001I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. And thank you uh spouse. Thank you so much. Are you you don't come in the summer, correct? Right. Okay, that's fine. Thank you, guys. Thanks, guys. Thank you for back up in the fall. Yep. Thanks for always getting them together, getting them here. It's really great to have them here. Thank you. Thanks again. We'll go roll call. Mrs. Gallich, yes. Mrs. Ragnar, yes. Mr. Hurst, present. Mr. Gentiel, present. And I am present. Open means compliance check. Yes. Sorry. Yes, it was posted in that time. Number five, public comments. Please address the board. No back and forth limited three minutes. Is there anyone here
002for public comments? Anyone here for public comments? There are no public comments. Next, we'll have the approval of the consent agenda. Um Kim, I did want to clarify one thing before we approve this. Um Mrs. um Bush is taking a job at Wilmont where she's teaching and coaching. Correct. Yes. Okay. Um, I make a motion to approve the consent agenda items. I'll second. Motion by Hopkins, second by Mr. Hurst. All those in favor? I. I. Motion carries. Number seven, approval of the special board meeting minutes from April 28th. April 28th. I will make a motion we approve those minutes as presented. I will second that motion. Motion by Mr. Gentiel Tielson by Mrs. Ragnar. She was absent on the 28th. Go ahead. Second by Mrs. Gallich. Sorry Amy, you were absent. All those in favor?
003Yes. I I Iain. Mrs. Ragnar abstains. Approval of the special board meeting minutes from May 20th, 2025. Motion to approve. Motion by Mrs. Gallich. Second. Second by Mr. Hurst. All those in favor? I I abstain. Uh abstain. However, is please note Mr. Gentiel did uh attend the meeting for portion of portion of the close session. Correct. All right. DA report. Okay. Um as always, we'll start with celebrations. It was a great month. Um lots of great things. So you'll see there's um a play that happened. Mrs. Straer leads that. It was Alice in Wonderland. They did a fabulous job as usual. Um I think attendance was pretty good. Um, it's just so nice to see the variety of students participating in it from students that are quiet to students that are more outgoing. Um, costumes
004were great and Mrs. Godler helps with all of the um, props and all of the scenery. So, really well done. Um, we also had a band and choir concert this month. Um, that was a great showing of our kids musical talents as well as the National Junior Honor Society. So, we had 19 total kids in. Three of them were um this is their second year um of being in the National Honor Society. Um they have to get a letter of recommendation for that from their teacher, 25 hours of community service, an essay. They have to write an essay and they have to have a 3.7 GPA. So, um we did that. I think it was last week we had that induction. And then also wanted to share with the board uh we are very close
005to um final approval on our gym floor the redoing of it. So the renderings look like this. Um we um Mr. Schmoffeld and Mr. Daniels worked on it and then they are um taking it to the students the middle school students for a final vote on which like which one they like. They have two choices. I think the only difference could be um there might be it might say river view here. So the students are gonna decide what they prefer if it's just like that or river view. Um we are still waiting for uh we have to have doors put in but the leaks have been fixed in the gym. So that's great because we were waiting on those two things to be able to do the gym floor. So, will this start right after
006school is a little close to I think it'll be probably the end of July when it starts. Um, I think we want to wait till after summer school and we have to get the doors in. That makes sense. Okay. Um, and then I wanted to share Whoop this little video. Okay. So, um, one of the things I want to share with the board is a part of, um, working with PBL, an important part of the tenants is to have a public ex exhibition or presentation of what you've learned. So, Katie, Mrs. Coats, did that in her sixth grade class in a small way. The intention is that we would have some of these evenings to open up to our community and to our um families to come in um and the kids present the the
007things that they've learned, whatever their project is. So, I'm just going to show show you a short clip because it I think sometimes it helps to see like, oh, that's what it's going to sort of look like. Um so, Mrs. Bush is just walking around videoing. It's not professionally done. So, so blame Angie. You got Yeah. So, you can kind of see this is in Mrs. Coat's room. Um, kids are talking to other kids. They have they each had um a topic that they could choose um of their choice. They put together that one obviously is on bus safety information about it and then they presented it to other kids and adults and those kids and adults then graded them on a rubric and gave them feedback. how engaged they all are. Yeah. So, um
008the we are at the end of the year going to have a panel of teachers who have worked on PBL talk to the rest of the teachers about the things that they've learned and the I would say and Miss Miss Zachary you can chime in. The number one thing we hear is there's just no problems with engagement. Behaviors aren't an issue, right? because they're really engaged in what they're learning. So part of PBL is exhibition or or public product that it's relevant. So all of these topics were on things that were relevant to that bus safety. I listened to one on um animal abuse and neglect. So they researched the topic depending on what the standards are. They put the information together and then you're graded on the whether you get the standards or not.
