this area of Barfield is is uh appropriate. Thank you. So, you're suggesting a name that's not on this list. Oh, it is. I didn't see that one. Near the bottom of the first page. Oh, gotcha. Okay. Do we know who

038Oh, I see it. Do we know who nominated? I know that there is a more extensive process if it's named after a community member. You don't need Okay. Yeah, as long as we have a name. We have a recommendation from Director Lewis. Does anyone else have a recommendation? No, I said support David's position. Okay. Um, a lot of the responses were uh the same naming it after North Point campus. And I kind of like that idea because if we have another early childhood center come up, it's probably going to be on another campus. and we would kind of make it a uniform naming process and also helps those kids with their school spirit identities um coming up the ranks in that feeder pattern or if that's how we end up doing it in the future.

039Um I mean I'm not opposed to naming it after someone but it was it looked like uh North Point something had the most votes by far. I would say I agree with Director Olsen. I almost half were a rendition of some kind of North Point early childhood. Um I think it makes sense personally, but David, so I like I David, I like your idea of naming it after somebody, but I also like the idea of keeping it continuous with North Point. I wonder is there a way to like to keep things consistent name the building North Point Early Childhood Center but then is there something else that we could name that would honor these I mean because I know there's also another one on here too um who is it sounds like has significantly impacted

040the community. So, is there something else we could do there to name to give them that recognition, but keep the feeder pattern kind of going? I I would say the only reason I don't like as of right now, we don't have plans for every feeder pattern to go somewhere. So, like this early childhood center will also have kids that will potentially go to Hol or Timberland and etc. Like Barfield doesn't align with Liberty. So they're just not I don't think they're necessarily aligned with the feeder pattern. That's my only thing. Do we technically need because we have the early childhood center and we have reach. So do we need two names? No. Reach is reach. Reach is reach. Reach is reach. Um well it kind of sounds like we have a two and two. Bezenthal

041could go either way. Julie. Okay. We have three and two. Renee, I really liked the Cubs just because it's next to North Point, which they're the Grizzlies. I know Cubs is also heritage, so maybe Bear Cub. And then like David said, name other parts after somebody. So for Cubs for the mascot or like the name of the building? Oh, for for like their mascot. What about the name of the building? Oh, well that's an idea. No, no, no. Um, what do you think? You said Cubs is an idea. No. What do you think the name of the building should be? Do you want to go with Do you like Mueller early childhood or North Point early childhood? With it being Mueller and I think it would be cute if their mat was the Cubs. Bear

042Cubs. Do we know what the Mueller story is? Well, so that's part of the process. So if somebody nominates a community member, there is a pretty ex extensive policy uh required of the person nominating uh the individual. It's like an application process. So we can start that process with that person. If they still want to come forward, continue that process. If they say thank you but no thank you, then it sounds like maybe North Point Early Childhood. Do we have a consensus or would we like to vote? Can I make one suggestion though? If you're going to look at naming after a person, there are about four or five suggestions of names of people. So, I would I personally would recommend if you want to go that direction, have each one of those people submit

043why they think the person should be recognized on the name. So, just kind of do them all. That would be my suggestion. And then you guys can review them and vote that way. I have one question. So, how long do we think maybe that process would take and when do we need to make the the plaque and all that kind of stuff? like are we on track? Can I ask Matt? Hi. Come on up. Microphone's already on. It's just waiting for you. Wonderful. Good evening. Uh it would be great if you can make a decision tonight just because of the rumored tariffs out there and the price of bronze and metals that are going up. But I don't foresee it being a lot. So I would rather have you more comfortable with making your decision.

044take the month and let me see what I can do on the contractor's side and and handle that for you. I would rather have your group comfortable. If we need to work something out, we'll figure that out. But that's okay. Board, what are our thoughts? Is a month long enough to be able to have the official name submissions? Bren, do we have names? We have the names of the people, right? So, we can reach out if that's the way the board wants to go. We can start the process tomorrow of reaching out to the people who nominated and and send them the paperwork. It is a fairly extensive process. It's it's a lot to it. Um, but I would assume because they're they they recommended that person, they'd be more than willing to do that.

045I have a suggestion. So, we have a work session April 2nd. uh could we put a timeline on them getting that information to us by April 2nd? Um and then we can choose at that meeting and if we don't have the information, if they say thank you, no thank you, then we can go on to North Point. I I think that's a pretty good timeline. Yeah. What is the what is the voluous of amount of work that has to take place, Brian? and it is a week or two weeks enough. So it's all laid out in policy 7230 um which is pretty extensive. So short version they have to submit a resume of the person they nominated. They have to get letters of reference or recommendation for the person being nominated. Um and then they

046they list what the primary considerations would be for that person and why you should select that person. they get into a lot of general guidelines then about and things like that. So, it's just a matter of compiling like the resumeumés, the letters of reference, um, and then supporting documentation from the resume that indicates that yes, this person actually did all of the stuff that it says it did or that they say that they did. So, that's that's what I meant when I said it's pretty extensive. You have to go through this list. Do you think it's fair you think it's fair to ask all that in two weeks? I think it's going to be a tough turnound. Um, this is what I was kind of talking about when we broached this topic last month. Like

047it's it's kind of getting close. We need to start talking about this. Do I think it's fair? I think it's a tough it's a tall order to get it ready. Um, I think it may be maybe if we do it in three weeks and submit it to the board and we have an open discussion about it at that point. Um I mean I'm going to go back to Matt if it's worst case scenario it may from it's just a pricing standpoint. Is that what we're talking about? That's correct. Yeah. So I mean I think that's the discussion you have to have is and we're looking at futures prices right now when Matt talks about that. So it's kind of this estimation of what's that futures price going to be like with the cost of of

048aluminum and steel going up. Um but I don't know. We're talking about to to make the plaque the metal for the plaque. It's the metal plaque and the letters at the Yeah. So it'll it'll say whether it's Mueller or North Point Early Child Center. Those letters are what we need to get that fabricated. Yes. How big of a difference do you think? Is it like thousands hundreds of thousands? Not hundreds of thousands. Currently, it's a 12 to 15% on the board increase. So, we're talking a couple thousand dollars at this point. It can change next week and go back down. I really don't want to share a number with you is I don't know. I think um taking our time um with the naming process to make sure that, you know, the name will be

049on the building for forever, so we want to make sure we get it right. And maybe we look at it at the reorganization meeting. Yeah, we do business in New York. Have we? Well, close session, but Well, yeah, but this would be open, right? I think that's going to get back into David. I don't know that the the discussion probably occurs. I think if you're giving the person ample amount of time with the documents we're talking about, I think the goal would be by the the April regular meeting with the idea of if we're ready to move forward, we can vote. If not, you've got till May, but I would say no later than May. Yep. Okay, I think that sounds good. Anybody object to that April regular meeting? All right. Oh, my computer went

050to sleep. Sorry. All right. So, we have a consensus on 12.2. I think direction is clear. Moving on to 13. New business. Mac President. Y I I'm sorry. I added those uh contract. Okay, refresh. Apologies. Okay, refresh. It should be the end of old business. Okay, Matt, hang on. I apologize. I think I did not refresh. So, uh, no, I still have Did you put them under new business or old business? Oh, yeah. It's Oh, I apologize. 13.1 changed. Uh, so now 13.1 is contract link St. Charles County foster grandparent program pulled off of consent by director Olsen. Go ahead, Jen. When you're ready. Okay. Okay, for this I just have a motion to amend um motion to amend the link St. Charles County foster grandparent program memorandum of understanding to strike through the text

051of sections that do not sections that do not apply. These sections include items number 12 under the link FGP program responsibilities and item numbers nine and 11 under the station's responsibilities and to also notate in the margin under the station's responsibilities that item number 10 is not agreed to due to it is missing from theou. Can you repeat the items again? Yep. And Joanie, I can get this to you. um striking through the language in of the text for item number 12 under the link FGP program responsibilities and items item numbers 9 and 11 under the station's responsibilities and to also notate in the margin under the station's responsibilities that item number 10 is not agreed to due to it's missing from theou the reason I want to strike through this is because we have

052in the margin NA next to it like it doesn't apply it's it's like we're going to provide them with food or um I forget what the other one was, but we've already agreed that they don't apply. So, I want to just make it official and strike through the language in case that margin comes up missing in some version of it in the future. I don't know. My comment would be if those were to ever come up because this is a three-year contract, right? So, if we were to remove language that could possibly be applicable, then we'd have no contract. It's not applicable because we're not agreeing to it. So, we have no next to it. So, it's because we can't we're not providing them food. Volunteer performance eval. I'm trying I'm trying to follow what

053you were saying. So, just to be clear, too, anything that you strike out of the contract now is still going to have to go back to them for presentation and reignature. So, um, keeping in mind that, um, if there are any like timing considerations or anything like that, we need to be cognizant of that. It's not So, basically, it's struck out right now, just not physically struck out. I see it. But if we're going to strike it, we don't have a See, that's that's kind of why I want to strike it because if there's any gray area as to whether or not it's stricken, it needs to be clear. So like right now, I don't disagree with you. All I'm saying is if we strike it, we can't just approve it and then we have

054an executed contract. it's approved by us. We have a signed version of that contract with the stricken language that then needs to be taken back to the provider, whomever it is. And at that point, they'll have to decide if they agree with that change. And if so, they'll sign it and return it. Then there will be a binding contract between us and them. But if we strike any language, the signature that's affixed on their part right now won't have any bearing to create an enforceable contract. Right? So it will be h it will have to be taken back to the other party for consideration and execution after any language is changed to the contract. And just for the board an update um the answers to my questions were basically they told us to put NA

