Board of Education Meeting March 21, 2024

001it's okay to laugh at me I'll probably laugh at myself uh we're going to start with 7.1 Open Session call to order and 7.2 Pledge of Allegiance we have a special guest here from he's a kindergartener from Heritage Declan mahany would you like to come up and say the Pledge we have a microphone for you right there I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which stands one nation under God indivisible was liberty and justice for all thank you Declan that was wonderful okay moving on to 7.3 one one second um agenda hang on sorry let me don't lose my speet approval of Open Session agenda I make a motion to amend the Open Session agenda to table item 14.3 until the April 3D Workshop um

002while still allowing the presentations from the bond executive survey and the wizville school district pres presentation 14 I second that just want to table the bond discussion and vote or vote while allowing the presentations tonight this would table the presentation and the vote for the resolution until the April 3D Workshop we currently do have a placeholder for its Wednesday April 3rd so wouldn't the presentation happen at a work yes no the the survey and the feasibility team is here to present so I think the ask is to go ahead from out of town so there to go ahead and present and if we need further things come the workshop we can certainly ask for the the presentation from the table to vote Yes motion table sorry turn my why are you looking to to pause

003the vote now well we can vote on and see if it passes but it's because historically I have just advocated for big items like this to really be given the attention that they deserve from us from stakeholders you know from the district and I just have a preference to table it till the workshop so we can give it more time but it's a collective vote so was I was curious with what your logic was that that's my logic director Goodson or mean I'm sorry director hi director hen I secretary hanky I director Olson I vice president laac Hi director LS nay 51 motion passes so then do we need another motion to no okay I make a motion to approve the session agenda as amended for the March 2124 board meeting as presented second all

004those in favor I I okay you join me in reading our mission statement learning today moving on to item nine recognitions Board of Education appreciation month okay um 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 this month our board members devote countless hours to making critical decisions in our schools and for our community we recognize the important contributions of these men and women and the vital role they play we are pleased to take this opportunity to thank each of you for your time and commitment to public service on behalf of the student staff and stakeholders in the wizville schoool district District at your seat you will find a small token of our appreciation from the Windville school district and

005now it is my pleasure to introduce the Heritage primary second grade Cub choir for a little recognition showcase If the parents want to come down there's some room up here if they want to see or take pictures or take pictures however you guys want just make room we're good we don't bite up here now yeah so did I that's okay e thank you everybody that was so much [Applause] fun and for the those of you um watching from home to our North Point High School industrial Tech students made these beautiful handmade um wooden uh cutting boards for our Board of Education with the emblem of the school district branded into it so it's a really nice gift completely student made so we hope you enjoy them thank you very much [Music] moving on to item

00610 public comment um I just asked the board was appropriate we do have where' it go we do have 14 speakers signed up um last meeting or the Mee be meeting before that I did it was at the end recognize I believe we should keep it at 10 for consistent I know there are people who didn't sign up last time because uh it was full um I'd like to make a motion to allow all speakers on so it's really only 13 okay we'll go with the majority I support having all it's 13 Dale sit in there twice yeah all right so we will go ahead and allow all 13 speakers up first is Jess hyper can you hear me okay try I'm trying thank you you're welcome can you hear me okay okay and it

007will Time start okay all right thank you for having me my name is Jess Piper um I'm a former literature teacher I taught for 16 years I'm a Missouri mom Missouri grandma have lots of kids in the public school I travel the state and the country speaking for uh Public School teachers public schools and board members as well I'm so happy that you invited me here listen um friends we are in trouble in this state um our schools are being defunded um we have we've had a party in in uh office for 20 years now and they are advocating for less money coming to our schools less money coming um to our teachers we are ranked 50th in the country and starting teacher pay we are 49th in Educational Funding in 2017 they lowered the

008bar to um send even less to schools and so they say that they have been fully funding us for years they have not you guys are well aware of the funding problem you're also aware that our transportation um hasn't been funded for years and this has been detrimental to schools overall you know that 30% of the schools Missouri are on a 4-day week and I know that isn't really impacting you guys here right now but be aware that it could be impacting you pretty soon because there is a voucher scheme going on in the state right now we know that we have Esa vouchers um that are coming through and they siphon public money into um private and religious schools we have instate billionaires we have out ofate billionaires who are spending their time buying

009off politicians and trying to pressure Boards of Education to do their bidding and that is taking away from our kids our schools are the Bedrock of society that's why you see so many attacks your teachers are under attack in their Community your board members are under attack your students are under attack so it's time that everybody come together and decide you know why exactly this is happening schools are where our children learn Community I taught literature for a long time and I taught it for this reason because we have something called windows and then we have mirrors we have places where children can look through literature and see others and be able to put themselves in their shoes and they have a mirror to see their self-reflected so we have to make sure that we're

010not Banning books we're not doing things that would keep kids from having access to what they need to do if we get public education right everything else will follow but if we get it wrong absolutely nothing else will matter elect folks who are not divisive elect folks who will link arms with your Educators with your administrators with your students who will support a diverse body here in Wentzville this is your community too elections matter show up every single one of you are worth it and your children are worth it as well I appreciate your time thank you for having me thank you for showing up second speaker Le palich good evening Board of Education I have a few things I wanted to address this evening um I did email the board and the superintendent over

011the last few days but I did not get any responses agenda item 13.2 the ELA K through five materials these really need to be reviewed at a work session before coming to a regular meeting for a vote I believe director Isaac suggested this is a way for the board to ask questions and dig into their curriculum this would also give the community the opportunity to watch the work session with no public comment and have an additional two weeks to ask questions also the community is asking for transparency and I am requesting the April 3D placeholder be used for a work session for this curriculum and bring it back for a vote in the April meeting next the district spending I don't have access to what the board does however in my review of the bills

012$273,000 of what I can see as being spent on Spencer Fain Ed counsel mix ool and our in-house attorney Spencer Fain specializes in investigations so again I ask what is $107,000 being spent on is it investigating our three newest board members mikas tool is defending the AG lawsuit Ed Council has left the district so those those invoices should stop I'm sure there are more but that's what I can see I would also like information sent out to the community regarding the money the district should be getting paid for the dardan Prairie development deal from my understanding the school will be paid 50,000 per year for 12 years for a total of $600,000 where is this money going rumor has it there's a new Foundation being formed after our current Wentzville School District Foundation would not

013accept this money is it true that current and next board members were handpicked to be on this board one Community member advised a current board member reached out to them asked if they would be considered if they would consider being on this board this is not right this money should be not be funneled through a foundation but rather directly to the school if the district goes with the New Foundation The Board needs to be diverse and not made up of EX board members who are recruiting certain people but instead a mix of community members and elected officials is there a criteria to be on this board lastly pay increases the majority of the board approved the superintendent's $51,000 raise and a salary to exceed a quarter of a million dollars the superintendent's raise is more

014than most of our teachers making a year our two teachers are the glue that is holding this District together and we are looking to approve an average 3% raise our teachers deserve better this entire negotiation needs to go back to the table for further discussion families are hurting right now prices for everything including house payments property taxes grocery store visits are skyrocketing 3% is not even the cost of living raise the district has the money stop spending it on attorneys and put it into the pockets of our teachers and staff I have attended every round table every board meeting and work session finance committee and the Heritage Round Table I showed up before declaring my candidacy and will continue to show up for the district the Educators and the students thank you for your time

015third speaker Haley Gino when a governing body provides a public forum such as this greater Free Speech protections apply furthermore it's already been decided at the Supreme Court in New York Times V Sullivan that we have the right to criticize public officials as we see fit Justice William Brennan stated that we have a quote profound National commitment to the principles that debate on public issues should be uninhibited robust and wide open and that it may well include veh costic and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials end quote that includes the Board of Education and superintendent 2 what is transparency free from pretense or deceit easily detected or seen through readily understood and characterized by visibility and accessibility of information especially concerning business practices we all know the Board of Education Election April

0162nd is when two new directors will be voted in with that said why was Dr tormala pushing so hard tonight to get this bond issue through is it because you thought that you would have board members leaving that would rubber stamp it for you what was the rush when it's not due till May 28th if you presented all sides to the the community even those that don't beg for money the issue is you aren't transparent you never have been you are actively racking up hundreds of thousands of dollars in bills for the winville taxpayers when you don't live here pay taxes here or send your children to our schools but you have managed to get more than a $50,000 pay increase to exceed 290,000 which is the highest one of the highest paid in the

017state with the biggest District in the county with failing academics when was the last time our Educators had such a nice raise or a raise at all how about our bus drivers our support staff or is it just the admins and Central offices receiving raises I've asked previously and I'm going to continue to ask why was Spencer Fain hired we have now been charged over $17,000 are you using wsd resources and taxpayer money to support your own personal Discovery to sue the district maybe standing board members or certain parents speaking about money let's discuss that 50 ,000 a year contribution for the daring Prairie tax abatement and where that money should be going versus rumor of where it's going how much involvement do you want to have in the newly forming Foundation is this another

018tactic to get a hold on our community one in which you don't live or send your children here so why can't you be transparent are you allergic to it or is just crossing ethical lines and breaking law your new favorite pastime we'd all like to know finally to those of you leaving the board I would say say thank you but all you've done is create divide amongst our board and our community so I will not be saying thank you you have chosen to protect yourself not our students you have voted in a way that is not consistent with the community and you have chosen to violate Sunshine laws which will cost our community an unforeseen amount of money in legal fees my question when you no longer sit on this board are you going to

019attempt to sit on the new board that is being founded and rack up their legal fees too don't forget April 2nd vote Sy and Lee we're desperate for [Applause] them next speaker Amy benen hoffen good evening I have a few teacher letters Anonymous letters that I would like to read um the first one the top 10 reasons this wsd teacher is voting for Cindy and Lee reason 10 Cindy and Lee are already involved with the community in advocating for teachers number nine Cindy and Lee care about children's safety and privacy in relation to restrooms and locker rooms number eight Cindy and Lee are concerned about District finances and spending money more wisely number seven Cindy and Lee are transparent number six Cindy and Lee have strong morals and a hard work ethic number five Cindy

020and Lee want to re-evaluate programs that are costly and non not academic related number four cian Lee care about the quiet kids the kids who care about learning and the staff members in the classroom who are traumatized by kids that are disruptive disrespectful and violent towards their peers and staff number three Cindy and Lee will hold Administration accountable for following District Behavior policies and handling them in a timely manner number two sorry Cindy and Lee support teachers being heard and teachers employment being secure even if they express concerns and the number one reason why this wsd teacher will be voting for Cindy and Lee They will hold students accountable for their actions not sure if anyone remembers the word consequences since the appropriate ones don't happen often signed a wsd teacher a second letter I

021am a teacher and I will be voting for Cindy and Lee though there seems to be a push for teachers to vote for their opponents I have not considered doing so I rarely attend board meetings but I watch on them online the lack of our leaders following District discipline policy and the disrespect shown to parents has been astounding and downright embarrassing teachers AIDS and students are being physically injured yet no one is doing anything the morale in this district is decreasing and it is devastating because we have so many fabulous teachers I have always been proud of this District but I am sad that I do not feel that anymore something has to change since I have already seen both Cindy and Lee working to hold our Administration accountable speaking on behalf of teachers and

022support staff promoting student accountability and actually listening I believe that they will inspire change I recently had this conversation with some of my colleagues and was thrilled to hear that most of them will felt the same way that is why this wsd teacher will be voting for Cindy and Lee thank [Applause] you next speaker Vanessa hegadorn good evening I stand before you to shed light on an important issue of discussion the school board election um of this C uh recent school or current School Board election the Corrupt Practices within the teachers union the National Education Association which I'll refer to as the Nea the Nea as many of you know is made up of District chapters like our own winville Nea the state chapter M Nea and the national chapter the Nea what some of

023you may not realize is the funds teachers contribute do not just stay within their local chapters instead These funds flow upward reaching the state and National Lev levels with the majority being funneled into the state and National organizations now here's where the deception lies many teachers in our district are under the false impression their dues only benefit the wizville Nea chapter and that any corruption plaguing the Nea is only a higher levels they believe oh wizville is just the W Nea it's not the national Nea that's different I'm here to tell you it's not different it's the same the truth is corruption within the Nea knows no bounds it permeates through every level the funds you contribute thinking they will only support your immediate Community are being siphoned into a system prevalent with dishonesty and

024self-serving agendas the purpose of a union is to represent right in 2021-22 less than 7% of Nea do money collected nationally from everyone participating was spent on actual representation so where did the other 93% go $49 million was spent on Democratic politics by an organization an organization claiming to be nonpartisan let's talk salaries 34s of the Nea employees make six figure salaries how many of our wonderful teachers make six figure salaries even though they're the ones in the trenches with the Blood Sweat and Tears and let's talk about the Nea president Becky Pringle she pocketed $534,000 in compensation from the Nea in 2021 the Nea and its all its layers are prioritizing ing greed over the well-being of Educators and students alike it's time we demand accountability and transparency from our leadership from the local

025to the National level we must recognize that breaking District policy by passing out election literature not acceptable ph's Nea chap unsolicited text messages to District parents urging them to vote for certain Nea sponsored camp candidates we must acknowledge corruption within the Nea is not confined to any chapter it's a systemic issue requiring Collective attention and action and it's very real in our community you can help stop it by not voting for any board candidates endorsed by the Nea vote Cindy ande number need to I'm reading this letter on behalf of a teacher in this District that cannot speak publicly out of fear of retaliation I'll begin the letter I started my career with the Windville School District directly out of college I was eager excited and couldn't wait to change lives there were so many

026aspects of teacher of teaching but no one I mean no one warned me about the pressure I'd face to join the Nea my pay felt very meager as it was and I didn't want to part with any of it those around me acted like I had to though I decided to do some homework to see for myself I learned that due to the Janice rule the Supreme Court gave Educators a voice in a choice when it came to Union membership so I didn't actually have to be in the union then I began digging I realized that though the Nea claimed to not be involved at all on either side politically they were actually extremely involved as a matter of fact the Nea is an extreme left leaning organization that we can't escape because of Educators

027money goes to the local state and National chapters even if they don't want it to all of the issues myself and my team seem to struggle with the Nea is behind discipline issues the Nea promotes restorative justice so our students don't get held accountable all the extra programs that detract us from teaching actual academics the Nea promotes a colleague of mine attended last Summer's Nea National Convention she said there was very little about academics but a lot about making social justice Warriors using proper pronouns and best practices for Dei oh and the Nea even created schools in transition a guide that instructs teachers to encourage transgenderism in the class classroom that has nothing to do with academics the NAA is supposed to represent Educators in the event of a lawsuit however I've heard more horror

028stories than glowing Stories the Nea seems to thrive on money and power they collect dues from over 70% of public school teachers but spend only a small fraction of that actually on representing them I'm so grateful that I've never spent a single Dollar on my hard earned money on the nea I participate in an alternative option that costs a lot less and actually represents teachers I would also never place a vote for any Schoolboard candidate endorsed by the Nea and I am glad morvis teachers are realizing the truth I'm a teacher from wsd and I intend to vote for Cindy and [Applause] Lee next speaker Jody Owens hi we are um teachers from W bash Elementary who want to thank the curriculum department for including special education in talking about the new Ela curriculum we

