001I'd like to call to order the board of education meeting for Monday, April 28th, 2025. Kristen, would you do a roll call, please? Bridget here. Eric, Mark, here. Here. is rise and join me to the flag of the United States of America to the stand. Will you read the school board mission statement? was public notice was given to the request agenda posted in school district buildings and on the district website are there any changes to agenda I'll make a motion to approve the agenda as presented motion by second by agenda questions All those in favor we have no request for public input on tonight's published agenda. So we'll move on to our first item of recognition which is donations. And we have a number of donations to recognize tonight. $125 from an anonymous donor for
002districtwide needs. 25 from James for ele or eagle loft elementary 115 from the Rotary Club of Lacrosse for the honibility program $1,000 from the Irving Perch PTO for yearbooks for students 2500 from Irving PTO for student field trips $1,000 from the Wisconsin Society of Science Teachers Milton Pella grant for hydroponics at the high $1,2505 from Kish funds for pizzas for the anal students. And that is in relation to the gas line. And while Kish and Sons were very generous in donating this, they did not make a mistake. The line that was hit was not properly marked. And so when the permit was pulled um from Excel, they thought they were clear and obviously they weren't. But we really appreciate them um stepping up and helping us out with that uh with that expenditure that we
003incurred. Much appreciation to Christians as well as all of the other donators. It's always very various ways. We'll move into student administrative reports. Leah is not able to be here this evening, but she will be here on Monday, May 12th for her final meeting before graduation. Um the uh we're excited for Friday morning for our professional develop. We have our our teaching staff divided into three different groups. Uh one group's going to be going to the uh Western Apprenticeship Center as well as the Western Integrated Technology Building. Um one group is going to be going to Inland Packaging and Chart. Um and then the third group is going to Fort McCoy uh specifically for their medical training area. Our teachers are very well verssed generally speaking in what the four-year pathway looks like for students
004after high school. But the more that they know about the other pathways ex that exist um flat out the more impactful conversations they can have with kids. Um staff are excited about these. Um they were able to choose their their first choice. Um and all of our staff except about three or four were able to get their first choice. We were limited on space, but we're excited about the educational experience this will be for staff and um flat out all three places that we're going are also excited about having teachers come in the building also. Uh it's a great partnership. All right. So, I don't know if you heard, but we had a little gas leak. Um, so that was uh some excitement, but you know, just to recap that, super impressed with all of
005our staff and students and how they handled everything in stride. Um, and then as we had to, you know, making decisions as information was coming in on the flow and trying to communicate with everybody, everybody did a great job going to where they were supposed to be going, doing what they're supposed to be doing. zero student discipline issues during the evacuation time and so um it just everything went as well as it could have. So I just want to shout out our staff and students for that. Um we like all the other schools got to host uh superintendent pardon last Friday and we get to meet a lot of the staff. So that was some excitement. Um we continue to have a lot of the home tennis, track and softball competitions as well as away
006and those are going well. We have a spring play coming up next week, Thursday and Friday. Uh Shrek Jun the musical, I believe. Um we're also getting ready for next school year next Monday. We have a meeting for with our incoming sixth grade parents. Then finally, uh bright spot. Um, Kelly McMahon and Jana Ishinski um, we found out today they the Lacrosse County Library Board um, decided that they were the Lacrosse County Library Educators of the Year for the work that they do for our district for our students. So, congratulations to Kelly and Jana. Jana is our associate principal and Kelly is our part-time associate principal subbing here and there. So, we appreciate all that they do. Well, kind of leading up what Ben said, we're having a lot of meetings between our staff and
007our fifth grade staff doing the transition of fifth grade to sixth grade getting ready for them to go from middle school. So, just combinations of all of our support staff getting together. Um, our staff appreciation week is coming up the week of May 5th. So, we're looking forward to celebrating all of our staff throughout the week and we have our staff engaging in our fourth meeting with Shanny contined their trip last week. We do not normally go at the same time with two buildings but because of Northern Hills with another school at the same time and then will go May 7th through the 9th and each of our schools we had a handful of students who went for the trip and let's see then also yesterday Sunday I had the opportunity to attend the lacrosse
008school of education educator award ceremony we have a couple of our staff members that received awards. Taylor Craft, a kindergarten teacher, received the early educator excellence award and that is given to a teacher in their first three years of service. And then also Tyler, a teacher at church received a mentorship award for hosting student teachers and PBS students and I was asked to be a keynote teacher. I provided remarks for them about just the power of um education and how that can change kids lives and change families lives. So it was a really um really honor to speak to all the donors for scholarship teachers heading out into their career really nice to see some of our staff as well. And then shared since she's been able to be here that kindergarten has their last
009they got to show off everything they learned about and all of those things. Next week we have our hills and our fifth grade going. I have a question with two. Is that a plus or a minus or the same? I mean, is it more? Was it synergies that help? I mean, it was probably all of those things, Brian. Perfect. Well, and we had a little bit of a nice Janna actually attended as a Eagle parent, but then was able to get to know all of her incoming fifth graders or incoming sixth graders, excuse me, that were there from both of the schools. I think that was a positive experience for her. Um, we were able to T and I were able to work together to share transportation and things like that to make sure that
