001here. >> Right. Okay. It is 5:30 and we'll go ahead and dig in and get started. And just like to welcome everybody uh it's a Monday evening. We're ready to go. We'll start with general patron comments. Anybody? Yeah. Okay. Okay. Then we will move on to the financial report. >> Good evening. Thank you. Um so we got a few things on the financial report tonight. Uh we'll start with uh start with our 1782 which is the uh 2026 budget. Uh we got that uh Friday um morning or afternoon, I can't remember. But looking at that today, not a whole lot of changes from what they what the DLGF gave us, which means if you remember right during the budget process, we talked about how we have 10 days to respond to that. Um with the
002uh with what we got back though, uh we only had uh a couple changes. Uh the rainy day fund was approved for displayed amount. the debt service. Uh like we said, we would reduce the uh the rate would be reduced through the reduction of the operating balance which uh which we did. The budget approved in the education fund and the operations rate was um the uh the levy was approved. The rate was lowered based on the assessed valuation going up. And so basically our tax rate in the past has been 0.5399 here at Wallace. uh this year it is point or for 2026 it is 0.5197 so down a little bit like we said during that uh during the preliminary hearings and the all the bond work at the process uh we said it would
003drop a little bit in 2026 and it did it's just under 52 cents at 0.5197 and so again that is still um that's still with the uh max levy that we got um for the operations fund and then funding our debt service uh fully Now, with that in mind, um the uh Senate Enrolled Act One will will, you know, take place or kind of get implemented this year as far as tax bills go. And so what we'll see in the um in the operations fund in particular, uh we have a $8.6 million levy, which is our max levy that gets reduced. U DGF is estimating that's reduced by $687,500. based on a number of different things, but um you know, property tax caps would be one of them in the constitution, House Enrolled Act 1499
004from a few years ago, and then uh principally Senate enrolled act one from this this past legislative session. And so that actually uh decreases the amount of levy in the operations fund from 6 uh I'm sorry, 8.6 million, just over 8.6 6 million uh down below $8 million um with when we take out that $687,000. And so along with that um uh there's a a company in Indianapolis called Policy Analytics uh they are uh helping helping units of government right now, schools in particular to do a uh parcel by parcel um uh parcel by parcel uh study of each parcel in each unit of government. whether that's cities, towns, libraries, counties, whatever, schools, whatever. And so Dr. Troyer and I talked about um uh reaching out to them and see what that looks like for
005WAC and seeing what um seeing what that might cost, what that report would look like, etc. And so we're not asking for permission to do anything tonight other than uh we're just looking for information from them to see what that would look like for Wallace to see. And then finally, um, uh, we have the opportunity or possibly have the opportunity to refinance some debt, uh, here in the very near future. And so, uh, what that would look like, um, I think we've talked about this before, but bonds, typically longerterm bonds, have a date that they're callable, which means that um, it's generally after 10 years. And so that means that after 10 years, they can uh, uh, they could be refinanced if the if the issuing entity would like to do that. And so one
006of the Wawa C bonds right now uh will be up for refunding they call it. I uh it's more commonly called refinancing but um and what that would do is either uh that that could either shorten the term or provide additional dollars cashed out. So basically in layman's terms, you'd be looking at say your mortgage on your house is 7%. Mortgages now are 6%. And so you refinance for 6%. You can either take the cash out or you can uh decrease the term that your mortgage would be. And so those are obviously theoretical numbers, but that's kind of the concept of this. And so um we uh we had a conversation with Steve and Ice Miller today to look at that. And then we will uh likely bring back more information on that in the
007future as well. Um, in the past we've done this process. Uh, we get the u we get the um the uh uh permission and then kind of wait until we've kind of waited until uh the the market's right as far as the interest rate goes. So anyway, that's kind of what we're is kind of on the horizon maybe in the future in the next three four months. Anyway, >> any questions on that? >> No, but we did something like this like six, eight months ago. Yeah, sometime in early early to mid 2025. We had one going on. >> Yeah. Any questions? >> Okay, I think we're good. >> Thank you. >> Yep. >> Next up is Dr. Wilong with her learning report. >> Thank you very much. Couple things to discuss some upcoming events that
008have going on. Um we have two professional learning days uh in in um in the spring. One is February 9th, one is March 20th. And then uh also in the spring it's testing season. So uh throughout January and February we have what's called WEDA testing. That's for our English learner students. Uh and it tests their English proficiency. Uh in March we have the high school SAT and we have the second and third grade I read uh reading proficiency assessment. And then in April we have our I learn summitative assessment which is different than the ILR checkpoints formative assessments that we have going on throughout the year. And then in May uh we wrap up testing with um the College Board advanced placement. So, uh, lots of, uh, fun assessments to, um, to, uh, look forward
009to this year. Um, also, uh, at the end of last month, our, uh, 2025 federal accountability report card came out. Um, this is from the, uh, the US Department of Education. And, uh, you can see there a list of indicators. um that's how they score us on how well um we're doing on uh their uh different achievement indicators. Uh this is different than the state accountability. So um uh try I'll try to keep them both separate for you. Um this spring you'll probably start hearing me talk to you about the new state accountability system that they're bringing. uh bringing back. Uh but this is our federal accountability report card and you can see all of our um schools uh listed and then we have our ELA and math achievement um the progress that they've made
010in ELA and math uh progress towards proficiency and then closing the ELA gaps in and math gaps. So, um closing the achievement gaps between uh different subsets of students. Uh and then addressing chronic absenteeism and um I can give you the formulas for all of those on how how they come up with that score, but you can see there what our scores are. And then I compared it to uh how we did last year. So you can see that North Webster, Milford, and the high school increased while Syracuse and the middle school um went down some. Um, but this helps gives this helps give us a little bit of an idea of of areas that we can um that we need to take a look at um as far as um making sure that we're
011um doing everything that we can to um to to take those does not meet to approaches and then those that are approaches to uh meets the standard. >> Um as far as our tread line, we we've had a federal uh report card for uh several years. So, I went back for for the last four and I um you can't really see the actual um the actual lines are they're really um they're they're faded and I made the trend lines bigger because or more prominent uh because it just makes the chart look a little bit cleaner so that you can see where we are trendwise. So um you can see that uh in four out of the five we have an upward trend. Um uh Milford has had the most uh you know the steepest uh
012trend upward uh followed by the high school. Uh Northwesterbster and Syracuse are steadily improving and then um the middle school is is staying relatively the same. uh but might be slightly trending downward. But um I'm going to talk to you a little bit about uh how we're going to address that in here in a minute. Do you have any questions about this stuff so far? Okay. So, um the other thing that the uh accountability report card takes a look at is is our um subsets of our demographics. And where you see that there's a gray out box, it just means that we don't have enough students in those subcategories for them to report on. So we do have EL students at Northwesterbster and Syracuse, but not enough that they uh will report on where we
013are specifically with with those students. Um you can see that the two uh areas of demographics that we consistently uh need to improve on our special education population and our EL population. So across the board um we are at does not meet uh for those particular for those particular areas. And um we're not surprised by this. It's been an issue for us in years past and it's something that um we are um going to work to address. Um but you can you can see where we have h have some in the approaches category and some in the meets category as well. Again the middle school uh continues um to have some we have some concerns with that. Um so so what are we going to do um as we look at these act um these
014uh results from our federal accountability? Uh what actions are we going to take? Uh one is we're going to target specifically our English learners uh the English learner population. And we're going to do that first of all by um conducting an analysis of our policies and procedures and program. um looking at how we provide that instruction. Um and um we're going to have someone come and and give us like an outside entity come and give us an an outside report so they can be very clear and very blunt on here's here are the things that you need to do differently. Um with our e population um in this district it's it's incredibly small compared to many districts. So, we don't have the resources or funds available to us like some districts do, which provides a
015lot of unique challenges. And so, uh, by having, um, someone come in and really help give us that comprehensive overview, um, that has not been done since I've been here. And so, uh, that's going to be a, I think, a really powerful report for us to take a look at in, um, in helping, uh, improve our EL population achievement scores uh, for special education, which I will tell you that in the federal accountability report card, if schools are going to have an issue with a sub subset, they're going to have an issue with special ed. So, we are not um by any means um uh out of the ordinary there. Most districts do have um have concerns with special education population. Um where we are going to be conducting additional uh paraprofessional training. Um I'm
016working on getting one uh set up yet this spring. Uh we're going to continue having some virtual coaching sessions with our special education teachers with an outside expert that um can help uh with our with our uh special education services. And then um we need to continue uh focusing on our tier one instructional supports for special ed students. So um we're going to continue to work on that. And then uh finally um next month at our work session in February um the principal at the middle school Mrs. Nathaniel is going to come and present an update about um some of the changes going on that have gone on and are continuing to go on at Wawa Middle School to uh address some of the uh achievement gaps that we've had at at uh at the
017middle school. Um, so, uh, we have that, uh, going on as well. So, are there any that's that is all I have for my learning report. Is there any anybody have any questions about that? >> I'll be excited to hear Mrs. Nathaniel's report. >> I think I I hear good things going on and so be impressed. >> Any other questions about the report card? >> Okay. Thank you. Uh, superintendent report, Dr. Yeah, thank you Mr. Roart. I do not have any official report on part of other agenda items here this evening. So I will have a couple procedural things I want to cover at the end. >> Okay, then that brings us to the middle school student um event admission. Dr. Troyer, we talked about that uh at the board meeting and >> board meeting
018last month. >> So, I got um it's my pleasure to introduce Kendall Shearan tonight and Kendall is an eighth grade student at Wallace Middle School and she's really nervous. Uh so, we want to we want to uh welcome her to present on this topic. And I think Dr. Wilfong, go ahead, Kendall. Uh I think Dr. Dr. Wilfong has um a couple links that she's going to pull up as well. So, okay, >> we're excited to have Kendall here representing Walcy Middle School um to talk about middle school event admission. >> You'll do fine. We don't bite. Hi, my name is Kendall and I'm an eighth grader at Wavatu Middle School. I want to start by saying thank you for your time today. I really appreciate it. I've always been very involved at our school and
019I'm currently a member of National Junior Honor Society, an FCA leader, serve as our student council president, and I'm a multiport athlete. I love WC and I'm passionate about finding ways to help our school and community continue to thrive and excel. It's no secret that there's been some negativity around WC athletics lately. Not just in terms of teams having difficult seasons, but many programs struggling with participation numbers. This summer, I began working on a mission to help make a positive impact in the middle school sports culture by providing free admission to Wav Middle School events for all Wat Middle School students. Will this magically make everything perfect? Of course not. However, it is certainly a step in the right direction. Increased attendance will provide muchneeded enthusiasm around our programs. It'll encourage more kids to get
020involved and stay involved in athletics and will help grow the reputation of WAC as a place kids want to attend and play for. It'll be great for results, participation numbers, and overall school and community spirit. I was disappointed to have already lost half a year from the time I originally discussed this proposal, but I'm optimistic with this group's support, we can make up for some lost time and make this happen quickly. By show of hands, how many of you here have been to a middle school sporting event recently? How many students did you see in attendance? In nearly all sporting events, you can easily count the students in attendance on your fingers, and many of them likely didn't pay to enter and are simply lingering around a bit after their practice. The revenue generated from
021student ticket sales is very little. It seems no real numbers exist on specifically how many student tickets have been sold in past years. But I can tell you with certainty from attending and playing in hundreds of games at Wasuk Middle School that we are not selling a substantial amount of student admissions. By making events free for all students, we infuse enthusiasm and excitement and likely make far more money with the large increase in concession revenue. Even if the price to approve this proposal was zero dollars, the community, the athletic programs in their future, and WY Middle School still win. So, I propose for the remainder of the 2025 through 2026 school year, we to start. We focus on getting funding to cover the 2026 through 2027 school year, we only have 24 home sporting events
022for the remainder of this school year, including boys and girls basketball, swim, golf, and track. Far too often, progress is slowed and stunted by trying to answer every small detail and searching for tiny reasons not to do something. But in truth, this proposal is super simple. we can easily raise what would be needed to offset the loss of ticket revenue for 2026 through 2027. So in your handout there is an example of what an action plan could be as long as a sample sponsorship letter. So you can feel free to look through that. And then I believe I also have a video and so here's a look at what we were able to do last year with a small donation and the support of Wise Middle School administration like Mr. Codell, Mr. Edgar and our
023basketball coaches. Heat. Heat. 14. Just look at the scene. Who wouldn't want to go to school here? What little kid wouldn't dream of playing here? So, let's pack our bleachers. Let's make Wasi middle school sporting events something students are proud to participate in. Let's make middle school events something our classmates are eager to attend and cheer passionately at. Let's make WAC a place where families in the area want their kids to attend a play at. Let's not just keep up with the other schools but lead. Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it. I look forward to getting this done quickly with your support. This will be an amazing thing for our program. >> Okay. questions. Anybody? >> I could add a couple things. Sure. Um reach out to me via email
024um which I think was probably the first time I've had a high school student um send me an email since I've been superintendent and um she and Mrs. Nathaniel and I met I think it was probably early December, mid December, somewhere in there. >> Yeah, probably. Um, and following that meeting, um, I think both Mrs. Nathaniel and I were on the same page that we're ready to figure out some way to make this happen. So, um, you know, I I essentially told a couple people that I talked to that it regardless of the funding source, um, we'll find some way to make it happen. Uh, for this year, I think Mrs. Nathaniel was interested in um just starting mentioned and let's see what comes of it. Um there will be some um things that that
025come up that we have to account for that maybe we weren't uh intending or thinking about. The biggest thing I think from the middle school leadership standpoint is they want to make sure that we have some way of of sustaining that program long term as we look into next year. um they didn't want to they didn't want to um just make it a uh a six-month thing or a season and a half thing and then not be able to do it again next year. So, uh I know that I've had a couple conversations um even with potentially uh some of you as well. I know Mr. Kar and I talked about it before break and I think everybody's on the same page about let's just get this done and we can find um some funding
026to support it one way or another. Uh I also talked with um Dr. Hy from the alumni association as well after our last board meeting and I think there's some potential for some support there. So, it seems to me that the community um that the school that uh the district is uh willing to come together and and get this thing figured out for our middle school kids. So, um I don't think there's any action that needs to take place on behalf of the board, but um I I appreciated Kendall coming in and presenting. >> What are we looking at? I mean, whatever lost ticket sales, which It's the question of what what does it trigger an additional cost to spend and it doesn't. So what we shouldn't put any onus of any sort of fundraising.