029were lucky enough to be introduced to the Wonders Ela program through the pilot and we're able to see how seamlessly it can move from the regular education setting to the special education setting I was able to use our experience with wonders to help Nicole Wilman and joury McBride see the benefits of its positive impact on students who are struggling in the areas of reading and writing by utilizing the Wonders curriculum students in special education receive equitable instruction that was previously hard to obtain or stay on the same page as they feel included because they are able to utilize the same materials as their peers obviously in the special education setting we St we deal with struggling Learners um one of the biggest things that we see is not a lot of Engagement and they come

030in they're feeling down on themselves and one of the biggest takeaways that I've seen from the Wonders program is these kids who are coming in have actually said they liked what they're doing which is kind of mind-blowing um but when they're coming in and the engagement is higher we can only see that leading to higher Student Success as well so that's the biggest thing with the Wonders um interestingly enough the things that the students were saying that they enjoyed were grammar activities which the current Ela program doesn't necessarily explicitly teach so these are some big things that we can see going into interventions and we can fill those existing gaps before they get too big um and the other thing with Wonders that we've seen as far as special education goes is a lot of

031the student workbooks come pre um adapted you know they have graphic organizers they are taking a step away from what we need to do as teachers and we can spend more time actually helping the students as a member of the ELA curriculum committee I've spent a lot of time diving into the priority standards and looking at the current documents that our district uses and by piloting both resources I've been able to see how the Wonders program allows students in special education to access grade level content in a way that supports their needs W scaffolds content instruction in a way that is not only inclusive to students that receive special education services but scaffolds in a way that helps to fill in gaps with all students inside any classroom wonders also explicitly guides teachers on how

032to meet the needs of students who utilize a reading support plan and will allow both General and special education teachers to have a clear understanding of how to best support these students in the classroom in conclusion we would like for the board to know that the Wonders Ela program allows for seamless instructional transitions between between special education and grade level classroom teachers thank you next speaker Lindsay Johnson hi I'm here to discuss the matter that matter at Liberty High School's winter formal I would ask if you are aware but I know for a fact that Dr tomato I mean t Tamala is as I personally emailed her I was never contacted by her over the matter for those who are not aware let me try to break down for you all the dance was scheduled

033to end at 10 however it ended 1 hour and 15 minutes earlier than what we were told I learned this by my child calling me in a panic that the dance was ending and I needed to come and get her right now I would say this is a miscommunication as that is how they wanted us to believe but it appears that may not be the truth later I learned I asked if anyone else was aware of the dance to end early and all parents were as confused as I was then some parents started saying their kids came home and appeared very off they were throwing up not acting normal very lethargic Etc my child was one of those I took her to the emergency room not knowing what was going on I requested any and

034all kinds of test to be ran while at the ER I called a file and non-emergency number to report the problem the operator instantly said we have already had a call about this from the the school I responded with I need to file a report then as I'm not aware of anything that has happened she sent officers to the hospital ASAP the officers that came to the hospital informed me of what happened as they were the ones who went to the school I was told A call came in from the school around 8:20 p.m. they told me when they got there Mr Nelson spoke to them told them he tested the water tasted the water it appeared to be fine but had already dumped it all before they got there ironically the dance ended at

0358:45 I did request the video footage by the police officers as they had their body cameras on at the school the next day I reached out to the school via email to ask why the dance ended I was told it was always said to end at N9 and they could refund me the $5 does this sound like a miscommunication still with the facts once they knew I made a police report I requested the school video footage from the dance I requested the jugs to not be thrown away and be tested as well as I called but was told the school has to handle it to file a music report which is the school's insurance on my child's hospital visit I then was contacted by Mr Nelson wanting to talk with my child and myself I

036spoke with Mr Nelson I told him I don't believe the time I was told those were the jugs used so I quickly viewed them I noticed they looked very clean besides the lid to one I can't confirm by the eye that it was anything but it was discolored and could have been mold there could have been bacterial fungal matter mold spores mot toxins Etc why were they never tested why were us parents to miners not notified about cops being called to the school about possible water being contaminated why were the kids able to drive off the school grounds if they could not drink anything contaminate it not knowing what it could have been why did Dr Tamala not follow up with any of my child how she was doing or how any child was doing

037after this matter I have just a second why were we lied to since teachers and Educators take an oath to do no harm and harm was done in this matter what do you plan to do what do we as parents plan to taxers plan to do will you your for everyone I didn't let anyone if I am unable to follow these teaching tenants I will remove myself from the position as a teacher so Dr Tamala would you plan to step down as superintendent of wizville school district but your is Dr Nelson princip of Liberty High School Mr Nelson was in the United States Army so he next speaker Lindy willford um has anyone in this room been to the grocery store lately um costs a lot to feed your family right now doesn't it families

038are feeling the squeeze everywhere uh I have a family of five at home right now and our grocery bill is close to our mortgage payment speaking of mortgage payments a lot of families in this community saw a jump in their mortgage payments this year too and that's because our real estate taxes went up significantly do you know who gets the majority of our real estate taxes this school district in fact you get 73% of our real estate taxes that's basically asking the average family in this community to write you a check of a few hundred or more every single month so in this District time and time again misappropriates our tax dollars or asks us for more especially during a time of financial hardship for its stakeholders it needs to be addressed some examples our

039superintendent made a deal with a darting Prairie developer that deal caused the district to lose millions of dollars in tax revenue add that to the hundreds of thousands of dollars we've spent on who knows what in legal fees because we can't follow Sunshine Law and then you feel that you can retaliate against those who exposed it what a waste of taxpayer money four of you just gave our rookie superintendent a $50,000 raise Jason Chan and Julian ctiy that's a raise more than some teachers entire annual salary I saw a comment from a teacher last night that was disturbing the pay increase for teachers who are over 23 years if this passes tonight they might get a $450 raise next year along with an estimated 16% increase in medical insurance that's less money than what they

040are currently making of this year this is a slap in the face to your teachers if you treat them this way while handsomely rewarding a superintendent who seems to do nothing but drive this District further apart is it any Wonder we have the lowest teacher retention rate around it doesn't appear the wsd is a very Equitable place to work also your little word games on the no tax increase bond issue you're not being honest with taxpayers no tax increase bonds actually do increase your taxes if the district didn't issue new bonds after paying off the existing in ones our tax bill would go down but it doesn't that is a tax increase it is simply a shell game I ask that taxpayers research exactly what this is before next month's vote I'll end with this

041taxpayers are not your piggy bank this is not Monopoly money families are struggling there is a real problem with accountability in this district and this election cannot come fast enough I wish winful families a great spring break and I hope that when major changes happen on April 2nd when Cindy and Lee are elected thank you next speaker Rebecca messic hello um I have a whole speech prepared uh but there are some things that were said earlier that I may need to address um there's been a lot circulating in this community over the last few months suddenly about the w&a um we are a local labor union that is what we are we are made up of teachers counselors Librarians nurses process coordinators diagnosticians psych examiners speech pathologists curriculum coordinators interventionists math coaches literacy coaches and

042educational support counselors there is no outside leadership in the wizville Nea we all work here in the wsd we elect our leadership from among our members such as myself who is a teacher here in the wsd our executive board is made up of a teacher a nurse an ESC and a librarian there are local chapters of the Nea in public schools all over the state um as you've been told this evening the 32,000 members across the state then make up the Missouri Nea and we do have State leadership which we also elect and then those locals all over the country come together to for the NAA at the national level it is the largest labor union in this country with almost three million members Nationwide so yes we do have a president miss Pringle who

043is running an organization with almost three million members who does make a good paycheck um I'm telling you this and hopes that you will understand that anytime a Community member makes a disparaging comment about the Nea they are directly talking about wizville Educators that is us we are the Nea it is made up of wsd employees the Nea is a National Organization but it does not endorse local candidates we do that that is us we have volunteers from all over the district teachers and other Educators that serve on our pack there is no outside leadership on our pack the pack makes all the decisions about who we will endorse and how and when we will will spend our pack money neither the state or the national level have any control over what we decide to

044do with our pack money here in the wizville school district furthermore our members do pay dues that is separate from pack money we are not allowed to spend dues money on anything politically related and also members choose to give how much they want to give to our pack willingly it is not taken out unless they sign and agree and say how much they want to give to the pack that's how unions work what the w&a is doing here in wizville is not decided upon or dictated by the national level or the state level it is entirely our choice our agenda the w&a spends majority of our time listening to and addressing the concerns of the members and the teachers in the buildings that are in these in this school district we take these concerns to

045the administration in regular meetings we are meeting with principles we are talking about concerns which by the way you would be hard for us to find anybody who would rather have restorative justice and no discipline consequences among any of the w&a members in this District um all three of the contracts coming you tonight were ratified by our membership and I was going to thank my team but I haven't had time and lastly um there were people here on District proper hand handing out campaign literature tonight and it was not my group because after I received notification from the district that that wasn't allowed keep have done that please thank you so [Applause] much next speaker Sissa Robinson Dale shaper come on down thank you vice president Isaac members of the board superintendent tomala and staff

046I come for you this evening to make a little correction I believe last meeting I said 75,000 that was 75 million that we was U talking about doing with Heritage School I just find this number uh excessively High considering the north porn High School only cost 75 million and our three elementary schools that we built previously that came in at less than 75 million I understand this fear has went down to about 60 million or the renovation at 50 million uh I think we're pushing that renovation to make it look a little bit better so that we would tear down bricks and mortar once again I will say it's what happens with inside the bricks and mortar at the school uh earlier we had a speaker talk about public education being under attack it's been

047under attack for several years it's going to start out with a little bit taken away from public education it's going to grow just like the boats gambling boats did when it was two-hour Excursion uh to see the water we don't have that now we don't have no limits there is going to be no limits on public education it's going to grow each year so I put down General last thing I would like to say I've heard tax against people of the district people who set on this board this has went on for four plus years enough is enough enough tax that needs to stop and then we have the protection that comes along behind the attacks either way if you're attacker or you are attacking or if you're protection it needs to stop our number

048one principle if we're talking about saving public education is about academics within our buildings that is the most important thing the only thing that control it and the finances that we are given by the people within our district where it's local state or County let me say this the leg legislators in Jeff City are attacking public education we you're the only ones that can stop this put academics at top at the top Financial spending at the top control it make every dollar count I'll take us back to Heritage I do not think we're making every dollar count once again thank you very much for letting me come before you last speaker Megan CTS a little shorter ladies and gentlemen I stand before you today to emphasize the profound significance of School Board elections while they

049may not always draw the same attention they impact is deeply felt within our communities and Educational Systems first and foremost Schoolboard elections determine the direction of our children's education are children who were referred to as a number or a dollar sign or a liability within the last meeting by board members our children who are being bullied by their peers because their parents have put different board member candidate signs in their yards school board members serve as advocates for students parents teachers and the community at large evident by the last few months in board meetings the previous year years these public comments have been an echo chamber of a minuscule amount of people within our community the board is responsible for representing our diverse interests and ensuring that all stakeholder holders have a seat at the

050table when important decisions are being made through their leadership they're fost they Foster collaboration and cooperation to achieve the best possible outcomes for everyone involved finally School Board elections are about the future the individuals we vote to elect on April 2nd will help share shape excuse me the leaders innovators and citizens of Tomorrow by investing in our schools and selecting dedicated Forward Thinking board members We Lay the foundation for a brighter and more prosperous future in our community in conclusion I urge each and every one of you to recognize the need for these members to be versed in the educational syst system Brad and David both understand the world of education and the mass majority of wsd Educators do support Brad and David and the W Nea thank you moving on to item 12 nope

051item 11 superintendent comments good evening let me slide this closer can you all hear me okay so tonight we'd like to get started by again thanking our Board of Education um for this is Board of Education appreciation month as many of you know this is a volunteer position it's one that um often comes with criticism and it often comes with difficult decisions when trying to make them for the entire District lots of time and effort go into this and every member of this board takes their job very seriously I would like to take a moment to especially thank president stoy who couldn't be here this evening and former president Goodson for the for their time on the board this is their last regularly scheduled board meeting for their term and I just would be remiss

052if we didn't um mention that your leadership to the district has been very valuable and the student students staff and Community have been positively impacted by your leadership so thank you very much we'd also like to take time to um recognize and announce Heather sweeten the school nurse at Heritage Intermediate as our 2024 District support employee of the year congratulations to Heather and all our amazing support staff employees of the year [Applause] year as an update we're continue to work on our five-year strategic plan our comprehensive School Improvement plan or better known as the CIP and that planning continues the steering committee uh will reconvene next month to finalize plans before it comes to the board later this spring we are also excited to um show you the Field's new rubberized playground surface it is

053under construction right now and will be up and functional by next week for our little list Learners at Barfield so we are very excited about that Improvement we also want to thank everyone who came out recently to our T Timberland feeder pattern student and School showcase and the wsd Roundtable event we had a great time seeing our students shine through their student booths and performances we're also excited to highlight Timberland High School senior Izzy akley she added a back-to-back state championship ship title to her resume she took home gold and broke the overall state record for the 100 yard backstroke she also was a state Award winner last year as well so congratulations to Izzy our Timberland High School's varsity cheerleading team capped off a successful season by by completing on the national stage congratulations

054to the team on representing the wsd at the national level and for their first place finish in the small Varsity co-ed division at the UCA hoer re Regional that earned them the bid to Nationals and then our dance teams across the wsd had an amazing season representing the district on the national stage as well they also had great success at the state level congratulations to the Holt High School dance team that took home gold in the division 3 hipop category at the mdta state championship the Liberty Bells took first place in lyrical Jazz and first place in Palm in division five at the mdta state championship and earned fourth place overall in division five The northp Point High School dance team competed in the mdta and brought home two Awards division four fourth place in

055jazz and fourth place in Hip Hop and Timberly and dance completed at mdta state championship and achieved division five overall State runner up while also earning second place in division five Precision Jazz and third place in division five pal we had members of the Windville Middle School student council who were invited to the state capital to be recognized by the State House of Representatives for their work with homeless vetrans for the 16th consecutive year students in Jerry Cannon's e8th grade class at w ums have held a donation drive for personal care items and clothing and then personally deliver the items to the Salvation Army Harbor Light Center for homeless veterans in St Louis WMS student council members from previous years were able to join this year's council members for this incredible honor congratulations to Timberland

056Jr Aiden storms who won first place at the St Charles County Regional poetry out loud competition the local portion of a national arts program that encourages students to learn about great poetry through performances northp Point senior anija hugley was the runner up South Middle School Juliana Riley is a published author Juliana a seventh grader spent the last three years working on her book SE legs the seven colonies congratulations Juliana we are so proud of you and what you have accomplished high school students across the District are becoming career ready North Point High School's guitar 2 students and broadcast media class visited Palin Music Center to kick off their client connected project students are currently working alongside the Music Center to coordinate an event by thinking of a name recruiting Talent securing food vendors and planning