055because it didn't apply and we weren't agreeing to it. So I don't see them having an issue with it if they're the ones that told us to put the NA. Um, so I don't really foresee this being a huge issue for them when they get are stricken just to sign again for their saying they approved the change. I just wanted to be crystal clear what the contract agreement is and if we're not agreeing to it, I think we should strike it. Pat, is there is there a timing issue? Because looking up in the front, it says this is effective from 11 2024 through 2027. So technically, it's already been in effect or it's been so this this contract has been in place before and this was just the updated version of it once it expired

056back in November. Didn't get to us in time and this is just a process that we're going through to get it updated from ongoing. So then it just sounds like there's not a timing issue because they're continuing to provide the service under the old contract, right? There's a little bit of a lapse. It kind of sounds like, right? Yeah, I don't think there's a timing issue, right? It's fine. Do we need a second or is are we in agreement? Joanie, what was the motion again? I was going to say, Director Holson, could you read that? Motion to amend the link St. Charles County Foster grandparent program memorandum of understanding to strike through the text of the sections that do not apply. These sections include item number 12 under the link FGP program responsibilities and item

057numbers 9 and 11 under the station's responsibilities and to also notate in the margin under the station's responsibilities that item number 10 is not agreed to due to it is missing from theou. All right, let's go ahead and roll call. Is there a second? I'll second. Okay. So the motion is to edit amend the contract. Dr. Visenthal I Dr. Olsen I President Lizac nay Dr. Lewis. Hi. Vice President Scott. Name. Dr. Walsh. Nay. Secretary Hanky. I motion carries. Sorry, Joanie. Thank you. Motion carries. All right. Moving on to I have to go back again. All right. So that will go back to link and I guess come back at a later date. Yeah, I know. As soon as I open a document, it doesn't go back to All right. Contract 13.2 contract North Point Middle

058School Choices Program by Jeff Monzingo Mosingo pulled by Director Olsen. Okay. So, uh, this contract is for services that have already been rendered due to the district not receiving the contract from the vendor prior to the February meeting. I just I guess I just want to discuss as as board um what what we think we should do in situations like this. Um, given that it's a contract and I guess I'll start by giving my opinion. Um, as you know, I'm not a huge fan of rubber stamps, and I feel like this kind of feels like a rubber stamp because we already did it. It already happened. We're going to sign a contract approving it. So, basically, right now, it's just contract for payment. If I don't even know if there's payment involved, but that's what

059it feels like. Um, the opportunity wasn't given to the public to weigh in on it because it wasn't on an agenda uh prior to it happening. Uh, the board didn't have the opportunity to vote on it. So, I guess what I'm getting at here is when situations like this come up and there is something that falls between the cracks of the two meetings that has to be approved because it's going to happen in a, you know, a week, maybe we just have a quick virtual meeting and approve set item or vote on set item so that it goes through the proper process and it's an actual approved contract. Sorry, where do you see that this has already occurred? Because the dates that I see on here are other than it says agreement made 35, but

060I don't see other dates on here other than future dates. There's there's two contracts. There was two contracts in consent agenda for Misingo. One for Wville Middle and one for North Point. The one from North Point was pulled down. It should have been the one for Wensville Middle that was pulled down. Okay. Gotcha. All right. So, let's uh give Joanie a second and then well, let's go ahead and approve North Point because it sounds like or vote on North Point. I won't be presumptuous. Um and then give Joanie an opportunity to get the other one down. Uh do we have a motion to approve the contract? Uh do we have a do we already have a motion on the table for We do. I res I I pull back my motion because well, no, I

061said my motion right because I had it written down. So, okay. I wasn't even paying attention. I'll pause my pull back. Rescend that motion. Resend my motion. Okay. Uh Jen resends her original motion. Uh do we have a motion on the table to motion to approve? North Point Middle second. I'll second it. All in favor? I I Okay, motion carries. No, I was Yeah, I was trying to refresh my memory. I couldn't read. All right. Well, um let's move on to 13.3 and then we can come back when Joanie let us know when to refresh. Okay. All right. Uh 13.3. We have a contract memorandum of understanding with St. Louis University. Is that the right one? Is that what you want to pulled? Okay. We need Yes, we need a motion to approve. Motion. Second.

062All right. I would like to motion to amend the memorandum of understanding of the St. Louis University to strike item 11.5 variations of pronouns from the miscellaneous terms page. I will second that. Um I don't know that I can ask you in for legal advice or if you want to weigh in on this, but um part of me feels like this is compelled speech by the government since we are the government, a government entity, a subdivision of government. uh signing a contract, compelling speech, not restricting it, but compelling it. So that's why I just want this portion. It's a very small portion. It's one sentence removed. So this is a a standard contract term that you'll find in the general provisions of the contract. In some instances, it doesn't have to be included, but typically

063it's for purposes of interpretation only in the event that there could be some confusion about the misuse of a he where they say she, she, and he. So, it really doesn't mean much other than for contract interpretation purposes. Um, as to your question, I I don't think it's I have never seen this and I read all the contracts. I've never seen this in one of the contracts. This is my very first time coming across this. And the part that struck me as compelled speech is that it says as the person or enter entity may require like nobody's going to require me to say something. That would be compelled speech. I can't remember the specific situation, but I do believe we ran across this a few years ago and it's I believe it's referencing like in

064the contract where it then says he, she, it, they like talking about a specific entity, maybe it um and referring back to something or someone. Um, I I think that's just making sure that it's in alignment with any said pronoun and then it's referenced back to that particular individual or entity versus um the statement that you're asking. I think it's more contract language that we maybe don't see that frequently, but I do believe we had a similar question several years ago and that's where the answer landed, but I don't remember the specifics to be very honest. So is it is it our belief that we think that that here's the sentence. It says all pronouns and variations thereof shall be deemed to refer to the masculine, feminine, neuter, single, singular, or plural as the identity

065of the person or persons or entities may require. Are we saying that this is specifically speaking to the contract language as it refers to he, she? It I think it's linguistic in nature, but Pat can probably speak more specifically. Yeah. So, I just like did a search on this database that I have access to. It's called lawinssider.com for that particular clause and it's a standard clause in multiple contracts in this database and again it's strictly for contract interpretation. Um, so in the So, can you give me an example of how this contract term would be enforced? If there was confusion ever, if the court was interpreting the contract and there was confusion about if the contract says he instead of she and the issue in the contract is that, you know, person A did this,

066but it isn't consistent with that person's gender. like the court isn't going to exclude um that contract language on the basis that like they used a he in the contract and a she is the one who did the act that's at issue for a breach of contract issue. So it's just interchanging those things out so that there's no ambiguity for contracting purposes. It it So that's our position. That's what this applies to is just the contract language. Yes. Okay, I retract my motion to amend. Yeah. So, we need a motion to approve then. That's already on the table. Oh, thank you. Um, all right. All in favor? I. Any opposed? I have it. Motion carries. Okay. Uh we can refresh. Okay. Sounds like the nature of you asking for this to be pulled and have

067discussion around it is that the music event has already occurred and now we are then approving it postevent and how do we want to how do we want to go about that in the future? I mean, I feel like we do that sometimes with bills paid anyways. However, the conversation around it, uh, what exactly was the I'll go to it, but Well, I mean, we don't we don't send checks out before they're approved. We pay our credit card. Do we pay our credit card bill? Well, I mean, it's a payment, but I get what you're saying. We incur services before we pay, though. After the board approves contract, Right. We don't do a contract for everything that we purchase. No, but the things that we do have contracts for. We approve the contract and then

068services are rendered or Yeah. This is a program for the middle school uh during drug awareness week or drug awareness month. Uh it's been done multiple years. Jeff Miseno is a local musician that puts his performance on. There was also a contract in there obviously for North Point Middle. just wasn't received until the day of the board meeting last month. He was aware and so he took it on as there was a chance he wouldn't be paid. So, this is just basically payment. Correct. Yeah. It looks like the $750 for whatever it was for said performance. Um well, it sounded like the nature of what your ask was though to have a conversation around whether the board wants to allow performances to occur before it's approved. No. So just forget the performance, forget anything about

069what the contract is. just when contracts come up where a product is to be provided or a service is to be rendered prior to the board approving that we get the board together to vote to approve whether that be at our workshop time or uh and I'm not saying we all drive here and have a meeting but a phone not a phone call but a virtual meeting 15 minute virtual meeting how frequently does administration think something like that may need to be done. Doesn't pertain to me. This is my last regular meeting. So, I mean, it's I mean, basically what I'm asking is does is it the board's position that we sign contracts and then execute them or I'm asking for us to take position on that. Basically, I think there's, if I might, I

070think there's instances where things just happen and this is one of those that just happened. It's for the drug and drug prevention for the kids. It's $750. I Let's approve it and move on. I'm not I'm not debating whether it was important or anything. All I'm saying is this could been any contract and that's that's where I'm coming from. Like I agree. I think this is something we're going to have every year. We usually use the same guy. But in general, the contract's execution should come after approval. And that should that be a separate discussion like a different item on the agenda? And I hear where you're saying it pertains. I get that. But I feel like that's maybe a completely different agenda item. Maybe I could be wrong. Pat, is there anything in statute

071about contract approval type stuff or is it just pertaining to certain types of contracts? No, there's a general school district contracting statute that essentially says um no contract a district enters into is effective unless approved by the board. So, uh you know, uh yeah, the contract's not effective unless you guys approve it. So in this case to to Tim's point uh he performed the services before the contract was executed hoping but having no legal expectation that the services would be paid for. So could we after the fact not approve the contract and technically say you're out of luck? I mean I guess but that wouldn't be a great way to do business with vendors and contractors. So, um, yeah, the the language of the statute's clear. To be effective, the contract must be approved by

072the board of education. So, these would come up as they happen. Correct. Right. Well, it sounds like maybe the person entering into a contract before it's approved is taking on the risk of the possibility of it not being approved. So, they would still come to us before we pay it. So, we're still having them prove it. So it would just come to us as it happens. Okay. So for instance, if what if the board did not approve of of this guy doing this presentation, then you probably wouldn't us anymore, right? But what I'm saying is if if this had come to the board prior to execution and we were all in agreement that we did not want Joe doing said performance wherever, we could vote that down. That opportunity was not available here. Not that