027There's no spend that occurs whether it's one kid or 100 kids maybe need two volunteers or two chap supervisors whatever we're staffing for that anything. Yeah. >> Right. The event needs to be staffed. >> It's staffed if there's no show. It's staffed if it's packed. So I don't understand what what are we challenging? What are we raising money to cover? >> I think there's a a concern just about loss revenue. The idea of loss revenue that way. >> I understand that. I'm just telling you what >> the concerns are that we we pay for officials. We pay for whatever stuff that comes up out like the only source of revenue in our athletic programs is our gate. >> True. And so when you think about and again your point is and her point is there's
028not many kids coming anyway. So the amount of lost revenue is not going to equate to that much regardless. But when you think about the concept of loss revenue, that's a scary thing. And okay, how are we going to support our athletic programs? That's that's where that's coming from. our revenue is going to be virtually zero impact and also our cost line is not impacted. >> Correct. >> So there's to me I don't even I mean if there's a shortfall to pay refs or something I wouldn't put any onus on great job by the way I wouldn't put any onus on there's no reason it can't go on into perpetuity. I mean >> the cost every single cost is going to happen with zero stand not zero but I I feel like we've nuanced this
029thing. I think we're looking at it wrong. We got to look at the cost impact and the cost impact is zero. So we should the very next sporting event it should be free. I mean how do we make that happen? It can happen starting tomorrow. >> I don't pressure. >> You're not pressuring me there. There like I >> it's going to happen. >> As I said, we're all in alignment that that we can make this happen. >> Yeah. I just >> anybody >> Thursday. >> Okay. >> Thursday. >> Okay. Yeah. And and Kendall, I'm take off my schoolboard hat and put on my Knights of Columbus hat. Um we do an awful lot of um fundraising for groups. Um, some groups are more successful than others depending on um, advanced ticket sales. If if people
030for for like what I I skipped the part there, basically pancake breakfasts and bingos, but pancake breakfast is what I'm really thinking of. Um, if the students get out there and sell pre-mission tickets, whether the person shows up for the breakfast or not, you've already got their money. and looking at your video with the number of students that were at that in that pep block. Um, if you I don't know who to say to to get in contact with me and I can get you hooked up with our fundraising chairperson and I I think we can help you out one heck of a lot. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> I just want to say great job with presentation. fantastic idea and >> you hit it early when you said that you know athletics and
031it's in a little I think this is a great idea starts with the middle school so let's get them involved but I mean you put everything together perfect there's sponsorship forms in here I don't think you'll have any issue with anyone in the community sponsoring middle school kids So yeah, it's going to succeed. So great job. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. And I want to recognize the fact um that it takes a tremendous amount of courage for anybody in the room who's ever spoken at any kind of an event for somebody at middle school level to come in and present like they did tonight. Um a lot of courage and she did a fantastic job. So thank you again, Kendall. >> Donna, does the high school kids pay or do they get in?
032To Andy's point, >> I think they already have this program. >> Yeah, there is. Yeah, it's to that green green gold, correct? >> Yeah, green and gold. I think they're already taken care of. >> Does it spill over to high school coming to middle school? >> Yeah. >> High school gets into high school, but >> does it? >> I don't think so. middle school doesn't get >> I don't think it does. >> The high school program that we have now is supported by the alumni association is just for high school students at high school events. >> Correct? >> It doesn't mean that we can't look at something else. >> Can we look at something to where High school students can get into middle school, middle school students can get into high school games and see
033what the cost would be for that. >> Yeah. I >> And I think that's where we take your model. >> Yeah. >> But to point the impact is zero. You're paying that to be there whether there's 10 people in the crowd or 200. So why shouldn't be made? I think first off, no motions can be made in a work session. Um, I think the issue, and Brent can talk a little bit more about this, because it's a nervous thing for an athletic department, is the idea of not generating revenue. Now, in this particular situation, especially with the middle school student um participation in events, it's not very much. So, it's not it's not like we're talking about thousands and thousands of dollars of lost ticket sales, so to speak. At the high school level, it's
034a little bit more significant. Maybe a lot more significant, but again, our athletic programs are primarily outside of um outside of donations and and sponsorship support, they're primarily their primary source of revenue is through gate. And so when we talk about supplementing or taking a part of the gate out that would be students then that's that creates anxiety for our leadership and athletics and right or wrong that's where that's originating from >> because that's that's their source of income to pay for like lower level equipment, uniforms, pay for officials, pay for >> uh um awards. Um also we pay supervision for ticket takers, for scoreboard operators. All that stuff is basically supported out of the gate revenue that we generate. And when you think about letting a certain percentage of the population come in for
035free, then that's a scary thought to have to think about, okay, how are we going to pay our bills? So that's where it's come from. that that to me I think is where it comes from. Again, right or wrong, I think there's ways that we can offset it. You know, the alumni association has been very generous in their contributions to try and um quote unquote pay for or support the high school program. Um and we've seen those kinds of different models at at places where um where student entrance has become free then it's typically offset or supported by some entity whether it's an alumni association or a sponsorship program from a business or whatever. Um typically uh that that loss revenue is supported by a contribution of some sort. So, >> so help me understand
036this. So, >> for the high school, >> there is no loss of revenue because the alumni association is essentially buying a green and gold pass for everybody for every event. So, that money is in. >> Yeah. >> So, for the middle school, if I understand, it wouldn't work that way. It would seem like it would be on a per student per event because they're signing in. Am I correct on that? They would not be purchasing a pass necessarily >> for middle school events. >> In reality, the way that we're going to conduct the middle school event is if you're a student, you get in free, >> right? >> Like you don't have to sign in. You don't have to have a green and gold pass. Like you just you you there's no entrance >> fee
037for students to come to a middle school. >> Oh, so okay. >> That's I was trying to figure out how you were going to do the accounting then. We're like, and I think to Andy's point, that's that's where the accounting like we don't need to account when there, let's say there's 10 middle school students at an event, you're going to let 10 in and then you're going to let another 30 in or 50 in that come along with them >> in this scenario. Like the loss of 10 students at three bucks a pop is not >> right >> a huge deal. >> I guess I would rather us I'd rather somebody say every student in our corporation goes free and then let's see if we have a shortfall. But right now we're raising money. We're
038we're we're talking we're putting challenges out there to raise money. We're hitting alumni association for funds that we may not have needed for that particular cause. And I know kill me here, but we don't know. I've been to games where there's not even two levels of students, like two rows of them. So, we're we're trying to make fundraising quotas, if you will. >> Yeah. >> Off what? I mean, we the numbers are thrown out are I'd rather do the program go, "Oh, crap. We're short two grand, four grand, nothing." And raise money on a known number. I mean, right now we're going to go ask Mr. Kendall to raise an arbitrage. I mean, what's the number? Where did it come from? So, I guess I would rather us really talk sincerely about saying kids go.
039If you're a student, you you go, you go watch your fellow student play. It should go. It should extend to plays and everything. It should because we want that's how you get energy and things start to feel electric and all those things. That's the cheapest marketing on earth really. So I don't know the process but I think you you do it. You see if the shortfall that we're all terrified of even occurs and if it does we address it. We have plenty of support for it. But let's address it. Let's let's address the problem once it's a problem manufactur. >> Sure. >> I think I think the financial piece is a discussion point. I think the supervision is a larger discussion because if there's elementary kids and middle school kids coming to high school events,
040our high school admin is already taking care of our high school kids. There's not necessarily elementary and middle school supervision for those kids. Let me give you an example. We were at a basketball game the other day. A little girl gets hurt like, "Hey, where are your parents?" They're like, "Oh, they just dropped us off." So there's no parents contact. But that's happening right now. I mean, I guess correct >> all real problems that exist now. >> Correct. >> I mean, I don't think we're adding new I don't think now the kids didn't pay. I mean, right. Same problem just now. >> I think the original the original request is to have middle school kids get in free at middle school. And so, so I think like that's where we need to to continue to
041focus >> and let's get that going first. Okay. >> And then and then and then we can look at >> Okay. >> Go ahead. >> Summer how many students per >> That's Joe, you're right. Listen, middle school, but I think it's a broader question initially. >> And I think I think really none of us are opposed to admission at any of these events for students for free. That'd be awesome because I think to your point that gets more people there, generates that excitement. And what we're worried about is the funding to support the programs. And if we can figure that out separately from the issue of student admission, that's fine. I I know Jeff is in here somewhere. But I just feel Mrs. Bonner getting real nervous about free entrance into plays based upon my
042conversations with her. Like she she would get she would get so nervous about that. So um we just need to be able to like if we're not going to charge the students that's great. we have to find some other way to offset that revenue or offset or or support the program in general. And maybe that's what the focus needs to be, not on charging or not charging or denying kids entry into or not into an event, etc. Maybe it needs to be how can we support the programs that we have so that we can get as many people here as possible and that doesn't become an impediment. Um, so I I I do think that there's some reframing of that conversation that could be valuable for us. >> Question if you have more students coming,
043would you have more sessions? >> You do for sure. And that's that's part of it for that's definitely a big part of it. >> Yeah. And I know, you know, Ross is going to talk here in a little bit, but that's been part of our conversation to too with this um kind of broader community group over the last couple of months is like to Bren's point, the supervision and how do we how do we manage those situations um in which you know a van load of fifth graders comes and gets dropped off to a football game or a basketball game. And that's that's what makes our our school level leaders really nervous in terms of just how do we manage that situation because it does become a little chaotic and trying to figure out how
044do we supervise and run a good event when we've got all that craziness. If you've ever been part of the the football uh section, the middle school section down there in the inside of the gate, you know, you would understand what I mean. What happens to like the dues like swimming for example we have to pay dues for that money and then additionally they had additional fundraising events that went on last >> Brent you want to answer that >> talk about we had to pay at the beginning of the season for the for like equipment and gear. >> Yeah. >> I know others as well. >> Any any money raised by the team stays with the team specifically the athletic department only we generate is ticket sales fund. So any money that's raised by each
045individual team to cover food cost them or so the only revenue for these would at the door to cover the shortfalls that >> yes >> so we just swimming as an example we're in right now we do that stage with >> stage and They had their own fundraising events in that state. Correct. So does each individual sport have to pay those dues? >> Not necessarily. Each team sets up. >> Um some teams are generate each year than others. So, you know, swim might need to have newspap whereas let's say baseball they don't have to have the players pay necessarily to buy the entry at the gate coveralls. No, uniforms and stuff aren't coming from >> gate covers stuff that's fixed in the sense of >> our child doesn't go towards >> Jason will tell you
046it's a better question that's correct. essentially specific to the concessions too. Not every concession stand that's run go directly to the athletic department. So like swim for example swim has concess concessions at their events that money the athletic department only runs concessions for boys basketball. So, anybody else that's doing concessions, they they're keeping that money within. >> Good questions. We can definitely um I again I don't think any action is necessary for us to do that. But I I do think if at some point the board would like us to consider um having all students be able to get into all events, that's something that we need to take a look at probably through a resolution or >> some action um to consider down the road. >> Let's stay. >> Yep. >> Yeah. Very good.