057Logistics and Creative Design Lab and online news students from Liberty High School visited Fierce creative agency in St Charles students met with the owner took a tour of the facility met the project managers and designers and talked about opportunities in the industry we also are very excited for our wsd summer shiaka program which received a Missouri Afterschool Network Grant to help enhance programming this summer congratulations we're very proud to announce that Rafa Chima and Santos mandic Canan from Liberty High School have been selected as finalists in The 69th annual na National Merit Scholarship program we also want to give a shout out and thank you to miss Missouri by for stopping by North Point High School this month for um a visit with our students congratulations to two teams from Timberland High School that competed

058at the Moret cyber security challenge fi finals earlier this month securing second and third place finishes in the competition in January 25 teams from across the state competed in an online qualifying event with the Timberland teams placing in the top 10 to earn their invitation to compete in the finals we also are still accepting submissions for the wsd film festival which is set for April 24th the deadline to submit is April second and we also want to give congratulations to the wizville school district students aelle janua from Timberland High School Hayden ligher of northp Point High School Emma Thomas from Liberty and Bo on Tron form from Holt High School for their recognition at TH this year's St Charles County stem Awards breakfast additionally congratulations to the staff members who were awarded the Randy Schillings

059Grant this year and we we were represented by multiple staff members from across the county um for Wentzville teachers who were applied for and were awarded stem grants congratul tions to Bridget Thomasson for being named an honorable mention recipient of the Missouri Association of School nurses outstanding service of a school nurse award and on April 2nd it's election day we've heard a lot about that today and the wsd has two Board of of Education seats on the ballot get to know the candidates by reading their bios on our website the open seats are currently held by Shannon stoy and Jason Goodson and each seat is for a three-year term we have four candidates that are running for election Brad Welsh David Bethal Cindy REI and Lee palich also this evening which started at 6m Liberty

060High School in cooperation with student journalists across the district hosted a town hall interview event to get to know all four of our board board of education candidates it was live streamed and will be accessible via recording if you missed it live the exciting thing about that is that these interviews occur in a neutral Forum with our student Le journalists while also meeting curriculum goals for their journalism class and the last update we have coming up is our finance committee meeting that's scheduled for May 2nd so with that I appreciate your time thank you uh moving on to item 12 consent agenda we need a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented moot to amend the consent agenda in what way poll item 12.8 12.9 well I guess I should look again yep 12.8

06112.9 and 12.20 Mobile Beacon to new business second any discussion would we like to know why is that just for a separate vote director right Joanie if you could roll call that please director Scott I director Goodson hi secretary hanky I uh director Olsen I vice president liac I director Lewis I motion passes we need a motion to approve the consent agenda amended cons consent agenda motion second director Scott I director Goodson hi secretary hanky I director Olsen I vice president liac I director Lewis hi motion passes please refresh yeah me refresh have they been moved okay you're good you're fine you are all good um we can it's being slow I have a paper agenda all right we're gonna put okay we'll move on to Old business uh item 13.1 self-funded Insurance recommendation we

062need a motion to approve the contract with USI as presented moot motion second okay discussion Rick I'm sorry there's a presentation I apologize Rick go ahead and so as Rick comes up to um the podium Podium for the presentation I just wanted to say a few words before we get started so upon coming to the district we took a lot of time to really review our District budget and how we spend our money and this was an area that I had identified for us to explore for significant cost savings for the district I tasked Rick Angie ofine our CFO this year to really begin a process to investigate becoming self-funded for our insurance to be able to be in control of of the plan options that we're able to offer to our wsd family to

063reduce cost to the district while also maintaining but more importantly Improv improving our services for our employees and health options for our staff having a healthy and um healthy staff focused on health and wellness will benefit not only our staff members but our students as well so earlier this year we did work with three different um uh Insurance Consultant Brokers to evaluate whether or not wsd was a good fit for a self insurance plan all three of of those consultant companies said absolutely this um we were ready for this and it would be in our best interest across the board to be able to move in this direction so we're excited tonight to be able to bring forward a partner organization that's going to serve as our insurance broker for vetting our insurance providers and

064programming that we're going to be able to offer and while we do this and are able to provide similar or better Serv to all of our staff members we're also going to be able to project a savings of above $13 million over the next five years by moving in this direction so with that I'm excited to turn it over to Rick angine who's going to walk you through um the rest of the proposal thank you a as was just stated the district's current benefit plans are obtained through a Consortium or a trust known as is a CSD that's a cooperating School District Insurance trust the purpose of joining a Consortium is to pull resources and risks to benefit all members the current status is that the CSD quoted the preliminarily quoted the district an increase

065of 16% uh increase in in our benefits for fiscal year 2425 and that's an increase of approximately $4.3 million the Ws USD is carrying a large share of the cost and risk of the trust without adequate Financial or administrative control what that means is we are a very large portion of that trust it is a fiduciary responsibility of the district to save taxpayer dollars and reduce cost wherever possible this is where Dr Tamala asked me to research look into this and see what we can do uh to curb these costs what what I did at that point in time is is I obtained three benefit Consultants who gave us some results the district met with three separate benefit Consultants to help determine if the district should be self-funded we concluded that the district would be

066able to better serve our employees and lower cost by an estimated $ 13.8 million over a fiveyear period the district then issued an RFP which is called a request for proposal in early February to obtain a broker consultant to move forward with self-funding uh soon as we put that out on vendor registry 52 vendors were immediately notified that we were looking for a new vendor vendor registry at that time recorded 43 people 4003 companies went in could be people companies to see if they wanted to bid for us 47 vendors downloaded the information from vendor registry and five broker consultant responses were received why only five with all those people it is very expensive uh to give a bid on something like this it's a lot of time for the companies to do this my

067estimate I don't know because I'm not in the industry but I would say a minimum of five to10 thousand just to put a bid in so I am glad we got five broker consultant responses that that we did receive of the selection process the benefits committee which consisted of somebody a teacher from every building uh unions very broad representative uh we they interviewed four of the five broker consultant candidates three broker consultant candidates uh were chosen at that point and interviewed further by The District's executive cabinet after the second interview what with the district executive cabinet USI has been chosen to be the broker consultant for wsd a little bit about USI USI has successfully moved four school districts from the Cs D trust which we belong to a self-funded status The Rockwood School District

068has recently moved to USI also USI has agreed to meet all request for proposal requirements USI by the way was overwhelmingly chosen by the wsd benefits committee which is our teachers and our employees USI ranks number eight in the large in the list of largest brokers in the United States USI had the net the lowest net cost will pass ancillary compensation to the district as Contra as contractual thresholds are met and will not accept contingent compensation and all of USI references were favorable at this point in time what we are requesting at this time is that the board approved the contract with USI as presented and now I am open for questions vice president my if I may so one of the questions that I guess we we already talked about it earlier but just

069to review for the community um with our current rates the current company we're with rates are going to jump 16% if we stay with them that was their initial estimate when they found out that we were looking to move they considered lowering that okay um so by switching to a self-funded insurance we can is that something that's going to help mitigate some of that price hike absolutely okay well we have not decided which year we were going to take that in for example when you're self-funded you do have to have a fund uh in case your claims exceed the amount that you bring in uh we are confident that if we kept our uh what they told us at 16% which is the budget right now we are confident that we would be able to

070cover our claims we are waiting for our bids to come in from our new consult our new broker our new broker will rebid this the new B broker will go out to Anthem we'll go out to everybody we'll do get a new bid after they get the new bid we'll find out how much we really can save and depending on how much they say we can save is how much we'll lower our rates we can't commit to that now we're waiting to get our estimate in from them okay and then if I can add to that one of the things when Rick presents our preliminary budget a little bit later he has factored in in the budget that 16% increase so that we can build a Reserve Bank in the event that we should have

071an abnormally High claims year or things like that so and that that's one of the things that he'll continue to monitor as we get our Rate rates in and looking at what kind of Reserve Bank we would want to have in the self-funded insurance line for us absolutely and if we get a good enough bid from our new us broker we could maybe even do both we could be maybe able to build a fund balance and lower rates we'll see based on the bids as we get them and we don't expect like significant increases in employee out of pockets uh we have no obligation to change our plan in any way whatsoever as we move to this plan and one of the things that we've talked about internally is keeping our plans as close to

072similar as possible so that our our employees don't feel feel a change in plan so that they can really feel and trust that this is going to be in our best interest and then if any modifications tweaks or changes need to happen then we can always slowly work ourselves into those while also enhancing services and um Health options for our our wsd family you can see where my Direction came from that's absolutely what we're trying to do by president Rick with the uh self self-funding we run the risk of catastrophic expenses doesn't self funding include a component of if we hit something catastrophic that there's another insurance we still maintain yes we will obtain an insurance uh over and above what we determin to be a catastrophic incident we can ensure ourselves over above it

073can be a half million it could be a million it could be a million and a half we're going to rely on our USI to help us determine based on on what our factors are where that should be and that's the stop loss it's called a stop loss yes vice president liac I just want to applaud and commend the team for coming to the table with this idea to help you know mitigate obviously Rising health care costs you know that are being pushed into the employees so I I certainly appreciate the effort that's gone into the creative thinking and the work done by the team thank you may I I can't get the words out vice president um I had the opportunity to sit in um on the meeting when all of these um interviews

074took place it was pretty evident that they were going to be um a really good choice for our district and it was incredibly well-run everybody was very engaged so um I really did enjoy that thank you thank you anybody else we have a motion on the table Yeah we have a motion all in favor or roll call that's up to you vice president all in favor I I anyone opposed motion passes vice president uh liac if you want to have them refresh those changes have been made please refresh the agenda has been updated okay okay my computer's up refreshing moving on to 13.2 the ELA K through 5 materials presentation please and thank you so Dr Brett Schneider our assistant superintendent of academic Services is going to help lead this presentation for us but before

075we do I'd like to take a minute to recognize the Wentzville teachers content leaders coaches and administrators who took part of this very important work for selecting our kindergarten through fifth grade English language arts uh instructional materials they've worked very hard and very intentionally over the past several months to ensure that the resource that we're presenting this evening is aligned with evidence-based practices in the science of reading and was ready to be voted on this evening and we are thrilled that the board was able to give us time to Pilot because we are bringing forward a resource this evening that our teachers are very excited about we're all very excited about that um earlier this year would probably not have been the recommendation we brought forward so we thank you for that time and with

076that I'm going to give it over to um oh actually I'm GNA say if if some if you're here and youve worked really hard on this or you piloted um within your classrooms can you just stand up for real quick we would like to give you a round of applause [Applause] thank you that's a hard group to follow they're amazing people and they've been a joy to work with um so thank you board of education for giving us this opportunity to talk to you tonight about a resource that we are very excited about um our purpose tonight um is to inform the Board of Education about the prek-5 Wonders program and share why we believe that wonders represents the optimal resource selection for fostering academic growth and achievement in our preschool and elementary students at

077the end of this presentation we will ask for your approval of our resources so we can begin our learning around our new resource for the next year this learning will begin on April 2nd the day that we return from break there's only one school day left until we get to start to dig in um our district will come together to learn and grow around structured literacy and the implementation of wonders in our classrooms I provided handouts for you tonight because we are going to talk a lot about some different components um and I want you just to have the paper in front of you with some of the notes so that if you have questions about what we're talking about you can go back and reference and and ask so all right r y is

078always our students our students are the most important things to thing to us every single day our teachers our administrators our coaches go above and beyond um to meet the needs of our students and do what's best for our kiddos our students were very excited about their learning during the pilot and you'll get to hear from some of them later on tonight tonight we're going to look at various aspects of our pilot including Ed reports data the overview of the pilot feedback from our piloting teachers the alignment pieces to the science of reading and then we're going to take some time to answer any questions that you have Ed reports is an independent nonprofit committed to ensuring that students have access to high quality instructional materials they publish reviews of K12 instructional materials using an

079educator-led approach that measures standards alignment usability and other quality criteria when eval when evaluating various curricular materials we typically begin with Ed reports in the hopes to see an all green report a report of all green means that this particular resource meets their criteria while this is important information to consider it is far from the only metric that we use when we evaluate resources and materials the instructional materials for grades K5 meet the expectations in all three gateways alignment building knowledge and usability most most texts are of high quality and include rigorous Reading Writing speaking and listening and language practices students have opportunities to engage with text and tasks that promote knowledge building support for teachers to implement the materials with Fidelity are clear and include guidance for differentiation to authentically grow student skills some

080key areas of interest in the report included the following foundational skills foundational skills are the beginning processes of reading for students in grades K through five this score up here on the screen represents an average across grade levels reviewed for print concepts phonological awareness phonics and word recognition and fluency a score of 108 is exceptional the building knowledge score represented an average across grade levels reviewed for integrated Reading Writing speaking listening and language and promotion of Mastery of grade level standards by the end of the year wonders received a perfect score in this [Music] area we had 48 teachers pilot two comprehensive Ela programs since October the curriculum team members piloted with a piloting partner so they were able to like choose a buddy within their building and on their grade level team the academic

081Services team team and literacy coaches selected which units would be piloting by aligning the pilot resources to our current curriculum this ensured that our students of piloting teachers would be receiving instruction in essential skills and standards as teachers piloted they were asked to provide us with feedback along the way throughout both Pilots using rubric criteria teachers engaged with initial resource training prior to the pilot start States P prior to the P pilot start dates additional virtual training was offered all piloting teachers were provided with an opportunity to cast their vote on which piloted resource they'd recommend for adoption and when the results came in 92% of our piloting teachers recommended wonders for district-wide adoption so here we are today some of the feedback that we collected along the way stated that wonders was based in

082science of reading it included all of the components of ela including phonics and small group lessons for intervention and for advanced students my students love wonders they are engaged and excited to read every day wonders covers a broad spectrum of literacy skills while using Rich literature selection across various genres it provides differentiated instruction to cater to the ver diverse learning needs student engagement was much higher in wonders wonders is more scaffolded which provides an equal opportunity for all Learners to be success successful when considering a structured literacy resource Wonder hit the mark in all areas of literacy instruction this program provides a comprehensive integrated plan for meeting the needs of all students each grade level program prek through five is designed to deliver effective content proven to enhance student learning structured with a carefully planned

083scope and sequence within all grade with within and across grade levels optimizing teaching Effectiveness the prek-5 English language arts curriculum team is recommending wonders a McGraw Hill product as a curriculum resource this resource includes teacher and student materials for preschool grades K through five core classrooms special education classrooms and our English language Learners it gives sound guidance and supporting all Learners in the five pillars of literacy instruction and involves employing a multi faed approach that addresses each pillar comprehensively this includes phic awareness phonics fluency vocabulary and comprehension this is the slide that you might want to follow along in your notes because we're going to go into some of the specific components wonders phonics instruction is systematic advancing from basic to intricate sound spellings with support as new ones are introduced lessons in the teachers

