001This is not the sign. Good evening everyone. I'll call to order the board of education meeting for Monday, May 11th, 2026. Kristen, could we have a roll call, please? >> Tisha >> here, >> Bridget >> here, >> Tracy >> here, >> Mark >> here, >> Brian >> here, >> Ann >> here, >> and Aaron >> and I'm here. I'll verify we have a quorum present. Let's rise for the pledge of >> allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> U Mark, would you please read the schoolboard mission statement? >> Yes. Working together to ensure high levels of learning for all. Thank you, Kristen. Was public notice given? >> Public notice was given to
002the requesting news media. The agenda is posted at the district office and on the district website. >> Thank you. Are there any revisions to tonight's agenda? >> Mr. President, we request to move number 14 and number 11 in that order to before item number nine. >> Okay. Motion to move item 14 and then item 11 to follow item eight. >> Second. Did you you were making that motion? >> Yes. >> Second. >> Thank you. Uh motion by myself, seconded by an to adjust the agenda to have item number 14 followed by item 11 to follow item eight. Are there any questions? >> All those in favor? >> I >> opposed. Tonight's agenda is approved. We do not have a question for public input on tonight's published agenda and as a result we will turn to
003item number 14 and we welcome Tom Yoshinski. >> Hello. Uh I am here to request permission to use uh my classroom an activity in my classroom for my master's research. uh my masters is in instructional instructional design through western governors uh and specializing in online education and the purpose of it or the this what the study is is we're working on refusal strategies. So talking about refusal strategies with teens us in scenarios relating to peer pressure and giving them the tools uh to recognize what kind of peer pressure is being used. uh what are some components of refusal strategies that that they can use to help them in those situations to uh get themselves out of or avoid substance use um in necessary situations. >> Fantastic. >> Team what questions do we have for Tom?
004>> You mentioned online learning, but then you're talking about your class like kids in class. So is that correct? So your focus is online learning but like you're running your study on the kids in your classroom. >> Correct. So it will be a digital model that they're going to use through Nearpod. Um they'll do it in person uh because the degree is is uh online like it's a masters online educa or instructional design with online education. Uh I need to do it through a digital model. But I think what the benefit of that is is it does uh prepare it helps me learn how we can use online education especially as we start to get into that realm with our online school and when I look at some of the other things that we have
005with Darwin Gresner's Edenum at some point is it a spot where we can put together a health curriculum that that isn't through Edenum or something like that. So I I think it it has benefits uh in that realm as well. Thank you. >> Is this a new um subject for this 10th grade general health class or is this something you've already covered in the past and this is a new way of doing it? >> Yeah, we always cover refusal skills but just a new way of doing it and um a deeper dive into the assessment of it of of how it's working. >> Tom, I have a question. Um, and I, you know, I'm a researcher, so I'll try not to get too far in the weeds because I love this stuff. But I'm curious
006for the online simulations, is it like different scenarios that you present them with and then they pick kind of the most appropriate response or do are they prompted to reason like what would you do in this situation and then they have to, you know, write it out and you'll analyze it. >> So, it's a it's free response. So, um, there's a couple different ways. There's a part of it is identifying like what type of peer pressure do they use and and they're taught that throughout the module. And then um and then the free response part is they get a scenario and they have to answer four questions um related to that of like what type of peer pressure was the person using? How did you know this? What what would uh your refusal strategy be?
007What are the components of that refusal strategy? Because that's something we talk about in the online module as well is like what are some different components that you can have built into a refusal strategy. >> Great. Thank you. >> So I got a question for you Tom. Is there any data to start with to show the refusal and then the difference that it's going to make? Do you have any of that? >> I I don't. That's a that's a great question and that's it's kind of a hard one to to find. There's um in in one of my my papers like there's data that supports that that they need it. Um but how effective is kind of you know up in the air in terms of like what is the effectiveness of of doing it.
008is such a kind of a broad thing. >> Well, it sounds like you'll generate data after your study. >> That's the hope. >> It would be really cool to potentially follow them, you know, maybe ask a year or two later to what extent have you actually employed these strategies in your, you know, real life situations. >> And that's kind of in health we talk about like some some kids need this right now and some kids need this three years from now. um as some have no interest and and no access or are not being offered that and some probably have been for a little bit. So yeah, kind of the importance is is now and also long term. >> I'll make the motion to approve the action research project as outlined by Tom Yashinsky for
009his M's program and included in enclosure 14. >> Second. Motion by Bridget, second by Tracy to approve the action research project as presented by Tom and detailed in enclosure 14. Uh team, any further questions? >> All those in favor? >> I approved. Good luck, Tom. I don't know how you have time to go back and and and go to go to graduate school, but much many props and best of luck with your >> That's why it's taken me uh 14 years now to to finally go back and do it. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Okay, we'll move next to item number 11, which is a capacity study. Ben, I'll hand it over to you. >> Okay, thank you very much. Uh Kristen's going to be pulling up Matt Wolfford from Bray Architects and I
010want to thank Janet for initiating this uh study. Uh you know basically uh we needed to update our capacity in our building as we move into the future and certainly through some of our strategic planning. Uh we've uncovered that um you know we may need to analyze our boundaries uh and in terms of uh what is most appropriate uh in terms of you know where students go within our district. And before we can even have that conversation, we needed to update u the capacity studies within our building so the board will be aware what we're dealing with before we go into those important conversations. Janet, anything else? Um just the other thing that I think is is really important is that um as we look for adding new kinds of programs like we just added
011on a pal if we were to add an honability program or any other new and innovative program one of the things that's really important for us to do is to know what our capacity is. And we had data before on our capacities, but we just knew that they were wrong because they were designed with more the physical space and weren't really taking into consideration the programmatic space. So just because a a room is large enough to put 30 students in or 35, we wouldn't do that in most in most of our courses. So it's looking at marrying up the the physical capacity with the programmatic capacity is what the objective of this study was. So with that I will turn it over to Matt. >> Thank you Janet. Can you hear and see the screen?