009A big part of PBL is also having uh allowing kids to have voice and choice and what they do, what the content is. And so one of the things that we talk about in PBL is you turn the dimmer switch up or down on all the elements and sometimes you give them more choice and voice and sometimes you give them less. Another big part of PBL is uh critique and revision. So, it's about getting feedback from other people and continuing to revise the work that you're doing. Um, and then you are also giving critique and revision to other people. So, it was really great for our younger students to see and also fun for us to be in there. Miss Zachary, did you want to add anything? Yeah. And quite a few of the teacher
010like all of our fifth through eighth grade teachers have done a unit. So, um, similar things like gallery walks. Um I know Kristen is they're going to be doing popup uh selling popup um shops like of things that they wanted like there's a group of kids that are selling bats. So I'm like well I guess I'll allow bats coming in that not flying bats but you know baseball bats. Baseball bats. Um so just relevant thing and it's nice because like our a lot of our younger group like um Kayla Phillip did a gallery walk and the third grade kids came. So, it's things that they can look forward to when I'm in the older grades. And then our third and fourth grade teachers are going to get training um next week also. So then next
011year they'll do one unit where our fifth through eighth graders will be doing more than one unit and just kind of working it in that way. Awesome. And so many of our teachers this summer are receiving curriculum stipens. Um and so fifth through 8th grade there's an availability. Julie's in on that as well to receive a stipen to work on the units. Um and then um there's some stipens for developing the crisis um curriculum that we're going to be using in conjunction with the Alice training to develop the monthly lesson plans um and our MLSS team. So we're building in some stipens for teachers to be able to work together over the summer to get ahead of some of the things that'll happen in the fall. Awesome. Yeah. Okay, there we go. But um on
012the agenda it says board celebrations if there's any. Oh no, that's at the end. Forget it. Let me do the referendum first. Okay, referendum update. So another point of celebration, but also um it fits in the referendum update is we received our rating from Moody's. So Moody's is an organization that rates um public institutions. The rating that they give you helps define to the people that are buying your bonds if you're high risk or low risk. And depending on how you're rated, you can get a better interest rate. And so it's really exciting because we got the best that we could get. We were hoping for uh is it triple A3? Is that how you say it, Sue? D I have double A3 but I feel I think it was double A double A3. Um
013they were deciding between an A1 rating and a double A3 rating. Um and the Moody's gave us the double A3. So that's awesome because we that will help us with our interest rate. They um and um Jordan from Bear couldn't I mean he called me about it. He emailed us about it like this is great. Most districts don't get this. Um and so make sure your board knows. I'm going to um so really one of the things a few of the things that made the difference was our um facilities plan. They want to see a facilities plan so they know that we are projecting ahead our strong fund balance. um the fact that we have regular budget updates and we use the Barrett model and um our strong open enrollment even though our enrollment is
014sort of flat we have a strong we have much more open enrollment in than we have out. So, lots of really great things. There was a press release done from Moody's um that goes out to the public and along those lines, um we're going to be looking at a resolution later. Uh we are looking to sell those bonds tomorrow. I was like, whoa, okay, we're going tomorrow. Um and it's looking like that, um interest rate will be well below what we thought. We thought um 5.12. That's what um Jordan told us. uh it's looking at more like 4.7%. Wow. So that's a really that means our payments will be less and um so we can love it for less probably. That's awesome. So it's really yeah really great. So um had a couple calls with
015Jordan today. Um so kudos to all the work that we've done financially in preparing for the referendum and the board support and the board's continued fiscal responsibility. it really helped us in the long run get a better interest rate and hopefully um save the taxpayers some money. So um also wanted to let you know where we are with the referendum because it like it's everything's just silent right right now. Um I'm meeting tomorrow with our attorneys and PSI attorneys we to settle the contract. That's what was been taking so long. Our attorneys had quite a few things that they were asking of PSI. So, they finally got through all of that. We're meeting tomorrow to finalize it so that I can sign the contract and then we will be moving forward with some things um
016in terms of getting bids. So, wanted to make sure that the board um understands the process for the bids. So, we contract with PSI. Our contract is not with the bid, you know, with the people that bid. It's with um PSI. They uh vet and collect two to three bids. As a reminder, if there are people or contractors you want me to pass on to PSI as people that would be interested or have done work for the district or you know of local, please let me know so that I can put that in front of them. Um, I've given them for example, we're going to be doing the PAS in the telephone system. They know to know to get a bid from Compun because, you know, we work with Compun. Um, so how how does
017that process work? Is it like public bids where they're silent and they choose the best one until the end or is it they choose like let's say component's a partner of ours so they come in a little bit more but we want to like how does that work? So they will come and present the bids to me which then you know meet with the DA and show them um show me the bids and depending on what the bids are um I might have other people in there. Brian might be in, you know, we'll we'll meet and talk about it. And yes, you want to go you obviously want to go with the lowest, but also if there's one that you've been working with that's a little bit higher, they can get preference. So, yeah, I
018just want to interject on this one. So, my understanding talking with him about this when we had our meeting was that we do have final say on who to go with. They'll give us a recommendation, but if we choose to go against that with somebody else and there is a lot to weigh in on it. So, um, Kim mentioned, you know, you would generally like to go with the lowest bid because you think it's the most efficient, but what I can tell you from experience in the industry is that just because it's the lowest number does not mean that it's the best number. Um, and so that is definitely something to take into account. You really have to pay close attention to. And all of these contractors will provide a scope. And it's very important
019that we're diligent and and PSI will help with this considerably determining to make sure that each bid is scope to scope bid to make sure that everything is being included in each bid. But but again the lowest bid doesn't necessarily always reflect the best option. How do we sometimes what they spec what we spec they they might bid on it but they may omit certain portions of a spec. Correct. So, it's really important that you look over to make sure that they're meeting all the criteria in your spec. Correct. So, that's really what PS that's why we pay PSI, right? Is that they're doing a lot of that work for us in saying Kim, okay, this is apples to apples. Sort of like how Bruce did the um the bid that we had for last