073not that we would, but what I'm saying is any contract should should be voted down or up prior to execution. I still think this is we should approve or or not approve this and that the nature of your request would be a separate item maybe in April. Um a discussion probably about contracts. I mean, I know that we're having that now, but I I feel like that's not the actual item on the agenda. So, Brian, can you add that to next month's agenda, please? Somewhere or sorry. All right, we we have a motion to approve. Correct. We have a second. All right. All in favor? I I Any opposed? There there was no motion in second. Motion to approve. Gosh. Sorry guys. Second. Okay. Middle school choice program. Jeff Jen. Motion. Renee seconded. All in

074favor? I. Any opposed? Motion carries. All right. Moving on to 13.4 contract Wagner Photography Services. Uh we need a motion to approve Wagner Photography Services. Motion. Second. We have a motion and a second discussion. Okay. So, um if there's board support, I'd like to direct the administration to reach out to Wagner to find or to get the um as well as our vendor for the past 5 years if they're willing to give this information to us to ask how many individual student photo orders were purchased over the last 5 years for spring and for fall pictures. um from the appropriate vendor. Can I ask why? Yes. Um I've received in my opinion a significant amount of negative feedback on specifically the spring photos this time around. Um and I just I think maybe the sales

075might be indicative of customer satisfaction. So if I don't know what vendors we've used over the last five years, but if those vendors have higher, you know, number of sales to families for spring or for fall, it might I mean, unless we send out um a survey um asking people if they're satisfied with their kids school pictures, um school pictures are super important. It's a it's a Yeah, the spring ones don't go in the yearbook. And I know my kids have had great pictures and I've never bought the spring ones cuz I didn't want to buy extras. Well, I've and I'm not saying that I think the pictures are bad. I'm saying I've received community feedback from parents who aren't even going to buy them because they're disappointed with the quality and they've been in

076the district for years and have experienced other vendors. I guess Wagner's here. If you want to ask them questions, they can they can come up now and answer questions for you. Um, I would indicate I would also say, you know, let's make sure we're giving them a fair assessment. They jumped in when a vendor dropped us and said they weren't going to provide any service. So, in order to do that, Chip and his company had to basically go find people to be photographers, subcontract out some of that, which wouldn't have been their normal photographers. I don't know that I we've heard necessarily, and Chip, jump on up here. I don't know that they've heard a lot of complaints or anything like that. they they would field any of those customer service type things. So, I

077think he can kind of answer that stuff. And and I do appreciate asking the vendors specifically, but I also I also want to hear from our community members because there may not be people who reach out or who have reached out. And I'm going to say I don't feel comfortable going back to our previous vendor and asking them anything the way that they ended the relationship with us. So, it was only one vendor. Mhm. in this one [Music] because you don't think they'll give that information to us or because we just don't want to talk to them because of the way it ended. They they're the ones they like the contract. Peace out. So, no, they probably from a legal standpoint, I really don't want to get into a discussion about a different photo company

078right now. Um I just don't think the best idea is to reach back out to them after they cease their relationship with us. I don't think that's the smartest thing to do. That's my opinion, Wagner. Folks, and I think it's important to note that they didn't bid. I'm okay. Please do not misinterpret what I'm saying here. I'm not saying that we need to go back to any vendor. I'm My whole purpose of this was is about customer satisfaction from what I've been hearing. Would the information that you're requesting have a determination on whether or not you approve their whole contract or not? Because that's what we're voting on their entire contract. No. So, can we get that information after if it's not going to have any determination? That's I literally just said if I have

079board support, this is the kind of information I'm looking for. Oh, I thought you were asking for us to not approve the contract. Uh, is it possible that we get that information? Hi. Uh, yes, absolutely. We're how far in? Halfway through. Yeah, we've been through, I think, four or five elementary so far. So, we have quite a bit to go. Can you guys introduce yourselves? They don't. I apologize. Good evening. Uh, my name is Chip Wagner. Um, I'm the second generation owner of Wagner Portrait Group. This is Jace Dumont. He's our regional sales manager. He's the direct boots on the ground to your buildings. Um, thank you for having us. Um, we'd be happy to supply that. We can do it at any time. I could give it to you tomorrow morning on where we've

080been so far. Um I can give it to you as a wrap up at the end of the school year for athletics, spring pictures, graduations, anything we So yeah, I think at the end of the process once the ordering thing ordering dates are cut off and nobody can put any more orders in or if you guys have a cut off date, just once you have the final total number of sales, be happy to do that. So, you want that like indefinitely or just for spring pictures because I think it would need to be like board direction for forever and always. Just for spring spring pictures. And then Chip, my question is, is there a number you can give out that director Olsen can provide any community members who are having these quality control issues to

081contact or to anybody? Well, it's it's in their packet and everything else. Like it's when you get the spring, it it gives that contact info. So, I mean, we can get that to you, too. it in the picture packets that tells you who to contact if you have questions, concerns, anything like that. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, any type of information that we send out has our customer service number. We're local company in St. Louis. U has our email website. I mean, we have a full staff that answers parent questions and then certainly Jace and our more sales support team is working individually with your school building, so your picture a coordinators, your administrators, etc. So, kind of we can hit it from whatever aspect and I we want feedback, right? Um, and we, and I

082appreciate what Mr. Bishop said, u, not that we couldn't do this, but we had to scramble pretty fast, right, to schedule 13 elementary schools, uh, of your size and then add on spring sports and graduations. Obviously, we we want to do it and we are doing it, but we I encourage the feedback because then we can address it because we're new, right? All of a sudden, here came a new company, right? So, uh, we want to be sure parent satisfaction is there. So, can you email um Brian your email address and phone number that we can distribute? Uh we'll do two things from the admin side, like if if a school administrator or picture a coordinator needs something, we're going to put that in one channel, right? That's going to be kind of Jason, my

083channel. And then we're going to give you the parent contact info. That's so that's more for, you know, a mom who says, "Hey, I I might have an issue with an order. I want to retake her, etc." So, we'll kind of break it down in both if that's okay. And that's yeah, that's how we work every day with every client. Thank you. Uh there's just one other thing with this contract I'd like to note and that's now on um the district will be purchasing the banners for I guess high school you know everyone knows what a banner is or I hope well maybe not but you know what I'm talking about. Um so and I think that's a great bit that we've negotiated in. I think that's fantastic through the senior banners. Yes. Okay. Senior

084banners. Thank you. keeps them all uniform. So, you know, Joey doesn't have a teeny tiny banner with two colors while Steve has a big banner with 45 colors on it. Equity provides some. And I think it's important to note, too, that was definitely in working with Wagner, they were willing to release the exclusive on media days. Um, and we just kind of worked through this together. So, the banners will all be hung. They'll all look the same uniform across the district. So, and program to program and everything like that. So, and it's just kind of a nice way to gesture to recognize our senior our seniors in our for the from the district, too. Thank you. Very good. Thank you, Chip. I just want to thank you guys. And yes, that was that the banner

085scenario was really born. I know this was a hot topic. I followed it very closely. Um this is a win-win really. Your athletes are going to now get, you know, everybody's going to have the same uh the same look. Um we're going to handle it. We're going to do media days when we are asked to do them. Uh we were never here to step on any toes. Uh because we're the local people in Fort Zuma where we grew up in other places. So, um I just appreciate working with the district on that and your understanding of how these contracts work because they're pretty complicated sometimes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Were you going to say something, Brad? All in favor? We do. All in favor? I I Any opposed? No. Motion carries. All right,

086moving on to 13.5. Matt, you're up getting your steps in tonight. Let's do this again. stay. Okay. Good evening, President Liz that Dr. Bishop, members of the Wville school board, administration, and community. Good evening. So, the purpose of tonight is just to give you a brief update of what's been going on so you're up to date on what we're working on. If you have any questions, we can clarify them for you. But the best thing we can do as a team is keep everybody informed as we're moving along so that everybody has either their questions answered or understanding what they're hearing and what they're talking about. So, we're going to start with Heritage and just a picture of the entrance there at Heritage just to familiarize everybody. I know everybody knows their buildings. So, we're

087going to start with the existing condition just as an aerial. So, we'll start on the right side. The blue area is the academy building. Slide up to the green area with intermediate primary on the beige and then the milestone building is all the way to the left. Now down on the bottom which is Bloomhoff Street, you'll see kind of an orange line there. For some time um through the district projects planning and zoning has always asked for a sidewalk along Bloomhoff for the kids. It's a great request. Our goal is to incorporate that for the students that are walkers along Bloomhouse side. So that's what that orange line is there. Just so you understand when you see a drawing of what that line is. So our goal with multiple phases for heritage is phase one

088up in the upper right you will see a bus loop drive. Currently the buses are where the light blue area is at on the plan. That's where they stack. So to get our addition plan for there, first phase is we need to get buses on the upper right stacked off of car street because the city and neighbors have had requests recently and over the years about buses on the streets, traffic uh traffic jams, etc. on academy car in Bloomoff. So our goal is to get uh 12 buses they currently have and six bed on that and there's room to grow there some additional stacking depending upon the fluctuation of your boundaries. So that's phase one that we are currently working on with the city through planning and zoning. Some of you may have seen that

089the light blue area is the storm shelter area and I just want to clarify some people reference FEMA structure some people reference storm structure. This is a storm structure. The difference is when you call it a FEMA structure, FEMA is involved. There's a whole bunch of paperwork and filing and inspections that you do. The designs are basically the same with 250 mph winds. It's just a different process. FEMA and the government have put into the current building code. When you add on to a school an educational environment, you are required now in the code to build a storm structure that has to house the number of occupants in that facility. So that's kind of a tough thing when you know your district. I think it kind of grows a little bit every now and then.