012>> Yes sir. >> Excellent. Well I'm going to steal 30 seconds to thank Janet for her decades of work with students across state. She's been a partner for many, many years and I know she's not enjoying this at the moment, but I'm going to take advantage of this opportunity to thank her. She's been a great partner for 15 years. Has always treated us firm but fair. So, thank you Janet. >> So, as as Janet opened, this is an educational capacity study, not a I'll say quote unquote capacity study. So you can view a building through the lens of building code, which will tell you that you have much more room than you actually have. So what we're trying to do is help you focus in on what are the educational uh space availability or capacity
013for your buildings. So again, my name is Matt Wilford. I've been with Bray 30 years. Um have focused almost exclusively on K12 educational work. And one component of that is helping clients understand uh how their buildings are currently serving students uh and how they may serve students moving forward as many of our districts are transitioning as as you are um from a stable to slightly increasing enrollment district to a stable to declining enrollment district. That's not a bad thing. It's reality. It's 95% of school districts throughout the region. So what does that mean in terms of educational capacity? So the first thing we do is we don't want to look at a building through the lens of we have make up a number 50 classrooms. You could put 30 kids in there. Just do the
014math. We have since your buildings have been built and you 90% of the buildings throughout the region have been built. We've added program after program, special education, um, life skills, more CTE investment, all those important curricular changes. And we want to make sure that the capacity study is not just looking at how many students can we cram into a room and look at a chalkboard back in our day um, or a Smartboard today, but what what does it truly mean to educate kids the way we need to today? Um and so what we do is we start and quite frankly the elementary schools are relatively straightforward. We start with a range. What is the number of students whether it's by board policy or by district target or goal for number of students? How many students
015are we going to house in range? Because we know that not every room is going to be 20 kids or 26 kids. It's going to be a range. It's going to vary across a district of your size. And then we apply that across the number of classrooms available. Acknowledging that when the second graders are in FIAD or in music or in art or at lunch, we're not going to put 22 or 24 more second graders back into that classroom. So, elementary schools are relatively straightforward to calculate capacity, and I'll touch on an example in a minute. Middle and high schools are a little more difficult because I think as we all know, most of us went to school, we were in our classroom and then we shifted to science or we shifted to band or
016we shifted to a CTE or an exploratory course. that classroom we just left can be repopulated with students within reason, not a 100% of the day, but some percentage of the day to reuse that classroom or lab or specialty space. And so the utilization rate applies to middle and high schools. How much can we utilize a given space type? And so what we did, apologize, jumped ahead. uh the capacity study. This is a summary of your enrollment. So, I'm sure you get this annually when you're looking at approving your open enrollment opportunities, but just noting that again like most districts, 90 plus% of the districts in the region are you're slightly declining and the suggestion is that may may continue a little bit. 1674, right? our outgoing classes are are quite a bit larger than
017our incoming. That's not a reason to panic. Now, on the operating operating funding side, that's a whole different story uh for the team to explore. But from the capacity perspective, especially at our elementary level where we have three buildings, a drop of 50 kids spread across three buildings, spread across six or seven grades doesn't change a lot yet. It may someday. So just know that this study was not created to support some suggested reduction of sections or closing buildings or changing grade configurations. It was done to give you a baseline understanding as a district of what your educational capacity is across these buildings based on how you currently use them. This will change and it's very normal for clients to call in year two or year year four or year six and say new program
018change in attendance area change in grade configuration. Can you update this? So that's normal. So think about this as a snapshot in time as to how we're using the buildings now. But it's a good check as to where you're you're functioning. So as I noted earlier for elementary schools it's relatively straightforward. So what we do is we take and you can see it kind of very briefly summarized on screen here. We take Eagle Bluff in this case and we highlight all the classrooms that are serving core classroom areas 4K 1 2 3 4 5. We identify which classrooms are being used for those and then we apply a range a minimum to maximum class size. It's also important to note that when there's a 27th student in a fourth grade classroom, that doesn't mean you
019run out or teachers can come to you and say, "We're over our capacity. It's in the capacity study." These are benchmarks. They're not musthaves. They're not exact numbers. But we all know, I think, capacities are ranges, not singular numbers. And so when we count the number of classrooms in the elementary level and we take our range which changes from 4K 5K all the way up through fifth grade get a little larger as we get to fifth grade which is normal. You're still well within if not under targets that we've seen for other districts. So you should be commended for keeping those class sizes as low as possible. you reach a capacity educational capacity range of 572 to 653. Some may ask why is the gym not counted, the music room, the art room? What about