020year, remember? Like there weren't always apples to apples. And so then it makes it look like, oh, I should go with this one when really no, that's not the best one. Um, so having that sort of vetted out um is part of the And then how do we know when you we should notify like how do we know when bids are going out? How do we know that you're looking for X, Y, or Z? Are you going to communicate that to us? So I as when they there'll be frequent board updates um probably in my weekly updates but maybe before and okay they're looking to we're going out for the roof which is going to be down the road but um we're going out for the roof. Um and then I will also be telling
021you this is the bid that we that you know these are the people that are going to be doing the work. But I mean how should we know to let you know if we h if we have a contract you should consider? You're saying like how do we know the scope of work? Do we need electricians? Do you need to do the floor? How do we know? So, in my conversation with Jim, what he said is all we have to do is provide them with the That's not what I'm asking. I'm asking how do we know that we're doing the carpets on Tuesday and we should have bids to you about those people by this date. If you know of somebody that does that specific work, you can already turn their names in and then
022they'll send out the bid to them. They'll send out the specs to them. Preliminary. They don't I know what you're saying. I know what you're saying. They don't wait to go to bed until it's time for the for them. What do we know what the full scope of work for contract is? Like that's I think what he's asking. Do we like when we start to go out for the bids for the fence? You want to know in case you know somebody or the playground that'll be on me to be ahead of that with you. Um, so what we're doing right now is they've been um because I've been on them like I'm afraid we're not going to get this done this summer if we don't start getting the bids because we have to wait till
023the contract is signed. Can you do some of this work off of the side? Um I think what they're going to do is give me a timeline. Okay, in the month of June, we're going to start doing the bids on these three things. Then I will tell you these are the three things. Like we're not going to do the bidding for the playground right away. We won't do the bidding for the furniture right away because I need um staff and community input on those things. They have a construction agenda put together, a whole schedule, a whole calendar that they do and they'll have that before we even start the project. So, they'll have a good guess as to when they're going to be doing this portion of each section of the of the construction. Um,
024and the other thing that I would say is that if we have local contractors, if they're even a little bit more expensive, my personal opinion is that we would lean towards the local contractors that we know. Well, I guess to that point, like say we're looking for painters, do we put something out on our website or on Facebook that says local businesses looking for? No, because that's a subcontractor. So, they would contact the general contractor in return to get hired on with them. So if you know of someone that specifically you want for a certain portion of the war for you to least like to be considered, we'll let Jim and PSI know that and then Jim will reach out to them. Yeah. To to set that up and get and and have the full
025scope that they can provide to the contractor. Okay. But do we have any recourse say PSI omits something that you know was supposed to be part of the project or whatever. I mean, are we protected by that? So, I mean, everything is included. I How did that part of it? I'm not sure. So, that's in PSI's contract. Um, that'll be their scope and that'll be So, that will come down to us going through all of it with PSI and us being aware of what the full scope is and making sure that PSI has not missed anything in their scope. But once we've given them a okay on the scope, then then it is their obligation to make sure that they that they convey that information to the specific contractors themselves. And if they were to
026not, it would be it would be on them. Okay, that's as long as as long as we all understand and approve their scope of work with PSI, then yes, from that point forward, it would be it would be their obligation. Excellent. And so that's part of what the attorneys are working out to make sure that yeah, we're covered under that because, you know, it's a long document of things. Lots of legal reason. Yeah. That they're telling me. And um you know, we had to make sure we had insurance coverage um that the insurance coverage that we have is enough that our insurance company was comfortable with the insurance that they were providing. Um I wanted to make sure that um we had the ability, for example, with the furniture to not have PSI's markup. we
027could go directly with the furniture company. I'm not going to do that with the roof or you know I mean some of those things but furniture is it seems a little different. Um so that's what we're sort of like working out with them. Do you know if uh performance bonds are required so that if you have a contractor that steps out that we keep that and then we can fulfill that. Do you know what that is? Probably not in our purview. I would imagine that PSI's okay protections in their contract. No, it'll be in the contract, I'm sure. But I just want to make sure because it is a that's a valid protection. That's a very good question and generally speaking, the customer would be, but when you hire on a GC like PSI, generally
028that falls under their purview, they have the obligation to catch all those kinds of things. Thank you. Okay, enough questions. No, I hope PS, you know, I mean, we I feel like on the front end, the board did a good job of vetting the PE the general contractor that we're going to use, okay, for this very reason because we need um you know, we can't we can't know all of that and be on top of all of every little piece of it. And we do all have we have a good leg up because most of the contractors that we have been looking at, PSI, has good working relationships with already. Um so it's a good layout there. Yeah. And um both Baird and um Von Brieon have worked with PSI quite a few times and
029have had really good things to say about um PSI. So that was good to hear. You're all smiling and have inside jokes. Um okay, quick employee update. Uh employee benefits update. Um I wanted to just pass along to the board. You know, I know I've been keeping you updated along the way. We um had one last meeting committee meeting this past um week where um we talked to the committee about what postretirement benefits look like and we also had some conversation around our current benefit plan. So everybody has now signed up for if they wanted insurance they're on IRA. There were a few little bumps in the road. Um I don't think it was too bad. Most of it came from um having to be more engaged with the with the planning of it. The
030nice thing is we have the six-month runway. If somebody wants to change, they can change insuranceances. Um I will say that I felt like one bridge was pretty um responsive. I um I had a meeting with their director because there was a few things I was like, I don't want our employees to have to deal with this. And then that director met with those employees that maybe had a few extra questions. Um there was really no no movement in terms of cash and loo to the insurance or back and forth. Um I think the people that were in cash had cash and loot stayed in cash and loo. There was a couple of people that moved to cash and loo but not because of the insurance because of um a marriage or family change. So