090So you you have to do some calculations to do that and you calculate five square feet per student in the building to create that. So to give you an idea, you're familiar with Journey Elementary School. That is the size of this storm structure which will have a gym. It will have a stage, couple restrooms, couple of small bleachers pulled out. That's what our goal is. So if you would like to know more of a sense threedimensional, go over to Journey and take a look at that gym. The area to the right of that storm structure which is right against the curved area of your 84 library that is going to be a indoor playground collaboration area study area for the students and art kind of place they could go art class draw just just an

091overall area. We'll show you a video on that. It's really going to be a fun place and a very unique place for school. That would be phase two. Once we do the bus loop, then we can start that till the buses are moved out. Next phases, we're still working on how we're going to fine-tune all that. You see on the upper left, the green oval, I'll call it, that is a storm water detention area. This um site hasn't been touched in a long time. So, the requirements MSD city are your goal is to control your storm water on your property. That's the lowest point. We will bring all the storm water down there, control it, and then let it easily go off into the storm water system. The lower gray area there is going to

092be additional parking. So, our goal is to come off Car Street with all the parent double loop all the way down and loop them through and around the parking new parking lot area and have a drop off right in front of that blue area. And I'll show you a picture of that area here in just a second. And then the purple you see down the right that is expansion of the existing cafeteria food service area. We are taking down two classrooms. That's very true statement. But we are not going to lose those classrooms because we have a gym and cafeteria up in the intermediate wing that we are going to turn into those additional classrooms and pick up that space. So classroomwise, we our goal and we will do is keep the same amount of

093classrooms that we are renovating or tearing down or moving to make more functional spaces for food service and cafeteria so we're not going to lose classrooms. That is our goal. Definitely don't want to do that in this school district. Um, and then as I mentioned along the bottom on Bloomhoff, the sidewalk that we're going to incorporate there. We're going to look at the parking spaces are very tight. So, we're maybe changing some of the angled parking to parallel parking, give some bigger spots along there. So, that's just kind of an overview. So, here would be standing on Bloomhoff looking back at the new uh facility. We're tying it in with the two entrances that are currently at the intermediate and primary. Going with the blue Wville metal roof colonade entrance canopy to get the kids

094on a covered area when it's raining for mom and dad to pick them up. And the tall uh brown box behind that is the storm structure. So, we're going to frame that to make it not look so big. So, that is that. Um and then just two views here. uh kind of giving you a an overall view, bird's eye view I'll call it. You can see the bus loop in the background. Farther in the back, you can see where the additions going in the courtyard and then the area that is currently the blacktop uh the playground area and some of the um I'll call them the agricultural areas or something that the students are working on. All of that will be reworked for improved playground, improved play area, fence in that whole entire area because

095right now there's gates, there's some fence, there's not some fence. So, as was brought up earlier about safety, that whole area will be fenced in now and improve that circulation on the site. So, here Bren or Joanie, if you can click on the play for me, please. So, this is the interior collaboration area that we talked about. Hopefully it the video works. That's fine. Does anybody have any questions le thus far? Nobody. David Lewis, you usually have questions. I resemble those remarks. I have questions. Do you want me to ask them now or at the end? Yeah, now. You may want to wait until the end. Does anything pertain to the the presentation thus far? Oh, okay. Here we go. So the li existing library is on the right. The current pave playground is the

096area where this addition will go. So we're looking at a multi-use surface in there for for either play collaboration. build some nooks, study nooks, areas for Chromebooks to be charged, kids to study, teachers to use. Now, we're coming up back towards the intermediate side here. And we'll turn around and head back the other way so you can get a better view. That's to the playground. Yes. So, there'll be some skylights, some floating ceilings to get some natural light in there. Uh the ramp you see on the right takes you up to the stage of the storm shelter and then just open space for activities. And you can see the built-in benches on the left there for study or teachers to line up kids and have a talk. And then a couple more benches here for

097kind of like a learning a small learning stair with the students. They can sit up there, have a little lecture. Thank you, Bren. Okay. And then part of I'll repeat myself a little bit as we go forward to Holton Wentzville Middle School, but on the upper left is an existing corridor at Heritage. The lower right is a renovated corridor. So our goal here is new LED lighting, new ceilings, paint on the walls, new tack boards, get all of the doors to be new wood doors. There's a multitude of of doors in some of these buildings. and the quarter floor to get rid of wax BCT floor and go in with the I'll call it LBT you hear luxury final tile. The pricing is now dropping and it's comparable with BCT and other flooring materials, but

098that is a no wax floor. The custodial staff and maintenance team can just run their sweepers over the floor and there's no shutdown in the summertime and waxing and all that. So that's our goal and that'll be our goal for all three of the legacy buildings. So Wville Middle School, same here. Uh just a little less uh with the addition. Uh same upper left there is the center classroom corridor. There are some lockers there built in. Those will come out. Seems students are really not using lockers anymore. They use a backpack. You have a Chromebook. Everything is digital. And then the lower right, we're going to take some of those recesses, take the lockers out, build a bench in there so they can sit in a study, charge their book, have a one-on-one with a

099teacher, and put some tack boards in there. And then the same process, lighting, um, painting, doors, flooring, give it a good uh, facelift. Same is true with Holt. Upper left. Holt has various different colors of lockers. Some of those will come out, probably the majority of those. And then down the right, uh, just clean up the corridors, make it wider. There's a foot on each side of those lockers that'll pick up two feet in the quarter for circulation of the students. Clean it up. Ceilings and lighting. So, that's pretty much just a a brief overview. I'm happy to get into any specific questions you'd like, but those are the three main legacy buildings that we're looking at just to keep you up to date. and I'm happy to answer any questions. Hey Matt, I appreciate

100the the update on that question. How many buildings have you worked at in Wesville School District? How many buildings in the Wsville school district? I think uh Director Lewis, I've touched every building in your district. Okay. Work. Yes. So since well before 2011 2000 it was Octoberish of 2002. Okay. Question to to administration. Do we competitively bid this role and responsibility for every building? The role of Matt the architect. Yes. No it's not competitively bid. We are we do competitive I take it back. Tim help me out. Yes, we do. I would have to look back to find the exact date of the contract, but we have we have an ongoing contract with them that was competitively bid. Believe it is it a 5-year agreement? Fiveyear. Yeah. Okay. Well, I was wondering as I've looked

101through the MEC report, there's a lot of money that that uh your company has donated to the one cell Wville Schools campaign committee and can you tell me what that's for? What's what the goal is that if you're already under contract, why are you paying in? Uh, Director Lewis, we do that with every school district that we work with because we understand you have taxpayers and taxpayers money that you need funding outside of the taxpayers to help with printing, uh, displays, all those other things that you need donations for. So we do that for every school district that we work with. So in the last 10 years or so, 25,000 been donated. I would have to check. That's that's about what it is. Not counting this year. Yeah. I'd have to check. I don't keep

102track of that. Yeah. I don't know. So he's already got we're giving him the business. So in return, he's giving us money. I I see a conflict potentially there. I I don't have a comment past that, but it does raise a concern for me. And I think that I don't know, I haven't looked through the other MEC reports for other contributors to this pack, this fund, but I think we need to be aware that as we look at some of the other school districts, they've run into problems with this environment where there's been audits that have been run. I want to make sure we're doing everything kosher. So, I just bring this up and probably more to follow. Thank you. I did have some questions. Um I did think that your presentation was about reach.

103So I do have questions about reach. Is that okay if I ask you those questions? So it looks like um and we did approve it tonight. We had a change order. So it looks like there's a high number of change orders coming in for reach. Um it's not that I don't think that these things are needed. It's just that it seems that the items in these change orders probably should have been in the original plan and should have been seen, you know, foreseen that this building is going to need in the beginning when we originally bid this out because Honer did the original plan, that architectural plan, and we paid a million dollars for that and now we are getting an influx of change orders. So, could you speak to that? Sure. Um, Secretary Hanky,

104we are quite pleased with how many change orders are on this project. If you look at the norm in in our profession, and I'm not proud of the number that's out there, it's 8% to 12% is the standard in our profession. And that's horrible in my opinion. Our goal, if you look at all the projects we've done in your district, are at 1% or less. There's always going to be something that you walk through the building as it's coming out of the ground and someone says, "Let's take another look at that. Let's take another look at this." You always refine like some of the lock sets. That was one of the change orders. Do you handle it as a classroom lock set, which is only locked from the outside, or do you handle it as

105an intruder lock set, which you can lock from both sides? And the questions are with the reach facility, the the challenges that they have on their hands there. How quickly can they lock that door, unlock that door when there's an intruder alert? So, that's one thing. It's a fine-tuning of a thing. There's access card readers that have been added to doors. So, there's additional cost there. There's uh duck work that we have looked at. when you stand there and you see it coming out of the ground and you say, "We really should re-evaluate that." They're not high dollar amounts, but you're right. There's probably, I don't know, 13 or 14 change orders. You know, when you have that, it's it's an improvement for the project rather than waiting for the building to be done and

106coming back and going, "Let's do this, let's do this." Then it cost two to three times the amount than while you're on site getting it fine-tuned and getting it corrected. So, I I understand that. We do not like change orders. There's not a project out there anywhere that doesn't have a change order. I get your concern. I mean, we're all taxpayers. I'm a taxpayer. We always put our hat on and say, "How could we have done this better? How can we look at that better?" But our goal has always been put as much on those drawings as we can and stay with that one one and a half% with that contingency that we have and that embarrassing 8 to 12% that's out there in the market is in my opinion just horrible. So does that