020special ed? So, as I I mentioned earlier, when 25 third graders are not in their classroom and they're at music or art or fied or recess, we can't put 25 more kids in that room like we potentially could at the middle or high school. Why don't we count special ed students? 10 years ago, we did count special ed students. We were still, most districts were still back in the traditional model of where we had special ed rooms where, you know, 5 to 10 to 20 kids spent most of their day. Now that we're mainstreaming kids, which is phenomenal, um phenomenal for kids that have those needs and the additional supports that are needed, we that changes every year. So, we can't take a room that's designed for a cross categorical special ed room and say
021we're always going to have 12 kids in that room because this year it might have been 14. Next year it might be eight and that will always change. And so we don't count special ed students within the concept of capacity because they're spending most of their time within the targeted class size range of 22 to 25 for example at third grade. Same thing for for Irving Perch. Same thing for Northern Hills. So again, elementaryaries relatively straightforward. Same thing for the middle and high school. From the perspective of we count four classrooms, English, social studies, math, science, they're getting utilized at a 75% range. In the case of your middle school, it's a very efficient utilization of space. You're utilizing your gyms for FIAD, your band, choir rooms, music rooms, etc. at 75%. Which is really
022good. um from our perspective a lot of districts their schedules don't allow uh for students to access those encore or specialty spaces as much. So by that analysis we take the minimum to maximum range times a util utilization rate of 75% to get our actual capacity minimum to maximum. same general approach at the high school classrooms and again middle and high school really have not lost spaces to more current learning environments. I know that's been a focus at the high school and and maybe in process now or in the near future. Um but showing about a th00and to almost 1,200 students with a 75% utilization rate across the high school. So big picture, we compare our capacity minimum and our capacity maximum to our current enrollment to create an over and under capacity. Now don't
023look at 945 students under capacity and say, "Well, we're totally out of whack." That would really mean if you were running every classroom in all five buildings at basically maximum capacity, you would be there. Our clients and and we generally recommend especially on an elementary school level elementary school level. Um, if you have attendance areas, we typically see most of our clients running between 80 and 85% of their target capacity and most districts would ideally keep that at the low end just because it keeps our class sizes more manageable. Now, if the operating budget gets to the point where you can't afford it and and you have to start flexing a little bit between the two, this could be a good tool to start studying. Do we change things? do we not? But that was
024not the goal of this study. I want to make that clear. If you look at the minimum class size, which I think likely many board members would like to keep if possible, we're right on that target, if not slightly above it in some cases of, you know, 85 to 90% of our minimum target capacity, educational capacity. And I think every time we talk about I I should have used that word more. This is not code capacity, it's educational capacity. And so with that, I'm happy to open it up for questions. I think hopefully this is a good tool for your leadership team and you as a board to use moving forward as just another lens to look at your facilities through when making decisions. >> Thanks for the recap, Matt. Appreciate it. Thorough team. Are
025there any questions? >> Okay. Thank you very much, sir. All right. Thank you. Have a great evening. >> Okay. We'll move directly then into some recognition items and we'll start with donations. Okay. It's uh my pleasure to be able to share the two following donations. $800 from Jake Remy properties for the district food pantry and $100 from Jin Messik for the district food pantry. Very much appreciated. These don't reach our our level where we need to uh approve them at the board level, but they're nonetheless appreciated. So, thank you to Jake Ramy Properties and Jen Misk. Uh we move to an acknowledgement appreciation for Karina. We're losing one of our board members today. Um so we may say some nice things about you now. Um but I I will I'll I'll start that like just
026so impressed with the preparation and the level of communication that you brought to this table in the last year. I think you really elevated our understanding of what's going on at the high school and around the district. Uh no doubt that you have a very bright future in front of you. I can't wait to uh to see like alumni spotlights down the road where um where we hear about what you're doing. So, thank you very much for joining us this past year. >> Yeah, Karina, I just want to add that I was impressed at your professionalism. It's something that you don't often see from high school students and you've got it in spades and I'm just curious what's what is next for you for those of us who don't know. >> Um I'm going to
027be going to CWMadison. Well, first I have an internship over the summer at JF Brendan in Lacrosse working with their project estimating department and then in the fall I'll be at WMadison um studying environmental engineering and legal studies. >> Well, anybody else? >> Well, I'll I'll share. I mean Karina is a star I think. Yeah, brilliant um young lady and of course we're excited to see what the future holds for you and um you you've been a great ambassador for us as well. Um just uh the other day I had a student reach out inquire on what it would take to be a student school board member because they learned about it from you. So thank you for that. >> Yeah. and and even I we saw the video that you that you did with
028Ben and even though there's maybe some unscrupulous uh you know gamesmanship during the the uh the contest you know it was it was very entertaining. So thank you. Anything >> I dominated her. >> So you think anything anything that you you I'm sure you have a maybe you have a have an update that we share here in a few moments. So again, uh we can move directly into that frankly. Uh item number 12. >> Awesome. Well, for today, I'm not really going to get an update, but more of just kind of my experience at OHS and how this has really shaped me so much from what I started with. So throughout my time at an Alaska High School, I've engaged my fellow peers, teachers, and community so much more than I could have ever imagined.