047Thanks, Kendall. Appreciate it. >> Yes. Thank you again. Okay, let's go on to communications consultant, Dr. Croer. >> Yeah. So, I saw um Jeff Dyson is in the back here and I'll invite him up to uh the podium here and take center stage. um he's been working um on on uh our communication um stuff, I guess, and talking with a lot of people, talking with individual board members, different members of the community um on um what he sees uh as needs for us and um Jeff wants to present that information uh and we'll go from there. Go ahead, Jeff. >> All right. Well, first of all, thank you. And, uh, just to kind of put a bow on what we were just talking about with the the sporting activities. Um, if we had a full
048gym, do you think it would be super easy to go to any business in town and say, "Hey, would you like to sponsor this sport?" Why? Because now you are advertising to thousands of people instead of just the 30 or 40 or the parents of who's there, right? So >> yeah. >> Anyway, that all that to lead into some of the marketing stuff that we've been talking about in communications and PR. >> Um so first of all, I had a chance to meet with uh just about every single board member and um talk with them. Um Mr. Farler still have a have the opportunity to to meet with you. Um basically what we discussed um throughout was the there's there's kind of two pillars that we look at. um engagement and retention. When we talk
049about um basically any business, any activity, right? You have what does it take to get people in the door and then what does it take to retain those people? It's the same thing with the school district. What does it take to get people to come into the school district and then once they're here, what does it take to get them to stay? And that seems to be the underlying factor for everything that we've been going through for the last few months, right? Um the what does it take to get people here? Um that's that's going to be kind of hit or miss just because it's kind of coming down to a housing issue which we've already addressed. Um with uh uh a lot of people know that uh Nate myself are working on uh development
050and that is going to be happening. So we will be having uh some additional students that are coming into this area in the next few years. So we can all bank on that. So once once we have more people that come into this community, what does it take to get them to stay? And I think that's a lot of the discussion that we've been having at a lot of the schoolboard meetings. And that's a lot of what I would like to start digging into um not only with the school board, but with this community. What is it going to take to keep the people that are here? We have great people here. We've got great activities here. We've got a lot of great things in this school system that are here. And number one, I
051think we have to promote and uh really get people excited and energized about this school, about this community. Um and change the tone of we're not good enough to what do we have to get people excited to not not only come here but stay here. Um all of us know at least a handful of people that have decided wise isn't good enough so I want to go somewhere else. Right? Is that a fair statement? Why is that? What can we do as a community to get better in order to get people to want to stay? I think everybody has their own idea of what that is and what that looks like. I've had an opportunity to speak with a lot of the board members and a lot of people of the community and there are
052a number of things that we can do and what I guess let me back up. What I would really like to do is put together an outline similar to what we did with the community engagement committee um few years ago. Um for those of you who aren't aware that we had this community engagement committee, it was identified as uh one of the top few things that we needed was um a communications, PR, marketing role in this uh in this school system in order to basically get people to answer the question why come here and then why stay here. that that role got filled, but because that role wasn't exclusively uh defined for the person that was in the role, um it was like hitting a moving target. So what I would like to do I
053would like what I would like to propose is to be able to come in and work with the school board, work with superintendent and work with the different groups of not only the community but the school to identify what that role is and to kind of help you guys determine this is what we need to do in order to number one we have what do we have to do to get people here and then what do we have to do to keep them here? questions. >> I've talked to Jeff quite a bit. You talked about I mean there's the block and tackle stuff that is easy for you. It's it's the basic communications everything you're doing better with the more timely posting of success stories and wins. I mean I'm talking more than sports too.
054I mean a kid goes and crushes it down super we talking about that too. To me though that's for somebody you can do that I mean you can automate that populate it and it goes out it's ready to go templates. So that was our communication piece. But I think what we did wrong before and I don't want to do it again is we said that's that's what we call marketing and it's not that's just >> I mean it's social media. It's basic basic communication. It's bigger than just posting something on Facebook. >> Yeah. So, so but we said, but that's what we try to make a job out of that and then we go, oh crap, that's not a full-time job. Then we pile a bunch more stuff. That's where we got confusion, right? So,
055what I'd like Jeff to do is, hey, help us get that stuff that is easy, technology driven. I mean, you've already showed us some apps so we can start streaming events again. It doesn't have to be this big event. It's there's a ton of technology out there to make that stuff easy. I like that he can do that for us relatively quick. The other thing is he can tell us, do we have a full-time job need? Is is is that even a role that is a full-time job? A lot of the schools around us have this role, but it's a shared role. They do something in the CTE program, hand marketing, right? So, that suggests that maybe it's not a full-time thing. Now, if we start to do some really cool stuff and add programs
056and things that we have something wildly unique because let's be honest, schools are school. I mean, we're doing the same thing of our neighbor. So, I like the idea that we can get I need to be told what I want. I don't when I say communications consultant, what am I talking about? What do I mean? And I think I know some basic stuff, but the other side of it is what do you what do you market? I mean, there's a whole bunch of things. It's like taking a bunch of vitamins. Your body won't process half of what you take. Well, then you just have really expensive. You know what? I mean, I don't want to do that, right? So, I think you can guide us as to this is what it could look like. The
057basic block and tackle stuff. This is the type of time that it takes and there's opportunity for us to do. give us this but some return on investment needs to be explained to me because I do think there's a role of some sort I know what it looks like I don't know what kind of time it really looks like and I will hope you can tell us so this is what this is what you guys then we can make a smart decision that's what I'd like to so I'd like to engage on that consulting basis I was just going to say I echo a lot of what you said I um what I would ask is are you already starting to get some ideas? You you've talked to most of us. You've talked to people
058in the community, probably talked to central office and I don't know principles. I don't know who all you've reached out to. Are you starting to get a picture of of what this position would look like? >> It's at the beginning stages, but yeah, I mean um you know, asking what exactly what it looks like right now. I mean, it's that's down the road. That's kind of, you know, that's that's what we're going to get to, right? >> Um, eventually what I would like to be able to present to the board is similar to what the engagement committee had at the end. They said, you know, here's a book with all of the all of our findings. Here's everything that that we we got throughout our entire investigation process. Here's what it looks like. Here's what
059here's what it needs to be moving forward. >> So, how do you see that happening? um through uh >> defining your role and and what this would look like. How do how do you see that happening? >> What between >> figuring out what this position would look like as as um communications, I don't know, director is the right word. >> Sure. So >> PR, communications, engagement, retention, how are we going to do it? >> Sure. >> H how do you see that plan formulating in your head? >> Well, a lot of it a lot of that framework is I mean it it's it's already created, right? I mean, it exists in business and basically it's it's taking that and modifying it, morphing it to fit into the school system to figure out, okay, this um
060you know, this this is what the framework would look like in order to run a successful campaign for a business. You can't take that and rubber stamp it for the school district, but a lot of that can cross over into um you know, into the school. So formulating what that looks like, formulating what um you know, basically it's a matter of what is the school trying to uh trying to um do, advertise, create, etc. >> Market, >> right? Market to Andy's point, you know, do we want to get to streaming games? >> Yes, that's that's one aspect of it. You know, what, how, where um the uh you know, we're going to have everything on one central dashboard. We have the websites. We have um you know the the school district, we have each school,
061we have the parent square, all of the the communication, the PR, all that stuff is all integrated and it falls under marketing and you know not just a Facebook post. Um one of the things that um that I firmly believe heavily in is that every single level of school is you're you're training for the next the next stage of your life. Right? So high school there's twofold. Number one, you've got kids that are training to go to college. So, the high school needs to be that training ground in order to do the best that they can to get to the kids to go to the college that they want to go to. There's going to be other kids that don't want to go to college that want to go right into the workforce. What do
062we need to do? And how can we market those kids? Because right now I I mean as far as I know that there's not any way for each individual student to market themselves as if you know the adults we have LinkedIn you know we have other resumes um there's no there's no area for the students to market themselves to local businesses or programs that businesses can come to and say um outside of maybe the CTE that hey is there a is you know is there a kid that can come to my workplace and uh you know and and finish, you know, finish uh or come here once they finish up with school. Um same thing, take that down to the middle school level. What are we doing in the middle school from an athletic standpoint
063to um you know to get the kids to learn the plays so that once they get to the high school that they're not relearning everything. So, and it's not just athletics, it's through you know academics and everything to get them to the high school level and ready and etc to move on. So all of those things from a um you know from a marketing standpoint to get those kids ready for the next you know next phase of their life. That's kind of what what has to be put into place in order for those things to happen. >> Um when you're talking about the CTE and I don't even I it'd be great if it can be pulled off in regards to retention. We're making those kids marketable to employers and I think you alluded to
064like maybe within our own school district and area. But I'm going to speak to my own family situation. Two kids graduate, they're gone. One's in Ohio, one's in Crawford'sville, Indiana. Four grandkids, they're all growing up in other communities. I think that retention thing somehow we need to figure that out as well. How do we But that's not maybe necessarily just a school system thing, but maybe they play a role. I think that's also a community thing. What What do we have to offer for those people to come back? >> Exactly. >> Jeeoff, you talked about you thinking maybe this looks formally like the community engagement program that we did, which you were a part of. Um, how do you see that actually looking like the the nuts and bolts of that? >> That's kind of
065what I was Yeah. >> Like like what do you what's the structure that you want to put together that would get what you want out of that group? Is that a is that >> Well, I'm not necessarily talking about creating um like creating a group that would get together for the five weeks. When I'm referring to the engagement committee, I was referring to at the end of the committee we had a report that, you know, each week we had a stack of papers that we got to put into a binder that was, you know, reflective of this is what we did for this week. At the end there was this giant report of, you know, here's everything that we went through. here are the findings and here's, you know, here was the end the executive
066summary of, you know, here's the end result. That's kind of what I'm I'm looking to put together and be able to present to the board of here's all of the different, you know, conversations that we've had. Here's all the different areas that are needed for um the, you know, engagement and the retention and here are some of the different things from a tech standpoint, from an operations standpoint. be able to now come to you guys and say here is here here's what the role is so that you guys can now take this and use it as a guide to say okay we need to hire a PR person or a PR firm or we need to hire a uh you know we we can get a dozen students to help with all of the the
067you know promotional things online or whatever that looks like because right now there's no point person really that can take that lead and say here's what has to happen because as we know, tried it and it and it didn't work as well as everybody had hoped. So that's kind of what I'm raising my hand and saying I'd love to step in and help and be able to define what that role or roles look like and that way that you guys can make a more informed decision of here's what we need. >> So what are you looking from us? Anything more tonight? What? >> Tonight? No, I don't need anything. No. >> Yeah. in in convers to follow up with your question, Don, in conversations with Jeff, um he wants to put together uh an agreement
068between him and and the board and then obviously that would come to you guys before >> right >> uh before you for consideration and then he can get started. Okay. So >> that's kind of that the last >> that's what I was getting at. Yeah, >> that's kind of last piece >> to move forward. What do we Yeah. What does >> Jeff need from us? I think he wanted to make sure before he put it put that together um to get it to you guys before for you to consider that he had kind of the sense of what you wanted him to do in that respect. Sir, if there'd be anything that you'd like to see come out of that or you'd like to see an area of focus or whatever that is, then now
069would be a great time to >> let him know that so we can put it together and get it to you guys. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Wy Athletics, Alumni Association, Lakeland Youth Center, and the Wise Administration. Who's heading this up? >> All right. Um I will introduce um Dr. Ross Hy. Um he's kind of been the uh heading up person. I don't know who all he has involved in in the presentation of this um but uh Ross put together a uh presentation. He's been working with um a community group um and not only did he put this presentation together, but I think they did that collaboratively. Uh so Brent and I have met with them uh I think at least twice, maybe three times um over the last probably two months,
070two and a half months. Um, and really, uh, I'll let Ross explain it, but but really I think there's a growing, um, a growing desire to start to build some unity within our community, not just within the school or a level of school. Um, that focuses on our athletic program at Wallace. and talking about prek up through graduation and and really how does that how does that look? So, I'll turn it over to to Ross and let him get into it. Um, but really this is a an opportunity for us to have some dialogue and and community conversation. Uh, yes, it's taking place at a board work session, but I think this is the perfect opportunity for uh this conversation to happen, at least to start with. And then we need to figure out, okay,
071what are the next steps and maybe that's continuing at work sessions and maybe it's looking at another um another venue, but uh we figured we'd start here. >> Is this thing working? >> Whoa. Yes. >> Okay. Sorry about that. >> All right. First of all, Kendall, awesome job. I mean it. Your parents have to be proud. You know, leadership starts now and this is going to go into your in your life and you're going to be really successful. So, nice job. Okay. Now, I heard a little story that you were a little nervous before you get up there. And I feel bad for your generation because our generation, we had access to late night TV that really had a big impact in our life and helped us through anxiety when we get up to present.