010the day kids were able to get to and from and just kind of shared some of the staffing of that. So, there were some things that were definitely um, so they did not have extra space at all. You're welcome. The whole thing. Sure. It was 20 minutes. I won't share it with you right now. Yeah, I can share it with you. So, we'll technology handbook. Thank you. Um the the the big push has continued to be on the east wing and so you're seeing pictures right now of the drywall being added in what's going to be the instrumental music area. Um this is a a double room right now. There will be a wall that goes down the middle separate from the two different ensembles. we keep moving u and again more more drywall going
011up into the specific rooms now in the renovated former receiving area that will now be the music offices and the practice rooms. Uh the dance studio is coming along very quickly. Um it's due to be done in July, but they've made great progress on it in the last week. Um they still have to put all the flooring in. They still have to put the acoustic panels in. Um it sounds like a concrete box right now if you're in there from an echo standpoint, but um it'll change quickly with the acoustic tiles that'll be put in shortly. Um and then in the the new receiving area, the that area is getting very close to being finished. Um and then uh they only have a couple pictures, I think, from the the new shop area, but the
012welding booth going in. Um new brick going on the outside of the east edition. And then you'll notice that picture on the right. Um the Pyatt hallway has been completely tore up this week for for the plumbing going into the where the locker rooms will be renovated. Um so that was a major project to to have happen and be ready with and then prepping for new walls within the locker rooms. This is on the outside of the band room. They are finishing up the masonry work and then the walls on the outside there. This is overhang. I think that's part of the new section. Um part of the like that best not but the breezeway the walkway underneath because the eighth grade wing comes out further than the allied pod the eighth grade pod. So
013there'll be a little walkway underneath. So that I believe is the uh the ceiling for that walkway there. This is uh continuing to work on that new addition there. Um you can scroll down at a different angle there. That's the entrance coming in there. So we are just a couple of weeks away from this being all done and turned over to us sometime in midmay is the current projection. So it's been a long wait and our our eighth graders and teachers I'm not sure who's more anxious to get into classrooms between students and staff. What else do we have? Are they going to be moving over like during the school year yet? Yeah, that's something we've talked about a lot. And at the end of the day, every every week we delay is a is
014another week they have to go into next school year. So, um, even though it seems, you know, why why bother with only, you know, a month or so left, that's that's another month that they can get working on demoing and doing those spaces another month. I'm super excited. They They are too. They are too. Yeah. You know, we've talked about it a lot. There's a lot of pros and cons of do we just keep them where they're at, but at the end of the day, the biggest thing is it just delays the rest of the project further. So, so this is Yeah, it's a very good question. It's that has come up a number of times from a number of people. So, you're not alone. Uh this is one of our new eighth grade science
015rooms. Same layout as the sixth and seventh grade. Just more of the lockers in the new the new wing there bathrooms. This is our our resource uh offices. Putting some flooring down. uh painting in progress uh as they continue to work on renovating the the old gymnasium for uh primarily for boys and girls club use. So think is that the end of the pictures? Okay. Um the biggest thing again is the new eighth grade and allied pods um being a couple weeks away and just trying to make preparations for that. Um because when when those are ready, then everybody all of our staff and students will be out of old sections of the building. Not everybody will be in their final destination yet, but everybody will be into new spaces. Um so that'll be a
016huge milestone for us coming up in a couple weeks. I am not going to go through this book um this handbook that is attached it's been it's attached for everyone to read. I just want to talk really more about process. So um this is a brand new handbook. We did not have a student technology handbook before and our LMC directors at the middle school and the high school, Nicole and Heather and Kelly did the heavy lifting on this and they should have because they are the ones that live this and breathe this day in and day out. So what they did is looked at samples from two other school districts, Homeman and West Salem. Took their documents and basically looked at them and tried to make them ours and make them match to what our
017practices were. So then they did that work. Then we came together as a team to review the information, then brought it together as an admin team and reviewed it there. When we started out, we were making this a 612 handbook. And then when we reviewed it with the entire administrative team, they suggested that we make it a K12. So what we did is we just changed the sections for those parts that were applicable only to 6 through 12. We made that and then the rest that is applicable to all. So as a handbook, this is um requires two readings and then we will put a link to this in our student handbook that will be coming forward later, but because this is a new handbook, we just wanted to bring it separately for you to
018have the opportunity to look at it. A question that only is correct. Yeah. So, they go home in the evening. So, then there's there's um discussion in there about charging and making sure that they're brought in the other grades there are in some cases one to one but they stay in the classroom and they're used that way and then at the very lower grades there's Chromebooks that are basically on a cart that are um not one to one they're they serve I don't know like maybe one to 15 something like that those are discussions that we're having more and more as everything becomes more and more technology based How soon will we be one to one even at those lower grades even though those machines are not going home? A great idea to put this