031that um that was coming anyway. Um so we talked about that. Um I think for the most part people are cautiously optimistic about it. Um and the savings is uh I don't have all the numbers yet. I just started putting them in the spreadsheet but there's definite savings for um the district as well. The other thing that the committee decided was um currently our HR investment for employees was at a fixed rate. So when I went to um Mike Strobble from NIS NIS, I asked him about why we were at a fixed rate for interest because it's at 1.8%. And um asked him if what the money market would get our employees. So at the committee meeting, the committee decided to move the funds from the 1.8% 8% to the 3% interest rate. So that
032employees would be able to get more um interest on their HA funds, which makes sense. Employees do have the ability if they want to to go in and manually put it back to a fixed rate. So I'm going to be talking to the staff on the last day of school. I don't want to put an email out because it can be confusing. So I'm going to talk to them about that option. the benefits committee decided that that was a better option than saying if you want to you can go in and move it to 3%. Or to the money market because most people aren't going to do that. You know, you think you're going to do it but you're not going to do it. So, um it's defaulted to a higher interest rate right now,
033which is great. Um trying to squeeze out all of the things that all the pieces where we can find extra money for employees. Um, we decided to pause the committee meetings um about OPED and reconvene in the fall. Um, we talked about the fact that I need to get some more information and we need to continue to research it and we really need to wait until we have more information around the bianial budget to make some of those decisions. Okay, now it's time for board celebrations before we get to discussion and possible action. So, I had two. Um, I came to the band and choir concert and thought the kids did a great job. It was really, um, excuse me, cool to hear the choir kids singing, um, some modern day music. So, I think
034it's Miss Vansel, is that correct? She did a nice job with the choir students. Um, so that was certainly good. And then I would also like to talk about the play. Um, it was nice to get fired this year um, and not have to work because it was an all studentrun production. Um, so a lot less pressure on me this time instead of having to work the sound and lights and get yelled at by Mrs. Straer. It was nice that her students were able to do it and I thought they did a fantastic job. Well, yeah, but that's that's okay. That's their problem, not mine. I'm off the hook. But again, I thought they did a fantastic job and it was uh it was it was great. So kudos to the students and Mrs. Straer
035and Miss Vansel and Mrs. Hilllock for the band and choir concert. It was certainly fun to come see them in action. Great. Anything else? No, just the excitement around the end of the year. We're on the countdown in our house. Yeah. Yeah, I think everybody's on the countdown. Um Okay, Brian. Next up, um next is uh make a motion. Is there a motion to approve the 2526 board meeting calendar? You can see the two dates that move are December and March um due to Christmas 3rd instead of the fourth. I'll uh make a motion we approve the 2526 uh schoolboard meetings as the fourth Tuesday of the month unless the uh week falls on a holiday. There's another known conflict. So, let's just move December and March to the third Tuesday of those months. Motion
036by Mr. Gentiel. I'll second. Second by Mr. Hurst. All those in favor? I I motion carry. Any opposed? No. Motion carries. Um B, selection of the CISA 2 annual convention representative. Is this the one at Whitewater or is this Yeah, so it's on June 17th, 700 p.m. in Whitewater. I will be out of town that day that week. Let me look real quick. I like the December, the January one. I know. That's what I was thinking. No, that's why I asked for clarification. It's a lot less of a commitment. I think it's gone to this one. I've gone to this one. It's about an hour and a half. Um they have ordurves. I unfortunately cannot do that one. I got my final ultrasound appointment with my wife that day. I can't make that one. Sorry.
037I can go that day if no one else can. If you can't let Vicky coming into the Vicki or I make a motion we approve Vicki. I'll second that. Motion by Mrs. Rner, second by Mr. Gentiel. All those in favor? I I rearrange the voice. Motion carries. I remember all of you. Next, we have a motion or we have the crisis alert system. Yep. So, I'm going to have Gary Hopefully, let's see if he um you can't join us. Oh, no. Okay. Well, hopefully he um comes in in a minute, but I can talk about it for a little um bit until he comes in. So, Gary is the founder of Centix. Um as a reminder, in the referendum, we talked about having a crisis alert system for the school. Um I started researching companies
038in the fall and having conversations with them. So, this will be outside of PSI scope. Um, so basically in a nutshell, and Gary can do a better job of explaining if he comes in, um, staff members wear a ba like a it's like a badge around their neck. And that badge has, if you click it three times or eight times, it alerts admin and can alert the whole school if there's a lockdown that we're going in lockdown. But it can if you click it three times it alerts um admin that there is a medical crisis. Uh the I like I said I worked with three different companies. The issue with all the two other companies there was always an issue either they didn't connect with our system. So part of this is connecting with clever
039touch because what you want to happen is if we would go into lockdown the the boards are taken over and computers are taken over. It says lock down. There's also a strobe that is in each classroom that starts to go off. So, and you can choose the color of the light um that goes off to alert everybody that we are also going into lockdown. So, um the other companies they either didn't have they couldn't connect to our system or there I felt like there was too much uh room for error. So, you might have to charge those things every night. If we do that that it's too much human error then, right? Because all of a sudden you forget to charge it now. Now it's laying over here. I don't know. So these badges um
040have a battery life of three years. And not only that, yeah, not only that, but they are also connected to um Centix. So Centix knows Mike's badge is low on batteries and they start sending you badges for free to replace them. So it just reduces the amount of error. There's also very little training that we need to do. Um for for admin there's probably more because we have to download an app because we can put things in the lockdown as well. Um but teachers all they really need to know is the clicks. This is what you do to put things in to put um if you need to put somebody in or I mean the building in lockdown. How many I don't mean to interrupt. How many how many variations of clicks are there? I
041think there's two. I think there's three for a medical emergency and eight for um lock down. Lock down. And from my understanding, come on, Gary. From my understanding, um in the systems that this has been tried in, an accidental lockdown only happened once because of the fact that you had eight. Yeah. Because you have to click it eight times. Um, and what they tell teachers, which makes sense, if they if you need to go and elect them, just start clicking. Well, and that was going to be my next question is if they click and they click and click and they click 12 times. Fine. Okay. Just got to get to eight. Yeah. Just got to get to eight. So, just keep clicking so count the eight. Do these only work in the school? No, they