072Now, I know a lot of you are probably wondering what in the world could have taught us in the 90s late night TV. But I think you all probably remember I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and dog on it, people like me, right? So you need to look up Stuart Smallley and that'll help take away the nerves for the future. Okay. So thank you for the introduction, Dr. Troyer. Thank you all for being here. I think this is a really important topic and at the service it looks just like we're talking about athletics, but this is more than athletics and I hope that we all understand that because what Kendall showed in her video is community. And what's the biggest challenge amongst our kids? Arguably would be mental health issues and the breakdown of relationships,
073right? And when we pull together as a school, as a community, and we form those tight relationships, retention starts to happen, right? People want to come back because they have great memories of mentors that they want to give back to. That's my story. My family's here. I love the lake. But just as important are the mentors that helped raise me through soccer academics. And that's what this discussion is more about is how do we give those kids a childhood that is fun academic and I think athletics builds on relationships arguably more than academics does. So this is this disclaimer slide. I'm not going to read through it. Basically, this slide deck is serve is serving to bring about discussion rather than just throwing us all in here. What do we want to do? What do
074we want to accomplish? I learned a lot by going through this. And I know I blew up a lot of inboxes and voicemails over the last couple weeks. And I'm very grateful for everybody's input because I couldn't have put this together by myself. So, this slide deck isn't approved by any organization, any individual or the school. Again, it's just to serve as a springboard for discussions. The other thing that I think is really helpful as we talk about development of all of us, including our kids, is life is a choice. And this um this proverb is falsely given to the Cherokee Indians. It was really Billy Graham that that started this saying, but I think it's really important for our culture that we have two paths we can go down. And basically this proverb suggests
075that you have a choice on what you're going to do with your life. And so this is a grandson and a grandfather talking. And basically they're talking about two wolves. One wolf represents joy um and all the good things in life. And the other wolf is everything evil. And this the grandson asks the grandfather which one wins. It's the one you feed. So feeding it starts here tonight. And that's why I'm so grateful that you all are here. and Kendall, you started this conversation off really easy. So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So, we'll start off with our current state of the way I guess I understand our athletic department. We'll kind of go into why this matters and then some ideas that I and our conversations made us think about where we could
076go. Again, these aren't all um all the answers by any means. So, I'm not going to read every slide. We all know our interested parties right there. They are right. It's our community basically. Um I would like to think of this as this has been our pattern for a long time. It's not been one person's tenure. It's been a few decades, right? Dec even arguably longer than decades. So we can choose how we go about trying to solve these problems. Whether we're going to point fingers at people or whether we're going to take a look at patterns over decades and try to figure out how to improve our structure. And I would argue structure is important to attract anybody or retain anybody, right? Why why would in the service related professions you make your life
077harder than it already has? Service related professions require a mission and and people need support when they're um when they're serving our community. So right now, our current state kind of feels like a little bit of a free-for-all. We're all disconnected and to some degree some sports do a better job of not being disconnected than others. But how do we get to a state where we are expected to not be a free-for-all? Most of our team records, not our individual sports, are below the 0.5 record over the last 10 years. Now, individual sports seem to be pretty successful at Wise and we'll we'll walk through that slide. um you know our athletic directors are compartmentalized to school. So if we expect our community coaches to be top down, how do we also align our athletic
078directors to be not compartmentalized and to be working through as we expect our coaches to? Um, I wonder that our athletic structure and support in our athletic department is probably not as comparable to other schools our size and how much of an impact does that play a role. Um, you know, I heard Chris did an excellent job interviewing Shauna Zolman, and one of the things I heard consistently from her was not only was her dad her mentor, but she had access. She had access from an early point of open gym because her dad gave her the key. Most of our our community members don't have that kind of access. So, how do we improve time in in in gyms? How do we how do we do that? Is space a concern? And then of course
079there's always the transportation concerns which I think Kaziasco County has some solutions to that. So here's what I could gather from public re publicly reported um records as well as some of the records within the school. I've put them in order um for percentages over the last what 15 years. So, um, some of the seasons or some of the sports have been around shorter than others, but women's wrestling is at 90%. And you can see all the way down to softball is the and flag football are the main classic team sports that make the cut as far as that 0.5 average over the last 10 years. Here's our sports in the last 10 years that I had access to the data that come out, you know, under is the 50%. And it's a lot of
080our team sports. Here's a list of our current feeder programs. The way I've understood it, um, so our youth center, our community, um, middle school, high school, all play different roles at different sports. So, how can we be more consistent in having access to develop these sports? The reason this matters is like I mentioned, you know, the challenges for the students are are listed right in front of you. I don't need to read them off. Challenges for the teachers. I've highlighted three of the areas where sports can have a major impact in improving our relationship or our teachers environments through sports. It also brings about higher GPA, better classroom engagement, stronger self-esteem, emotional well-being, improved attendance, and then um so there's less bullying. So this is all through a strong sports program. So again, this
081is why sports matters outside of just sports is because it has a positive impact to our culture. And this is why we can do a better job for our students. So what what structures do we need? We need alignment, right? We need alignment from all levels. The youth center does an awesome job of an inclusive program at one through K. After we get through that, then it becomes more exclusive and we need to figure out how to keep people involved in athletics even if it's not competitive at the middle school and high school level. But space limits that struct support limits that. We also need to figure out how to be um more competitive at the middle school level. I think I think we need to figure out our structure there. Um but again, it
082comes down to space and it comes down to having an athletic department that has time to be creative to have the conversations. I wonder how much our athletic department is focused and only has time for the day-to-day requirements of the job rather than building long-term strategy. Right? The problem in service related professions, whether it's police department, schools, medicine, is if all you have time for is to get to the next fire, the creativity is gone. And again, I think it's not a time problem. You know, Brent has been with our athletic department since what the 2021. Does that sound about right? So to say that all this has not done well under one person I think would be a the wrong conversation in my opinion. I think this is a decadel long problem. Um and
083again I think it starts with having the right structure in the athletic department and I think it has even um more impact with the space constraints that we have. Um I think a lot of these other things that I have mentioned once those two things fall into place will get hammered out. Um Brent's done a nice job about bringing the students on board creating a a program called the salt program student athletic leadership team. So engaging the kids to be more involved and that's new. So what does that look like for the future? Do we have time to and the create the creativity to be able to figure out how can students give back to the community? Because that's a lot of what I hear from our community is we give to the kids. What
084do they they do for us? And I think that's a short-sighted conversation because I think they do a lot for us. We just don't recognize it as adults. And I think we could use this group of kids to help number one promote what they're already doing and number two figure out how do we get some of those voids filled at the youth center level. Um and then already we're doing 360 evaluations of sports, but I think the board needs on a yearly basis summary of how are records going, how are those evaluations going? Because if we're not giving it time at this level, it's going to be hard to make any headway. And maybe you guys already are. I'm newer to this process, but I think those are the things that I worry about. How
085can we partner with colleges? I think, you know, Jaime's group at the wrestling is is done that with Manchester. How do we do that with other programs that like Grace is strong in volleyball and golf and maybe those are already connected. Manchester does a great job with BA baseball and soccer. How can we use those local colleges to help help develop our programs? Kaziasco area bus service that can help with our transportation challenges maybe. Right. Or we can have activity buses like the other schools have. Utilization of grants I think is another way now that we have the alumni association we can match what the community is doing for for us if we use grants. Um and then again this is a work session. So this is where all of us need to come together
086to try to find a way our a way forward. But I think if we can get the space issue tackled with the UC center and all the other 5031C's and the community's input, I think that would be a a great way forward because it feels like we're limiting programs because of our space constraints. And I don't know about everybody else, but I don't want my kid practicing at 8:30 at night because they better be at home studying for their test or reading a book. Um, so there are some time constraints that access We need to be mindful of any questions, comments, concerns. Did I put you all to sleep? I was trying to get you guys energized, but I failed. We're not doing gymnastics. Um funding, participation, space, um resources, all of the above. There
087it wasn't just one um reason. um and had had conversations over multiple years about that program >> disagreement that wasn't participation. We had a shortfall on space to add Ross's speeches here most and I had several about that reliability. So, it it wasn't a participation problem at all. We had a whole roster. Um, we got booted one season and we had to rebuild and we were on that rebuild process, but had we had the space and we had I think we would have had very strong program. I I fully disagree with you >> and and I think that's where we need to focus on what are the limitations of the programs because if we get into individual programs, we're never going to make any headway, right? We have to figure out where are our big
088areas of need. And I do think space feels like one of those I heard the basketball team had to go practice in a in a you know off-site spot because the the gyms were full. And I know we're doing a lot of work on utilization, which I'm extremely grateful for the the approach that the schools had on this is um trying to find ways to unlock our gyms and figure out are we utilizing our space. But I I think space is an issue and that's why I would challenge the group and and the school. Can we find a way forward for a win for the space and getting our athletic department out of the day-to-day activities? They need to stay in there, but we need some capacity to focus on this top down approach like
089other schools do and engage our community. Because when we talk about a culture problem, it's a community problem. It's all of us in this room. It's the businesses. It's the community. It's not the school's fault. It's how we do things here. And we're at a disadvantage because we probably have a lot more parents working full-time jobs than other communities that have one parent working. And so I think we can rise to the challenge here and do better for our kids. But we got to find some common goals rather than the weeds. So what is it going to take to get space is the question I think on the for all of us, right? Is it possible to get more space? And what are our ideas for space? Is it trying to revive the athletic center?
090Is it some other solution? That's the challenge before us. A lot of sports is something that means access to these students that can move on to the college level but to also bring up above that 0.5 aspect to what Ross is saying if we can open this up cost and I think it's not just about creating space it's identifying what does each program space need to be so we can figure that out plus the youth center you know we're just talking about high school middle school space but to keep these kids developing and engaged it starts with finding out the youth center's input and then all the 503C1 whatever the alphabet soup is all their needs right and that's where these work sessions are going to be so important >> yeah I'd like to ask
091Brent to comment a little bit about space um because it's an issue that we've been working on for a couple months um with a group um coming out of these conversations um and we're working on a program to um basically identify where we have gym space that is free and when people could um take advantage of that gym space. But I do think that we're first off, one of the things that's going to come out of this work that we're doing right now is we're going to have some actual data to show in raw numbers um what's our usage. And you know, we can tell you anecdotally that the high school facilities are used all the time. the middle school facilities are used all the time and Syracuse Elementary is used a lot and North
092Webster is used a lot and Milford's not used very much. Um, again, that's anecdotally for us to say that. And so we want to be able to through this process that we've been working on and and I'll let Brent talk about that, but we want to be able to show the numbers for example at our three elementary schools, what's the usage in those gyms and and maybe even more broadly speaking in the facilities in general. Um, so Brent, you want to talk about the the work that we're doing there and what that looks like and and maybe what you see um as as AD from a facilities and access point of view. >> Yeah. So Dr. Troyer and myself and Ross have talked a couple times about a platform that would allow um essentially anybody
093that's provided access to that. Our conversation has been like giving key figures in the community, whether it's a leader of a youth program or our high school coaches or our admin at schools access to be able to see what space is available at any given time rather than trying to play tag with calling Syracuse elementary or calling high school to see what is available and then going back and forth. So the platform should hopefully um give people access to see what is available to utilize our facilities, our gyms specifically and it can expand from that obviously too but we started focusing on um from a facilities use standpoint. Um the biggest difficulty is in the winter teams that participate in the fall and the spring are wanting to come inside to the gyms to utilize
094it in the offse. You're talking baseball, softball, track, golf, soccer. All of those teams also are trying to come inside to get ready for their season in the spring or have to prepare for the following year. You know, the fall and the spring and the summer, the facilities issue is not a huge issue because those teams can go outside. Um the winter becomes the issue because all those teams want to come inside. So, as Dr. Troyer alluded to, all of our facilities for the most part are being utilized to their maximum capacity. Um and it's not only the high school, it's middle school teams that are utilizing it, too. It's youth programs. it's community programs, it's travel programs um that are utilizing our facilities. So, they really get bogged down essentially from late October through
095the end of February. So, if we had the ability to use other facilities in the community or had other facilities available to us, then those community groups could utilize those facilities more easily. Our high school teams could utilize them, our middle school teams. So, to Ros's point, it will provide an opportunity for those kids to develop and grow athletically so they can reach those goals that they want to have, whether it's at high school level, at the college level. So, just having the opportunity to give to those community groups or our high school and middle school kids would be a great >> So, you're saying that we're maximizing the use of all of our gyms? >> Are you for the high school? >> Definitely the high school. >> I I agree. high school. >> I
096I think for the middle school probably we're maximizing. Again, I we don't have the full data on that. Um but like I could look right now and I know that Syracuse Elementary is used pretty consistently northwester just the other day. We were looking for space for our club one youth basketball teams. They're going to be going to Milford a couple times a week. There's always people that are looking for that space. So it's hard for me without having the data. It's hard for me to believe that there's just space readily available. I was just I mean I know when I was coaching I would so you guys eventually I would just find a gym somewhere go and uh is the issue that we're not knowing about the space or the space is there and it's