029When I first came to OS during my sophomore year, I joined the orchestra and this was one of the first places that I truly felt at home in my new school. I quickly joined more clubs and activities. The girls tennis team, the co-op ski team, National Honor Society, Music Appreciation Club, the ROI Interact Club, and I eventually founded my own competitive renewable energy team called the Analas that I love so much. And we're going to the World Competition next week. So, really excited for that. And of course, I had fun extracurriculars. um such as spending time with students at Eagle Bluff during I don't know what it's called but the fund run event they have there um filming game honor with Mr. Barton and treating middle school students to rip your float party for the
030for I feed Rotary fundraiser. And with all of this, I also really loved learning. I loved learning taking electives such as food science and lifetime PE, but also taking a rigorous course load of 9 classes throughout my junior and senior year, which I wouldn't have been able to do at the school that I came from. So, I'm really really grateful to have that opportunity at an Alaska. And just in all, I want to thank Mr. Shaner, Mr. really all the teachers and friends that I made, but mostly importantly this board of education for making my time at OS so fun, educating, and impactful. The time that this board takes to consider how policies and new opportunities such as recently the virtual K through8 school makes a great difference in students lives even though they probably
031don't even know what the board does or how it affects them, which is someone I used to be last year. and just being chosen as this board's student representative this year was truly an honor and I'm excited to apply all that I've learned through his experience to my studies at WMadison the fall and thank you so much. >> I think it probably deserves an appreciation. Thank you. >> It's been great to have you >> Mr. Sheffer. >> Uh two things. One, just looking ahead next Wednesday, one of our hallways will be emptied out at the start of the school day. teachers will in our English hallway, Spanish hallway will when they leave on the 19th, they will be out of their rooms until they're renovated. So, um those classrooms will be re relocated for the
032last 6 and a half days and construction ultimately starts right away on the 20th. Uh making sure that we hit that timeline of August 17th for inservice next fall. So, coming very quickly. Um and then the other main hallway upstairs, the social studies hallway. Likewise, when staff leave on the 29th, the last day, um construction will start immediately in that hallway on Monday, um the 1st, I think, right right around the corner. So those things are coming quickly. Um in front of you, you saw it's a sheet of paper that had four responses on them. One of the things that our guiding coalition did in response to the family survey, um giving more feedback to parents as as a part of a pilot, we had all of our freshmen in US history email their parent
033or guardian about how they're currently doing. This was last week on Tuesday. Um the purpose of it is um I don't know specifically how what what standard any individual parent has other than what my wife and I have as parents. And so this was really supposed to be from a student lens knowing what the family expects the student expects. Um giving feedback on how they're doing. Um we surveyed 50 random parents afterwards just using a random identifier in Google. um 91% indicated that this communication led to a follow-up conversation and 89% led said said something positive came out of the conversation afterwards. So it was a initial pilot um part of US history and uh as you can see um a wide variety of of student experiences and uh students also forwarded their email to
034me so that I could look at them from our guiding coalition just to see what the types of communication were. It was fascinating to read the different communication styles that students had. Like you'll see the one student in here, wish I had the drum pad. There's all sorts of different things that students added in. That was also just an insightful thing for for me to see um with 220 freshmen. So, >> thank you, >> Ben. Middle school. >> Yes. Uh, I can tell you, um, I received one of those emails as a parent and, uh, very much appreciated it and it did lead to good conversation and, um, that freshman student was very proud that he did not use any AI to write that email. So, for what it's worth, I'm at the middle school.
035Our, uh, extracurriculars are winding down. Just a few competitions left. We got a track meet going on currently as we speak at An Oscar High School. Just want to highlight that we had 11 of our middle school athletes qualify for state level competition for track. So, some fantastic work there. We are getting ready for just all the things that end the school year. We have a band choir orchestra concert this Thursday night. All welcome. 6th grade at 6:00, 7th at 7, 8th at 8. A lot of other things going on, especially that last week of school. Planning the last day funday with a fun assembly and a fun run as well. And then uh we've been doing our spring rounding with staff and it's been really insightful as always. Staff really appreciate this uh thing
036that we do here in an Alaska because I know it doesn't happen in other other places. Doesn't happen everywhere. And so a lot of great ideas creating a a good summer to-do list for us um to continue to keep moving forward. >> Great. Thanks, Ben. Kelly, >> we just wanted to first say thank you to all of our PTOs for providing such wonderful treats and kind notes for our teachers and staff last week during staff appreciation week. Um and then following our on-site CKLA training a couple weeks ago when we had a rep in our buildings, our um our K through 2 grade and third through fifth grade CKLA leads are going to keep continue that work. So specifically focused around writing because that was what our teachers shared that they're struggling the most with
037with the resource. And so our K through2 and 3 through 5 CLA leads are going to meet and continue the conversation around vertical alignment with the writing so that we can head into next year more prepared. We have several field trips coming up like EBLC, the train park, pizza ranch, wildlife refuge, ro park, all the all the places in the area. Um, we have our senior walkthroughs coming up. So, we're looking forward to welcoming in the seniors who graduated from our elementary buildings and having them in to just walk through and celebrate. As well as our Hill Topper Showquire and color guard visit coming up too. Building specific, um, Abby had put in for Irving Perch that they're having an endofear tea party in 4K on Thursday and students are going to serve their guests
038tea and treats and share and celebrate their accomplishments. And then in fifth grade at Irving Perch, they're having their original musical, which is written by fifth graders. And this year, I guess it includes a lot of gemstones and elements, but there's no title yet. That is all I know. It's a mystery. Um, at Northern Hills, we have our fun run coming up this week. And then we're also taking a lot of field trips down to the new All Abilities Park that's down the road by the Dash Center. Our teachers and um PE teachers, they've all been really heavily utilizing that park. and we're just really grateful for the community for building it. >> All right, I'll just do a couple here too. Um, just lots of wrapping up the year sort of events. Our final