042also have a perimeter of outside. So there's um I don't understand all the technical pieces but there is uh there is like a a satellite receiver. Yeah. There's something that goes on our building and the strobe lights are the conductor for um the communication within the classroom and in the hallways. But then they also have something on the outside of the building um that allows you like if you were in the baseball field or if you were on it sounds so it sounds like the system itself is actually hardwired together and the only thing that is remote is the the indicator the clicking. Yes. Kim, do you know um is there any so in the front office like I know we talked a little bit about when we talked about this in the fall like
043do we have like a panic button that like a Patty's at the front or so the administrators at the front that they hit that button the sheriff's automatically called is that connected to this anyway? Yes. I'm sorry. Thank you. I'm I'm distracted right now because I'm trying to see why this guy isn't in here. Wonder if you go back out join the call. Yeah, I tried to join. I'm going to try to say if he's trying to join again, will it like ring him? I don't know how that works on Google. Um he might have thought he could come in a little later. I don't know. I'll keep because I emailed him before we um like at the end of the day to make sure he was coming. Um I'm sorry, Brian. Yes, you are
044correct. So, it is connect. Okay, so Centix also did I was hoping he was going to be able to talk about all this. Sent did our digital mapping as well. So, they're the company that we use to put our digital maps together. That has been shared with the um sheriff's um department. This is also connected and doesn't it actually doesn't need Wi-Fi to run and I don't again know all the detail the technical details. I had Bruce bet it and Amber vet it. Okay, let me just I'm I'm looking at this just to make sure that he's not trying to know the system. It doesn't require Wi-Fi because their entire system that they have is hardwired together. Sorry. And the system that they put on the roof is is uh I can't remember what they
045call it. It's like RFI or something like that. It's a different it's a different different signal that does not utilize Wi-Fi. So if your internet goes out, the system still works. So if it's pressed eight times, the sheriff automatically get automatically gets alerted. Okay. Right. So no one has to call because it's an automatic alert. And um the if you remember um I think it was in Atlanta when there was a school shooting um this system is what they say saved a lot of lives because the um there was such quick turnaround with the response from the police department. So is there a minimum year contract with these guys? So we are in we the quote I think shows a five-year contract and this is that pricing through five years. So this 54 is the
046fiveyear contract. Do are we do we have to go to a five-year contract to start or can we well it looks like the way it's written it says year one is 20,000. Yeah, there's more. That's your 8450 for the service50 for each setup and initiation. Yeah, right. But Brian's got a good question. Are we obligated to sign a fiveyear contract? You know what? It's three years of service. I just looked at my notes. Um, no, this is for installation and three years of service. Um, so I think we we commit to the three years. It's a lot of upfront installation and the per the per year service is very reasonable. It's very reasonable. So this gentleman has a vested interest. He started this company because um of a trauma that happened for him. So he
047put all of these things in place. We um I had Bruce call a school in Florida and talk to their district administrator who said it was a flawless install and teachers there's no it's super easy to use which was a big thing for me. I didn't want it to be another thing that teachers had to remember. How does this I know uh part of that special board meeting was conversation around SRO like how does this impact that um if you go to an alert system versus having an SRO in a building or is it one versus the other is it both or have you given it any thought or is that still something we've got to discuss further like and I hate to put you on the spot like that but obviously that was part
048of the discussion at the special meeting and yeah I don't think it's a one or the other okay I think um obviously this is a lot cheaper But part of having an SRO in the building, I think that was discussed, is it's a broader presence. And so it's about building community relationships. This doesn't necessarily do that. Um it's about having um a a person in the building who is supporting the Alice protocol to make sure that our safety measures are in place. So this is just when I've um talked to the board in the past, we've talked about having layers. This is just another layer to what we already have in place. Um, so and every staff member will have one of these like office and everybody. Every staff member will have one of these.
049Brian, in your conversations with um the sheriff regarding this, did you guys talk about proximity to uh leos in the area and how frequently they're in this area during school hours? We did. It's and it it was I think response times range two to five minutes. Two to five minutes. Okay. Sorry. I was trying to And that don't specifically quote me on that, but right in that range that there's always there's always three squads in two squads in Salem Lakes. Sale. Does anybody have any data on response times with SRO off officers in schools? That would be interesting to see what that is because obviously there's a response time there as well. And so you would hope that it was less because they're on site, but also at the same time they have to determine
050a location and where each is in comparison to where they are in the building. So I would assume, you know, we're still somewhere near that three minute mark even for an SR office officer in school. Oh, I would say definitely less than that, but Well, somewhere in that range. Yeah. But so and and these these this system I assume whenever that just trigger it and it has a location as to where that's what I was gonna say know immediately right so if we let's just say we had an SRO too the SRO would have the app and what happens is as soon as there's an emergency that the app we can go into our app and see where that where that was the library because we're sitting here right nowing bing bing bing bing bing
051so in the case of like a medical emergency or maybe a kid is running out of the building we can also track the moving, you know, the the movement of the tag. So, even if we don't have an SRO, can a member of the sheriff's department that's patrolling Salem Lakes also have this app? So, before they even get here, they know where? It's a good question. I don't know about that. So, but I can find out. But this does alert the sheriff as soon Yeah. So, what's going to happen is is that once once somebody triggers that eight button and it sends to the sheriff, the sheriff is going to immediately dismount point of the phone. They know right away the individual in the individual where the incident is exactly that it's they've got the
052digital map and they know so they're not on this side of the school and it's happening they know where to pull off and everything. That's a good question. Um and my other question is you mentioned about the flashing light. Do you know if you have students attending here that have sensitivity to flashing lights that might put them into a medical situation? We probably do uh or we do, but and I can ask them what they do, but I would imagine first of all, we will never use this system for a um drill. This is not a drill. Did you mention it would only be it would only be if we were in we were going to go into lockdown. And you would would you use this for a medical need or is this just emergency?