097full and say hey is this open not open so I think the streamline that >> well I think a little bit I think the schedule is great so everybody can see was available without having to call 15 people to find out that everything's full. >> But is that still the problem that we're having everything still full? >> I don't think I think the process needs to be refined. I think we've done we've worked on refining it and this new platform will allow that to be refined even more. >> But the fact still remains that once it gets filled up like for example the high school has 20 plus teams. If we can't get all 20 plus teams if they're wanting to have offseason workouts and inseason stuff just at the high school. So they're having
098to use the the for the middle school. Plus, you have middle school teams, plus you have elementary basketball teams coming in. Plus, if you want to grow it, you have elementary soccer or elementary golf. Like, that's only going to create more. So I think it's a little bit of both process but we also >> I mean this is a long long time ago we are today we practice especially we were offse we were practicing here I know some teams do that but I don't care if we had a pass if we want to fill we I I think we are we have more gym space than we could use our gym space probably a bit better. I'm talking global gym space. Anywhere there's big enough space to do something in, we could probably use it
099better. We also I agree. I don't want to practice at 8 at night, but get up and practice in the morning too. I mean, that's an option, too. There are options that we can better use the space that we do have. But your challenge your challenge then Andy is that you know the two working parents that have to get into work by six how do their kids get in there that the transportation problem is even I think in my opinion from a parent standpoint is even harder in the morning. It's not to say that's not a way forward but again with as many people as I've talked with the perception is that there is a space capacity. Yes, we can try to use everything at 100% before, but I don't think we'll be moving our
100record if we don't do something different. And if so, if we're going to say that we need to, I don't think utilizing our space is the only answer. >> It's not. But to say that if we have field house tomorrow, we have to put in the records is also a big >> completely agreed. But but when I talk with these coaches, they're they're struggling with trying to find space for their programs to develop year round. >> I get it. >> I know you. >> So I got a question on school. Like in business, Andy, if you and I were trying to figure out this problem and you had a desire to do something and mine overlap with that, we'd be talking joint venture. So in the public private arena, what is the possibility for the
101community to participate in a fieldhouse type thing? Therefore, you're using the capacity just like you're talking about with ticket sales. You got this thing sitting there all day long. There's a lot of retired people in this community that could benefit from some of those same things, which is the reason why a lot of people Why Warsaw? Is there a possibility to >> do a joint venture between community entity, towns, um, schools, whatever to fund some of that that therefore maybe parents can go and work out while their kids over here working with their team. You're basically doubling down on the time. You're also doubling down on the resources for the facility and you're getting maximum benefit. >> Yeah, that's how they I to have a bunch of us community members get together. We build something
102because we can build for a lot less just build then give back to the school. I think there's something there. But yeah, I mean that's I I think that that's the because the push back we're going to get to build which I really want to build is going to be I was terrified of winning that work. However, if we do some joint venture, that's the answer that that gets us a it'll be much more it'll be used because I think our community would use it. I really think that's I think that's the way I think that's the way to attack it and we probably can do it faster. And I think Nate, um, David and I have had some conversations about potentially looking at that with a joint, uh, like a cooperatively funded facility because
103I know they were talking, the town was talking about, hey, we need a fieldhouse type thing. And I said, yeah, that this was at the same time that we were having our conversation about, yeah, we need a student activity center. And so I think there that it's definitely a possibility for sure. Um, It would just take some collaboration to get it done. >> Even though even with Okay, us having a really really efficient way of using the space we have would be even more paramount if you had the fieldhouse, right? Especially for I mean so we got to get better at that. Even that doesn't mean I I'm saying we have enough space. No, >> but we got to remember how we >> before we came to you, we, you know, I was really grateful
104for the school's engagement with with the alumni association and the youth center because that's where that solution came out of was a community engagement piece, right? We figured out that we needed an O grid system to figure out how are our gyms being utilized and and then the school ran with it, bought it. The challenge is is collecting data when the data from talking to people supports the space is an issue. So now the the question with this is who owns that piece of keeping that conversation alive because we all leave here. Where does it go from here, right? How do we keep this conversation for our kids going? Because it is tied greatly to the school and the school does have one of the bigger pieces of buyin if we're trying to increase enrollment
105and improving our team athletics. So does a school work session utilize to bring everybody together? I think you got to have a better understanding of how much capacity utilization you really have at each gym. I would really really like to know that. I mean, I'm talking Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. What gyms are being used? I think it's a fair question because we said yes to a house now. It's right still it's going to take some time to get done. So I would love to know I I' I'd really really like to know how you know if we take all the square footage of gyms what percentage of that is being >> because you find out that on some three days a week it's 50%. There's something that's a problem. >> So the system that we have
106in place is that it's designed to collect that data. >> Okay. That's why >> we'll be a We don't have it right now because we're just like we're just launching it here post Christmas break, but we met with the elementary principles the week before break or two weeks before break. I'm I'm looking at Karen back there. Um and walked them through kind of what we're looking at and Brent's got them set up on this platform um to essentially track what you're asking for. We just we need some time to collect that data. So, I would think in the next couple of months, like probably March, you know, by the time we get to spring break, we'll have a decent idea of what the gym uh usage was over the second half of the winter high
107school season. >> Are you are you saying that you don't have any records of who is in what gym right now? >> Yeah, we do. It's all individualized. >> So, every principal >> together. So the challenge with that too is Brent Brent's ding down operations, right? How do we support that data? Do we need to support? Yes. But as a group, >> I guess we I don't know how to tell him what's agenda right now. I'm not I'm putting guys on the spot. We don't know. We have to be able to look historically look back and see >> we we have that for the people that communicated through the proper channels unlike you saying you have a key and letting yourself in. >> I think we locked down on that though. >> No, but I'm
108I'm being serious about that like I'm and I'm looking at Karen because Karen's back there. Karen half the time doesn't know who's using her gym and who's not because people just come in and let themselves in. But and that's not like that happens. >> There's so many people that have master keys in this district that just let themselves in all over the place. It's crazy. >> Somebody come in today. She goes, "Hey, you know, we got we got we just have people coming to this building and using it. They're not on the calendar." I said, "Just tell me specifically what are you talking?" Well, right now we have kids in the gym. That's not on the calendar. It wasn't on the calendar. There's kids there. So, like Brent couldn't tell you. Well, I don't know
109because it was a late by the I walked in at night and Chris says to me, "Hey, thanks for letting us see your gym today." So, I discovered >> I had permission. >> No, I know. But that's going to give that permission because we want our kids in the gyms. So, I looked at her and said, "Well, who that's a good problem, but it's not." So, if you were to pull the calendar and look at the data, the calendar would not show that they were in there today because it was a just kind of a last, hey, there's no school, you got some kids, can we come in? And so there's an element of >> You're right. >> That's right. >> I was saying like I would much prefer to have my middle school basketball
110team practice at our middle school that has not been available to us. There are three grade levels entering basketball season. There are three grade levels of boys basketball that would like to practice. Their season's been extended. We have a wrestling program. I guess they're just wrestling in the hallways. So we haven't really solved that. So trust me, I don't want to take my kids to Milford to high school. >> It's not ideal. >> Not only that, we got to do what we got to do, right? Not only that, but how do you grow when you're already talking about our team sports? I think we're missing the bigger picture and space is an issue. Whether we want to recognize it or not, we can't do what these kids need from us. >> Dr. I'm not saying
111space isn't an issue, but right now today, we can't we can't to not f I'm playing both with the hand I got right now. The hand you got is >> So what I was going to suggest is space feels like a real problem for where we need to be. Why don't we as we collect this data get something while we're waiting for this data comes we have something ready to go rather than waiting for the data and then having >> am I designing something that I'm partnering with the town? Well, that's what I think we need to figure out before we get the data, right? In my opinion, it is a space issue and I think most of the community members that I've talked with also feel space. So, we need to have those conversations
112now. >> I'm not I don't know why one has to wait for the other. >> Right. That's what I'm saying is let's let's commit to if we need time for the data, let's commit to >> I mean the designing of the fieldhouse I think is the challenge is the how it gets funded, how the vote happens, how the referendum is marketed. I There's a whole bunch of things that are about to me living through the last few four or five months here that a spend like that is going to be wildly difficult without some collaborative partnership. >> Let's start that's what I'm asking is let's start working through those challenges now when we get the data in six months or a year because I think >> quick question just because I'm curious because I'm really
113involved in also are we utilizing checking on spaces there as well because I think we have space and I think they block out times if there were people coming to use that space but are we utilizing that as well because it's there I mean this Syracuse I know their space isn't as big either but should we look at all of that too to make sure we're utilizing everything before we >> That's right absolutely but when I've asked that question to our department they seems like hard off for certain programs, but it also seems like the answer is no. >> Is that just in Syracuse? >> That is just >> because Webster is huge and it's there and they are very open to working with people. So, I'm just wondering if we've tapped into everything. >>
114Absolutely. >> I just thought I was having and the other the other problem I have with opening a calendar like you're talking about, I think it's a great idea. need to know who's where, but people can't like put their activities in for a whole year because things come up all the time that we have to use that space for or the the elementary gets first choice because it's there for the elementary first. So there's after school things for those kids. So I think it would have to be like a month by month. It can't be like a freeall. >> Yeah, we shared that concern. But again, then we're back to >> exactly the real issue. So, we're in the not we are >> we are but one doesn't include the other. >> I mean, we
115we tried to get we were going to put the fieldhouse on the You guys don't know. We would have got crushed on the way it was coming right after the guys are leveraging governors and stuff is insane. So I'm not I'm not say we're not waiting for the data to see the story about the space. I'm simply saying the space we have are we maximizing it use. That's all I'm saying. >> The space is an issue. We we need the fieldhouse. There's no doubt about it. Nobody's saying I'm just saying we got to make sure we're using all of the gym spaces. And if it's it's a it's not a great answer, but if there's an empty gym right now, we got to try to drive get get to it and use it. That's all
116I'm saying in the in the inter. That's all I mean and we I mean I coach with this guy forever. We would find places. I mean I was going to community center my little secret. I didn't have practices but there's there and the kids got there, man. They got there. So there is spots to do some stuff that we're probably not thinking of. There probably is a bit of underutiliz >> and I I I think that's what we're we're ultimately we're trying to be intentional about gathering because we all think but we don't know and we're trying to gather the data to support Here's what is actually happening. What I I would have suspected that our gym space at our elementarymentaries was more underutilized than what it actually is. When we brought our principles together,
117especially Syracuse because that's centralized, but even to some extent North Webster, I mean, like Lee was saying, you guys are in North Webster on the weekend doing different things. So, um, he said he's got people in his gyms all the time. Like I I do think that there is to some extent more utilization than what we think but we don't know that. We can't it's hard to say that for sure in firm numbers and that's why we put together this system to try and collect that data. The next thing we would have to find out when we get serious everybody's in this room is how big every court is an additional shouldn't be flip out when I say number but the number they told us it's a big jump every court's a big increase right
118in dollars so we need to I think we really got to dig big enough for almost 200 tracks and I mean what what do we want it to look like? What does it be? I think if you have the community part of it bigger this is a second story. I mean there's a lot of questions on what that thing looks like and and do we drive at it from a dollar point and say this is what we have to spend what can we build for that or do we go the other way build see what the number is at the end so I guess I'm just not clear on the way forward I mean we've already got the process of the program in place well before we came here what is groups way forward outside
119which we already have >> I don't think you're going to give a We want to build a field house. I think we got to start to I want to kind of explore with me. I think Kazias County I think would offer some support. I think we also got to see if there's some frankly big money stakeholders that would participate. >> Well, and just to be clear, I'm not representing anyone or anything like that comments. But I think you're right. I think that there's enough there's enough resources in this community for us to think about things a little bit differently providing there isn't any statutes or anything that clude us from doing that. That's really what my question is. But I do think that there's there's some levers that we can pull that we haven't. We
120got to be a lot more clear like Ross is saying and others are saying about what we intend to do >> and what do we want as the outcome. What is our true north? You talked about it earlier. The school is part of the pro part of it. The towns are part of it. The community at large and the county is a part of it. The region's a part of it. There's a lot of strategic advantage to this part of the Midwest and we've got to look at it. How can we all work together to make it better so that we are something that we can attract and retain as a really big buzzword when you start talking about economic development. Attraction and retention. It's a big deal. So schools play a huge part of
121it, but quality of place is a really big thing as well. And that's where the towns and the communities and the county and even the region can get involved and help support these things. So it does take a lot of people working together to make it happen, but it also takes people looking outside and beyond their own biases and saying, "How can this be a benefit to all of us long term?" >> Well, the other question concern I have is facility maintenance because if we build a new fieldhouse, we don't take care of the fields we have today. Our football field is falling apart. Our track and field school is gone. Our soccer field is unplayable. Our field coaches are mowing it. Like we hosted a holiday tournament and the parking lot wasn't like we
122have facilities issues so we can add a fieldhouse. How are we taking care of it? We don't have the people to take care of what we have today. So I'd like to see us fix the stuff that we have today. Fix the soccer field so we're not battling girls soccer, boys soccer, band, and football trying to use the same during the week or a baseball team that was a head coach. He's bringing his mower from home because he's got a game at 4:00 and the grass is to his knee. So, if we're going to do a field bounce, I think space is an issue. You know that. But if I'm a big money donor and I see the way we take care of our other facilities, that's been an issue. And you're right. We we've