039PTO meeting is coming up uh next Monday night and there'll be changing of the officers uh happening um at that meeting as well. Uh we are also having a fun run although it's not just any fun run walk. It is the all-American uh fun run walk. We are celebrating, as you may know, 250 years of of our great country. And uh so we are going to honor that and wear red, white, and blue. And we're not going to do 250 laps uh around the school. But there will be >> 250 steps. >> Yeah. 2 at least 250 steps. Uh but the principal's two-mile challenge is in that, but not just any principal's two-m challenge. It is the all-American principal's two-mile challenge. So just we just want to be very clear about all that. No, we're
040just looking forward to a good time uh uh together and um uh just celebrating um our our our country and our school and and all the people in it. So, lots of fun things coming up. Thanks everyone. We'll move now into item number 13, which is uh board committees. And I'll make the following committee assignments uh for board policy. Uh Bridget Thomas will lead that committee with members Tesha Marshek and Tracy Laughenberg for co-curricular policy. Uh Ann Gity will serve on that committee. Finance and operations. Mark Casilius will lead that committee with Brian and myself. In public engagement and will lead the committee with Mark and Bridget. And then we have some ad hoc committee assignments. In the executive committee will be myself and an um I'll lead community response. I'm going to ask Tisha
041as long as your schedule allows to support us as the CISA for rep. Uh employee welcome and recognition. Uh I I'll lead that and delegate as needed. Ask Mark to lead us in the tax incremental finance district. And then from a WASP delegate standpoint, I'm ask Brian to lead that with Bridget as an alternate. If anyone has any questions um following or or otherwise, just uh please let me know. Okay, we'll move into action items now. And we have uh bid approvals for an Alaska High School phase 1A. And I'll turn it over. I'm sorry to >> Oh, look at that. >> It's working. >> All right. Uh yes, we have uh a few bids here for um phase 1A of the high school. Um more specifically, the weight room, the flooring, and then some
042classroom furniture. Um, these are all a part of those owner uh I forget what we called them, owner purchase uh amounts that we showed when we had the Weezer approved bid. Um, so these are not additional dollars by any means. They were already kind of consumed, but these are the official bids. Um, going right into the weight room equipment and flooring. Uh, we had three vendors, uh, Dynamic Fitness and Strength, Sorex, and then Johnson Fitness and Wellness. You can see the bid amounts there. Dynamic being the lotus, but also that would be the preference of uh the island Alaska High School athletics department. Um the quality of the of the equipment for dynamic is uh a little bit more superior than the others that were uh brought forward. Their customer service is uh pretty pretty
043spot-on. They come in fix us on site and do all their fixes uh rather than putting that onto our staff. Um there's over a 100 school districts in Wisconsin that uses dynamic equipment and speak very highly of that equipment. Um and they're locally serviced. Um and again they are the lowest bid at 34194086. So we're looking for approval from the board for uh that piece. And then for the classroom furniture, this would be the furniture that uh would go along with what we've already purchased uh from the original phase one of the Alaska High School remodel. Uh this is from Duet. Um we use a third party called Ideology uh that goes out and help and helps us do the bids for these uh these furniture pieces. Um and that total came out to be
04413644983. So, with your uh approval or with your uh deliberation, we're looking for approval for those amounts. Thank you, Tyler. >> I have a question. >> Please go ahead. >> Um on the Johnson Fitness and Wellness, I realize it's an incomplete bid. They, I'm assuming, just don't do the flooring. Is that why they didn't bid that or do we have any insight there? And I'm only asking because their weight room equipment bid was significantly less than some of the others. Mhm. >> Um what we heard is that they do do it but they just did not respond. They reached out multiple times and then the team felt if we can't get a response when you were at this point that you know they they just didn't feel comfortable moving. >> Yeah. >> Good question. Are
045there any others? >> Yeah, I guess just the classroom furniture. It looks like that's the same provider as in the past. So it's matching furniture I guess. Yeah, >> correct. And that is that is part of the reason as well is to go with that. So everything is uh matching and uh uniform within the high school. >> Yeah. >> Thanks. >> Um you might not know the answer to this so I apologize in advance. Um but what do you happen to remember like what the weight room equipment was for the middle school? Is it this the same company or Jared says yes? >> Yes. >> Thank you. If there are no further questions, I would move for approval of the weight room equipment and flooring from Dynamic uh in the amount of $341,940.86 and the
046classroom furniture from Duet in the amount of 136,44983 as outlined by um Tyler and enclosed in uh enclosure 15. Second >> motion by an seconded by Brian to approve the weight room equipment and flooring from Dynamic for $341,940.86 and classroom furniture from Duet in the amount of $136,449.83 as outlined by Tyler and then detailed in enclosure 15 bids. Team, are there any questions? Could we have a roll call vote, please? >> Tracy, >> yes. >> Mark, >> yes. >> Ann, >> yes. >> Brian, >> yes. >> Bridget, >> yes. >> Tisha, >> yes. >> And Aaron, >> yes. As approved. Thank you for your work on that, everyone. Uh, we'll now move into uh 2627 CAPS budgets and turn it right back over to Tyler and Janet. All right. Where is it? Right here. I'm
047still getting used to Google. All right. So, yes, this is the 2026 27 school year capital asset purchases or caps for facilities, technology, and then instructional. So, I'll have Wish talk to the instructional, and I will do my best for facilities and technology. If there's questions, I have a lot of answers, but if there's anything I don't know, I will get back to you on those. Uh, so first of all, we'll look at facilities. Our u budget amount is 500,000. Uh, the items detailed here. We have pictures, so we will I'll go through each one of these individually. So, here's Eagle Bluff replacing the purple segment, which is the first grade uh area. Uh we have a lot of cracked tiles that are happening and u I believe the red and the yellow corridors have
048been already reffled uh with a new flooring. Looks very nice. Uh the idea is to have the same flooring just in that purple color. Uh Irving perch replacing aging playground equipment. Uh this has been identified more so for safety concerns. Um some of the equipment is very old. Um I think some of them were there when I was there. So, um they are in need of replacement. Uh Irving perch replacing piping issues and leaks. Uh so this is down in the basement area and yes, they're experiencing uh leaks that need to be repaired. Uh Irving Perch, the marquee sign, uh it has lived its good life. Uh it's now needing replacement. Um the idea is to replace it with one that matches kind of what the middle school and the high school has uh installed
049at their locations. Uh that would help you know a lot of uh marketing and branding of the Alaska schools and matching our our buildings together. Um Irving Perch. This is partial landscaping replacement. Uh over the years we've had a lot of different types of shrubbery and other things that have happened at a lot of our buildings. Uh, Irving perch is another one that we may have gotten some landscaping that it was a little unmanageable uh or or required a lot more time and effort than what we can give it. So, the idea is to put something in there that is a little less maintenance, still looks very nice uh that we can be proud of um with things like pouring rubber or pavers or larger stones that it just it's not as uh weed infested.