053No, we would be able to use it for medical need and then the lockdown would be only Well, okay, I should let me step that back. We can put it into drill mode, but we what we wouldn't do is do this system and not alert teachers that we were going to be because you can run a drill this way, but we wouldn't do it unless the teachers were alerted ahead of time that there's going to be a lockdown. They might not know it's going to be at 2 o'clock, but they would know it's coming because it's way too hard to um yet coordinate, but also the fear that it evokes in kids and in teachers is pretty heightened if they think there's an active shooter in the building. And did I maybe my head did
054I hear you say that we can choose the color of those lights? Yeah, we can choose the color of those lights. This is outside of my knowledge, right, Brian? do probably have the most knowledge about this, but uh people that have impacts with uh strobe life that can cause seizuring is it is it a specific that's probably more of a neurologist that they react differently? I mean some children with seizures just don't move. They don't react and other kids have other and so you know obviously the staff knows who it is that we should address and see. Yeah, because maybe maybe we have an option with something opposite of a strobe. Well, I I was wondering like if you have a medical need in the kindergarten classroom, middle school doesn't need to have a strobe
055on in their room. That was the other question I was going to ask. Oh, no, no, no. It doesn't. It only does it for Got it. Yeah. Emergency. Do we want to move past this and hopes he comes in? Do we need more information from the board? I don't. My only question is, do we need a five-year contract or can we do a three-year contract? It's three. I'm sorry. It was three. And also, I just ran the math on it and it's not entirely accurate unless I made a mistake here, but I ran it three times and there is an additional uh $2,000 that coming up with that. I'm not it. There is an additional $2,000 that is on. And he emailed me what that was for. it was an uh I think it was
056an increase in the um installation. This this is going to be a little bit less because we already have the digital mapping done. So this this quote is a little higher than it will actually come in on. Oh, because they have the digital mapping including this quote. Okay. Yes. All right. Because typically that's when schools did it um do it, but we did it outside of that because we had a grant. This must be kind of a cookie cutter thing for him because like I say that $2,000 is not reflected in their time. I did I did reach out to him about that though. Okay. I would feel comfortable we move past this one and give him some more time if we're at the end of the meeting and I he hasn't emailed me and
057the other thing we could do is if you if the board wants to talk to him um I could ask him we could do a special board meeting and he could come back in if you feel more comfortable doing that or however you I did send the board earlier this year um the video on it if you remember that I sent you um a video I'm not sure I hope something didn't happen But I don't know. So we can move past it and then come back to it. All right. Next would be board resolution. So this is the resolution um to go with um I apologize Kim. Investment firm. Yeah. This is um the motion to go with um ampersand as our investment firm. Soon Tim and I met with three different um municipal municipal
058advisories. um firms that we would be using to deposit our referendum monies in. Uh we met with ADM, PMA, and Ampersand. After all, all all three companies are in Wisconsin and they all have pretty good reputations. Um I think in the at the end of the day, we decided Ampersand was the best fit for us because they offer um a variety of services beyond just this. Um they also are going to pay the um contractor bills directly which is really great and takes a little bit of pressure off of Sue. And they also vet it um to make sure that there's I guess there's a lot of fraudulence in this area with people sending things that really aren't you're not really supposed to pay. So they do double checks like call us and say did
059you just send this through so that we can you know tell them yes. Have a verify. Yeah. Is there other things with Yeah. remember the um they take their take on Oh yes that's in here. So the other the so a lot you know all these investment companies obviously charge fees they charge it on the back end so that we're getting all the interest and they're not taking the fees out first which is also good and although it's estimated the investment um and interest that they showed us we would be receiving was the highest out of all three. There's a little bit of caution there because it's all estimated, right? The the market can do lots of different things. Yeah. So, um, for those reasons, um, Tim and Sue and I decided that we'd recommend
060Amperand to the board. Did they give you a I mean, obviously it's all based on interest and stuff like that. Is there a plus or minus that they felt comfortable with when we look at that interest that they put on their schedule or just Yeah, they just put that on. Got it. Yeah. They didn't give us a plus or minus for it. Okay. Which is not that surprising about it because it did fluctuate pretty easy and for them to kind of lock them there. Yeah, that makes sense. But it looks like the uh gross earnings is more than what the fees were further on that we're going to be discussing. I think that was 270,000. Mhm. So this one we're actually we're gaining a little bit if that extra. Right. That right. So yeah. Yeah.