123been talking about about having somebody focus on facilities. Um it's a problem there. >> Can I add something too just about I mean gym time um how we take care of our facilities all important. Um, you know, I'm deeply involved with the our baseball program and have been and um and and I I grew up in a community where our school helped to kind of um organize youth sports called community schools and the baseball programs, the soccer programs all had some sort of touch with the school system and it brought a connectivity to what these kids want to be in 10 years or eight years or nine years. And it brought consistency and expectations to all the coaches. Andy talks about I, you know, I didn't tell anybody about that gym space. I was new
124to the town at the time, Andy. I didn't know about that gym space and I lost 15 to1 to Andy on the baseball field. Why? Because he he knew where to go and he knew knew what to do and he had the space and he worked his team out. Congratulations. You know, so I just think that as a new person coming in or a coach, a volunteer, somebody like that should have the playbook for how to do that and make it easier to be able to get into those gyms and those spaces. So, you know, facilities I think is a is a thing that we are focused on. I I think how we maintain those things. But I'd also bring up and I think there's a bigger part of this program is like the structure
125of our youth sports in our town and how do we partner better with the schools. I just think there's a huge opportunity there that we can bridge a lot of those individual groups and and bring best practices together, but also utilize the school to be that umbrella. >> That comes back to the structure. We have enough staff to make those connections. >> You Yeah, you beat me right to it. I was going to say um right before you started to speak, I I think to pivot away from space that it undeniably it's an issue, but I also think that participation and I hate to use the word club sports, but I think we have a lack of participation in our students from elementary on up participating in club sports. um cross country. I'm just see
126Doug as an example. He's here right in the front row. I don't think you'd probably have a very successful cross country season if the kids showed up at cross country season and that was the first time they started running in that season. Um we have communities that are surrounding us um that have uh club soccer, basketball club I'm sure and they have students actively participating in those things from early elementary on and I don't know how we get students whether it's through because you talk about um parent parents how I I taught school in goan at a poverty school and I was a basketball coach for fifth and sixth grade. I never had a student play at Goan High School because as soon as they got to the middle school, they couldn't get transportation to
127get to practices. They didn't have access to go to uh AAU things because they didn't have parent participation. So, I I'm not saying I have the answers, but I think that's also a missing piece is students who are um participating in their sports of choice outside of their own season. And how do we accomplish that as well? And maybe that's got to be creative a little bit with, as Brent said, gyms not being as busy during certain times of the year. Maybe looking at restructuring when some of those um like basketball, maybe there maybe there's going to be a basketball thing during the fall when those gyms aren't as busy or during the spring instead of during basketball season. uh other creative ways, but I think we've got to get kids practicing their sport or
128multiple sports outside of just the school program because they're not I I don't see them excelling just practicing during their season. I don't know if that's maybe I'm maybe I'm talking out of school here. I don't know. But I think that's a missing component that we have here. >> They actually have really good I'm going to call Jessica out for that. Well, I'm not saying I'm not saying it's up toth brought up, right? >> That is where it's at. I mean, our youth sports I mean I have 350 kids rolling through the center, >> right? And I'm not I'm not saying I I did not intend >> I'm just saying I don't know I don't think it's the elementary that middle school >> and I know middle reference as a black hole kind of >>
129right >> is that the bridge that's not between the school a bunch of kids in there >> with the youth center so is it need to team more with the school to build that bridge for the middle school >> that's been a huge part of this conversation >> yeah I hope you didn't I hope I did not offend you because that was not my intent because my son went through Lakeland, that's how he got a start in soccer was through Lakeland Youth Center and then but I know he also excelled because he went over to go Stars and played that club sport spring and um sum spring and then >> growing up spring and fall and um >> we do that, Don. We do lack that. And those kids build relationships with kids out of
130town and that's what brings them to other schools. And so if we can have more club activities, which we need the facilities and we need the leaders, we need, you know, all those things. I think that's part of the end game here is that we would develop those strong programs. >> Right. It was Yeah. For my son, it was a great thing that he was participating with kids from Napony and Mbury and and Warsaw and all over the place. And then when they would get back together again, it was like a reunion those first couple practices. And Yeah. Go ahead. I'm sorry. >> No, I'm sorry. Um I think wrestling program is a unique situation to where I've been coaching at the high school off and on for over 19 years. I've had coaches that
131are here with me that have coached 15 to 17 years alongside with me and we've coached kids all the way from age four when they first step on the mat all the way through the college career. Um so our retention in our our youth programs through our middle school I have probably four kids coming up next year that are going to be big time impact wrestlers in our our program. Um we encourage them to go to club sports. I know when we had our wiper club, there was some conflict with um the high school at that time due to the fact that it was just a somebody that didn't understand the process and the history and the development for development. We broke off and we were the program my brother and I program that was
132a club program um that ended up being the theater program for numerous state places uh for the high school program. Uh but one thing that we have established is that you know even though we encourage them to go on to other clubs to participate on national teams or things of that nature, they have their home camp. One of the things that we do at our school that um it's great to have support us in these adventures and these endeavors is that we used to host RTC which is a regional training center at um our youth programs were averaging between 70 to 100 uh during our actual season we're in season right now we're running into space problems as well um it's hard when our team at our high school we have 20 we started the
133team with 26 girls and roughly about 25 guys plus you have I have a coaching about just the high school, additional eight staff uh members at the middle school and then our youth program we have an additional eight coaches there. So I have a staff of close to 30 and the reason that we have that everybody has been either coaching at the high school or involved in our youth program for numerous years that it's a continual face recognition that is never somebody you knew. It's the same program. It's the same way that you're taught from the moment they're once they get up to the high school at my level. The terminology is the same. The coaching uh expectations are the same. Um you know, we make them sign contracts like, hey, this is your expectation.
134You know, Mr. I mean, there's a set of guidelines that they have to follow and that starts at the program. Parents have to be held accountable like, hey, you want your kids to do better in this sport and excel. levels of expectations that we um try to to continually provide good representation at the state competitions not just as an individual because we are an indiv individual sport but we are a team sport as well and that's what people make that misconception I mean our girls program just won NLC conference in our first year ever and we just won conference this last week um so or two weeks ago right two weeks ago and we're advancing to our regional program. So, um there is a system in place for our wrestling program. I mean, we're a
135little bit different from everybody else. I know swimming is very similar to us and there are some unfortunate gymnastics there. They're very similar with Micah and how they have youth program because we've always been a supporter of the gymnastics team and vice versa. I think there were some some situations where unfortunately the public kind of pit us against each other with the girls wrestling program and the girls gymnastics program. We're not utilizing their space. We never were. We we coach the girls the same way as the guys. Uh and you know that's the big issue for us. The space is just it's a liability for us as in our high school teams but also with our youth programs. I know, you know, Sean has mentioned this mentioned this numerous times and I know coach Do
136has been working alongside us and I know things are implemented but I think that where you're coming from the importance of the club sports and then bringing that skill set or the knowledge that they've done or gained from those other coaches to come back and to utilize in like a regional training center. I mean with the fieldhouse that's a great opportunity for us to host a girls national tournament. I mean, we could make a lot of money doing that. U you know, where if we have big enough space, I mean, there's a there's a me there's the Michigan Entertainer Event Center in Chipsana that we're talking about hosting a national tournament. That's 14 ms that can generate like 20,000 just for a summer event. If we did like two or three events, hosting a section,
137hosting a region, hosting a girl state, that's something that we can definitely create a interest in this area because we haven't established represent for wrestling. People know, you know, when it comes to nationally and in the state of Indiana. So, I think that the benefit of the fieldhouse, we can work with other teams, you know, we can host, you know, even if gymnastics isn't here, we still host a big gymnastics tournament or we can host a a basketball tournament like the dust smacker, whatever it was. We could do something like that. There's there's a lot of different things that we can do. Um, and I know a lot of the coaching staff would be willing to, you know, collaborate with us on that as well. But, um, as far as youth programs and, you know,
138the clubs, we're we're a proven example that that stuff works. And, uh, you know, we just have with everybody else in these spaces is an issue and we're hoping to work. >> So, maybe what we need to look at is I I was trying to say how do we move forward like maybe a board member and you and Dr. Hile and hash it out as not as the only committee. Yeah. >> But as where we go from how do we become more inclusive or >> Yeah. And I think we the last time we talked, I think that was part of it is like I don't think we can devote every one of our board work sessions to this particular issue, but I think we can have an offshoot group that's going to get together and
139continue talking about it. The the one thing I would say um you know that this group has been which has been nice and I think Brent and I have both appreciated is that they want to keep moving. And so what they don't want to, at least the impression that I got is like, let's not just have another meeting to have another meeting and rehash all this same stuff and then have another meeting after that. Like let's keep that there. This group is interested in moving the needle. And so what does that look like? I think sometimes we in school especially uh especially in leadership get like it's just on to the next thing. And so um you know I've appreciated their willingness to kind of drive forward on this but um it it is going
140to be a really collaborative conversation that has to continue. So that would be my recommendation is to put together a group um with some school people uh as well as your community people and let's continue moving. >> Okay. Most of us can find that acceptable as long as the conversation keeps moving. And I think we can get a commitment from the people that are here like the town, the school, the alumni association, how to engage the parks department. I think that's the group that will convers Andy, you kind of made the comment sense to me, but you're wondering what we have. So, we don't have we're taking care of the resources that we have, but I think part of it is going to be plan for growth. I mean, you guys know S1 is really
141hard and without grow. So I guess if you want to design something in the meantime like what does that look like and how does align with the school strategy all the buildings and everything else that you're building what does the appropriate size look like for these needs. So I think that maybe potentially I don't know how much design work was done before when you guys were suggesting it but furthest we got was to tell you guys I whichever gar >> you know I said I asked for a five Five. Five courts on one side and the space for some special cages on each side. I'm sorry. Wrestling. We weren't going to put in there current and I just gave some real broad and they backed into a square footage and then they gave us so
142that's as far as right just this is what now it didn't start pulling strings a little more vertical and some other stuff so it didn't go real far just to get a sense of numbers you know what I mean back we were doing all three projects right and just understand that point being we haven't really design it's been years but look at theirs I'd like to look at more detail some schools I think we should there's no reason not to look at what other schools have done wrong or right I don't think that needs to take long but I I think that we probably learn from some neighbors and get some ideas of what it look like and really see what five gyms look like that's retention talking about recruiting and retention for our community
143growing that we compete with whe our community growing We're already disadvantage if we don't at least get there or try to succeed. I don't school. I don't see that even in the picture until we start. And it's not just the facility. I think it's our department too. I mean part of our conversation with this kids think it is It is somewhat of a black hole and there's really no capacity within the department to put resources there and then the high school there's a gap there's no solve that problem another decade to help further Ross's question. What's the next step? What's it hurt to have that conversation just to get the feedback? wondering. >> So maybe we circle back and small group we meet once a month maybe and circle back two months. I think I
144think this week I mean I don't think it's too It's never too early to have a conversation with somebody. >> You can swap somebody's nice. They give us enough >> money as long as wisely support investment. I mean I honestly think the slow part and I don't like the word slow but if the town has some real interest in some other stakeholders they should have some input on what the space looks like as well. So there's some there is a coal group that if you're asking I think people are confused on what direction we need to go in this town. >> What would the if we're building a fieldhouse for the fieldhouse? What is the unified vision for? We were talking about the school, the town, the parks, we all come together and define what
145that space looks like. >> Yeah. That's what I'm saying is the community gives wants to make sure that's wellized and not wasted. >> Yeah. I mean, >> we haven't tried this approach. >> No, we haven't. But I mean, to me, it's the only given know exactly where it's going because you can see it's not >> Everybody's had their many times. >> Well, I mean, they're having their input because they're having fun. You know what I mean? Like, I mean, if it was strictly the school, then I care what the town thinks, but I'm doing what's best for the kids playing. But if the town is going to have fun and have access to it, then there may be some things that we wouldn't have norally done in the fieldhouse that also, you know, Does that
146make sense what I'm saying? >> ADA compliance and stuff like that. >> Yeah. I mean, I don't not just that. I mean, okay, they may say, "Hey, you know what? We want a place for silver sneakers or something like that." Well, that wouldn't be a thing we would do if it wasn't a that's all. I mean, I'm just because I think that would it would be much bigger buy more utilized. It be frankly a better building. We can have more players committing money. But it probably means the building was a little bit just but I don't think that needs to go slow. I don't think getting a serious idea of what the space looks like has to go slow. We have enough guys in this room that can help us get to a pretty good
147estimate probably there's some things I think you're right back How would that work? I mean, it just seems like we would need to probably get a smaller group together to hammer out some of the details and then maybe present back at a work session, right? >> Yeah. I don't want 21 coaches. We more space. >> We need to I mean there's a number that's too high. They want 15 g. Not going to do it. I mean certain bottoms are going to be this is what we're doing, >> right? >> Wasn't that what you're trying to get from Jeff? Can't that be part of what his package he's put together? >> You're already engaging him to put package together on commitment. Why can't that all be as he's interviewing these people? >> Who? >> Yeah. >>