107answer your question? It does. Okay. And I have worked in construction before in my prior positions um both in residential and commercial. Okay. And I have never seen change this amount of change orders come in on a new build. Okay. So when we talk about nor change those were very high do feel the district was an architectural mistake and I do believe that some of these change orders are architectural mistakes. So then my next question is who holds that liability when our architect has made a mistake on the original drawing? Is that the district or is that something that Honer would then take care of for the district? We would need to go through each one of those individually and I'm happy to meet with Dr. Bishop and you and any other board members if

108we want to do a work session and talk about each one of those so I understand specifically what you're looking at. uh because I just stating the word mistake. I I don't know about that, but let's go through each one of those and and familiarize yourself with that and let's talk through with your questions and we can clarify that for you. And then my last question is how does Honer get paid? Is there a set dollar amount that you get paid for each project or you get a percentage of the total build of that project? We have a percentage chart for renovation and for new construction and you have that on file that you can see. Uh it's a percentage depending upon the dollar amount. It drops if it's 10 or 20. I don't know

109the exact math but you know it's 3% 4% 5% depending upon how those dollar amounts go up or down. And then do you get additional then when we these change orders that percentage does that add in these change orders? I don't believe that. I'll check. I don't think so. Our fee is on the um bid amount on contract. I'll check on that though. So you're saying that it would be the original contracted amount, not the change order amounts. That's my understanding, but I'll confirm that for you. Okay. Yeah. And just to piggyback off of what um Director Lewis has said, I would like to make sure that our district is staying competitive and making sure that we are always making sure that we do have our options and maybe we do need to look at

110an RFP for contracting going forward with this district. What do you mean? So if we have another project come up that we would put it out for bid. We're under contract with the So the RFP comes when we bid a contract. So they're under a contract that the previous board approved. So I don't know we we when it the RFP comes up to bid it out again. That's what we would do. So are we just operating under the RFP response or is there an actual signed contract that locks us in for 5 years? I'd have to check. I don't know that I we weren't none of us were here. I'd have to check. I think there is two, but do we have any additional questions for Matt? All right. Thanks, Matt. Thank you. Have a

111good night. Thank you, Matt. Appreciate it. Uh, yeah. Yeah, sure. I don't know. Tim, do you need that? Yeah. All right. Okay. Uh, okay. Sorry, I opened I got to go back. Come on back. All right. Um, we are now on Yes. 13.1 million. Yes, we are on 13 six. Okay. Um I've present some information about preliminary budget information for next year and projected tax rate. Um so the first item is the preliminary budget. Just to say just want to be clear, anything I present tonight will change. These are preliminary numbers as of today. Okay? So everything will change. I guarantee it will change. These will not be the same numbers you see in in June. And really I don't have a lot of even hard numbers in here. Here I just have some ranges

112and information for you. So, uh, anytime we start the budgeting process, our first first look is where is our budget at for this year? Um, so our this year's budget, current year fiscal year 25 budget, uh, right now as of today, we look to be 2 to 4% favorable to our budget, which is which is good news. Um, so that kind of gives us a starting point. look at uh for for fiscal year 26. Um talk we'll start with the revenue side. I've got this chart shows you our big rocks uh I like to call them of of our revenue sources. 43% of our projected operating revenue this year is property taxes. 32% is a state foundation formula. So 75% of our revenue operating revenue comes from those two sources. So those are big important

113things for us to look at and understand where what they are going to do for next year. Starting with property taxes. Okay. So 2025 this year is a reassessment year. So all real property through the throughout um Missouri is reassessed. Assessor goes and establishes a new uh value for for all real property. Um the preliminary information that we received from the county assessor uh has us at about a 10% increase. Now not all of that is due to reassessment. Some of that is due to new construction. Okay? So total overall it's about 10%. About 7 12% is due to reassessment. Uh 2% is from um new construction of real property. and 2 and a half% is is con new construction of real property and about uh half a percent is uh increase in personal property.

114So new new personal property throughout the uh throughout the district. Um when you put all that together projected revenue increase of about 9.6 million uh of which about four and a half is is operating. uh when we look at really just fund one and two there for operating. Um one thing that's new this year and kind of uh a little bit of a guessing game for us still is the impacts of Senate Bill 190. Um we've talked about this before that is the uh senior citizens uh property tax freeze for those senior citizens that have applied for that. uh they will not pay more in fund 1 2 and four than they did uh last year. So they their amount that they pay will remain the same even though they reassess their property value may

115increase they will pay the same amount. Um fund three is not impacted by that. So again, this is I mean I got some information of you know how much value in our district um has been applied for. Um using that out guessing what the what that was reassessed at. Uh you know it we're looking probably somewhere around a million dollar of revenue that we would have received in a typical reassessment year that we will not receive. But again, that is this is being the first time ever going to it. It's hard to know until we we we do it one time and then we'll have a better idea of what that looks like. Um any questions on property tax before we move on? Okay. The other big piece is the state foundation formula. Okay. The

116there's two main variables in our foundation formula. This is the money that we received through the state. Um, you know, and I'm sure if you've heard before, the Wentzville School District is the largest um school district large receives the largest amount of any school district in Missouri through the foundation formula. The two main variables are the weighted average daily attendance and the state adequacy target. Okay. So, the Wada weighted ADA is a measure of our um average daily attendance with some weight for special for populations of free and reduced lunch students, IEP students, and um ELELLL students. So, right now, we're projecting that to remain relatively flat. Uh we have not seen the growth that we had seen in prior years. So, we've we've been kind of flat on attendance. Um, one thing that is

117interesting, even though we've had some enrollment increases, um, precoid our attendance rate was around 94% attendance, last two year, last three years, we've been closer to 91%. So, uh, if we saw a 94% attendance rate, then uh that ADA would increase significantly, but uh, uh, don't have information to say that that is going to happen this year. So, um, the SAT was projected to increase from 6760 to 7145 for next year. Okay, so that was a over a 2-year increase. It went from 6365 to 6760 this year and was projected to go to 7145 next year. That information was used as part of our salary negot part of the district salary negotiations uh last year. If you'll remember, we did a two-year contract. Um, but again, we were basing the district was basing those decisions

118on this projected revenue increase that we were we were expecting from from the state. Um, when the governor came out with his budget recommendations in the state of the state, uh, his recommendation did not fully fund the SAT at 7145. Uh, his recommendation is to fund at the 6760. Um that process is ongoing currently um and it must be finalized by May 9th. Uh the the things that we're hearing now is it may be somewhere in between. What we really won't know until that budget is finalized. And then the other side of that is the governor can always withhold dollars and has done that in the past. if they if they don't think the revenue is going to be there to support uh an allocation that's passed by the uh by the legislature that can

119be that can be withheld. Um and that's been done multiple times over over my term uh dealing with school finance Missouri. So for us for the Wentzville School District it's an impact of about $6.9 million that we had anticipated to receive that if we budget for the 70 6760 we would not receive. Okay. Yes. That 6.9 million that we had expected to receive last year when we were doing salary negotiations that we would not receive. Wait, I'm confused. Is it 7145 that we expected to receive? Correct. Okay. And then what what it looks like right now is that it might just be the 6760. Correct. And the difference between those is 6.9 million. Other questions? Lots of numbers. Feel free. Okay. Other revenue sources. Um, a big one is Prop Ca statewide. That's a 1%

120statewide sales tax that's dedicated to education and it's distri it's collected by the state distributed locally by uh on a per student basis. Um sales tax if you've watched anything with the uh state revenue that has kind of leveled off uh it has been strong had been growing for a number of years ever since uh since co but it has leveled off. So we are projecting that to remain relatively flat. Um the good news is the transportation is projected to be fully funded by the state and that has been the case for a couple years. Um again that is on a reimbursement basis and by fully funded we mean that's 75% of our cost. That's considered fully funded. Okay. So we spend that amount this year whatever we spend this year we get 75% of

121that back next year. And that's the statute. That's the the amount that's in the statute for fully funding transportation. Prior years before this, we were looking at around 20% uh reimbursement rate for transportation. So that's been a positive for us. Question. Yes. If we overspend, is that even possible? No. Okay. It's it's actual expenses per year and then um that's what's submitted to DESIE. Now the other the thing that can happen is if statewide there is more reimbursement called for in the formula than what is allocated by the state. It could all everybody could be reduced by a certain percentage. Okay. So it's not just based off of what we spend. It's the whole state what they spend. Yes. Because there's a you know the state allocate the state goes through a process. they estimate

122what they think they're going to need and then they allocate that uh in the budget process and let's say that's you know when everybody submits the information because that process happens right now in May that's set in May and then all the information is submitted to DESI as part of our ASBR so that doesn't happen until August September when all that information is in and then DESI is able to determine what the overall amount is needed across the entire entire state. If what was allocated back in May by the legislature doesn't meet the amount that Desi is calling for, you can have a shortfall and then everybody is reduced by a percentage. Um they can also come back and do a supplemental budget request to fill that amount if there's money available. Um so for

123other revenue sources, we're we're expecting those to remain relatively flat. So really the only growth area that we're looking at from this year, what we're looking at is really for that property tax is our biggest area of of growth. Few minor areas, but you know, when we think about the big pieces, that's really where it's at. Um, okay. Any questions on revenue? Yes. Considered what? Sorry. Sorry about that. No, you're fine. There's a lot going on at the state. Have you even looked at some of the proposals and what that impact is going to be for next year or is that too far in advance? I have looked at some I to say I've looked at all of them that would be uh an exaggeration because I you just you know we try to keep

124an eye on things that are moving. Uh and typically with the state legislature this week is spring break. if it hasn't passed one of the houses by spring break, it typically will have a hard time getting through. So, there really hasn't been um the only thing that's really has gotten through that would impact education is open enrollment. That's the biggest thing that's gotten through. So, um right now, the House bill, it's a 903 that is for property tax, a reduction of over three years, take it down to very low. I mean that's that's through the House and on to Senate. So is that personal property? Yes. Yeah. Um yeah, I mean it's you know th those things are hard to kind of project what that would what that would mean but uh yeah. So uh