061I like And we they came out and met with us. Um the uh the lady what is her name? Kelly Brown. Kelly Brown. Yes. Was great. Um and like I said, they they hire they are able to host other um funds for us and and do some of those things so we could have them all in one place. So, we like that as well. All right. Do we have a motion? I'll make a motion to add Amberand Public Advisors LLC to the district uh list of approved depositories in accordance with Wisconsin statute 120.1127. I'll second motion by Gentiel second by Mr. Hurst. All those in favor? I I Oh, jeez. I don't even oppose. Motion carries. Okay. And then board resolution. Yeah, the board resol this is the board resolution that um Jordan talked to
062you about last month when he was here um allowing the authority to me to be able to award the sales of the bonds within certain parameters. And so in the board packet I outline out outlined what those parameters would be. Um, like I said, he called me earlier today and said, "We're looking at um selling those bonds tomorrow." Which was great news because I was hoping it wasn't going to be while I was on vacation because I was like, "Oh my gosh, I'm going to be in Glacier National Park trying to figure out how to sign this stuff." Um, so that was great. Also, um, then it takes about 3 to four weeks, so the bonds get sold, then it takes about 3 to four weeks before the closing happens. And all of that can
063be done virtually. So, um I in your board packet the um entire resolution is there. Um I tried to outline the things that were most important so that you understood um what the parameters would be in me um locking us in hopefully tomorrow. Any questions? Is there a motion? I'll make a motion to approve the resolution establishing parameters for the sale of not to exceed $7 million general obligation promisary notes. I will second motion by Mrs. Gallich. Second by Mrs. Rner. All those in favor? I I opposed. Motion carries. Next is the staffing. Kim, I do have a question about the director of people services contract. Um, did we reach out to other districts about consolidating services and sharing services? I did. Um, oh, okay. A couple of things. Yes, I did. Um, no one
064was interested in in um sharing sharing. Um, also I think at this time, as you know, again, as I did the staffing and um administrative analysis, I think that it's in the best interest for us to have a full-time um spec director. There's a lot of different things that we're trying to do be beyond the co-plan co-serve and with our MLSS team in um having another administrator that can handle some of those delicate um matters that pertain to special education. Um, also, um, the person that I'm recommending tonight is getting her, um, reading license, uh, which will be great for Act 20, um, and the regulations that we're required to abide by for that as well. Did that answer your question? Mhm. Okay. I'm checking my email to make sure that this guy's not and
065I wish more schools would have been interested in sharing services. I do think, you know, although we were saying staffing wise may not be best, I do think there's other ways of getting the service that we might need if it's a coordinator or some other position with less days and less salary and uh sharing a director position, but this is where we're at right now. So, I agree with you. I think it would be beneficial. It's unfortunate that we can't encourage some of the other districts to consider it because I agree. I think it would be beneficial for everybody involved. Uh do these have to be separate motions here? Are they individuals? I would do them separate because Yeah. Well, I will make a motion to approve the director of people services contract for the
0662526 school year through 2627 school year. Motion by Mr. Hurst. I'll second that. Second by Mrs. Gallich. All those in favor I opposed. Motion carries. math specialist. I'll make a motion we approve the math specialist contract for the 2526 school year. Motion by Mr. Gentiel and I did hear Mrs. Gallich first. Sorry, Joe. All those in favor? I I opposed. Motion carries. Next is the Dowman contract. Um and again, Kim, I saw it's a five-year contract. Is there a reason why they're doing five year? I know we're kind of locked into Dowman no matter what, like there's no other option, but um I think typically we've always done five years. Also, I think they're giving us a pretty darn good rate. Um and so I think for them it's sort of, you know, back and
067forth, sort of a give and take. Um you're right that we sort of are locked in. I was very surprised that the increase wasn't higher. Um they did the same um contract with Wilmont. Um and as I wrote in the um board narrative, we're actually paying a little less than we we had projected for next year. Um and this is the um also allows us to get out of the um being charged for mileage that we are not using using. You know, honestly, in this perspective, I generally agree with you on the length of these things because you want to be able to renegotiate. But in this particular situation, having a five-year with them is probably pretty good based on the volatility of gas, transportation cost, and and how quickly those can increase. So, for
068them to give us a five-year contract at this rate is very beneficial. So, are we locked in on the fuel rate or is it fluctuated the fuel rate? We're being charged what? We're being charged what we used. I don't think it's at a fixed rate, correct? As I read it. No, it's it's they they adjust they adjust the rate based on fuel. But if I remember correctly, didn't aren't we negotiating technically early here? Yes. This is a year early. So, I thought so. We've used four years of the five-year contract the board previously signed. Yes. So, they've shown good faith. That's why I don't have an issue with the length of the contract knowing that we went to them and asked something quite frankly that was outside of what we negotiated last time and they
069were more than willing to come to the table. I don't have an issue with the length of the contract. I do have one question around section 12, their safety program. It says that they're not required to perform any medical functions for passengers. Do you know if they are like CPR certified? I believe they are CPR certified, but if we have any kids that have medical issues, we have uh an aid that is on the bus. Okay. Well, we do. And then my other question, yeah, my other question is around special ed transportation. I know that we were doing What were the costs last year? There was like a private busing service that we did. That was two years ago. That was before I came on. Okay. We haven't we they're all busible and we put
070aid on the bus. We have two So we don't have any private two buses that have aids on it right now. Okay, that was my question. I know we paid a lot of money for that private transportation. So I was wondering if that was something that if they provided that service as well if it can be then that's included in their in their contract. That's part of that's not an additional It would be if we had to have a separate bus. Yeah, but because we don't have to we don't have to have a separate bus at least in the needs that we have now. I mean things change. Um but Brian is referring to special transportation because there was an alternative placement to a different school. Um and then you know you have to go