019together. I'm envisioning some input from our technology people. Yes. Yeah. So um actually the whole thing started out through the Chromebook insurance. We were talking about that and then realized like well we don't really have a policy that kind of helps us with that whole insurance bill is the technology team the finance team our LMC directors and our administrators that all came together to bring this forward there is some flexibility as far as insurance goes optional Anyone have any questions for your financials? As you know, this is a quarterly report. Every month you get in your board documents and you approve it through the consent agenda on a finances but we don't go over them on a monthby-month basis. We do this quarterly and it's for the operating funds. And the reason for the operating
020funds are these are the funds that all districts have regardless of if they've got debt or if they have capital projects or different things like fund 50. Some some school districts don't 50 now and we've got a co-op fund. So these are just the operating funds that we're going to be targeting. Then looking at this one of the things that is Something to watch is what's happening with our cash flow and what you should be looking at as board members is how is this changing from over time and with those changes can we explain why they're changing and you'll see the lighter lines are last year's data and then the darker lines are and you can see the most variance there is on um on the expenditure side and that's because of payroll. So last
021year we had um last year we had our our payments or payrolls in September. This year it was in August. So you can see that difference there. And then this year we also had three payrolls in January. You can see that's in January. And then last year it was in March. So you can see the lines close again. So they they will be off a little bit but that's just whenever the every other week. So those change um year to year. Then looking at our revenue, this is to look at where does our revenue come from. 86% of our budget is state and local. So basically that revenue limit formula that we talked about and then the next biggest chunk is intermediate. That's mostly our opening and in fund transfers are eliminated in this chart.
022So then looking at funds 10 and 27, looking at our revenue, seeing how these variances and again what you want to be looking for here as a board is where are we in comparison to last year because what happens is we're not we're not incremental throughout the year, but we're pretty similar over. So you want to be looking at how are how are our yearoveryear numbers comparing and then with those variances what are they and how can we explain those. So um you can see that in the local revenue we're um we are receiving a little bit more this year and that's mostly interest that we have seen and then every year the tax cycle changes from the amount of money that we have. relying more on taxes. So, we're seeing more of that money
023coming in. Um, we've now, you know, the January for people that pay their taxes in December, we get that settlement in January. For people that pay in January, we get that settlement in February. You see that higher number? local taxes. Why are we relying more on local taxes? Because as our revenue or as our enrollment declines, it looks like we're richer than we really are because there's more property value behind each student. And so then the state thinks we're so less state aid on taxes because there's an inverse relationship between local taxes and state. You can see in here that um our open enrollment in we don't receive there's no money that has come in from that and we don't receive that money until June after we have educated the students for the whole year
024again another reason why we need funance available for us you can see we are receiving more money in state revenue our equaliz did go up but our but not at the same level that we did get a bump not as much over year over year. Then you can also see in the federal revenue you see that big drop there the funding went up. So last year we had funding this year we do not and then on the other networks that we had but we got funding through that. Another thing to notice is that we are 75% through the year and we've got about 55% of our so that's just the way schools are funded. We are we are funded late on that but when you look at each of these lines the variance is not
025that much different line by line. Then looking at how those revenues When you look at where we what we've received from fiscal year to date compared to budget, you can see that that gray line there's nothing there. That's that open enrollment revenue that I talked about that we'll be receiving in June. But other than that, it's looking somewhat somewhat mirrors one another. Then looking at our operating expenses by object, you can see that 74% of our budget is benefits. And then the next big chunk in that pie is our purchase services and our educational payments. So those would be things for all of our offsite um students that are placed at other facilities as well as our 4K partners. those students that are in neighborhood partner sites are paid through that area as well as
026um our voucher payments to private schools all show up in that big chunk there. Then when we look at our expenses, remember we look at these two ways. One way is the what and then the other way is the what for. And you can see that um from a dollar amount when you're % of the budget expenditure. We're a little bit ahead of last year, but you would expect that because um our budget was a little bit more. We added a bunch of positions this past year. So, we would expect it to be up in dollar amount and%. And then there we stands for Wisconsin Uniform Financial accounting reporting maybe I can't remember but basically what it is it's how we code our expenditures and revenues to make sure that there's comparability from district to
027district so that we could look at another school district and compare them to us and ths way down it's really not down a lot of those. We're now to be classifying. So this change was made for everybody from being in capital and now they're in purchase services and educational payments. You can see that numbers up a little bit but the capital project is down and it's not a complete offset because last year we had the tail end of that Eagle Bluff Chiller going in there. So that's in our last year's um financials and that's why that's showing a little bit more. But then our other expenditures that are up you can see our supplies are up. We've been doing a lot of things with pilot materials for our ELA adoption library. We've done number of