148Who's he interviewing? He's talking about the talking to people inside this. We know we need a fieldhouse. I feel like we're making this actually harder than it really needs to be. We We know we need more space. This this came out of the community engagement months ago. We We know we need to feel. The question is is do we go alone as a school, which is very possible. It just means that's where Jeff gets engaged, help us pass the referendum because that's going to be a big big big lift. A big lift. referendum probably happens either way, but is is it we're carrying the entire load financially or do we have some partnerships, some community partnerships, some county partnerships, some town partnerships, some local people, right? So, I think the long part of this is
149finding out what level of participation these other stakeholders may want to have. Does some Joe Glow guy get all excited and want to pop in $5 million? Well, that's nothing, right? when you go out to the private sector, is it only 500 grand? It's a different one. I think some of those conversations, but we have to define what the space looks like for them to get excited. I agree with that. Um, but you keep one of an action item. I don't think we wait a month for this. I think we should start it really soon so we can see what the building. This is the building we're dreaming of. What do you guys think? Yeah, cool. Great. We go out with that. He said, "You want to participate, Tom? You want to participate?" I don't
150know how it's going to begin besides having picture of the building in our minds. I don't know if we can get a rendering done in a month. >> I can probably >> could you do like call out to the to the could you offer an email address to the all the all the sports the the coaches? What do you need >> and then put that together and and then advite. I mean, that just gives you an idea of what they Okay, this gives you a plan. Okay, so that's part of the thing you present to to whoever. And then you put a call out to the community. Who would like to be involved in this? Boom. There's another there's another resource. Instead of keep talking about it, let's let's get it going by putting call
151out to, you know, you've got all you've got all these coaches in here. Hey guys, what do you need? Email me. Done. >> And that's why we we knew we were going to need objective data before we came here. We knew that's what everybody would be asking for. That's why we put the program. I think yeah, email is a quick way to get answers from coaches on what does this need to be. We sit down the parties. The one place I missed was the town. So that needs to be >> I guess my only question is the fieldhouse and the need for it is not an epiphany from this meeting and and our records are. I mean, none of this is I'm not being the only thing that's new to me is how passionately you
152guys we have however many people in this room now advocating. When we first were doing it, I felt like a we felt like five dudes going into war with nobody backing us on the spend for it. I feel entirely different right now. >> That's why we're trying to So, so that's great, but there's no I mean this this isn't there's tons and tons and tons of examples within an hour drive any direction around us of what the fieldhouse need to look like. I guarantee if you drive to a few places we go, I like that. I want that. I want that. I like that. I want should be this big. And he's this and get somebody to draw it. The biggest epiphany, the only epiphany for me today is that I got five times I
153got 50 advocates that will help us to get it done. >> That's a big difference for me. This has given me hope that there's interest. >> My mission was part of this group. >> So that's never changed. Has it been scared to death? How the hell? Yeah. But this adds a bit of a different energy level to my confidence. Me personally got scared to death. I'll be honest. But this is Let's Let's Let's go pick the fight. I mean, let's go because this is nice. I think mentally we're a lot further down the path than you think. We just didn't know how to perceive the hard push back we got from frankly some pretty powerful and too many people stop. Was it people or was it the bill? >> Well, referencing the funding bill, but
154it was people using that as the but so yeah, I think the other thing Brandon alluded to earlier, but I think really important this conversation is we need to figure out exactly what that hit is going to be on SEA1. >> That's true, too. >> Like, and we're we're going to do that. We talked we talked today about it getting getting in line with policy analytics and having them come and do a a full analysis of it. And he had mentioned them unit by unit like actually looking at each individual taxing unit inside of the the district and seeing how their situation is impacted by SEA1. How does that impact the school? How does you know like they're not necessarily doing that for the town unless the town engages them in that way. But >>
155so they can act they can tell us what lost >> exactly what's going to be lost >> and and that that impact is on operations and on debt service. So both of those >> that gets to question >> how we're handling facilities >> for sure. But part part of that part of that problem is that we don't have the funding support on the operations side to support the staff and the people necessary to take care of our facilities. We have the the tax capacity to pay for facilities, but we don't have the operations support to support those facilities. So again, that's part of the conversation that I think is important. And if we're going to have a 600 and whatever thousand dollar loss that the state board of accounts is predicting that we're going to
156have on the operations side that puts operations that much further behind. So >> the cost of the maintenance >> I think I I think the hard part is that it's just such a recurring thing it becomes I'm not saying it's a bad idea. It's just maintenance is we've lived we've lived we tried we've tried to be economical and we probably hurt ourselves a bit. Okay. Wasn't I Wellented improves out but um man maintenance is maintenance is recurring whatever your maintenance budget last year is going to be higher than it was last year because it just cost money. So, it's it'd be really cool if we could confidently know that we could we had the budget to properly maintain the current facilities any new stuff. That's that's I think also the we've got a new legislative
157session happening and from what I've heard directly from lawmakers there's going to be wraparound bills that come along to address problems that that that have come up with sea one >> should help us >> we would hope but we don't know what those are going to look like. So yeah, there's just a lot there's a lot involved in this convers conversation as it relates to facilities of course, but also maintenance of those facilities also the things outside of facilities and maintenance that involve the structure of the athletic department and and >> some of the stuff that you guys talked about with sponsorships. I talked to somebody at Northridge and they >> I'm making this up how it works. I can't remember which company of their fields, soccer league or something. It doesn't matter. But the
158um they named it and what they didn't help build the facility, but their contribution each year is for the mains. It's like 50 grand a year for these three soccer fields or something. I can't remember what it was for, but that they got a they did a fiveyear naming deal and the commitment was a pretty big number per year um that goes to the maintenance of that that space. So that'd be huge to be able to anyway that that's worth a lot to to have somebody >> because I I I think that's an interesting point. I think something we need to consider. But to be just really blunt about it, a $200,000 or a $250,000 contribution on a $20 million building, like yeah, 250,000 is a lot for somebody to give to put their name
159up on a building, but that doesn't barely make it in the cost of the building. >> I like the way that they they didn't apply to that. They did it. >> No, I think that's interesting. >> They did it to offset the operations hit because a new facility is going to be an operations Number one, we're probably short a little bit on the facility side. Anyway, you had a big facility like that, that's going to be a operations burden. And if it could fund itself anyway, it was there's some interesting things. >> On the other side of that, is it legal? Are there any legal implications to say the baseball team finds dynamic landscaping? dynamic landscape is going to approp field a sign on the field and they're responsible for mowing, weeding, fertilizing that field
160for the entire spring never touching it. >> Can we That's allowed. >> That's allowed. We could Yes, >> that's allowed. >> I've heard companies that have been interested in I've heard a guy that fertilized the baseball field and got yelled at and kicked off the field by the Vegas. So, like these are things that we I have we have people in the alumni association have talked to people community that we can get people to sponsor the baseball field for a season or for whatever because they can do it with their people and it doesn't cost them 50 grand. It maybe cost them seven. >> Sure. Well, you A, it's legal and we can do it. B, somebody said the word alignment. Elon Musk's favorite word. That's bad alignment that we have somebody that we aren't
161aligned enough to know that that is something we want to support, not fight. So, I think we all say that that's disappointing to hear, >> but yeah, that would be huge, right? >> Within the guard rails of what's allowed, >> okay, ask forgiveness. >> You know, chemicals and kids, >> I know. All right. I think Ross, we'll we'll um get together here maybe later this week and see if we can hammer out a plan to meet over the next couple of months and um address some to-dos and some so we can keep the thing moving forward. >> You know what I would think be good to know is if you guys have seen some facilities that are in the memory bank that were, hey, we should look at that. That would be valuable. >> So
162we can go on a little road trip and see those. So that that I would love that. None of the ones I've seen. That'd be good to know, too. >> One thing to add, like I mean, what sports do we want to target that would go in there? Like I mean, or or or are you saying like go to a school and see what they do at a school? >> Yeah. >> Like I just feel like we're jumping way ahead a little bit. Like there seems like there's a little gap of like what what all >> Yeah. What all would go in like Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. I mean there's a lot of activities that we could potentially put into a building I think keep thinking about like a whether I don't know how you guys
163can have meetings. I there's rules about having meetings but like somehow uh another group gets together and and tries to develop what what all we want to put in there. I've won every literally >> when it's in baseball, softball gets used when it's bad weather. Trap when it's bad weather, basketball, wrestling over. I mean, I'm talking >> so any sport >> multi-uses as much as humanly possible. Tennis gets rained out, you can throw up some I mean, I'm talking >> it's mass flex for any sport. Did >> you say hockey? That's awesome. Horse. Just just one other one other comment. I I I I want to stress it again like and I appreciate you know I have a facility in my head and I can't wait to to be in there one day but like
164there's this piece in our community where we have multiple organizations kind of doing the same things and we have turnover every four years when their kids age out they're gone and then there's nobody there to like you know have a safety net to make sure that they're doing the right things in that organization. I just feel like there's an opportunity there could be an opportunity to partner with the school somehow. Whether that's an assistant athletic director, somebody that we could that could we could add capacity to that department that's focused on youth sports, too. I mean, that's that's that's helping to to, you know, bring soccer coaches into LYC and and driving that clinics are important and like those types of things. So, like I appreciate the facility side. I just don't know. Part of
165this is like You're right. >> The partnership with the community schools and how do we bring our athletic programs together? I I hate to say it under one umbrella, but you know that wrestling doesn't need it. Swimming doesn't need it, but I'm sure that we can learn from their you know, best practices as well. I just think, you know, driving towards a facility, I want that. Don't get me wrong, but I just think there's another piece here for us to grow. And that is like, you know, >> you're right. It's something I long for when I was coaching youngers and you felt like you were on the island a little bit and you're right. >> I think it goes back to the structure piece because the structure helps the the coaches be successful because that's
166one of the things that I hear too is everybody's talking about coaches being successful whether you're new to town or whether it's a coach who's really passionate steps out and leaves a gap. If there's some umbrella and you can have a coach easily step in and be successful, that's what we're missing. >> That's right. We got to this this group we have to focus on structure too. Question I guess I have for the board. It seems like we already have from a community standpoint and that's why we're trying to formalize here is that I feel like the conversation we had with the community that we're all saying to you guys we feel like our athletic department needs more exactly what everybody else in the room is. >> And we also say we need some we
167need to additional staff to the facilities. So we're talking about adding some staff on a budget that's got I mean so the answer yeah I agree and yeah it's a budget problem. So working through that >> I mean we talk we get we get park view or whoever the sports thing they give us a trainer >> they give us a coordinator >> but that would be us another way to help too because there is dollar capacity constraints for those some of those positions it's a reality so I don't I didn't I agree with you but both things can be true >> but isn't that part of the conversation I mean, I heard a rumor, and you guys can tell me if I'm wrong, but what's the lowest tax school district of this size in the
168area >> in the state? >> So, there's an educational component to that get people to understand what the delta is between what their expectations are, what they're paying for. >> Again, I'm terrified of that. You're speaking of a referendum to fun stuff, right? >> Well, I'm speaking of an awareness that people's desires match what they're willing to I that's been my biggest one of my biggest frustrations. But yeah, that the way to fix it is to still be the lowest in the state. Just less let alone >> that's the way to fix it. >> I think that's the amition we're trying to bring here is a unified vision to help fight the battles that you guys are on your own >> because you guys heard we just dropped our tax rate today. >> You heard
169it just went down. You guys catch that financial report. So we're going wrongly from that conversation. which is fine if you don't care about everything that we've been sat here for two and a half hours talking there's a lot of voices that are in this room too >> but it's important that the voices that are in the room because that's where the decisions make are unified and align which is what Ross is trying to right here tonight we all have to be rolling the same direction >> I agree we we we talked a ton about the tax You're right. I get it. >> Are those voices mostly non-time resum who are already taxed at a high tax rate and don't have kids in the school, they don't want their taxes to go up. >> I
170would say it's even more simplistic. It's a general I I don't care what it would be. They If it starts with T and ends at X, it's no. It's No, I mean, they're they're just they're going to not they're going to fight it. They're just some groups. There's some people that are going to fight. I mean, their ears just increase tax. Shut it down. Anyway, we got to keep going. But I love it. It's It's good stuff. But there's there's they're They get legal fast. It's a lot. But but that's that's that's what we all said. We're going to get rolling. We'll get rolling in the same direction. We probably can get past. It's a real thing. >> Okay. Number 10. Dr. >> Mr. um as you know we are experiencing ongoing challenges in recruiting
171and retaining pair professionals particular for our selfigible positions at present the district sorry uh the district is starting uh pair professional rate is $1425 per hour. However, individuals uh who are qualified for per professional roles can earn a higher hourly rate as substitutes than as employees in our own classrooms. This pay disparity is a significant factor contributing to part persistent vacancies, staffing instability, and increased reliance on substitutes to cover pair of professional roles. So the purpose of this presentation is to present three possible pay structure adjustments that would allow Wawasi to remain competitive with neighboring school districts, stabilize our pair professional workforce, and ensure subeligible pair professionals earn at least $16 per hour so we don't lose them to substitute work. So some key considerations as I go through these slides. uh subeligible eligible pair
172professionals work with the highest need students and require specialized training and interventions that substitutes are not able to provide consistently. Neighboring school districts are in increasing hourly rates for comparable roles, making competitiveness essential to avoid other vacancies. Many school corporations choose not to allow paraprofessional vacancies to be filled by substitutes. And while deeply values the daily instructional and behavioral behavioral support paris provide and we believe maintaining paris staffing is critical to student success. And then all of the options that I'm going to present to you would resolve the current issue of substitutes earning more than classified staff in our classroom. So I would like you to think about the three modeled options and the approach that best balances fiscal capacity internal equity recruitment and intell in recruitment and retention of subeligible paraprofessionals and the district's