084Edition offer modeling guided practice and independent practice along with recommended resources for multimodal instruction explicit decoding instruction including continuous phonation blending maximizes Early Learning progress both wonders instructional routine handbooks and teachers addition lesson plans incorporate continuous phonation blending instruction research suggests that blending and segmenting are crucial pheic awareness skills closely linked to early reading and writing progress and decoding the instructional routines handbook in wonders offers research-based routines for these skills wonders phenomic awareness lessons in the teachers additions cover blending segmenting isolation isolating identifying categorizing adding deleting substituting and reversing phones in prek 2 daily foundational skills instruction trans in prek 2 daily foundational skills instruction translate directly into reading connected text achieving automaticity in Reading Ables students to concentrate on the meaning of texts such as shared reading text in the Reading Writing companion and

085the anchor text in the literacy and an anthology in grades one and two for grades three and through five fluency is a focal point throughout the text with weekly lessons and daily practice in the teachers Edition lessons Target accuracy procity expression and rate supported by practicing using the audio recorder tool in the digital course evidence from the science of reading also advises a balance approach to vocabulary instruction combining direct teaching with contextual exposure in wonders vocabulary lessons emphasize high frequency words for early grades and introduce low frequency words as students progress high value words are consistently highlighted across all grades lessons follow the defined example as routine ensuring multiple encounters with new words and a spiral review direct oral vocabulary instruction is provided and prek K1 and two followed by written vocabulary mini lessons for

086grade one unit 4 and onward key vocabulary strategies are introduced from grade one unit 4 including context clues prefixes suffixes Greek and Latin roots base words dictionary use idioms synonyms antonyms homophones and homographs reading comprehension necessitates the extraction and construction of meaning from text requiring students to apply prior knowledge to written information to succeed readers must expand knowledge through high quality inform informative texts navigate increasingly sophisticated written language develop cognitive abilities to manage and monitor these processes wonders offers lessons centered on a diverse collection of complex literacy and informational texts covering science and social studies topics as well teachers will find explicit research-based instruction in vocabulary and language skills guidance for highlevel discussions and well-designed lessons targeted to targeted ex executive processing crucial for enhanced comprehension including building and utilizing knowledge vocabulary and written language

087skills text complexity and executive processes in comprehension strategies beyond the five pillars of wonders beyond the five pillars of literacy wonders provides robust writing support as well recognizing the important of logical and effective communication writing encompasses foundational skills director Lewis you're going to love that it encompasses spelling and handwriting and higher order abilities composition and communication along with the executive processes essential for successful writing research highlights the reciprocal relationship between reading and writing and wonders focuses on writing instruction on key areas to enhance reading writing foundations wonders delivers explicit lessons and practice opportunities for foundational writing skills fostering confidence of proficiency in spelling handwriting and sentence construction this enhances students ability to organize their ideas effectively quality writing for multiple purposes writing is integrated into literacy instruction and wonders it with varied purposes and audiences

088students respond to texts with summaries notes and prompts and engage in self- selected writing rub rub RCS student models and craft writing lessons support the development of narrative expository and opinion opinion argumentative texts it also reinforces the writing process extended writing projects guide students through planning drafting revising and editing with support for Teacher emper conferencing writing mini lessons and resources in the online writer's notebook enrich the writing process writing to enhance reading is also included wonders prompt students to write about texts they read fostering deeper comprehension analytical writing routines assist in analyzing prompts citing evidence and forming strong conclusions strengthening analytical and informational writing skills with this adoption Wonders work with us to create a plan to meet the needs of all of our Learners in preschool and into kindergarten through fifth grade we are

089going to receive preschool resources special education resources English language learner resources and differentiated scaffolds within the program to reach all Learners in the area of phonics reading and writing now the best part we're going to hear from some of our kiddos doing we're reading from the Wonders book awesome and what do you guys like about the Wonders Anthology I love because it's like but you don't have to walk it's right there I like it because it's like the textbook is like a a mini Library just like she said and there's a bunch of like literature and art articles and there's um a bunch of like funny little stories there's non-fiction informational texts and there's like fiction informational texts and it's um there's some things about history and I think it's really cool and I love

090the prog I like wonders because it teach you a lot and learn lesson and the online games teach you when in class hi we're working in our W SP books there's so many cool things like fiction story St like remember even writing songs resources for your researching essays more space to put ideas for your writing not only is there writing reading reading but also s and social SS even BS to grade your own learning and then my favorite part extra space at the back rests this is why you should choose wonder I like wonders because booklet for reading and writing and it helps me stay Oran my favorite things about wonders is the stories that they have like Brave Bessie and I also like the vocabulary what's your favorite part of the Wonders program the

091wond what do you like about it oh it has so many resources for off of the games games and building vocabul games I love wonders because I love all the vocabulary we get to do and all the stories we get to read each week are very interesting to me [Applause] our students and teachers have worked very hard over the last few months um to be very flexible in the piloting process um it's not easy to teach three resources within a school year it's not easy to teach one resource within a school year and so um hats off to our kids and teachers for being so willing and open um honest and working with us along the way to to help support them so I if anyone has any questions vice president I'll start it off

092is is the writing including cursive does the writing include cursive is there yes they say yes that's great so they'll be able to sign a contract when will they will yes they'll be able to give you an autograph yeah do within the books I see the the students all using those and I see a price of 1.8 million is that a is that like for a fixed number of years so we get new books for the next five years it's for six years six yes so we will get that automatically every single year so as as a population goes up that books we get will go up as well well we do um we budget within our growth and renewal funds um to if we are getting new classes is um a lot of times

093we'll shift around numbers and move workbooks before we have to order any extras sometimes we have extras um you know not too many um you know we're we're pretty good about sharing and moving things as we need them between buildings thank you yeah vice president liac um what schools participated in the piloting did we have representation from every building we had representation from every building Elementary it was every single Elementary every single Elementary Jenny yes yep we're very fortunate um we're able to use those teachers too that have piloted um in and teaching others and being leaders within their building to help with implementation so um to have it across the district in a district this size um will will be very beneficial for US president like um I went on wand's website and I

094was just looking through um I do have some concerns um this could be a great uh resource and curriculum however it looks like there are some things that are very questionable that are embedded in the curriculum such as Dei um there was uh social bias that was in there and um see what else um gender biased um and just different aspects of that type of thing and it says that it's embedded in the curriculum so those are my concerns with this um I I will not be supporting this curriculum just for those things we need to look at how are we going to educate our children in the Reading Writing all of that without these added um aspects that are not educational it's that is for parents to decide that is a home life aspect

095that is not for education so I will not be supporting wonders director uh get it right Dr Katie sorry the uh when you're going through the talking about the curriculum and and the resources and development I think you said that we're gonna have people come in they're GNA help help with the writing is is that a correct statement so with the writing of the actual curriculum right so what we so the people that are coming in to help support are actually from the company and they're to support with the resource we write our own curriculum um so from the resource after the resource is adopted and approved by the board um then we take that and we take the pieces out that then align to the curriculum that we've written so you won't use everything

096that is offered there is a yes there is a chance that we will not use every single thing that is within the Wonders program we take what is priority for the Missouri learning standards and what our priority standards are and then we align the pieces of the resource that align with that does that make sense yeah it does thank you Dr tala um in the beginning of the school or beginning of the first my first ter I asked the question to the uh to the the team the admin team about uh doing research into studies if we taught Dei seal Etc and there after exhaustive work on looking at it you came back and said no that's not the case with the acceptance of this program in use would that your answer change so I'm

097going to defer to Dr Brett Schneider and the team of teachers that piloted this um the question that you asked earlier in the year the academic Services team went through and they evaluated all of our professional development that had been offered as well as looking at all of our curriculum and the response from that was that we did not have Dei or seal written into the curriculum components that are taught to our students so but I can let them speak to this curriculum and the programming you want speak to that okay this is jenie McBride she is the ELA content leader so as far as like Dei that you would see in the curriculum this resource doesn't teach Dei it absolutely features books by and about um black authors by and about black characters um

098Latino characters so on and so forth but I believe that that is very different than explicitly teaching Dei I have a followup to that right here on this wonders uh website printout it says we believe this work is critical to infuse every child's education and all areas of curricula with the resources and tools needed to help students and teach teacher and teachers build strong community that values empathy understanding Justice equity and social action that that social action is the key word that that we're talking about Ela curriculum that needs to be focusing on grammar pheic awareness Reading Writing language yes um and so what we shared what I shared in the presentation were all the various components um I would absolutely be willing to look through that with you director Olsen um and and we

099can look throughout the resource I'm more than happy to do that vice president I I I like that thought doctor I mean it's there's there's there's two sides of this if if I take all the words that I read also on on McGraw Hills website that they have a a curriculum to teach and from all all words that I've heard tonight that's that does a great job and it works well and we're excited about it there's also the piece about the embedding of of thoughts and ideas and you can call up different words into what we're reading and I would like to see what we're reading to understand that because words get used in a lot of different ways and I just want to make sure I understand it because of uh reasons that I've

100already spoke of so I think it'd be great if we'd have a chance to see some of the books and go through them and and just give a piece of mind like the April 3rd Workshop the April 3rd Workshop is already designated to the bond issue I'm sure we could handle both the timeline that we have right now for professional development actually um has our professional development plan by our teachers and staff in mcra Hill um beginning on April 2nd um and so that would be um an an obstacle that we would absolutely have to to work through I mean I'm I'm more than willing if we can just stop by and pick up a couple of the books if if it's if that's possible just look through them I I don't know how formal

101it needs to be I just I'd like to read it to see what we're spending $2 million on I mean I the fact that we've got the ELA team that are supporting it it's hands down for me it says that it's good I'm just concerned about what I spoke of and being able to read it I think would be put my my mind at ease and I can I can pick that up tomorrow if you want and I don't know how much of a formal process it needs to be but that's my opinion do we have spare copies of the curriculum do you want it's K through what great pre through do you want just to clarify so they can have the materials ready do you want prek through five like a textbook of each

102just a sampling yeah yeah i' I'd like to see you know at the beginning what they teach and through the middle and at the end and just so that I'm comfortable with what I'm what they're using so we currently don't have an excess of materials we have teachers still using them and finishing up their pilot the pilot actually ends tomorrow um so they're finishing up some of those units um I there I could potentially reach out to our reps and see like what pieces and samples they could provide um if that would help I don't believe that I can have them for you by tomorrow I don't want to take them out of teachers hands with students oh I agree but I given the pending sale I'm sure they'd be willing to work with us

103yeah thank you that and of course doing that now would make it so that we're not even though it's coming up real quick I I'll look at stuff before then okay are there any other questions or can we Julie go ahead yes I would like to number one thank you for all of your guys hard work my daughter was in a classroom that um piloted uh the program so I was kind of you know asking her questions throughout um I'm just going to be frank like we need to trust you you guys you guys did this um you are in our our classrooms with our students um I just want to know and and this is not to anybody specifically on the board but just as like a general question if we're going to drill

104down I just find it really difficult to believe that there's going to be if this is what we're going to be judging our curriculum on that there's going to be anything that's acceptable and I just really and then there's no time like there's I guess we it just goes down to trusting the staff that are educating our [Applause] students one of the great things that that that President Reagan said was trust but verify all right if there's nothing else I will call the vote I can I just say one more thing um and so one of the pieces um for the quote is that we need um a signature on our contract to be able to access those things and so that would that would be something um that we would need motion to table

105this until next week at after we can review we have a motion on the table is there a second second which would be before April 2 no it wouldn't be before April 2nd the workshop is the third the second is a Tuesday that's still technically spring break the first is still technically spring break so we teachers have a professional development day we can vote while on spring break can we not we can have a virtual vote so I'm stand we have a motion on the table Joanie would you call roll call please and would you reread the motion please yes um motion to table this until next week is that correct Jen we would have to I'm sorry I'm just going to we would have to literally set a date like right now a date

106and a time we don't have to exact we can set a virtual meeting during the week of so that we can figure out a time after this meeting but we we need I think we should be more specific in the I don't know in the motion you can't be transparent if you don't know when you're going to get the book so first you have to get the book first you have to get the book and then we can look at it I call the question I'll clarify the motion motion to table until the board is able to vote on this in a virtual meeting March 25th through the 29th I'd like to ask a question of Dr Brett Schneider since she's the one that helped negotiate with this company since we have training for all

107of our teachers scheduled on April 2nd with wonders I am assuming that they need an executed contract in hand with initial payment prior to them coming is that correct that is correct and if we don't have if we don't have professional development for all of our teachers on April 2nd when would that happen August 15th when do they when is the cut off date for them to have it before before they can't come or can't provide us with the materials I don't have that information in front of me we the the understanding was it was going to the board tonight to to be voted on okay would Monday be too late would you be able to get us the material that we're asking for in a Monday vote virtual vote i c I cannot answer

108that question without speaking to them so I don't want to misspeak here ju just before I just I have to point out the irony of this vote the irony of accelerating a pick to then delaying a pick it's just good thing we have a month buffer the irony is hilarious director Scott nay dor Goodson secretary hanky I director Olsen I vice president ISAC nay director Lewis hi so now you go back to motion fails all I want to do is just read the damn book point of order side talk I am trying to figure out what's next on the agenda thank you very much we go back to the original vote there was no I make a a motion to approve the ELA K through five materials of Wonder as presented prek through five sorry

109second there were two different Benchmark and wanders that have been consistently talked about in Pilots Etc this board has had plenty of times to look at the website and look at the big bad scary Dei words and decide if it's okay or not and ask for these materials we wait we wait and we delay and we table for forever and and we did this while insulting teachers last fall and telling them to hurry up the irony of this board and its professional behavior is disgusting vice president liac I call the [Applause] question Joanie roll call vote please can you reread the motion motion to approve the ELA prek through five wonders materials as presented director Scott I director Goodson I secretary hanky nay director Olsen nay vice president Isaac I director Lewis if I vote

110nay what's the next step agenda all right then if nobody's gon to tell me anything I'll vote nay do we need to should we recess okay I make a motion to recess for five minutes second second all in favor say I hi e we'll wait for Brian Bishop asked the teachers to go get it how long how what's the far anybody let's move e we are going to get started again Brian's back all right all right we are going to continue with item 14 new business we're going to begin with 14.1 I need a motion to approve the contract for Algebra 1 geometry Algebra 2 resource approval kidum motion second any any questions yes ma'am so is this ARA that no team that's us um director Olson okay well I guess my questions would be

111for ARA um the the Privacy security evaluations Greg oh okay so on the commonsense.org just just for the kidum one specifically because I couldn't find the other two um the data collection score was 50% and it says that piis is create collected and shared with third parties and it may include geolocation biometric Health interactions behaviors sensitive data and it's all automatically collected um another one would be kid them yep another one would be the data rights um users it's got a 65 on that one users can create and upload content with unknown restrictions as to who can access the content and it may uh the company may not have data retention policies or delete those that content when it's no longer necessary they got a 40% in data safety um and that means what they