050Um, and if if you look on this, this is the the side that's near uh First Lutheran Church. Uh, and then the picture on the right is the front parking lot where uh the staff parks and then again at Irving Perch replacement failing water softener system. Uh, it's just a new system needs to be replaced. Um, I I can go back. Is there any questions on any of the facilities items? And I'll go back up quickly so you can see those amounts. >> I just have a quick question as a perch parent. Is anything happening to the fish on the playground? >> I asked the same question and I'm not sure if there's anything happening with the fish. I don't know if there's anyone here that can help me answer that, but I I hope
051it stays. I hope >> it probably is a something that needs to be addressed at some point, but it is a kind of a staple now, I think. >> Every once in a while. Yeah, >> it has been patched and repainted a couple of times in the last well since CC was there in kindergarten. So, >> eightish years, nine years. So, I think we intend to keep it. >> Okay. >> Thank you, >> Tyler. Another feature there of Eagle Bluff replacing a lot of light fixtures >> apparently with LEDs. >> Correct. And it's yet another um just being more efficient with our utilities and everything. >> Yeah. Sure. Great. All right, I will go down to technology. Not very many pictures for technology because just a lot of pictures of computers and uh Chromebooks. Um
052so I'll just go through the list here. Um so at the high school 9th grade Chromebook rotation, so every ninth grader gets a Chromebook and that stays with them through their uh life of the high school. Um and that so that turns over every year. This is a normal um expense. Uh same for sixth grade at the middle school and then the elementary school the fifth grade Chromebooks. Uh this is something that they they try and do for different grades and then they rotate the best that they can. So this year would be the fifth grade. Uh next year would be second grade and then they take a year off trying to get the life span of these um devices at their four to five years that they can really last. Um and then they'll
053start up again with a different class um in 2930. Um and then PC modules for displays. Uh this is uh for the current smartboards that are that kind of the older lifespan or the older boards that we have in some of the facilities. Um the modules that were put into those boards were very uh well they weren't very high quality. Uh so the idea is to replace those PC modules behind the boards but keeping the boards the same. Uh those PC modules then will u live a longer life and it's being supplied by Dell something that we are using currently today. >> I assume that's far cheaper than replacing the boards. >> Correct. Correct. Um and then at the high school the teched lab workstations and monitors. Uh this is on a five-year rotation for
054the an Alaska high school. Uh and this would be year five. And then at all sites, uh the interactive display replacements. So this is boards and PC components, wall mounting hardware. So these would be those smartboards or anything that or classrooms that have not gotten a Smartboard yet. Um so those would be any new ones or any ones that need to be replaced. >> Point of clarification. So um like the high school students get the Chromebook in 9th grade and they keep it through 12th. The sixth graders get it and keep it through 8th. Correct. So far. Okay. And then in um the elementary school, so just so I understand those Chromebooks stay in the classroom. The students are not taking those back and forth. So in theory like that should still last the fourish
055years and then the fifth graders would be up again for a new set of Chromebooks in those classrooms. >> Correct. Thank you. >> Yeah. It's and they try and hit each grade. So those devices will stay in those classrooms. And again, they're trying to make it to that four to five years, making them uh live as long as they possibly can. And then so fifth grade would be this year. Next year would be second grade. And then those would hopefully last for another five years. And then second grade would be up again. >> Thank you. >> All right. I will move to instructional caps and will take it over from here. >> Yeah. Thank you. Um, we don't have a picture for the 4K furniture and equipment. So, I'll just talk about that one quick
056before we take a look at some of the pictures. You might remember when we talked about adding the all day prek that we knew we were going to expand into a few classrooms. So, this will be a one-year purchase and we put 75,000 there, but also knowing that it probably won't cost that much as we start to look at uh the rooms that we have and where we have had 4K preschool in there before. There's a lot of equipment that we can reuse. It's just that some things have found to be at their age limit regardless of if they were being used or not in a classroom. So, some things need to be replaced. Um, the only building that we have a full new furnishing for a 4K preschool is at Irving Perch because Northern
057and Eagle have had uh those other classrooms be furnished before. So, up to 75,000 but probably not that much. And then um at the elementary level and at the middle high school level, we're working on an music equipment replacement plan. So last year we started on this for our elementary, spending about $10,000 a year to replace some of those bigger items that just don't fit within a school building budget. So this would be our second year of just putting about $10,000 towards that plan of replacing those bigger pieces of equipment. as you know, some things uh you know, like Tony is beyond that $10,000 a year if we're going to replace that at the middle and high. So, it's just trying to be really intentional in planning that out of replacing those things. And then
058our gymnastics equipment, as a former gymnastics coach, this is the one PE piece of equipment I feel like I can speak with authority on. If you see that wood beam back there, that's something that we really probably should have replaced for safety purposes a long time ago. It's really not something that we typically will teach gymnastics skills on an uncovered piece of equipment. And then also, if you take a look at just the legs and feet of some of those bars and beams, they're uneven. And so then we're um having to, you know, use shims and things like that, which just is really not safe. So looking at replacing that gymnastics equipment, this is for the PE instruction, not for our competitive team. Um, but this is something for all three of our elementaryaries that