125the way that works personal property if you have a car it's worth $50,000 real value. Uh the assessed value everything is reduced. So, the assessed value of personal property is reduced by 33 and a3. So, if you have a uh for easy math, you have a $90,000 car, the assessed value on that car is actually $30,000, and then that's what you pay the taxes on. Uh divide that by 100, multiply it times the tax rate, gives you the the actual amount that you pay, uh is how that math works. So the the proposal I believe is to uh uh reduce that by a certain amount every year. Um you know, nobody has good ways to replace that loss revenue. There's no u thoughts on that. And and you know, nobody likes paying property taxes. I

126don't like paying property taxes, but I like the services that they uh fund. So until we come up with another way to replace that revenue, it's awful hard to uh take property taxes away. That's the way our system is designed. And you can't it's it it makes it extremely difficult if you just say we're going to re reduce that and not come up with another way to replace that revenue. I have a question. Yes. So, there's another bill that I believe is in committee or went through committee already and is passed one house. I'm not sure which bill it is. I can get that information to you. Um, but it requires that we take the salaries to a 95 and 5% um admin to teacher ratio. Is that the right word? Ratio. So teachers would

127receive or staff would receive seven or 95% of all salaries. Admin would receive 5%. What does that do? How much are we going to have to come up with to make up that difference? Do we know? I mean, I know you guys have been broadly looking at that, but yeah. Um, you know, and again, the devil's always in the details and what the definitions are. you know, who's an administrator, what what does that term really mean, and what does that spell out in the uh in the the language? I haven't haven't read through that bill. Uh again, you know, I've done a little work on on just estimating. Um our preliminary estimations, I think, had our uh admin cost as percentage of teacher cost at about 8%. Uh somewhere in that range. Um, so remember

128those details, but uh for clarification in the bill that's made it through committee, it basically defines anyone who does not specific their job duties are not to work directly with children day in and day out as admin. So aside from custodial or or th those types of positions, cafeteria, no, because they're working with the kids. I mean they're serving the food to the kids and maintenance. I don't those fall into different categories. They're it's literally laid out in the bill, but it's the it's the building principles, anybody who works in the front office. Um, everybody at central office, so secretaries secretaries are considered admin. Yep. So, I don't know. It's for me it seems like a very all-encompassing group of people. And when I was looking at it, the ratio I saw was like not

129even 5050 or something to that effect. It was pretty big. So maybe I'm not so that kind of goes into my next chart that's up here. Um this is just by our big categories that we use for reporting expenses. uh 44% of our salaries are for and this is this is total budget percentage 44% of the operating budget is for certified salaries. So that would be uh teachers um counselors, librarians, uh principles th those type of people. Uh we have about 16% in non-certified uh salaries and then 23% in benefits. So, your benefits will include um the health insurance and our health insurance is around $11,000 an employee. Um and then um retirement costs. So, we have retirement cost uh the teacher retirement system and non-teer retirement system. They take your uh uh salary costs

130add in the cost of the district provided insurance and then uh the employee for the certified salary uh certified employees that the employee pays 14 and a half% in the district matches that. So that's where that benefits is at uh with that and then also workman comp insurance goes into benefits and then the two smallest slices are uh purchase services and materials and supplies. So uh about 83% of our operating budget is directly related to personnel. Um so again salaries we have the uh agreement with with the NEA uh two-year agreement. We had contingency language in that agreement. Uh the base amount of increase for next year is a 3% salary increase. Um, it would increase to 4% if this year's revenue, FY25 revenue is $2 million above the budget amount. And then it would

131increase to 5% if FY25 revenue is $6.5 million above the budget amount. So the million-dollar question is where are we going to end? That's that's a good question. I'll go back to my first slide. The information in here will change. Okay. So, I today if you look in our um budget information that we have for you um you know our revenue compared to where we projected the budget at is about 4 million over. So, but again that information will change. That information will change. Teachers that information will change. Okay. I have a question. We'll know better as we get closer. Yes. So that 2 million above um 3% salary increase 4% in FY25 if the revenue is above 2 million. Does that 2 million cover that increase that 4% increase? Well, it's it's really a

1321% increase because you already you already went to 3%. You're guaranteed 3%. So then it's a 1% increase right over top of that. So, um, to say yes, I in in essence it would, but again, you could receive revenue this year and not receive that same amount next year. Mhm. So, so that 5% is based off the beginning 3%. So 3% is the base. It would be at 5%. So right now our our budget, I think, is 268 million in operating revenue. So if we ended at 274.5 or above, then it would be a 5% increase for next year because our budgeted revenue is 268. If it's 6.5 million over that, then that's would trigger that 5% increase and the 6.5 million would hypothetically cover the 5%. The 2% if we receive that revenue next

133year. Yes. um health insurance. So, we went to the uh uh district self-funded model for health insurance. Uh you'll remember the budget uh for last year had a 10% increase built into that budget. Uh when we got to the renewal time in October, uh we only needed a 3% increase. So, we have some we have some 7% already built into our budget for next year if we think of rolling that into next year. So, that's a good spot to be. Um, we're 5 months in. It's still early. Uh, but I do have just a raw data of where we're at after 5 months. We've collected about $13.8 million in premiums and we've paid out 11.2 million in claims and fees. So, we are running at a positive five months. Again, that is early. We are

134still seeing claims being paid from the first two months that we were operating October. Nove I mean a lot of claims are paid really fast. Some claims take longer. Um so we are as of today we're in good shape. That can change. Okay. We get weekly that money is pulled out of our bank account weekly. So uh it's something that we are monitoring and and staying on top of. But uh as of today, we're we're uh we're happy with how that's performing. Could change. Um other costs, we have some increased uh budget requests, maintenance, technology, inflationary increases for services and supplies, and then just cost increases uh for district tuition, out of district tuition, contracted transportation, and other contracted services. So, any questions about preliminary budget information before we jump to the next piece? I

135have one, but it does have to be long. If you can say I don't know. um for self-unding insurance, how would we go one year, two years, if if we do end up in a deficit, how long would we kind of I don't want to say experiment because that's kind of the wrong word, but instead of going to like a different type of plan, well, um if you go to a different type of plan, you're just going to pay more because your rate, your experience is your experience. That's what if if if we're seeing this loss ratio, we need to increase rates because if we went out to be a fully insured group, they're going to base us off what we spent over the last 12 months, which is going to increase our costs plus

136their profit. So, it's really just a matter of us pricing that correctly based on our experience. So, it's possible an adjustment will come next year. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And we do have that 7% already built in. We only took 3% of the amount that we budgeted 10% when we used three. So we have that already there as not an increased cost. Okay. Projected tax rate. Um so I have the uh the statute language here. Basically if we're in a first uh class county, which we're in St. Charles County, we must submit a non-binding uh property tax rate to the county clerk's office by April 8th. Um so we've I've worked on that. Um again, revenue growth due to reassessment is limited to the CPI, consumer price index for the most recent year. Okay? So again,

137reassessment only happens every other year. So you pay this, you have the same amount for two years, then it's reassessed. That changes. Um, but each district, each taxing entity is only allowed to to uh have the revenue grow by that CPI or uh reassessment amount, whichever is lower. Okay? So remember I said our reassessment amount was about 7 and a half%. All right? We're not going to gain 7 and 12% increase in revenue. we have to roll back our taxes so that it hits that 2.9%. Um, so this would uh with that information based on the information that we have today that would put our tax rate total tax rate lowered about 15 to $4.50 uh and and some change and that would be the lowest rate in this district since 2009. This is the

138I will report this rate to the county to meet the statutory deadline. Again, it's non-binding, but it will go out with the reassessment can change B and it will it will change because that the number that we get that we have today, it'll be different after the board of equalization and we we set the tax rate in September. Um, so I just have this chart. It shows the inverted relationship between property tax values and your property tax rate. Your assessed values and your tax rate. So as your assessed value goes up in the bar graph, the line graph of your tax rate goes down. The spike that you see there in 2020 was the operating levy I believe prop SS. Uh so that's what that was from. But then you see since then as our

139our assessed value has increased uh every other year it drops off. So stays level for one year. That's a non-reassessment year. The dip years are the the reassessment years when that property tax drops down. Questions? I've either boggled your mind or all your questions. Okay. Thank you. All right. Appreciate it, Tim. Um, okay. We are moving on to 13.7. I just Okay. There was no motion attached to that. Very good. All right. 13.7 W NEA Educational Support Counselor Agreement. We need a motion to approve the agreement as presented. Motion. Second. We have a motion and a second. Discussion. Questions? No. All right. Uh, all in favor? I I. Any opposed? Nay. Okay. Motion carries. All right. Moving on to 13.8. Challenged book material, The Kiterunner. We need a motion to approve the recommendation of the

140committee to retain the kiterunner. Motion. Second. We have a motion and a second. Discussion. Yes. Yes. Um, I do not believe this material is age appropriate for minor children or for us to be supplying to minor children. Um there are multiple explicit indepth sexual um not even consensual situations in this book described in detail. Um and I I don't think it's age appropriate. Anyone else? All right, we will. Yes, David. I've wanted not specific to this book, but just to general to this process. So, do you want me to do it at the beginning or at the end? Uh, well, once we vote, we'll move on to another book. So, you mean like an end board comments, like board member comments? I've got comments about the process that we went through on the books. I

141want to know, do you want me to bring it up now or at the end? Probably board member comments, maybe. I don't know. Does anybody have any input? It would make sense to me to be in the comments. You were on this committee, correct? For the kite runner. So, you want to Oh, no. Not on this. Okay. So, you just want to make comments about the committee that you were on the process? Yes. The whole process. What book were you on? I was on the last one. You want me to work? Maybe there. I think there. Okay. Thanks. All right. Okay. Uh Joanie, roll call, please. Dr. Bezenthal. I. Dr. Olsen? Nay. President Lizac nay. Dr. Lewis I. Vice President Scott I. Dr. Walsh. I. Secretary Hanky. Nay. Motion carries. All right. Moving on to