112have is that users can interact with strangers and untrusted adults profile info can be shared for or must be shared for social interactions personal info is shared publicly um social interactions are not monitored for safety purposes and they may not be logged users may not be able to report abuse or cyber bullying um they got a 55% for ads and tracking uh the company can send them ads promotional sweep Stakes contests and there's no option or there may not be an option to optt out um individual controls users may not be able to limit the data collected company may not treat information as pii um and a notice not provided if company receives government or legal request for info um so those are just a few of the concerning items um for this specific resource

113the kidum is there yes when we when we had kidum and um driva sign our ndpa they are not allowed to do those things so that is part of them following the N the Missouri ndpa agreement um so that is not those them signing that restricts them from doing that and ensures they follow our policy but if they don't have the abilities to do certain things like they um there's no option to opt out on that one thing that I mentioned um may not be able to report abuse and cyber bullying that's that's those are features that their system doesn't have or is unable to do so in order for us to be able to even bring it forth to you they have to sign our ndpa our our privacy agreement that supports our board

114policy which prohibits them from doing that so they're not able to do those things because they did sign our mour our MPA so what are what third party are we using to review all of this all of the software that we use in the classroom we use um um in a range of controls aligned with our policy 5710 um we do single sign on authentication with Google so all of us privacy protected through our Google signin and filters um we do multiactor identification only essential information is is shared with kidum or online resources that limits to what's only necessary for accessing online resources um furthermore they signed our District's data privacy agreement um and this agreement ensures that kidum adheres to data privacy standards including those outlined in the children's in the Capa act in

115the children's online privacy protection act so what third party is doing what third party are we relying on for the security and privacy reviews we do not rely on a third party we use our the ndpa guidelines that follow our board policy and our CA guidelines so that those are required through the state okay so so is an employee here that works for wizville going through and doing a security impr privacy review of all of of any of these things that we're purchasing software so I was under the impression that we used common sense.org as the third party that did those reviews and no no we we do not Comm sense.org it's one we used in the past would it be possible for us to get some kind of cost analysis on what thirdparty vet

116vetting organizations that are out there that's free and then we would just analyze that our team would analyze the third parties The Trusted third parties review of the software we used to use commonsense.org I don't know why we're not using them now but that's who we used to use but with the states Katie what was it that you called that they have to sign is that the same thing that the third- party vetting agencies I'm just trying to all of those standards would align yes so again this goes back to trust but verify what I'm what I'm saying is yes they've signed the document that says that they'll follow all the rules but what sort of an analysis have we done of the software that we're putting in front of our children that's what I'm

117asking our analysis or an analysis of Our IT department our tech security Specialists who have that sort of background that's what I'm asking our Tech team goes through and thoroughly vets those sources based on the guidelines through the M the ndpa and the Capa um guidelines ARA are you aware of any third party that we use okay okay um do we we have a motion on the table right yes we have okay I call the question unless anybody has anything else they would like to ask Joanie could you reread the motion please motion sorry motion to approve the kidum contract as presented director Scott I direct Goodson hi secretary hanky nay and only because we can't verify the security portion director Olsen nay vice president liac I director Lewis I motion passes this 14.2 okay

118moving on to 14.2 contract Algebra 1 geometry Algebra 2 resource approval de dividia deria D deriva thank you I make a motion to approve the contract for Algebra 1 geometry Algebra 2 resource approval deia as present second I have I just have the same issue I couldn't find any security privacy review information out there for this company vice president liac May yeah yes you may thank you I sent a message to Mr Lawrence who is unable to be here tonight and asked him if they utilized commonsense.org as part as of their oversight and verification process and he said we do use it sometimes as part of our decision-making process but not every website and resource is on there and their information isn't always as up to date as they'd like so so they use that

119within their team internally along with their own decision-making skills as they review those sources do we another piece that um M uh Greg Lawrence stated was the Missouri student privacy Consortium for student data privacy and so that was another um piece that they used as well and that's the website okay yes I'm sorry yes I was reading my message I'm correct yes did he use that for the last one we just voted on is that what he's talking about so the Missouri student privacy Consortium is um they house all the data privacy agreements so they go through and vet these resources and websites and then make ensure that they are compliant um for the safety and protection of of our kids so and that is how the n BPA and the Kaa those Agreements are

120are kind of flowed through that process um because they ensure that they meet those standards um and if they didn't then the our contract with them um would be null and void like we wouldn't be able to sign a contract with them if they weren't if there are no other questions Joanie would you do the honors um director Scott I director Goodson hi secretary hanky I director Olsen hi vice president liac Hi director Lewis hi motion motion passes 14.3 contract Mobile Beacon agreement and renewal I make a motion to approve the contract Mobile Beacon agreement and renewal as presented second questions hearing none Joanie director Scott I director Goodson hi secretary hanky I director Olsen I vice president liac I director Lewis I motion passes moving on to 14.4 preliminary budget do we first have

121a presentation should I make a motion first and then no there's no motion no motion needed it is just information thank you the clicker not up here Rick needs the clicker again there is there's no motion for this presentation what this presentation is doing it is is it is informing the board of where we're at right now this year and the major decisions that we are using to move into the budget period because uh after uh we show you this presentation we will be putting together a budget that has over 10,000 accounts in it and we need to have our big numbers set and let you know our Direction so that we can move forward and again how we're doing this year is you'll see as a factor in determining how we move towards our

122budget next year the purpose of this presentation is to inform you of the major factors affecting the the development of next year's budget the information contained in this presentation is preliminary and I can guarantee you it will change before the final budget is presented to the board in June we're starting early we have to but we have to get an idea where we're going to be prelim preliminary indications that we will finish this year favorable to our operating budget by one and a half to 3% that's not a lot percentage wise uh but we are uh predicting as we look at our financials right now to be favorable in that range the preliminary 2425 budget being presented is currently balanced uh with the numbers that we have here we are balancing the budget there are

123uh four major it four major Revenue areas that are increasing by over a million and there are three major expense areas that are increasing over a million assess values and tax rate formula funding propy sales taxes and earnings on investment each are all increasing over a million dollars the expenses that are increasing of course are always salary increases in new positions we'd already discussed health care benefits and our curriculum spending is also being increased I'm going to go over each of the major items here the district's largest source of Revenue is current delinquent taxes uh it's about 42% of our operating revenues and 2425 next year that we're budgeting for is not a tax reassessment year last year's assess values during that reassessment year was over 20% this year we expect an exess value increase

124of about 4% and that's per the county assessor as recently is March 7th we expect current delinquent operating tax revenues to increase over $7.1 million over last year's budget and that's basically due to the increase in the assessed values for formula funding State formula funding for our district is primarily calculated by multiplying the weighted average daily attendance by the state ad adequacy Target rate per student it's those two items the attendance versus the amount given to us per student by State Governor Parson announced an increase in the SAT from 6375 to 6760 the increase in sat will more than make up for our slowing enrollment and our attendance and we're budgeting an increase of over5 A5 million in Formula funding as far as props sales taxes these are local sales taxes paid to school districts

125on a per student basis uh payments uh will be made based on each District's weighted average daily attendance although enroll enrollment growth is weak and attendance is lagging compared to pre-co numbers overall we expect a large increase in propy sales due to an increase in the per student rate what we're saying is the increase per student rate is uh making up for the legging attendance what propy sales taxes are is we get a percentage of uh sales taxes uh state sales taxes and because inflation has hit so hard and because everything costs more as you pay more you pay more sales taxes and we are reaping the benefits of that earnings on investment interest rates have gone up significantly since the last budget was adapted and we anticipate a million dollar increase in interest from

126earnings on invested operating fund balances on the expense side salary increases are always our largest expense uh category uh our largest expense increase category is is of course salary increase as and that was discussed in close session and we are currently concluding negotiations with our unions other large increases in expenses as we've already stated will be health benefit cost we're informed as you know by our Brokers that the consort from the Consortium that benefit cost could increase by 16% for next year we're still budgeting the 16% increase while moving towards the self-funded program which you approved tonight a presentation on well the presentation was already given I'm saying a presentation will be given tonight at this board meeting and and I I've already given that but again the 16% uh is our budget and uh

127we hope to be able to uh uh increase our fund balance or do better than that or maybe both and move forward and by the way when I say increase fund balance what I'm saying is we have to create a fund balance uh like all insurance companies do so that if your claims ever exceed what the uh people are putting into the fund that we have money for that we have not established that yet as far as curriculum or curriculum expenses is a third third expense item that's going up over a million dollars we plan to make a significant change to our curriculum purchasing process as we move from an unstructured annual allotment to a long-term steady Funding Solution before what we did is where whenever we had the money hey it's time for a

128curriculum that really isn't the way you need to do curriculum they need to know what their budgets are on a steady basis and what we've done now is we've moved it to instead of every other year large amounts now we are incre we are increasing the amount and we are going to have it every year other significant budget factors that you need to be aware of as a board there are no Esser revenues or expenses currently included in the 2425 budget not many school districts can say that we're done with it Governor Parsons has stated that Transportation will be funded fully in 2425 uh that's in the budget but you know what he's not good at keeping that promise and he hardly and and he excuse me and he and he hardly ever has uh

129but uh that is in the budget and uh he actually got on the air on TV and said that he is fully funding it and that is in the budget I want to make everybody aware of that so this is not a slam dunk budget and we are also moving levies totaling 6.47 cents from the capital to operations to fund wage increases and extra Staffing that's $2.2 million that we are moving from Capital over to to operations and and by the way there's another presentation tonight that we'll be asking you to do that fund balance budgeting the 2425 budget is balanced with operating revenues and expenses increasing $17 million each revenues are going up $17 million and expenses are going up $17 million next year by the way when expenses go up $17 million to

130keep a fund balance at 25% the fund balance has to we have to put in the fund balance 25% of $17 million to keep the fund balance at 25% therefore we need another $4 million to put into the fund balance we're expecting to be favorable this year uh by $4 to8 million that's one and a half to three% we are budgeting to be over this year and we are budgeting to use $4 million of our over budget situation this year so that we don't have to budget for 4 million extra next year to say save at 25% we're going to use the $4 million this year that we are favorable to budget and use that so that we can have a balanced budget next year without having to put $4 million into the fund balance

131so the fund balance at the end of this year we're planning on going up to possibly 27 27 and a half percent but because we have 17 more million in expenses and fund balance is a percentage of expenses by the end of next year it will tailor back exactly to 25% and we're good at doing that and it will be that summary the 2425 preliminary operating budget is balanced we all like to say that we are anticipating to be favorable to budget this year and will'll be using the funds favorable this year to keep the operating fund balance at 25% as the district continues to grow and the numbers in this presentation are estimates and will continue to change as more information is obtained questions and answers on the budget development and where we're heading

132and what we are doing with our Pro uh extra our one and a half to 3% favorability this year Rick one of the things i' just like to highlight to and please correct me if I misspeak but with the budget that's being prepared in addition to staff salaries and increases we also are budgeting I believe $2.5 million that that will be reserved for additional Staffing positions that we've talked about um helping to support classroom teachers class sizes student need things like that is that correct that is absolutely correct when I went over the salary slide because that's a normally a closed session item I don't discuss that in particular on Staffing and wages but that is 100% correct okay and again there is no vote on this thank you Rick any additional questions okay moving

133on to 14.5 preliminary tax rate we do have a motion attached to this item where you going Rick come back to the podium I make a motion to submit the St Charles County Clerk of preliminary non-b cents and 30 presented second I think uh the board is going to be very happy with this presentation as I discuss tax rates that's nothing normally anybody is happy about but the direction we're heading is very good a preliminary tax rate is due to the county of St Charles by April 8th the county uses this information to send out preliminary tax notices to Property Owners this tax rate is non-binding and may change when the district receives updated assess values from the county in September preliminary rates submitted to the county must be approved by this board that is

134why you have a motion on the table last year assess values increased over 20% this year we expect an assessed value increase of about 4% tax rate computations tax computations are based on a combination of assess values tax rate and the Consumer Price Index we are authorized by the county to increase our operating levies by 7100s of a cent approximately $24,000 annually The District administration is requesting to foro any tax increase that we're allowed for next year uh we also plan to keep the debt Levy stable while issuing are diffusing bonds what that means is uh the debt Levy will not go up whether we issue bonds or not uh I'd like to State a misnomer here people are under the impression that if they don't vote for the bond increase or the bonds to

135be issued that the tax rate will go down that is not true the voters voted a 93 C uh tax levy for debt that 93 cents can only be used for debt cannot be used for anything else which means uh if the bond issue goes through that 93 cents will continue to pay for the new bonds if the bond issue doesn't go through the 93 cents will pay down the debt that we have now but the 93 cents will stay there so the levy and your taxes will not change in the near future uh if you vote no or yes what it does do is if the bonds are issued what will happen is that the bonds will be paying on them longer but it will not reduce or have any effect on payments next

136year and Rick just for clarification when you talk about it not lowering the taxes for a period of time it'll just pay off the bonds it's approximately another 15 years plus correct that that will be in place to pay the bonds that we currently right the 93 cents uh was voted in by the uh by the voters and that 93 sense will stay there until all bonds and all debt is paid off uh which means we can only do one of two things with that money we we can either increase debt and use the 93 cents to pay it or we can use the 93 cents to continue paying off the debt that we have now and of course uh since all levies are based on assess values we can only estimate when the bonds

137will be paid off because if assess value go goes higher then we'll pay them off sooner if assess values go lower we'll pay it off not as soon and uh but our bonds are actually uh uh they go out almost 15 to 20 years yes uh that's where I I stated that we plan to keep The Debt Service levies stable while increasing or diffusing bonds that means we will either issue new bonds or we'll pay off more bonds which means we're either going to get new debt and keep the rate the same or we're going to keep the rate the same and we will pay off sooner as the voters have voted for that 93 cents uh tax rate computations the current and delinquent taxes for all funds are predicted to increase $6.2 million over

138our current budget that's because the assess values are going up we're going to get another $6.2 million over the budget this year another thing that you need to know is that we plan to move six and a half cent Levy from Capital to operating to support salary increases in 2425 this is a levy that the board voted at one time to put the capital this is not one that's required by law to stay in capital you have the authority to vote for the this uh Levy to move and in and uh we are going to request that you move the levy from Capital to operating to help pay for help pay for salaries and increase salaries and again these projections have been built into the preliminary budget prepared for you this evening here's what we're

139doing with the tax rate notice that we have a column here for 2324 current rate notice that we also have a column here for the March April proposed rate notice at the bottom line line we are not changing the tax rate next year but do notice in the far right column that we are increasing the general fund for wages and salar and we are decreasing the capital fund that is what you would be approving tonight this is the 10-year District tax rate this is where I want to uh tell people that they are misinformed in a lot of areas the 10year tax rate for this district is the lowest right now that it has been in 10 years people keep saying you're raising taxes you're raising taxes you're raising taxes look at this chart this