059they share. So, our buildings and grounds brings that around to the three different buildings. So, that's why we're able to save a little bit of money there. Um, taking a look at the fifth grade tables at Eagle Bluff. So, we think that we can repurpose these tables to some of our youngers who use tables instead of desks, but really prefer to have desks there in fifth grade and then replacing the chairs as well. I believe these are as old as Eagle Bluff, if not older. Correct. So it's just their time to be able to be repurposed and have desks for our fifth graders. And then similarly at Irving Perch when the fifth grade classrooms were added on when in 2015, we did not replace furniture there in fifth grade. And so this is some furniture
060that I think is as old or older than the furniture in the fifth grade at Eagle Bluff. So things that are just not in good working order anymore that we need to replace. And then our bicycles that we use at the middle school and high school for our PE classes, we have not had a sustainable plan for repair and replacement of them. So, some of them just are in disrepair and need to be repaired and or replaced. And these are pretty heavily used by our PE department. The fall and spring um outdoor adventures class at the high school uses them to go down to the Great River Landing, go kayaking. um they use that to travel instead of bus, which saves us actually quite a bit of money in some of those areas. And then
061our middle schoolers right now are using them in their PE class. Some of them learning how to ride a bike. So, uh it's pretty heavily used. So, again, if we can just have a intentional repair and replacement plan to put a little bit of money towards that every year, that should help us extend the life of those bikes. And finally, the Eagle Bluff principal's office furniture came over from Faver Hill, and it's been in disrepair for quite a while, but Tod has maggyvered it back together as best as he could for as long as we he could, and we just felt like it was time. >> On the upper left, >> the duct tape and WD40 has been used there. So, uh, we think it's just time to replace that furniture and make sure that
062we have furniture that we can be proud to have parents in the office and meet with us about, right? So, um, that's what we're asking for. Just some of these things don't fit within the regular building budget and don't fit in within my regular instructional services budget without having that intentional plan for replacing them or or putting that money towards it in a in a cycle. >> Deal. Good. Good recap. Lots of good things on there. >> Can I just add before um the board takes any action, you'll notice that the instructional caps is new this year. And that was an intentional process that when we were working with our principles about trying to make sure that for we do it for facilities, we do it for technology, but also doing the same thing for
063instructional. so that we're looking at taking a a bigger and more systemic look at when those things need to be replaced so that we're not getting supplies as down the road. So, our intent is to continue this um into the future. I think it's a better way. We've got a way to categorize all of this now and capture it so then we can just work on making it happen. >> It's nice to see that we have the flexibility to be able to add that category as well. I have a question for Lishia if I can. So just well question slash kind of suggestion um for the bicycle repair replacement. Um I agree that you know having that a plan for that is is important and will help us in the long run. I'm wondering if
064there's been any consideration into like getting kids involved with that at all as far as like teaching them how to do bicycle repair and maintenance because I see that as like a useful skill that many of them would benefit from learning. >> Yeah. I only can speak to conversations I've had with the middle school teachers recently about that and that it's more about just teaching them the parts of the bike and when to recognize that it might need repair but not necessarily repairing them. I do know in some conversations with high school PE teachers, they have worked with our teched department on things that they can do those kind of minor repairs on, you know, putting your chain back on, things like that are just part of learning how to be a bike rider. but
065we haven't really had an intentional piece of instruction on repair. So, that's a really great suggestion. I >> thought that and and I like how again the idea of like maybe incorporating it into >> teched. Thanks. >> We have done a lot of problem solving around fitting helmets and things like that. That's been a really intentional piece of the instruction there. >> Okay, team. Other questions? just a comment about the um think about the history of that desk that you're sitting at. >> Yeah, some pretty impressive principles have sat at that desk. Not that I disagree that it's not time that it be retired, but uh you were sitting in good company that for sure. >> We haven't really decided what we're going to do with the desk if it's replaced. So maybe that's something
066we can still in a museum. >> We could start our own >> take it home. >> There you go. There you go. >> Um with that, I will move that we um approve the uh 2627 facilities, technology, and an instructional capital budget recommendations that have been uh outlined in enclosure 16. and then well detailed tonight. >> Second >> motion. >> Yes. Motion by Ann, seconded by Tisha to approve the 26 2026 27 caps budgets as detailed in enclosure 16 caps. We have a roll call, please. >> Brian, >> yes. >> Ann, >> yes. >> Tisha, >> yes. >> Bridget, >> yes. >> Tracy, >> yes. >> Mark, >> yes. >> And Aaron, >> yes. Thanks team for your work on that. Really nicely done. Are there any requests to remove items from the consent agenda
067for separate consideration? >> I would make the request to remove item four from the personnel report for separate consideration. >> Okay. Okay. All right. So, we'll hold that. And with that, I will I know there's some comments that we would like to receive around items B1 and B2. So Jared, I'll start with you. Uh Sarah Cello has been in the school district for 21 years. She started as a cook in 2005. Uh went into a PAR position at the middle school in 2005, was there for 16 years, including serving a lot as an administrative assistant backup. Um and we've been blessed at the high school the last four years. the the three things that jump out about Sarah that I think all of the students that she works with would emphasize uh patience, consistency, and
068kindness. She is just an amazing person that works with students with disabilities and uh they know exactly what they're going to get every day and it's a high quality product. Uh we're going to absolutely miss Sarah in our academic support room. >> Thanks for those comments, Jared. >> And then Ben, I think you have >> Yeah. Well, it's not always that uh we have the pleasure and the honor of having one of our newest team members uh join us. And I think it's important that we acknowledge that Miss Kelly Ree is in the room with us. Kelly uh is being recommended uh to the board to be our new assistant principal at the middle school. We had a very rigorous process. It was very competitive and uh you know that says a lot about Kelly.