14213.9 Challenge Book Material November 9 by Colleen Hoover. I apologize I didn't pronounce or didn't say the author in 13.8. I didn't want to mispronounce his name. Um, we need a motion to approve 13.9 November 9. Motion second. Discussion. I just have the same comment. There are several non-age appropriate sexual situations in throughout the book and I don't believe it's age appropriate. Any other comments? Okay. Um, roll call, please. Director Bezenfall. I. Dr. Olsen. Nay. President Lizac. Nay. Dr. Lewis. I. Vice President Scott. I. Dr. Walsh. I, Secretary Hanky. Nay. Motion carries. Motion carries. Moving on to 13.10 challenge materials sold by Patricia McCormack. We need a motion to approve the recommendation of the committee to retain. Motion. Second. Discussion. Same comment. I believe there is um a large amount throughout this book of non-consensual

143pedophilia sexual content that is not age appropriate for minor children. Any other comments? Question. Yes. Yes. So this book is for the high school. I believe this one is in middle and high school. Hang on one second. We are checking on that. I believe the only one that was at the middle school level was Carnival at Bray. I think all the others have been at the high school level. Okay. Thank you. schools. I'm pretty sure I did see this one in one of the middle schools and I do not recall what middle school it was though. So yeah, double check me. So this is in the middle school as well. Sold is um at North Point High School and Holt High School. Okay. Okay. And do any of these books does this book in particular

144have a mature rating or anything like that assigned to it? According no, uh, The Kiterunner and November 9, according to the St. Charles County Library, are both adult fiction. Um, sold is classified as young adult fiction. So, what's your definition of young adult? You would have to go to the library um, association there. Let me tell you what it is. Young adult in the school district is ages 12 through 18. So, are we saying that this is for young adults? Well, it's currently at the high schools. Okay. So, it's not in any of the middle schools. Do I going back? Do we have a motion on the table before I I can't remember. Okay. Thank you. All right. Um, do we have any more questions? Uh, Director Lewis's question was answered. Hearing none, Joanie, could

145you roll call, please? Dr. Beenthal, I. Dr. Olsen, nay. President Lysac, nay. Dr. Lewis, nay. Vice President Scott, I. Dr. Walsh. I. Secretary Hanky. Nay. Motion fails. I'm sorry. Motion fails. Okay. Moving on to 13.11 challenge material. The carnival at Bray by Jesse Anne Foley. We need a motion to approve the recommendation of the committee to retain with restrictions. Motion. Oh, sorry. Isn't that effectively voting to not retain it because they recommended we retain it and we said we don't want to retain it so it needs to be pulled restrictions I don't believe that's how we've done it before. Last time when this came up, it was just voted no and it was notained because we we were voting on the recommendation. Katie, you were on board. Yeah, I remember it the way Director Olsen

146is stating it. If anyone remembers it differently, please. I believe it was fun home. Yeah. and blue. That's how I remember it, too. There was no motion or anything after that. It was just was not retained and was removed. I mean, if Pat, are you saying it would make it better? Um, if that's how in the past there's any issue there's any here. So, can I make a motion to One sec? Oh, Jerry, did you apologize, Jen? I looked this up in the records and it looks like um the fund home book the the motion was to approve the recommendation of the committee not to retain on fund home. So the committee recommended not retain therefore the motion was not retained. All right. Okay. So that's why it was So is there a motion on

147the floor right now? There is not. So I make a motion to not retain sold by Patricia McCormack. It can't be in the negative. So we would need to a motion to remove. Yes. Has to be not retained. Okay. That's totally fine. Um it sounds like Yeah. Okay. The wording in the actual regulation is exactly how do we have to specify age appropriateness or is that not relevant? I don't think so. Okay. Joanie, did you get my motion? Okay. Second. Go ahead and roll call, Joanie. Director wethaw, Dr. Olsen. I President Lizac I Dr. Lewis I. Vice President Scott nay. Dr. Walsh. Nay. Secretary Hanky. I. Motion carries. Okay. Moving on to 13.11, Challenge Material, The Carnival at Bray by Jesse and Foley. We have We need a motion to approve the recommendations of the

148committee to retain with restrictions. Motion. Second. All right. I do have a question. Go ahead. Maybe we'll have the same. Go ahead. You can start. Um, my question was I looked through maybe and maybe I missed it. um retain with restrictions. Did they have a a suggestion of what the restrictions were? Was it parental approval for I can talk to that. Okay, thank you. Yeah, I was on the committee and this book was in the a middle school and the review of the committee was that the middle school because of the age groups that started in middle school that we viewed that it was not appropriate and that they voted for or it wasn't age appropriate. So that we voted to put it to the high school and we put a li I I I

149think there's a maturity level um notice on it so people won't order it or or or check it out that are under high school age. I do remember moving it to high school. So can we put a restriction on it that has to be 18 and older? Is that what you're saying? I believe that's what it ended up because it is with move with restriction. Yeah, it looks like superintendent Bishop is looking for that. I thought the restriction was it had to be at a high school level. It was moved to the high school. It didn't put an age restriction. It It was a grade restrictions. that that is the age restriction was going to the high school. That that's what it was. Sorry. Thank you for refreshing my memory. I do remember that question

150comment. So this is this is first time I'd went through a book review and I I just for the good of everybody out there I think everybody if you have a chance to volunteer you should do this because it it is eye opening. some of the comments that I heard from staff where there's a lot of good interaction. One of the comments is that within the school district and I guess in general education, young adult is classified as 12 through 18. So when you see anything that's out there that says for young adult, I assumed that meant that that would be somebody 18 or older was young. And but this is 12 or 12 13 all the way up there which was a real eye opener for me and I think real disappointment disappointing I

151think I don't know how grand a scale that is within the education organizations around but if there's room for us to make changes to that I think it would be appropriate. Second point I wanted to bring up was uh we order books before they're even printed. What that means ramifications of that is that the only way we can grade or judge the books whether or not they're appropriate or age appropriate or whatever the classification is is by listening and reading to what the the publishers say about the books. It certainly seems to me that we should have a chance to review the book after it's printed before we make a decision to buy. I I I find it hard to believe that we're buying books that haven't been rated except by the publisher. Can I

152speak to that or are you just still going? I got one more point, but go ahead. No, you can go ahead. All right. The the last point that that I wanted to make is one of the members of the board uh committee was a librarian and she talked about the challenge the librarians have and I think everybody recognizes just the workload and the volume of books and trying to get through them but they try to read as many books as possible but we've talked about this in the past. the books don't go on the shelf without being reviewed and read first. And I think that's a correct statement from the the entity of the school district. She made it clear that books are not read. Books are put on the shelves based upon in many

153cases what the publisher said was appropriate. And I just shake my head at that and say why? But that is what I learned about when you're doing book reviews is what has created uh challenges I think between the communities that are saying yes and no. So I just wanted to um speak a little bit to your second point about well and this one as well. The librarians put together an excellent video on how they review books to be retained or you know to be added to the library. I think it's also important, you know, to remember, I think it's unreasonable to expect a librarian to read every single book. Um, so we have to trust these librarians have highlevel degrees in their field. They're experts. They're not looking to indoctrinate our kids into what you

154think they're trying to do. Um, I just really put words in my mouth. No, I'm not say I didn't say you said that. Other people have stated that. So, what I'm I'm saying is that I don't know why we have this policy in place if we're going to ignore what the committee has, you know, like it's the committee recommendation. Thank you. Um, but to be so I mean you're just to me it feels like you're not trusting librarians to do the job that they're hired to do and have gone to school to do. Well, actually what I said was the librarians are overwhelmed by the work and there's no way that they acknowledge there's no way they can read all the books. And I said that in itself is a challenge because when you don't

155get the book ahead of time because they're buying books before they're even printed and then you get them in and you don't have time to read them, which is true, they're going onto the shelf without any real overview. That's my concern. But that seems a little more a little out of the what the librarians Did you watch the video that they made? Absolutely. Okay, good. But that seems a little bit inconsistent with what they stated was happening in our libraries when they reviewed materials to be put onto the shelves. Um, so I think Oh, it's absolutely. I mean we could probably deal excuse me have a lot more staff to help for sure. It is overwhelming. I don't wish you know I don't want that job certainly but I think we need to trust them

156that they have put in the research. It's not like it's just going willy-nilly to pick some random book and they're these books too. I think it's also important these are options for students to choose. This is not mandated reading for anybody. So to remove books as options for students is it's unacceptable. And again I'll tell you that I spoke and worked with the library and on the committee and I'm just relaying these are my notes from the day of the committee that we t spoke about it. I'm relaying what they told me. I'm not arguing the point. And I'm just saying that holy cow, we're we're really challenged and because there's not a way for the librarians to even begin to rationalize whether these books are appropriate, age appropriate or not. And I just think

157that we need to find a way if we just wait until not ordering a book until the reviews come out where we can see something besides the publisher who's trying to get you to sell the to buy the book. I think that'd be more appropriate than buying a book before it's even printed. Thank you. I call the question. Um, can we repeat the motion? The motion, sorry, I was waiting for Jody. The motion is to retain with restrictions the carnival at Bray and that is to move it from middle school to high school. Joanie, would you roll call? Dr. Dr. Bonthal I Dr. Olsen nay. President Lizac nay. Dr. Lewis I. Vice President Scott I. Dr. Walsh I. Secretary Hanky. Nay. Motion carries. Motion carries. Thank you. Moving on to 13.3 approval. No, sorry, 13.12.