140is our tax rate over the last 10 years it is the lowest it has ever been in 10 years why do your taxes go up because this is the rate that's charged on the value of your home it's your home price that's going up matter of fact this next chart notice it follows the same directions this is the property tax due on a $100,000 market value notice the taxes you're paying now on a $100,000 market value is $884 all the way way back 10 years ago it was $948 please tell this to everyone you know these are audited numbers by third party Auditors tell them that yes the rate is down and the value per $100,000 market value is down why do your taxes go up your home prices are going up suggested tax rate

141motion we recommend that that the board make a motion to submit the St Charles County Clerk a preliminary non binding tax rate of $465 3200 are there any questions Rick on the the point about the uh the bond issue in the 15 or so years before it's paid off I'm trying to understand if we approve the 230 million Bond how many years in the future is it going to be like my grandkids grandkids that are going to be paying on it no the the maximum that we're allowed to issue bonds for on General obligation taxfree bonds is 20 years 20 years so we got 36 years out we're proposed no no 20 years from the date that the bonds are issued these would be new bonds matter of fact uh you act like we only

142have a few we've got I would have to ask someone Martin or someone else but we've got between 10 and 17 different bonds out there they all come do at different points in time I'm just estimating when the last one would be paid off but no anytime we take on a new general obligation Bond that's a 20y year bond so if we take on a new bond that would be paid off in 20 years what we have now is 93 cents that enables us and is more than enough to do this it's called Bond capacity and the 93 cents gives us enough Bond capacity to either do more bonds or to pay off our bonds early and what's nice is to have the voters who in the past have voted already for this Bond capacity

143because they want one of those two things done they either want to be able to uh uh increase bonds if we need them in the district because it's a growing District that's why they voted the 93 cents there it's a growing District they need this money to grow the district and they also know that this 93 cents if the district isn't growing is enough to pay it down faster than than uh than the 20 years or it will be able to pay it down faster the calculations that were done to pay this off the calculations that are done to pay this off I can tell you are at a very low increase in assess value I think with where assess values are really going to be we're going to pay them off even much faster

144than that but I can't tell you that because I don't know assess value is 10 years down the line do you expect that if the 230 is approved you said it's only going to add five years because it'll be right away no no I it's going to add $230 million right and it's going to go that $230 million will be over 20 years that's what I'm saying but I I I heard that it was only five additional years well so so if our bonds that we have currently if they H the longest ones are going another 15 years and really but yes not not the whole 20 yes right but then if we if the voters approve to do this then this Bond would start from whenever it's approved through another 20 years correct so

145the current bonds go 15 or TW 15 or 18 years then this would go alongside of that and extend out whatever the exactly that's exactly the remaining of the 20 yes so we have enough money with the 93 cents to pay down the 230 plus the money that we we already owe is yes is what you're saying the 93 cents uh gives us what we call Bond capacity and that 93 cents the calculation that steel did for us the calculation say hey with that 93 cents you can issue $230 Million worth of bond bonds and that is how we get that calculation how much and I guess this will go into the the work session but how much uh how much do we pay down per year on 230 million it's in the neighborhood of

146between 30 and $35 million a year why don't we just save for a couple of years of Our Own own money and then spay pay our own money without having to incur the the bond fees can can I ask point a question we're we're not debating the bond issue at this point we're just approving the preliminary tax rate we just I'm just going up here looking where it says Q&A I'll I'll pause sure I'll well I'll just make a suggestion if you want to I wouldn't remember it if I didn't write it down so the Workshop is the perfect place for I'm just saying like yeah I I think the key here is that either way the vote goes the the rate is 93 cents is voted by the voters so we have a motion

147we have a motion on the table uh to approve the pre preliminary non-biting tax rate as presented director Scott Joanie can you please reread the motion can you please reread the motion Joanie yes sorry motion to submit to the St Charles County Clerk a preliminary nonbinding tax rate of $465 30 oh 32 as presented director Scott I director Goodson I secretary hanky I director Olson hi vice president liac Hi director Lewis hi motion passes moving on to 14.6 no tax rat increase bond issue recommendation presentation or is it recommendation and presentation those two we're just going to do a presentation since you've um voted to hold the vote okay recommendation will be on Wednesday April 3D thank you so this evening we're going to take a little bit of time to walk everyone through the

148work that the district has been doing over the last 18 plus months to bring us to this point here today um if you attended any of our community engagement sessions some of this information um you may have already heard so we're going to um start just to talk a little bit about the master plan and the work that's been done over the last 18 months we spent time assessing our facility needs to determine a path forward we walked through every building in the district to assess its needs we conducted a demographic study to get an idea of future growth we met with Ducket Creek and other municip municipalities to look at what infrastructure changes might impact our student population and what subdivisions may be on the books for construction we took a deep dive into

149our building capacity information as it stands and as it's projected for the coming years we reconvened our construction committee to take a look at our at current and future priorities and we engaged with our community through a phone survey and Community engagement events we're going to dig into these items as we go through this presentation with that information we identified several priorities within the district's new facilities long range plan those items include considering Energy savings with HVAC and LED lighting Roofing cycle Replacements high priority playgrounds such as Barfield due to Ada needs Pierce Hall Renovations and updated H nursing clinic and future considerations of Elementary boundaries as we looked at our demographic study a couple of things came to light please note that when we did this demographic study while we did know Ducket Creek

150is coming they couldn't use that information because there was no historical info for them to go go off of when making predictions everything I share from the demographic study as if Ducket Creek is not here based upon today's current state in the district the elementary school population prek through five is projected to remain steady over the next 5year period the district's Middle School population grades 6 through eight is expected to increase at about 5% over the next five years and then Decline and return to its current levels the following years the district's High School population grades 9 through 12 is projected to increase by more than 5% in the next 5 years and then remain steady afterwards that's telling us that our secondary schools will continue to grow and that's without the Ducket Creek factored

151we did find out that when you look at all of the housing and construction within our district they used a 0.54 multiplier with any new home in our district and use that number to project how many students are coming our way so even though the study didn't consider Ducket Creek it did give us use a formula we can use to get an idea of how many students may come our way when Ducket Creek goes online as I've mentioned there's a new sewer treatment plant that's currently being built within the district's boundaries and they're going online later this year when we start talking about considerations with Ducket Creek if the wizville schoool district boundaries were perfectly balanced meaning our attendance B our attendance boundaries would allow us to our buildings to hold 22382 students assuming that

152they were all perfectly placed in the right school zone boundaries the right grade levels Etc currently we have 17572 students and when you add in early childhood it takes us closer to 18,000 with Ducket Creek Plant 4 we they will be able to hold another 18,000 homes provide service for another 18,000 homes without any major modifications so that will end up offering sewers to the southern portion of our boundaries all the way to the county line with they've told us that with some additional upgrades and modifications that number could grow to as many as 24,000 homes so remember that multiplier I told you about that 0.54 18,000 divided by two is 9,000 more students and if they go up to 24,000 homes that's another 12,000 students we don't know yet the exact timeline when we

153talked with Ducket Creek they said it could be 10 to 20 years before they're F fully built out but what we do know is that they're coming right now is our opportunity to be Forward Thinking and planning for the district so we can be ready when the students come it's not a matter matter of if but rather a matter of when and those of you who have been with Wentzville for a while you know that we've been the fastest growing School District or one of them for the last 20 plus years and we also know that we've had some challenging times in the district when we weren't ready and prepared for that rapid growth to come our way we're be we're being given this information so that we can do Advanced planning to protect our

154district for the years to come so let's talk about building projections and capacities what I'm going to show you is based upon the demographic study and again I'm going to say it does not it does not Factor and Ducket Creek and those 9,000 to 12,000 students that could easily be coming our way so those students would be on top of the projections I'm about to show you for the Hol feeder pattern the top number is where we are today and the bottom number is includes the fiveyear estimates as you can see Holt is currently sitting at 68% capacity for students who are there with how we use the building for instruction and hold as project to grow to 72% of utilization in 5 years Windville middle is at 72% and projected to grow to 80%

155as we look at these numbers when we start hitting that 80 to 85% capacity range that's when we start hearing from our schools that they're saying like Hey we're getting pretty full we're running out of storage or hey we might need to put the tutors in the hallway or hey we might have to combine different things so that we have enough room for additional classrooms so that's an 80 to 85% um is pretty tight in our buildings anything beyond that starts to stretch our capabilities when we look at our Liberty feeder pattern first consider the decet creek will feed into the liberty and Timberland feeder systems these figures do not take into account any of that future growth so you can see that Liberty right now is over 100% capacity with the students that they

156have currently and their feeder schools are sitting between 71 and 88% without Ducket Creek in five years liberty grows to 106% and dwello pops up to 103 this is based upon subdivisions and new developments that are currently on the books and projected to come come our way and that we currently know about when we look at Timberland Timberland's currently sitting at 93% capacity South Middle just had an addition and they're sitting at 70% and then the feeder elementaries are between 61% and 88% dwell is the only Elementary in the district that is split between two feeder patterns and it's split between Liberty and Timberland it's projected to be over 100% in the next 5 years one of the areas that we will be considering for some soft boundary changes we'll be looking at that dwell

157boundary and then looking at Boon Trail Discovery Ridge and the other schools within the within those boundaries to see where or how we might be able to shift students so that we don't overcrowd dwell when looking at the North Point feeder pattern next year northp Point High School will have a full student body what I mean by that is last year we graduated their first class of students this is the third year the building is open and those students were given an option of staying at their current school or transferring and O and going to North Point point when that opened next year all the students who live within the North Point boundaries will go to North Point High School so while they're sitting at 75% now next year that will grow the senior class

158will be full the the feeder schools range from 69% to 93% and will adjust over the next 5 years as I mentioned previously one of the things we're starting to consider as a district is Elementary School boundaries for schools like w bash and dwell who have high capacity numbers and consider our options at neighboring schools within the same feeder that may have more capacity available to allow our schools to balance out a little more we don't want to build another elementary school if we have the capacity to accomodate them within the district when we start talking about Community engagement we we've had several engagement events after considering all the information I've shared thus far we started to consider the possibility of a no tax rate increased bond issue to help meet some of our future

159facility needs we hosted Community engagement events at Heritage and Timberland for our families to weigh in on the on the topic at Heritage attendees were able to tour the building to see see some of the firsthand needs we also worked with Excellence K12 to conduct a phone survey of 300 registered voters within the district boundaries so now I'm going to turn it over to Rick nobles with k with Excellence k12 and he's going to take us through the survey results good evening in February of 2024 the district engaged with Excellence K12 to conduct a 300 complete telephone survey randomly selected digit dial to head of household registered voters living in the district calls repl to landlines and cell phones and because of random digit dial and the fact that we match the population pattern that

160gives us a margin of error of 5.6% with a 95% um can't think of the word sorry um we start with a grading section we ask uh people to give us a grade abcdf on a variety of uh District performances uh based on a fivepoint scale that we we wait those the top performing areas were quality of school facilities quality of technology used by the district safety of students and preparation of students for college for vocational training or employment we then ask an open-ended question strengths of the district and things that need Improvement for strengths of the district what we heard were provides a good education taught by facility Administration followed by don't know uh in terms of areas DD improvements the number one answer was don't know which is the only place you want

161to see don't know uh on a survey uh followed by they're doing fine they're they are the experts and then 53 mentions for managing the budget and resources we then do a statement exercise where we test the um Civic mindedness if you will of your patrons uh we ask them a series of statements and ask them whether they agree or not we did three statements the number one was it's important to keep our school buildings up to date and in good condition to protect our community's investment of those facilities 90 96% strongly agree I'm willing to support building improvements to make sure the quality of Education in winville school district is equal to or better than that of our neighbors 90% agreed purchasing new land now for future school buildings will benefit future generations of

162students and homeowners 77% agreed our next section was support or opposition to the project ideas given to us by the district we ask about six projects four of those projects stood out in terms of the level of support number one making Safety and Security enhancements at all school buildings 76% said they were more likely to vote in favor of that completing deferred maintenance projects at every school including new roofs HVAC Etc 71% said that um they agree with that expanding technology and upgrading technology infrastructure at all school buildings positive for 62% updating Legacy Buildings including a complete rebuild of Heritage Elementary improvements to Boon Trail Elementary Windville Middle School and H High School uh 57% would support that uh the support was quite a bit less for two other areas building Wing additions at Frontier

163Middle School and Liberty and Timberland high schools um as these buildings are reaching or are over student capacity 43% purchasing additional land to prepare for future growth 38% we then ask a single question on tax tolerance um and I will read the wording of this uh we're how how strongly would you support a $230 million no tax increase bond proposal to fund the projects discussed earlier nearly three4 nearly three4 at 74% of the participants said they either strongly support or support the BR Pro proposal while 23% said they would oppose or strongly oppose our next section was a communication section where we ask where we asked patrons where do you get your information about the district other than friends and neighbors because that's number one in every uh District that we work with respondents said

164they're top source for district news news newsletters and mailers at 21% second top response website and internet so in summary uh the survey reflects a district that is well equipped with strong facilities and administration excellent facilities um obvious commitment to serving student needs and shows a patron population that is civic-minded um four projects have a strong level of support uh bond proposal has a very strong level of support in the district efforts to communicate with P patrons uh ref the solid work of the Communications Department all in all the leadership team should be very happy with these results thank you very much and we'll we'll have time for questions when we conclude the um the rest of the presentation thank you so with that information we saw that there was interest from the community for

165a no Tax rating increase Bond initiative we've identified several priorities in addition to our 5-year Master facilities plan budgeted items first a new reach in Early Childhood Center was identified as a priority and we received board approval on that item in February we also identified safety security and Technology Legacy Buildings added learning space land purchase and other other construction projects through throughout the district as priorities in order to be able to address these priorities we are recommending asking the voters for no tax rate increase bond issue of 230 million scheduled for this August for safety security and Technology let's talk about the projects that this Bond could address we are cont continually assessing these areas and with the bond items that could be addressed may include but are not limited to upgrade and add surveillance

166cameras throughout the district campus and traffic security measures at our high schools South Middle School traffic pattern improvements technology infrastructure cyber security measures and other districtwide enhancements the bond could also allow us to address Legacy Buildings needs at Heritage Holt Boon TR Trail and Wentzville middle because of our rapid growth these facilities have not received the attention and love that they need when we talk about Legacy Heritage absolutely defines that we've been having conversations on how to address the needs at Heritage we could renovate or we could potentially rebuild if we rebuild with bond funds we would be able to address some items within Heritage that a renovation alone would not be able to improve those it items could include reducing travel time to allow more time for instruction currently students could travel as long

167as 8 minutes one way to get to Specialty area classes raising the ceilings widening the hallways improving improving the flow and the safety of the building allowing us to comply with Ada regulations and creating a a facility that allows individuals with mobility issues to travel and navigate safely would allow us to add fire sprinklers a storm shelter improve the electric and Technology within the buildings if we were to rebuild we're committed to honoring Heritage Legacy pieces like the Academy Gym would stay with updates with a fully new building we would build a new school used of using a phased approach we would build a wing then move half the students into that space then we would do the other half and move the other half of the students with a renovation we have 1,000 students