028equipment things and um one more thing on the capital object. So then looking at our operating expenses. You can see these ones do look pretty much um mirroring one another on proportions. Then looking at our operating expenses by function and again this is the just another way of taking that data and so we're kind of doing like a slice on it to try to figure out and try to understand it better. 67% of our budget is direct student um information direct student services with instructions and student services. So that would be like our our counselors, our nursing, all of those people that are serving the students directly. When we look at the expenditures by function, um you can see that the co-curricular looks like it's a little off and the reason for that is last
029year the for the boys and girls club at the middle school needed to be in the budget for um 2324. was $250,000. That's why that was up higher than this year. A lot of that money actually got spent this year even though the budget was in last year. If you remember, we approved a full pit replacement and then we did the ricotta door entry systems at the elementary that didn't go through the referendum because that was 110. So that's the reason for those increases there. Then looking at our operating expenses by function again that looks out of the ordinary except for that top line and again That's because of those payments to vouchers. We pay that. So the voucher schools get their payments right away, but we get that money subtracted from our state aid
030at the very end of the year. So it doesn't hit our books right away, even though they're not withheld on their money. So our next monitoring, you will be getting like you do each month the financial statements that go through this information. Um looking at it the same way, but just looking at it fun by fund. And then for the fourth quarter on June 23rd, we'll do our final budget amendment for what I will do. Should I just jump into? Yeah, we're going to move to action items. So, what we're going to be approving or what we're going to ask the board to approve is this document, which is the budget amendment. But I think to help you with um taking action on that budget amendment, this document that was in your materials that show
031the budget changes is a little more helpful. And we're always going to see changes month to month as we That's to be expected as we go through the time. What I wanted to draw your attention to was in fun 39. You can see some bigger amounts there. So what is going on in this case is remember we issued debt um we issued the last amount of our bonds the 25 million in bonds and with that we had a bond premium. So that's in the 900s the $1.8 million that's what that is the bond premium. Then uh the 25,000 is just additional interest that we're budgeting for. And then in the expenditure the 223120 is all of our bond issuance costs. So that's what's showing up in fund 39. Then you'll see a larger In 49,
032that's capital projects fund. The 875,000 was a payment from the Boys and Girls Club on the part of the donation that they are doing for the middle school for the partnership of using that fac And then as we have different expenditures coming in for like furniture and different things like that, we'll move it line from line to line. But other than that, the rest of the changes are relatively minor. So our ask would be that you take action on this budget as title and we have that quite often too that our title amount as time goes on. And these ones were actually from the private schools. Um they're because those title funds are not only for our school district, but we must serve the private schools as well. And then they make changes with that
033money that they're The other question I had was the business administration services. the $50,000 change that was a that was um our um support for technology. You can see that um we have more money coming a reallocation line by line. So more money needed in technology support and then where we were able to reduce a line item so that we didn't affect the bottom line overall was in the business administration. Thank you for approval of the budget amendment. 242 budget outlined in 14 to approve the amendment of the 2024 budget. All those in favor Brian wants to do a roll. Tracy, yes. Mark, yes. Bridget, yes. Brian, yes. So, I've been in contact with our an Alaska Education Association to negotiations on base wages. So we are asking the board to open the negotiations with
034them um starting after tonight. I will make a motion to open base wage negotiations with the an Alaska Education Association for the 202526 school year. I will stay with you. There are no additional revisions to this second reading. Move for approval of the employee handbook. We have Motion by Mark by Tracy to approve 256 handbooks. I request to remove items from the personel report. Thank you. We have one teacher resignation solely available. Um she's moving out of area. So we will wish her well. Um we are bringing a new uh teacher on board Abby Hilly for the board to approve as our special education teacher at Irvine Perch. Abby is from this area. So she's actually moving back home. And then Brian Booker is a custodian that started here at the middle school this last
035week. And then we have a number of resation notifications. Um just to point out that this is the time of year where pair professionals can look um where their life is heading and some of these are moving out of the area. Some are starting school. Um but three the one that is moving away from school obviously is not going to return but the other three are going to stay on as subs. So it's not that they're leaving on bad terms at all. Motion by second by Tracy to approve the personal report. All those in favor? I for approval of the consent agenda. Second in favor I the board of education will will Entertain a motion to convene in close session pursuant to Wisconsin statute 19.85 considering employment promotion compensation performance evaluation data of any public
036employee over the governmental body responsibility for purposes of considering the resation request of a district teacher and circumstances leading to school resation. The board may required in close session. will entertain a motion to adjourn the meeting at the conclusion of second to close session. Are there any questions? All those favor and close session