158Um, approval 9 through 12 driver education curriculum. Motion. Second. All in favor? I I Any opposed? No. Motion carries. Uh 1313 approval moving with mentors high school physical education curriculum. We need a motion. Motion. Second. Any discussion? I just want to say I was on Tekk and learning. They brought this all three of these to the Tekk and learning committee and just the thorowness that they went through to develop it. Um and to see especially uh this moving with mentors one I think is awesome for the district. Excellent. Thank you. Um all in favor? I. No opposed. Motion carries. 1314 approval. Middle school, family, and consumer sciences curriculum. This is for all three. Yeah, all three. We don't need a motion for each individual. Just double checking. Uh we need a motion to approve for

159middle school, family, and consumer sciences as presented. Motion. Second. Any discussion? All in favor? I I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Um, all right. Moving on to these next two items are for discussion. Policy 1416, advertising in schools. Uh, Director Olsson, you asked for this to be added. Okay. So, I guess can we discuss both of them at the same time? I mean, I'm not really speaking directly about one policy, just our practice. I mean I don't see why not the other one is policy 320 school board elections also a discussion if anyone's looking at the agenda the policies are attached okay so I just want to have a discussion about the equality and fairness in the application of our policy and practice when it comes to district related ballot items such as bonds levies board

160of education candidates cates. Um, in every district building there's a propell vote April 8th yard sign 44 out front of the building for the entrance. Um, it's been explained to me that this is allowable because the district placed this item on the ballot and we aren't technically advocating for the passage or defeat of Propell because we're using the singular word vote and not the phrase vote for on the yard sign. It's also been explained to me that we have these posters and these yard signs simply to inform the people that propel of Propel and that it will be on the ballot. However, the district has placed two additional items on the ballot and that is the election of our two directors for the board of education. So, given the logic and reasoning we're using to

161allow the yard signs for Prop L on school property, I believe it's only fair to allow the candidates to place their yard signs on school property as well, so long as their signs do not say vote for, elect, support, or supported by, as that could be seen as advocacy. If their sign simply says Christina McCormack, Board of Education, that's no different than Propel, vote April 8th. Both signs are items placed on the ballot by the this subdivision of government and both signs areformational if they do not include the words or phrases I described. Thoughts? Yes. Let's just think about this for a second. If we were to just say, "Yeah, school board members, go ahead, put your signs out." We would end up with 4x8s, 4x4s, yard signs, all up and down. And then we

162have to regulate how many there are. So now we're policing and policing and policing. So what is the practice for the propell sign? So whatever the practice is for the prop. So I think let me address for a second because the district we've talked about it maintains a non-public forum, right? And so the signs we're talking about are third party. What are the propell signs? Hold on. I'm answering the campaign signs first that you're talking about for the board members. Those are third party purchase signs. Correct. The Propel L is purchased by the district. So I think the question is do you want the district to start purchasing here are the board of education members that are being elected and if that's something the school board wants to look at we can check the validity

163legally of that and then determine what that cost would be and do we want to do that every year and I think that's the discussion that we really should have because right now what we're talking about is third party purchase signs which opened it up that we have to have every third party give access to it. No, just the items that we placed on the ballot. the sign itself is purchased by a third party. The district's purchasing propel to inform. So if we're saying that then I think the answer is you need to look and say do we as a district want to say we will can or we will inform that here's what's going on. Here's the board of education directors that are being here's the ones running. So I'll put a picture all

164four of them with their name and we can advertise that the same way we're talking about now. And then again I'd have to ask Pat the legal side. I haven't dug it into that or dug into that yet. But to me, that's how you stay consistent with 1416. But can't we as the district stipulate that only the two candidates with their paid for signs or not two candidates, how many ever candidates they are for the two seats that are open um with their paid for signs are allowed to put up one yard sign per building or per location. Just it's still third party, right? District L is district. It's not third party. But can we stipulate that per our discretion as the district to allow or not allow? I think you open up then that

165than what people have already talked about which is the equal access side. If you're going to open up and give equal access to a third party, you have to open it up across the board. I mean Pat can talk more about that, but in my mind, anytime you're talking about independent, you're talking about third party. Yeah. In terms of um the way that you framed it, my mind went directly to where Brian's went, which was the logical extension would be the board approving the district to post signs about the board election saying, you know, April 8th board election vote. I mean, that's the logical extension of of kind of what you're talking about. I don't think um theformational posters that the district has been displaying with regard to Prop L necessarily means we should open

166the door to all these third party uh signs coming in for the election. I agree with Brian that if you open it up to a small group, you potentially have to open it up to a much larger group. and um you start to lose the ability to control the type of messages that are posted on district property by opening it up. As Brian mentioned, our board policy 1416 does specify specifically that the district does operate a non-public forum. As you know, um that designation as a non-public forum doesn't limit the ability of the district to display information in on its own property and in its own buildings. It's simply a limitation on third parties being able to come in and display information on the district's properties. So wouldn't wouldn't it become an issue only if

167it was like a viewpointbased denial? Well, that's just it. So once we start opening it up, um it starts I think starts to become murky. So yeah, I mean if it is a viewpoint um non-neutral decision, of course, uh that would be a violation of the first amendment. So, if all of the candidates were allowed to put their sign, one yard sign at every building, there would be no viewpoint discrimination. But then you have third parties who also want to add not just the board, but they're not the candidate for the thing that we put on the ballot. Can I uh weigh in just for a second? Um, so the legal side is one thing, but I think that something that's important to consider is that we also don't have bonds on the ballot every

168April. And so voters can expect that there will be an election on April 8th or whatever day, April, um, for board candidates, but the bond is out of the ordinary. And so the intent is to inform the community that we have a bond on the ballot and that that's something that they might want to um be aware of. I think it would be great to do it every year for board candidates because there's a very very low turnout for April. So I mean there's a lot of people that don't know there's an election in April with board candidates that they could vote for. So my point is we have a lot of fervor behind uh you know theformational stuff that we're doing for POP L nothing about the candidates. So where we've put all of

169these items on the ballot our subdivision of government put these items on the ballot but we're only making the push for the one item. Push as in likeformational. This is what we're doing. Hey, this is going to be on the ballot. To me, it seems it's not to me it just doesn't seem fair. I think we should care about both all three just as equally. And that's why I made the suggestion to allow and no, I don't want the district to spend money on yard signs with all four candidates names on them. No, that's not something I would want. That's why I made the position or the recommendation or suggestion to put their yard signs out. I think we hear a lot of feedback from people that are always asking for us to be transparent

170and showing the public what we're doing with our funds. So, I think what we're doing with Prop L is completely appropriate so people see how we are what we're doing with the money that the district is asking for. Um, so I think in that sense it's we're we're doing what the public ask. Well, if I can piggy back kind of what you were saying, Bren, we vote every April for board candidates, right? So, I mean, it's not that the information is not out there. We have a district website. People can go to the website to get the information. Like Pat's saying, if we open it up to third party people to put signs wherever, you're opening that can of worms. And I would totally be against having the district pay for signs for all the

171candidates. I'd rather that money go to the kids, which typically there's like a little 8 by6 section of one page hidden deep down in the board of education that has the four candidates on it. Like that's how much effort we've put into publicizing that we are going to be electing two new members possibly to this board. There's two open seats. So, but we have all of this other publicity about this other item that's going to be on the ballot. And this is not just picking on uh Prop L. This is every year. Every year. There's zero there's zero talk publicity about this. And now that I see what we're capable of um with telling people about something we're putting on the ballot, I think it would be nice for that to be our norm. And

172and I think that would be a practice the board's going to have to say they want to pursue. I mean, that's what it really comes down to. And what does it look like? You know, I I said like, do you want pictures? But what I could say is do you do we say something like board of board of education and put a generic sign that you hold on to that says make sure to vote in the election and you don't put that again becomes the decision that I think the board has to decide do you want to put that into practice and and being very specific and careful not to open it up as a public form and that's all I'm talking about. I don't want to open it up to where we have to

173give equal access to every third party. And so when you start making it private signs and things like that, that's where I was going. If the board wants to go and say as a cost-saving move, you want to put out signs and buildings that say board of education election coming vote, no names or anything like that, and you just do a generic Wville board of education election sign, and that's what the board wants to do. We can absolutely explore doing those things 100%. Um, and it still fits well within 1416 to do it that way. So that would be my question. If you want to look at that practice and start moving forward with a practice like that as a board, all we have to do is say that's the practice we want to move

174forward with and start doing that. I think we should discuss it at a later date because I don't know that we're going to agree on this. I just reiterate I wouldn't want to spend more money on something that I mean candidates can put out their own stuff. Is it expensive to run a race? Yeah. I mean, we all know that. Those of us that we've all we know it's expensive, too expensive. Um, but I don't want district resources going when we need to be able to pay for other things. All right. Don't pack up yet. We're not done. Okay. Um Okay. Moving on to item 14, board action items. Do we have any board action items? No. All right. Uh 15 board member comments. I have one. Vice President Scott. I just wanted to thank

175you Katie for your leadership as president of the board for the last year and um certainly we have not agreed on everything and um but I do think it's been a real testament to to people can not agree and have conversation and collaboration and at the end of the day have the right um you know decision in mind. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. A a Okay, then since we're here, there was one thing when I ran that I said I would say during a meeting, and I never did. I withheld, but I always said I'd say meow. So, if you've seen the movie, you know what I'm talking about. So, there it is. Um, well, I'm not gonna promote anything. So, um, all right. Any comments? I just want to echo, thank you

176for your service. Um, and echo what Mr. Tips said earlier. Teachers, students, staff, enjoy next week. Sleep, sleep, and do something for yourself. Okay. Uh, we need a motion to motion to adjurnn. Motion to adjurnn. All right. Uh, we do have to roll call this one, I think. No, I think so. Director Binthal I. Director Olsen I. President Lizac I. Director Lewis I. Vice President Scott I. Dr. Walsh. I. Secretary Hanky. I. Motion carries.