168or around there and so students who would need to be displaced during this process and we currently have space on the campus for what we think would be six to eight Modular Buildings which would allow for two classrooms in each of those modular trailers that would significantly slow down this process and what could be um a a 2-year build could easily be stretched to four years however I need to be very clear with everything that we're talking about these are the ideas and the priorities and the needs that have been identified but a committee would be convened to specifically review all aspects of this project and make recommendations on how to move forward with either a comprehensive renovation or a proposal for a rebuild of the school and those are things that the committee would

169bring then to the board and priorities and decisions would be made every step of the way at Holt another District leg Legacy one of the things we would consider would be a building entrance redesign you can see on this slide a quick mockup of something like that other items this Bond could include would be lighting ceilings doors flooring tuck pointing painting addressing needs within the industrial Tech wood shop addressing needs within the gym with glass blocks Auditorium upgrades Athletic Facility upgrades among other things when looking at Boon Trail Elementary some of the areas we would consider with bond funds include a main office renovation kindergarten and Elementary connections they currently have a separate kindergarten facility that's separate from the building looking at and um updating the building envelope and Tuck pointing the building and adding

170a storm shelter and Gem there may be other things as well but those are the things currently that would that are on the list when we talk about wizville middle some of the areas that would be considered with bond funds include lighting ceilings doors flooring tuck pointing painting Cabinetry building envelope if you've been in the center Corridor of Windville middle it was the original part of the building there you're going to find original doors that are peeling a original Cabinetry that's peeling and doesn't work well there are components of the facility itself that really need to be updated with a facelift when we talk about added learning space we're looking at Liberty Timberland and Frontier middle schools that are already at or near capacity that would also be impacted by the growth as a result

171of the Ducket Creek um sewer treatment plant these buildings could be added on in order to meet the need of a growing student population while giving the district time to assess the long-term growth patterns and get a better feel for where the neighborhoods are landing or where additional schools may need to be placed we also recognize the need for a land purchase we also know that as we plan we need to buy land as we think about the future if those 9,000 to 12,000 new students come our way we will be having hard conversations about elementary middle and high schools within our district and considering building new campuses and we will need land in order to do that what we do know is the large pieces of land within the district are currently being gobbled

172up by developers because they know this is where the where the movement is happening the district does currently own three Parcels of land and we need to evaluate where those pieces are some of them very viably could be located for future schools and others may be not currently in the best locations so we do need to review the per current Parcels we have and decide whether or not it's in the The District's best interest to keep them or potentially sell some of those pieces um as we do this we don't see a need for a brand new school outside of the reach or Early Childhood Center in the next 5 years and not in the locations that we have the land Parcels currently elementary schools average approximately 20 acres of land middle schools average approximately

17335 to 40 piece 40 acres high schools average approximately 70 plus acres and a full campus with an elementary middle school high school that would be somewhere in between 150 to 200 Acres ideally and in that space we might also be able to add an additional building Like An Early Childhood Center or another ancillary building for the district when we talk about other construction there's there are many other items that this Bond could address assuming the top priority projects come in favorable to the estimated budget some of those items include addressing our Elementary School Playgrounds and using a tiered approach based based on need making sure that all of our elementary playgrounds have Ada accessibility for our students with different Mobility needs addressing our athletic facilities and upgrading those looking at the turf field maintenance

174at Holt Liberty and Timberland and other enhancements looking at a welding expansion for our welding program within the district main office upgrades especially at Boon Trail green Green Tree Elementary Crossroads Elementary looking at Auditorium upgrades both in the physical structure of the seating and the carpet but also with the soundboards and the video and the different um technology that needs to go into those spaces looking at Holt Liberty and Timberland looking at District roofs at Wentzville middle Frontier Middle boont Trail Elementary Holt High School the administrative Center um Barfield Early Childhood um Lake View Elementary and Pierce Hall we also know that at some of our Legacy Buildings we have buried infrastructure that we may be on borrowed time with that is aging and needs to be assessed and updated we also know that within

175our district our signage um sometimes is uh leaves things to be desired and providing LED signage at all of of our district facilities would allow us to communicate and provide additional information easily to our community that lives in the areas we know that at South Middle School HVAC needs to be updated at Crossroads Elementary a main canopy for student dismissal especially in inclement weather would be um a wonderful addition to that school looking at the Harris Building that the district currently owns um we use that building for storage as well as robotics there are significant parking um needs that need to be addressed very soon and also looking at turning that potentially into a centralized warehouse at Pierce Hall the entry needs to be redesigned so that it can be Ada assessible there are districtwide

176energy conservation initiatives that would like to employ that um would bring in long-term savings for the district and then on the list but at the bottom of the list would also be looking at at a potential additional um area here for a board room that could accommodate better um uh board meetings and allow for more community members to [Music] attend so all of that to say these projects would would require additional funding sources we are recommending and asking the voters ideally in August 2024 for a $230 million no tax rate increase bond issue which we're calling prop L to build our Legacy to preserve our Legacy and to ensure our Legacy to address these needs one benefit of going to the voters in August is it will allow us to get to work soon as

177as soon as possible as you know um we had originally planned on having all of these conversations earlier this fall but they were delayed originally our plan was to bring all of this to the board earlier this year so that this could actually be on the August or I'm sorry the April 2 ballot but we weren't able to meet those deadlines and so we would like to take advantage of being able to begin communication transparent communication with our parents with our community with our stakeholders early and often about this especially going into summer um when a lot of people sometimes become disconnected from the schools with vacations and things like that but being able to make this determination now with the board that has been involved in this 18-month process with us to allow us

178to take this to our community for the vote with our taxpayers weighing in on these critical issues allowing us the time necessary to continue engagement and communication with our community is essential one of another benefit of going to the voters in August um outside of being able to um begin that communication is that we also May able to take advantage of reduced election fees during the primary by being able to be on the ballot as the same time as other public entities such as the Windville fire district and so being able to have less fees incurred for the election is also very desirable so what are we asking we're asking the Board of Education to allow the district to take this bond to the bo to the voters in August if approved by the Board

179of Education and passed by the voters all future major construction projects within Propel will still go through normal Channels with stakeholder input Community processes and board approval and so with that um we are we're asking the board to consider these things we're happy to answer questions tonight we're happy to prepare further information for consideration at the April 3rd work session um and we do have many individuals from our team here that are happy to help answer questions Rick Noble is here again with the um survey of our constituents Martin Gori is here he's a resident a parent and he's also with steel and he advises our district on financial matters and he knows all our numbers inside and out um we have Josh Schaefer here our executive director of facilities Rick Angie ofine our CFO

180and others on Executive cabinet would be happy to answer any questions the board may have thank you does anyone have any questions you'd like to ask tonight or hang on to that information and save it for Wednesday the 3 all right so and if we could just request for our board members if you do have questions if you could send those to us sooner than later next week is spring break a lot of people are on vacation so if you have those questions we're respectfully going to ask you to send those to us as soon as possible so that we can craft the work session on April 3D to make sure it's a meaningful um uh opportunity for everyone involved definitely and to add on to that if there are community members who have questions

181maybe something specific we do appreciate the please vote for this or please don't uh but we could I'm sure work in questions or answers to questions that stakeholders have we I I would like it to be as collaborative as it can be um so uh okay so we do not need to vote for that okay let me scroll down all right so I did notice we had a plethora of materials enter the building a few minutes ago or like 20 minutes ago maybe anyways um I would like to make a motion to aren't we on the W stuff well I was gonna get to that yes just a minute could we do could we do what you're proposing in in board action items let me finish talking yep hang on a sec it's out of

182order it's not on the agenda what I'm saying is if we put it under the board action items we can do it at that point yes and let me finish my sentence and we we will get to that too promise um I was going to make a motion to recess for 15 20 minutes we have materials here we're all here we have teachers here I know it's kind of been a long night but it's a vote it's just a vote it's just a an option um to take advantage of the time and the people and the expertise and now the materials that we have here with us as David wanted to view them uh to just look at over it's it's like if we don't want to do it we don't have to do it

183if we want to vote on it we can vote on it as a group I don't know that 15 minutes is going to be sufficient time to review crates of material it is simply had month I second that motion no I haven't actually okay we have not been able to review the material that you guys have brought in that's a misconception I call the question we have a second it's just a simple I if we would like to take the time since we're here I know that one of our board members will be completely out of pocket until maybe the Thursday of Spring Break um others going on vacation will be you know just and I understand that it will be a virtual meeting but organizing that when we do have the materials and the

184people here it's just simply a motion if we would like to take advantage of the time and so just to clarify too because I think that some people may not understand the importance of the training that's scheduled for April 2nd April 2nd is a PD day for our entire staff and so if we do not move forward with this then we're saying to our academic Services team that they have one day tomorrow to redefine a full day PD for all of our K through five teachers and that's something that is impossible to do so that's that's another piece so if we are able to review our teachers I know would be happy to sit alongside board members answer questions that this is something that our students absolutely need are we able to take the material

185home that they brought for tomorrow to teach so that was that was material that's in use right now yeah they went to the schools and got it teachers left to go to schools to get materials so I think maybe we could significantly recess for a little longer than 15 or 20 minutes I mean it's it this is extremely important obviously it's important to you guys because you wanted to take the time to review the materials I want to honor that and also honor the time we're all here that the the individuals who are on this team to choose this material are here as well we can sit side by side with them if you have questions they are here they can answer those question questions let's just vote because it's just a simple vote it's

186not something that we need to argue about if you don't like it vote aay if you want to do it vote Yes or yay that's good it's okay Joanie if you would roll call please okay Dr Scott director Goodson hi secretary hanky nay director Olson nay vice president liac Hi director Lewis hi motion passes I I would offer something else as well I mean I'm prepared to do another vote tonight I just wanted to see the dang books and I want to I truly do want to give you that opportunity the whole nature of the motion so we will so in 15 minutes from now I can't math right now so I'll use my calculator on my phone I will announce I I'll just ask the crowd do we need five more minutes if the

187general consensus is we need five more e must of our table that's okay I will I'll start singing Nobody wants that I can talk louder cover your ears people we need Jen and Julie Jerry Jen Olsen you e okay we are going to get started David yeah I'd like to first off thank the the teachers that invested some time in the administration that hustled around and and got books and stuff it was very meaningful for me it was a a chance to to read and see what was going on I had a chance to visit with teachers and give me some real honest feedback that I had been seen before which I'm I'm not saying it was on them or on me but it it was good information but based upon all that I'd like

188to make a motion uh to approve the uh approve the I think it would be a motion to reconsider approve the purchase of Wonders as the ELA reading resource there you go we would need a motion to reconsider the original vote that failed Council actually asked that question there was actually no prevailing party on either side of those motions so a clean motion was advised and we did seek legal counsel for this yeah from more than one attorney about six and a half minutes ago like seriously what legal firms the ones in which we employ yeah it just sounds like some board members were privy to information that others weren't I didn't know that we did that but what was their but now you're now you're privy Renee like what is the point of that

189comment sorry okay hang on hang on we we do do want to go eventually Pat would you mind in forming us as to the advice that you recommended and that our additional attorney recommended absolutely so during the recess uh vice president liac and I had a private conversation concerning the the uh motion and whether or not the motion could be brought back up in consultation with our outside Council celinda braer uh she confirmed my thinking which is that it could certainly be brought back up given the fact that there was no prevailing party the appropriate motion under the circumstances would in fact be a new motion not a motion for reconsideration we have a motion do we have a second Julie seconded do we have any questions hearing none Joanie would you roll call director

190Scott I director Goodson hi secretary hanky nay director Olsen I vice president liac I director Lewis I motion passes motion carries moving on to 14.7 W Nea certified staff agreement is there a presentation Mr Bishop which should we motion first or um making that motion uh to approve the w&a certified staff agreement as presented second yeah there's not really a presentation I can provide information if anybody's got any questions about what the process looked like um ultimately again this year the district in the union used interest based bargaining um is our negotiation to tool we did to utilize a mentor the whole group met seven different times about 30 hours total meeting and then we broke off three different times into a salary subcommittee um the union was surveyed that's typical practice they get the

191feedback from the staff and then they bring that interest back to the the the uh negotiating table and that's what we utilize to help set priorities and and do that stuff and then the w&a takes it back after an agreement's agreed upon and they get it ratified in this case they a 92% ratification can I just make like a quick comment so so we had a presentation I think from Rick on the Self insurance which we approved the broker in the bidding I would just encourage and I'll be gone when this happens but I would just encourage us is as that bid comes in and what the employment cost looks like comparatively to what we have budgeted we should really consider whether you know this agreement or other agreements need to be opened up to

192consider additional dollars to the you know the salary and the schedules um considering some of the feedback so I just challenge this group to think about that you know after that is finished and and how that could impact the budget for next year Joanie if you could roll call director Scott I director Goodson I secretary hanky I director Olsen hi vice president liac hi director Lewis hi motion passes item 14.8 W Nea educational support counselor agreement need a motion I'll make a motion to approve the w&a uh ESC agreement as presented second any questions Joanie director Scott I Dr Goodson I secretary hanky I director Olson I vice president liac I director Lewis I motion carries motion carries thank you moving on to item 14.9 W Nea nurses agreement we need a motion to approve

193I will make a motion to approve the w&a nurses agreement as presented second any questions Joanie director Scott I direct Goodson I secretary hanky I director Olson I vice president ISAC hi director Lewis I motion carries thank you motion carries moving on to item 15 other items last item on the agenda is board Act action items oh hang on did I miss something are you on 15.1 board action yeah okay um we can incorporate board member comments into this if we'd like that's a separate section oh did oh sorry didn't see it I do I have an action item motion I guess okay go ahead um I would like to make a motion or I don't know if we need a motion or if it can just be something we agree on um prior to

194any further action or decisions being made about the formation of the 501c3 that has been proposed per the Mose contribution agreement I would like the board to have a workshop to discuss the matter we as a board need to decide how we move forward how the funds will be managed accounted for distributed and what eligibility requirements that we will set for the directors and officers of the nonprofit Etc we're the governing body of the district and it's our responsibility to ensure proper management of the funds that are meant for the district if we aren't involved we can't do that so I'd like to schedule something or maybe even talk about at the next Workshop I don't know if that's enough time but we need to schedule something to discuss how we're moving forward as a

195board please someone who knows more about this correct me if I'm wrong but the nature of a nonprofit entity would be that it is independent from the school just like the district really doesn't have say over the foundation or an elementary school doesn't have say over the nonprofit that operates within it which would be a PTA or PTO so why are we setting it up it will be independent with a board of directors of its own which is required to have at least a president a secretary and a Treasurer with its own independent bylaws and um Articles of Incorporation it'll be its own nonprofit entity with 501c3 with um its own Ein and so I understand all that why are we setting it up then why do we have anything to do with it if

196it's not going to be something that we set up are we so I my my viewpoint being in the negotiations for this item and the brevity of um negotiations yeah uh yeah for sure for what for that settlement so a year ago when we settled this issue um and the ridiculous comments about what the funds could be used for from certain members of the public I I'll say this the the intent of both parties in an arms length negotiation is for this to be funneled through a charity for tax purposes a 501c3 as described two parties you know were negotiating that settlement to land on that spot and it is for the district it is part of that is what it says in the contribution agreement and so if I'm that party because I'm I'm