069Um, I had an opportunity to uh do a second interview uh with her last week and uh she did extraordinary and I'm just very excited to uh welcome her to our team and uh Mr. B, Dr. Burns, if you have any comments you'd like to share. >> I would just echo everything that you said. Um like I shared with the board before, we had a very strong deep candidate pool. um 42 applicants, but every step of the way, Kelly kind of set herself apart as as a leading candidate, both in terms of her experience and expertise that she'll bring, not only from the middle school level, but specifically that instructional leadership lens, but also just the passion and and dispositions that she demonstrated in terms of really wanting to be at the middle school level
070and support kids through that time of life, which we know is not for everyone. So, um, those are just a couple of the highlights. Um, so we look forward to having Kelly join our team. >> Thank you. >> With that, I would move that we approve the consent agenda uh, with the exception of item four as presented. >> Second. >> Motion by Ann, seconded by Tracy to approve the consent agenda, accepting item four. Are there any further questions? All those in favor? >> I >> opposed approved and we'll move to item four on the personnel report. >> Yeah, I was just hoping and um to get a little bit of clarity and explanation. I know this is kind of an influx with the addition of the online academy and I'm sure there's been changes and
071things learned along the way. So, just wanted to hear a little bit more about how we're going from a 0.5 to a 75 and what led to the decision. Well, we just went through all of our uh interviews last week with our candidates. We had a very impressive pool of candidates. And as we were uh going through that process and identifying all of the duties and responsibilities that this coordinator was going to have, it didn't uh seem practical that we were going to be able to get everything accomplished at a 0.5 position that we had. Um, as I noted in the board memo, uh, there's certain things that it doesn't matter how many students you have in your program. Um, if you still need to build a handbook and and your websites and policies and
072procedures and all of those things, whether you have 20 students or a thousand students, uh, there there's certain uh, work that just has to be done. and uh bringing a new person into the fold and trying to include them and uh in our leadership uh teams and really understanding the vision and the focus of the district. We felt like it was really important for us uh to be able to do that. Being a coordinator position, uh this person will have many of the same responsibilities as the principal will have. Uh because this is a brand new program, uh we are are starting as a coordinator. Um we probably were a little bit uh well uh I probably should have started off with a recommendation of a 75 from the get-go. It was after this uh
073analyzing it and going through the process and digging deeper into it, it just felt like we needed to increase that. Um and quite honestly uh we this is an investment and uh sometimes you need to spend a little bit more resources uh to start off with to make sure that things are done right uh so that we can have the highest quality program that we can. And uh it's my strong recommendation to the board that that we do increase that um and you know we feel like it will be at a minimal cost and we will definitely um get a large return on our investment uh if we do it the right way and we don't want to be shortsighted and start uh with a lower amount than what we need. >> Thank you for
074the explanation. I think it is important too that we're we're successful and we set ourselves up for success with this new endeavor. Um so with that I would make the motion to approve the online coordinator position for the an Alaska online academy moving from a 0.5 to a 75 FTE. >> Second >> motion by Bridget seconded by Ann to approve the change in the online coordinator uh position from a 0.5 to 75. Any further questions? >> I do have one more question. And Ben, can you remind us, did you already start the interview process for that? I I think you said yes. >> Yes. Uh we interviewed four candidates uh last week. Uh we do have uh number one candidate that we are vetting. Um and you know, things are looking very good, but I
075uh really didn't want to move forward with any finality until we had this discussion at the board table. So, my intent and hope would be that I could announce and share some information with the board on who this individual is. Uh maybe by the end of this week even and uh then with the idea that it would be at the table for the board to vote on to approve at our next school board meeting. >> I'm excited to hear that. Thank you. I I was um mostly asking whether this change has been shared with the candidates and if that's you know consistent with their expectations and their availability as well. >> Absolutely. Yes. Lots of conversation with the candidate that we're considering. >> Okay. >> Yes. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Any further questions? All
076those in favor? >> I >> opposed. Okay. Item number four from the consent agenda is approved. We have no further business. >> Motion to adjurnn. >> Second. >> Motion by Brian, seconded by Tracy to adjurnn. All those in favor? I >> opposed. And we are journ. Thank you for your work tonight.