071with I mean there's lots of different ways you can do that. You could reverse the parents. You can do special transportation. Um so it just depends on that. But currently we don't have the needs in our district to have um special education buses. Right. Is there a motion? I will make a motion to approve the contracting with Dman Transportation for busing services starting in 2526 school year through June 30th, 2030. I'll second motion by Mrs. Ragnar, second by Mr. Jen Teal. All those in favor? I I opposed. Motion carries. And then Kim, is this something in the crisis alert system that needs to be done this month? I would say we should do it this month. We can do it if you'd rather have it through a special board meeting um only because um there's
072a lot of moving parts of installation. And so part of it is the wiring, all of those things if we want it up and running and it would be hard to do during the school year. I'm going to say that. Oh yeah, very difficult because they're going to have to get in in a lot of places and be Yeah, that would be tough. Did they give you an idea? What concerns do you have? Not speaking to the I didn't ask, but I can ask. That would be something that would be if the contracts I mean they have five years laid out in here. There's an extra $2,000 that's not accounted for on itemized. You are aware of that and he did explain that. So, it's not in the contract, but we've got it. But I
073think Brian's concern is if we approve a contract as it's presented to us, $54,400 for a grand total. So, you could do it as to not exceed that amount. If you wanted to do that, if you need more information, I can I don't know. This guy didn't come in. I can have him. My other question is is this is bro obviously it's broken up year by year. It's not 54,000 at once. Um, but I know we've had a lot more questions for a lot less expenses on things and so this is quite an expense to think about. My next question that I wanted to ask sure what I wanted to ask just is that expense the breakdown over the five-year cost or is that the five-year contract and you pay in full up front or
074is it you pay your initial and then you pay your yearly? There's a lot of questions about the contract. one page after the contract or after the statement shows that 50% is due at the time we issue a PO and sign the agreement. 50% is due after the uh 120 days after year one. So we're at 20,600 for year one and then it's 8450. Yes. Okay. Okay. So this is not all one big chunk. We're not this is part of what's coming out of the referendum. So, I'm going to have that expended down so that we can use the referendum funds. Is are you aware of or did you see I I haven't had a chance to prove it, but is there any outs in there for us? Outs. Yeah. Like a year or two,
075we say, you know what, this actually is not sufficient for us. It doesn't work the way that we had intended for it to work. We'd like to move on from this contract. Is there any outs anywhere in the I don't know about that. I guess I didn't ex I can ask him. It would be good to know that. I mean I I have faith that we won't need an out very good. Are you presenting this as a three-year right? I mean I know that I know what he quoted says five years, right? So your note said three, you've said three. Like I mean I guess as we're sitting here talking you know as a board you know if it's the 20,000 plus call it 16 17 additional thousand we're looking at spending 37,000 over three
076years out of the referendum money that we've spent. I understand you're asking regards to an out clause, but you know, if we're going to spend the $20,600, I'd like to think we're committed for the three-year term because in order to go to another program or another system, we're going to be rewiring, reabling, resetting it up. So, I mean, I guess knowing what we know, I mean, it certainly would have been nice to hear from them, but I I don't know how everyone else feels. Is there a reason to have a special board meeting around this? I mean, we've been talking about having a a crisis alert system. Um, if if the verbiage on the five years is too much, then let's make a motion that it's a three-year contract and we're approving adjust the I
077mean, again, others don't have any other sign up on that, too. They have to be Yeah, they correct. But I do agree with you and and again, the only reason I asked about the out is because you just never know. I don't anticipate it would look for the out especially based on the fact that the cost the initial setup somewhere else. Yeah. And I think obviously we're we're using the referendum money which is essentially what we went out and asked the taxpayers through. I think we'd have to commit to the three years right and make sure it works the way that we want it. Um what is the on-site training? So that's that's teacher education a little bit but mostly for admin. I think it's how you guys use the app and respond. So, is
078that someone coming here to train? I don't know if they're going to come here to train us or if uh they're going to be doing it virtually. Um I when I talked to them about the PD, there's very there's not a ton of PD involved for the teachers. It's mostly for admin to be able to Well, and that's where I wonder in this contract if if there's leniency of you go back to these guys like if we're shelling out $40,000, do they need to charge us, 1500 to train the people when we're buying their product? Mhm. Like my other question would be once the annual contract renews and they talk about moving up to current pricing is it when it kind of sucks in and it's a good price up front but then 16 grand
079a year. Do they have any idea of what type of increase we would be looking at to keep it moving forward? That's a great question. It would be nice. Were you asking us actually are we offside at a 5year term a lot? At 5 years is it like hey it's 8,000 or whatever and now it's 15 or 20 or 17 we need to do new wiring and we just need to consider that or is it like hey go up to 9 grand but your wiring if they have something like that they'll refer to that as an escalator. So we can ask you guys have any escalators after your initial contract. I don't want to assume but I because in the notes they put quote includes mapping, installation, onboarding, and training. So, I do have a
080feeling that this could be another cookie cutter contract. They just put our name on and we've denied contracts before that because again, if we're going to shell out the money, do your due diligence and number and this number, have it match, have it have it match what we're asking for. I'm going to be honest, I wouldn't feel comfortable passing this tonight. Um, so we have to have a special board meeting over it, then we do. But I hopefully that there's no emergency, but I think it's important that he has the ability, we have the ability to ask him questions of I would like to be able to speak with him so he can answer these questions directly. So I'm going to make a motion to table the crisis alert system. Oh at this time I'll
081second. Do we need I don't think we need to actually do we even need a motion on that Kim or we just action. All right. Um then our next meeting is June 24th 2025. Um, I make a motion to adjourn to executive session as in accordance to Wisconsin state statutes. I will second. Second by Mr. Hurst. All those in favor? I I opposed. Motion carries. I should have showed