197not in terms of that giving the $50,000 per year I'm going to see that 503 set up and then I'm going to ensure that that is the language of that Charter that is set up that is going to the district and the district alone because that was the intent of the contribution agreement that is that's what I'm asking for so so we set that up because the foundation that we have today didn't want to accept those funds so we set up Foundation I understand that they're working on setting up that's been the board's update who is they the administration okay so my motion is to have the board involved in that process I I I I it is really not our process because it is meant to be independent and I would caution politics which

198we all are getting involved in a charity setup and having a weigh in on that to discourage the contribution from that party and any other parties that may choose in the future that's my point of view okay but we are the district so no matter who does it in the district it's tied to us yes it is maybe maybe we should just maybe get an illegal opinion from a lawyer who works in nonprofits to just make sure that we can do that I'm not opposed to the the board or the organizing body of the nonprofit coming and presenting to us I think that's standard of PTA will go and talk to the administrators at a building sometimes there are even permissions that they get for different things within the building I think that's completely reasonable

199but there might be things that need to occur first and I know you didn't set a date or anything like that but maybe we should just double check that that is okay for us to do and if prior to any other further action being taken as far as forming the actual nonprofit there are actions being taken and so if I can speak to it I thought that you said I this was literally one of my questions right and we didn't there was nothing being done that it's not that there's nothing being done we have been at a standstill because we've actually been trying to set up meeting with President stoy okay but why just one member of the board for all the reasons that director Goodson just mentioned as well and so it is and

200and vice president can you elaborate on that she's a member of the board no different than any of us why is only one member being consulted she's the president it doesn't matter she had her president her role as president is to set the agenda and to speak to attorneys in the absence of a quorum or in the absence of the board there's no other authority as a singular member of the board outside of that what was that that that's we're just making that up right now because it's not a thing and in terms of legal counsel Pat Brazzle is inhouse general counsel he has done large amounts of research on this he has also worked with our other legal council and so we are taking guidance on that my ask is maybe just before we

201say yes or no to it because I don't think in general it is necessarily a bad thing and I'm not assuming that you have bad intentions with it maybe we should just make sure that we can have maybe as I don't know if you want say in the process we I'll be honest I'll be honest vice president liac even if I did have bad intentions what author does anybody any other member of this board have to stop me from asking a question that some may think is bad intentioned yeah I just turned it on sorry I think that what the intent of this section is is when uh board members have items that they want to discuss in the future that they can't address right now that we add it so I I think that's

202what was been requested for it to be added and it should be and then we move on that's something that we work through as we try to fit things in and from a perspective it's I think it's ways out before we're looking to have this in place so it's right so the funds come in in December of 24 and so we do it could take up to six months to have this fully authorized in place so we do need to continue moving forward okay it's a I say let's I don't know we can we can put it on there look into it further I think our before anything else moves forward is not logical in this case but we definitely can put it on there and look into I mean that's that's the put it

203on we put it on we move on maybe Administration send us an email to let us know what's been done what is what is happen as far as like action being taken director Elson we received your inquiry regarding the status of where things are and we did provide response and writing to that question we have prepared materials for filing and for adoption and ratification and that's what our response had had indicated you were presenting that to president stoy is that what you were waiting on her for the idea was to consult president stoy to have an initial conversation about the filing of the Articles before we did anything okay and I guess my question is why only President stoy she has no Authority that would just be if if if I may um a as

204a president the administration is going to go and seek that Council first before bringing you know every single agenda item in that discussion president stoy may say I think it'd be a great idea if we bring it to the board an X date if we bring it to the board for a recommendation or just have board members provide feedback give them that summary and let them do that through email that's kind of what the board president is supposed to do is to help navigate do you want to bring this for vote but we really can't vote what's how do you want that to happen and get the first pass ask from the board president to get a feel from the rest of the board on that that's not what was just explained here Dr TOA

205said the reason that she wouldn't bring it to the board or couldn't is for all of the reasons you explained and she only reached out to president sto and president stoy May then respond with that same response and that may be her argument or president stoy could argue that point and then bring that to the board for that that argument to happen with the rest of it this is I think you're I think you're arguing points that as a board we can decide this and discuss this later it doesn't have to be this way like the admin has put together some work Works through the board president this is normal board practice on every agenda that's not what it sounded like when I was given the answer that it wasn't going to be brought to

206us I think there's caution from the administration to bring something too be to vote and to control that is my response because that's how I took it because it does need to be independent so I'm responding I think Administration is in a way that is saying let's be cautious about trying to govern on top of a body that is not ours to control that is not what the two arms length parties negotiated it was a 503 503 C3 5013c so that is what they intend to to donate to not the district so they intend to give to a charity for the district that is meant to support the district I think my guess is the bylaws that you're going to create or have created are going to say the funds have to come back to

207the district going to guess that's what it says that the district is creating be parties so going to be a self perpetuating independent Board of this is why I wanted a workshop okay well why don't we get a progress report in April at the regular meeting maybe we can get can we get copies of the bylaws I mean those things they're really not confidential technically so if we could get or staying on board if we need to course absolutely thank you I think that's a compromise okay any other um I forgot where we are hang on board actions vice president liac yes I have a few um report outs that I would like to be shared with the board I'm looking for a quarterly academic report out and this will be broken out by school

208by grade by school year with each quarter in a bar graph and a line graph comparing the current school year with the prior two school years and the information that it will contain with regular education Ela how many students are on grade level how many students are behind one grade level how many students are behind two grade levels how many students are behind three grade levels this does not include students with IEPs that receive services in ela math how many students are on grade level how many students are behind one grade level how many students are behind two grade levels how many students are behind three grade levels this will not include IEP students that receive services in math additionally an ie for our IEP students in ela the information um what program and curriculum

209is used in each School how many students are making progress towards annual goal not making progress ress towards annual goal annual or sorry goals not addressed this reporting period and goals met same with math and SLP students what program and curriculum is used in each School how many students are making progress towards annual goal not making progress towards annual goal annual goal is not address this reporting period and goals met in our ECC how many students receive Services how many students do not receive Services growth by grade broken down by student that receive services and students that do not re receive Services is that that's it that's that's that's the that's a lot that was more than and I can share that why don't you share that with Katie and see if they can provide

210that if quarterly is a thing that's possible or maybe by semester might be easier to organize that data and maybe they can get back to us on I don't even know how all of that is compiled I'm sure it's possible and I think we would want to look at our assessment calendars to determine when that information is available and where we would pull that information from so that we can work on that um we will be bringing the board quarterly updates that that align with our CIP goals which academics are certainly the main part of that so we can look at your list and see what is feasible for us to be able to readily produce I have another one this is for a quarter um well whatever time frame this will be for the

211tiered intervention and it'll be broken out the Same by school by grade by quart by quarter um how many students are in tier one tier two and tier three and graphs to show growth um how many students have received or have been recommended for special services after they've gone through the tiered intervention let's get that to Katie I'm sure you can if you can email it or you want to oh Jerry go ahead or oh sorry get it to Jerry and we can move forward with vice president I just have a question to clarify something okay um my question is I mean I think all of that information like you had mentioned a lot of things would be reported at least in some capacity maybe not quarterly maybe annually whatever I I just question if

212this is giving the administration direction to produce those reports without a vote from the board majority my view of that this would need a vote that's too much work without clear direction from a single board member so I think if you know take it offline I'm happy for the KD conversation to happen to see what we have what we can produce when we can produce it and what you know effort and time I I don't think we can commit that's not direction to the staff could we bring that back in April for a vote what sorry okay I would just recommend Rene have a conversation with Katy like what is already done when is it going to come and figure out if there's a solution if it becomes too much work to handle that's when

213I think the administration needs to seek board approval to do so okay and I'm fine with that yeah I would like to sit down with them um I would also want to do a behavior report out I know we have talked about this in the past um and I know some aspects of that would probably have to be shared with just the board um another thing that I would like is a travel report out um this would be for each employee to give a summary of their travel um to include where they have traveled um if they used a rental vehicle a district vehicle or their personal vehicle um the dates and date date and or dates of travel the reason for travel how the travel has helped education of students if they felt the

214travel was beneficial to them and the district why or not why not with examples and a paragraph of the information they learned while they were on this travel it's not uncommon for companies to require that for employees that travel secretary yanes so one of the pieces that we use in the district um when um teachers and staff submit professional development requests is they do have to provide like their rationale how they plan to um follow up on that professional development any out ofate travel then goes to if it's um out of state then it goes to Cabinet we have a conversation about what the implementation plan is um from there um so the professional development pieces would be an easy piece for me to gather and and share with you and staying on board it

215monthly yeah that would be great put on staying on board vice president Lys can I may I do we realize boards govern through policy you you asked for this thing so so is the policy need to be revised that that's qu you don't know well you have these questions if if we don't want to play get you and try to give me all this things to find things what's wrong with the policy edit through the policy and govern through the policy so that there's clear Direction every day and everybody knows the random ass and the digging that that's not that's not working work through policy work through policy how do you know if something needs to be updated in policy if you don't know I could tell you that the T policy could absolutely be

216revised it needs to be probably revised it's stale it doesn't give clear Direction on purchases of Airline cars Etc and there can be derivatives of that that can be absolutely redefined I've shared that with director Lewis at at a time there are policies to copy off of that but to dig in and find the reasons to then find the problem and the why that that's what the managers of those staff are for not us manage through policy okay that's a mentality that that's what's being looked at I mean we should be able to see information without having a gacha or whatever you're calling it like yeah everything is always a gotcha and it's not a lot of things are but fair fair point it's really not because when we have to beg for information but

217but I suspicion Rises yeah you're you're begging for information that I'm trying to guide you in a way that says it's really not relevant if you revise a policy and get the collective board majority to agree we can continue to send 65 questions over or edit a policy and make comfort that we trust the people to implement and follow our policy I don't know where we are on that one right now I guess my comment would be it's it's important to me as a board member that our staff are using and I'm not saying it wouldn't necessarily be using their time wisely to compile all all of that but we we pay them you know to do the job Katie's job Jerry's job whatever and so when we get into some of these like weeds

218of things are they really using that time wisely or is it just something you information you want to have I guess I don't know I'm talking in a circle it's like where are we what do we what do we want to do asking for these report outs are what other districts do I've looked at other districts they they have these type of report outs they have an academics report out it's actually quarterly they have a a behavior they have they actually have a finance one um Behavior report I already said Behavior you know they other districts do these things and this is information that is not readily available to us so that's what I'm looking for if I may J I'm gonna push back and disagree with you on that that this information is not

219easily available to you because I have witnessed staff go above and beyond to provide information to this board I I don't I don't even know at this point but basically again just to reiterate what Jason said if we need to put into a policy that we need these updated information X Y and Z at these particular dates then we can put a policy into place without asking them for 300 questions and pages of questions uh documents that you're requesting we make a policy and obviously you don't agree and that's fine dude the I don't even know if asking questions at this point is a good idea okay okay um we'll put it on as an action item to work on a policy for these things or I don't somebody else do this then all I

220would say is just put it on the action item that's fine because I think half of those I age I agree with you secretary Hank that the data like you should have those and there should be a regular report and there are improvements to like the timing of reports what they look like I've managed that through the two three years that I've been on the board there are things that I've want to change and see change and we just work as a collective board on some of that I reacted to the TN policy because that was Overkill and I think it can be handled through a policy that we can trust on I don't disagree with they ask on the data and finding a way to make it streamline quarterly whatever it is semester but

221that that was my only reaction so put on the action item have the board discuss it later I won't be here it's fine but all right any any other items you sure okay board member comments David yeah I I wanted to talk just briefly about the cycle we went through here today and you know it's it can be upsetting for people on the board Administration and for those in the audience as well um maybe we don't do it right every time but uh you know we're trying to do the right thing and you know it was interesting that we weren't going to have any books we weren't going to have any of this it was not possible but after we forc an issue where we had okay now you got to have a plan B

222it took place so what I'm saying is there's opportunity where we can learn from this and for me personally I I'm I'm a reader you know when we come to it's interesting the the I won't say um it's There's an opportunity to do it better and for me personally when you're putting a new policy in you know forward having the meeting a couple days before regardless of the five months prior there's everybody has worlds going on so if we could include a section for reading what it is to seeing what it is I mean I went out and saw on McGraw Hill a lot of stuff that was concerning and they were very proud about what they put out there now when I talked with teachers when I look through the books I saw something

223that was very different that I appreciated I it's interesting on on uh year five I opened it up to the US Constitution where they spent about 10 pages talking about the US Constitution that's stuff we want our students to read so you know I just caution that we can get through this thing we just need to understand that everybody doesn't learn everybody doesn't say things the same way thank you anybody else I would if that's okay yep all right so um I just want to acknowledge the fact that teachers who taught in classrooms all day who were potentially at home enjoying their time with their family maybe in their pajamas maybe enjoying you know watching television spending time with their kids had to leave their homes to go to schools to pick up materials that

224could have been asked for way before tonight and I want to thank every single teacher who I want to thank every teacher you guys have given so much the it's evidenced by your passions your words um and I'm just incredibly grateful to you and um and so thankful for what you do for all of our students vice president liac if I may yep just to clarify we were never told we could have access to the materials we just found out last week that it was wonders it's not a lie thank you for your input we found out last week when it came out that it was the recommendation was wonders and that was what coming that was what was coming to a vote if there is nothing else we are going to need a motion

225to adjourn I've got one comment for okay wow of all the times [Music] um I I just like to say Okay um what is it what do we help me with words point of order call to order call to order point of order thank you that's thank you Julie point of order do um I just want to say look it's been an honor and a privilege to serve the community um in the district and all of its stakeholders I I I never really knew how much this would impact me I was literally mocked by the Nea for not voting in elections when I was running um which is funny now actually in hindsight thank you Rebecca um but I've always loved public education you know these last three years have really opened my heart um

226and my eyes to all the wonderful things the people here do um I'll miss the relationships and the routine interactions that I've had with all of you um I hope we stay in touch um and I hope you know that I'll always admire the work here the people here um and I I always support you um even in time times we find ourselves in in public education I I know we have dedicated people taking care of our kids and that gives me comfort as a dad as a as a tax hold a taxpayer I know that with just a smile our Educators and people in those buildings can make a child's day so I just asked you keep smiling keep smiling please positively impact your students every day you're loved and appreciated period it's time

227as a district as a community to put our swords down and rally around the district its students and its staff my wife my kids myself will be forever committed to this place I have a lifetime of memories good and bad um you know unlike those that think I would try to financially gain from this if we ever get this charity the goods and family is all in I'll donate as many dollars as is needed for whatever is needed for this school district um I appre appreciate everybody that I've met through this process so thank [Applause] you um okay thank you director president vice president all of the above Goodson we need a motion to adjourn motion second all in favor say oh wait do we have to roll C this can we say all in

228favor all in favor I I