173comm uh commitment to ensuring safe stable and supportive classrooms. So currently our pay structure is um is as follows. Uh, our paras have a 182 day um work uh workday uh work contract um full-time which is 7 and a half hours um and then you can see part-time which is uh typically 5.75 hours and you can see that if their hourly rate is the same of 1450 um because of the percentages and because full-time are benefit eligible Um that means that um health in um there's the health insurance and um and the health insurance we have several different plans. The cheapest plan is about $10,000 and the most expensive plan is about $20,000. So you can see the the pay dispar uh disparity between um what a full-time parah can make and what a part-time
174para can make. So, uh even um even with no insurance, of course, obviously the full-time pair would make more money. Uh but that is um because they're also benefit eligible, that number could um possibly double um in um with a uh Lutheran Lutheran family plan. uh they could make um with benefits $43,000 while a part-time PARA makes a total of 18 a little over $18,000. Uh for comparison Oh, go ahead. >> That's the dollar cost of the benefits being included into the take-home wages. >> So, just to clarify, >> yeah, >> that point. So, so yeah, it's the the cost to us as a school district. Uh for comparison, um you can see here the various um the ver uh some of the various classified positions, how many days they work, and uh how many
175are full-time and part-time, and what the pay range is. And you can see that paras work uh the least amount of days. most of them are part-time and their pay range is also the lowest. Our paraprofessional numbers um you can see here by um rate range uh and the number of full-time and part-time paras. Of course, you can see that obviously we have a lot more part-time paras. Um again this is um a cost savings uh for our corporation uh because of uh the benefits that it would it would it would cost. So um we uh we have 60 paras um and the only reason why we can have that many paras in our district is that we have they're they're part-time. So, if we were to change part-time uh moving up to $16 an
176hour, uh this would uh be um approximate approximately um how how much difference it would make uh between a full-time and part-time if we kept part-time at $16 an hour, full-time at 1450. You could see that um without insurance and then also with insurance um obviously with insurance uh the the pay would still it would not leap over uh the pay that uh a full-time employee would make by making um less money. So I I'm going to present to you um three options actually actually at the end there'll be four but um three of them are um I I think need a little bit more um explanation. Option A would be to raise all um full-time and part-time parapay to a minimum of $16 an hour. Uh this would um this would adjust uh for
177a u uh somebody making 1450 to 1475 right now um move them up to six anybody making less than 16 move them up to $16 an hour and then um for the rest of them uh they would get um a some some sort of pay raise uh from 10 cents to $150. 50 uh depending on where they what they are currently making to ensure that uh you don't have anybody leapfrogging over. So, uh, you know, if somebody's making, um, if somebody is currently making $16 an hour right now, you wouldn't want, um, you you know, if you move everybody up to $16 an hour, they would get a pay raise as well to, uh, make sure that we didn't have a lot of compression with the pay. Okay? So um that's why you see here
178uh the new pay range and the number of paras that would be in each of those in those ranges. Uh we would have 41 right now. Right now we have 29 uh paras making 1450 to 1475. Um under the new pay we'd have 41 uh making uh 16 to 1620. So there would be some compression there. Uh but it's um it would it slowly would even out there. Okay. >> Additional cost. >> No. Oh yeah. Uh a little little detail. The additional uh cost to the corporation would be uh to do this plan would be a little over $78,000. Um so that's one option. Um it eliminates the inequities uh between subeligible paras and others because you're raising all of those paras uh by that much. Um it would be the easiest to communicate to
179everyone. It um it would u improve um district-wide um competitiveness with the subs. So you wouldn't have um you wouldn't have that competition between hey I want to stay to be a sub I want to be a parah that sort of thing u that they would be encouraged to take on those para roles. Uh this the weakness of this is it is a higher um higher cost but it's probably one of the cleanest mo most equitable options um if funding allows. Option B is to just raise all part-time para pay to $16 an hour. Um, and again, it goes back to that chart that shows that full-time paras are able to get benefits. So, um, they they are um they they uh have more cost to the corporation. um part-time paras would get uh paid
180a little bit more as a value ad to to that because they aren't they aren't full-time and they wouldn't get any benefits. Um it would require a couple minor adjustments to a couple of the full-time para pay positions just to um ensure that again you didn't have that leapfrog effect happen. And uh here you see the um the current range is on the right. The new range is on the left of what um what everyone um would uh would get. And the cost of the corporation there is $72,000. Uh about $73,000. Um this one would only raise part-time paras to $16 an hour. Um so it brings uh the part-time subeligible payer uh eligible paras up which is the hardest to fill group. It does still preserve that differentiation between full-time and part-time. Uh and
181again it targets that highest need group uh while maintaining a pay range that is um that that is um fair and equitable as much as possible. Uh, and it does cost about $6,000 less than option A. So, this is actually the um the least expensive option. Option C or not, it's not the least expensive. This is option C is the least expense expensive option and that is to just raise those paras in which we get subs for and if we um raise the subeligible part-time para pay to a minimum of $16 an hour. Uh you can see the current range and the new range. We would still have some paras who have are in positions where we do not typically get a sub4. uh they would stay at the um 14 around the 1450 to
1821525 range. Um the additional cost of the corporation, this is the the least expensive at um a little over $58,000. So, uh this is the most targeted uh of the options. So, it's the the lowest cost option. Um it solves the core problem of the disparity in um subs and the parah pay. It protects the staffing in the classrooms with the toughest behaviors and um it's the most fiscally conservative option and it directly addresses the hardest to fill roles and um it also maintains a broad range of differentiation among uh subeligible roles. So you don't have are non- subeligible row. So you don't have the compression in the um in the pay at like you would in in some of the other um um options. And um here's a summary uh for you to take
183a look at of all of the options. Option D I didn't I didn't have a slide for because it's a pretty straightforward slide which is you just raise all parap pay by a$150. So, everybody gets a $1.50 wherever they're at right now to move the um the 1450 uh up. Uh and it doesn't matter what you make, you you get a $150 more. Um and that is also um the most expensive at $17,000. So um to to help kind of um parse out the different options uh you know three checks uh are good. It it fixes you know and all of them fix the sub pay gap. So they all three um all four options have three check marks. Then you have the cost of uh of you know raising of course option D and
184A are the most expensive. Um and then u internal equity. Um of course uh there's there's some differences there. And then how to communicate this out. The the cheapest option is also probably going to be the most difficult option to communicate to uh parents. Why why do they get a raise and I don't get a raise? And and that's so that's probably going to be the most difficult. Uh raising all parap pay by $150. um that would be the easiest way to communicate. Everybody just gets the same amount regardless of what you're doing. Um but again, it's easy to communicate, but it's also the most expensive. So, so Dr. Troyer and I have discussed um parapra a lot trying to figure out what uh what the um direction is that we should go. Um and
185so I we wanted to just present these to you um because um there are you know the the reality is um paras in area schools make 16 to $18 an hour. Um we have we start ours out at 1425. Um so so all of our paras really do need a pay raise. However, that's also going to mean $17,000. >> What's internal equity mean? >> Uh, it just means it's fair uh fair and equitable. So, someone who um let's say make if if I if I make $16 an hour and Steve's hired at $14 an hour and tomorrow he gets a pay raise to $16 an hour, but I've worked for five years to get up to $16 an hour, that's not very equitable, right? So, so when you're talking about um moving it moving me
186I then I would move up some maybe not a$150 >> but I would move up maybe 25 cents or 50 cents. So that's >> curious of why all parttime pairs means not the fulltime pairs to me A and B would be more internal equity than >> okay I can change the check marks. I was trying to make >> I was I was just trying to >> Okay, but >> yeah, >> it's fine. I just wanted to make sure I'm understand. >> So, what's the what's the next question? >> Are there are there some part-time at 16? There are, right? I'm thinking back. Yeah. >> Yeah. Okay. >> There there are there are some at 16. So they would get they would actually and that's that's um estimated in the cost uh as well is the
187is that they would get bumped up some as well. not a$150. But um and then uh like for example um >> in this one um there's a uh in the current range there's $262 spread between the highest paid and the lowest paid. In the new range, the spread would be $2.96. So actually that spread goes up because you see the highest paid currently is $17.12 and in the new um in the new range that that person would actually make $1746. Not a whole lot of you know not that that that big jump like a $1.50 but it would they would make some some additional money. >> So what can we >> So good conscious go you should >> no and that that's been that's been the issue there's been a lot of talk about pair
188professional pay there's been a lot of talk about all pay and the question is that like I I've said repeatedly that we have a fixed bucket of money >> and this is what I like to refer to as a polarity it's an unsolvable problem because when you address one area then you create a problem in another area and so really I think what we wanted to do was we've talked for two months about the parap pay issue it's come up in the in the last few board meetings but it really has bea been a topic of conversation with a number of people over a year or two years or whatever we felt like we needed to put it out there in the public sphere for um to chew on because like what do we do?
189Like this isn't just a oh yeah just spend this much money and that's fine no problem. Like if I talk to Brandon he says we just we we went further than what we felt comfortable with on a 50-cent raise for everybody 25 cent longevity 25cent raise. And so to go an additional x amount of dollars, I don't know that we um I don't know that we can do that, but we also have to do something potentially. >> We can't pay someone for that. That's >> Go ahead. >> Well, I was going to say other districts are doing it. So other districts have problems. It's just a bigger problem than what we have is a smaller problem. So >> if if we have the state pays us per student and that's where some of our money
190comes from for paying Paris >> is that they have more kids and they need more paras we have less kids we still need paras what >> so there there's a couple of things one is um not all schools have as many pairs as what we do um some um only um they don't have the substitute issue that we have because they don't um they don't get any subs for any paras and I am really um I I would really advocate against that because I think that all of our paras um serve an incredibly important role and uh whenever you have a parah that's that's gone it's a disruption to the class. Um, some parents that work with our most needy students, um, and sometimes they they're one-on-one because a kid can't handle sitting alone. If
191we don't get a sub for that kid, then it's a disruption to the entire class or the entire school. and and I really feel very strongly that um that you you know if we can't if we can't afford the $17,000 which I don't think we can then we need to start somewhere. So if we did a you said to spend the 785 what what what hole does it pull where the pulls it essentially pulls out of cash balance like it's one of these problems where we can fund it for a while because we have cash balance and and before I go any further I want to say paras come from a variety of different funds to go back to your question some of them are paid for out of education funs Some of them are
192paid for out of grant funds like our title one fund um pays our title one grant pays for a decent amount of our paras that are instructionally focused. Um but that's the majority of them. Um and special ed. So so education fund, title one fund and special ed fund. And all of those funds are limited. So if we do something like this, then it has to be paid for out of some way. We're not increasing our revenue by too much. Uh and so it would probably lead into cash balance. That's the short answer. >> When do you decide yesterday? >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the the the and I just had a conversation with one of our elementary principles um this morning that u he he's we we need a long-term sub or we we
193need a parah, but they won't they don't want to be a para because they want a sub. They want a sub doing that because they get paid more. So, they said they're not we're not going to do it not going to do it for less than $16 an hour. So, I'm gonna pick on a at 70 the 78,000 which round it off at 78,000. Is that 100% hit on the education fund? >> No. >> Okay. >> It's >> No, because it What would you estimate? >> 2/3 >> probably twothirds or a little more. I mean it most of it will probably be a hit on the ad fun. >> We don't know what we're looking for here. Honestly, we're just putting we're just putting the information out there because there's been so much conversation about
194it and I think there's been >> almost some suggestions of like we're doing our people wrong by how we're structuring this and I we don't we firmly don't believe that. um we're doing the best that we can, but every piece of this impacts the the overall bottom line and and yes, we can eat into some cash balance, but then we will have to make some adjustments down the road. We can kick the can down the road, but at some point we'll have to make some adjustments. And that may mean less paras, that may mean less full-time paras. That may mean who knows like at some point you have to have a reconciliation of hey we're losing x amount of dollars in cash balance every month. I'm not saying that that's the situation right now but
195that that when you think about it from a big picture standpoint that's the impact you mentioned grants. Is there is there any stone left? No. I can't fix that. >> Yeah. And that's that's the issue. We have to fix it, but we can't fix it. Like, >> so, >> and so I guess I guess what we're looking for as part of this dialogue of, hey, this is a work session. Do we want to how would you phrase this, Brandon? Do we want to leverage our cash balance to solve this situation in the short term knowing that we may potentially have a reconciliation that has to come in the long term? >> Is long term one year or five I didn't meant >> No, that's a good question. >> So, when you um I'm sure you
196>> So, you got subs that are making 16 and they're essentially full-time subs. >> So, yes. So, let me tell you what I'm getting. >> No, I think I think I know where you're going. Go ahead. >> What I'm wondering is >> is 78,000 actually an accurate number if >> you're going to stop >> if we pay less in sub costs and more in >> Yeah. >> in that cost. >> That's that's an accurate assessment. We would we would ideally we would lower our sub costs, right? Because we're going to have some people that are just subbing right now that we could plug into >> into one of our um one of our positions, one of our regular positions. >> Yes. >> But I to to answer right now and maybe you have a better
197idea. What is the number of that? I don't I don't know an accurate number out of those 60, you know, is the number five and so we save five sub we save five cost of subs and transfer that to this situation. That may be the case. I don't know. Do you have a better idea of that? I I would say I think five is a good number. Um so but it's very difficult to calculate because um for a variety of reasons but I I mean like I feel very confident that that those are the those are the it's not going to be any higher than those costs this year. And and to to the other the other thing is like the way I I also look at it is is okay if we can't do
198um you know to Andy's point of we can't pay people 1425 an hour. Can we can we raise some of the subs up this year and then come back next year and you know through adjustments or whatever. Whether that be, you know, maybe we need to have fewer subs or fewer parents, which again, I'm not an advocate for. I think if anything, we need more. And um with with the you know we have students with higher needs and and it's that more um bigger behaviors and having part-time paras is a way that we can get the most people in those classrooms. Um, so like I I feel like we're we're doing everything we can and I don't want to reduce the amount of paras that we have. >> What's 67? >> Yeah. So here's um
199here's the we have 47 part-time and 13 full-time. >> What have you created? How do we have what if magically all those part time those fulltime parts? What would that mean? It it would c it costs about for every full-time person you have, you could possibly get two part-time pairs, >> but but we have but some of those some of those full-time pairs have to be full-time because of the nature of of their what they do. For example, in the life skills class of high school, >> um they have to be with that kid. >> Okay. the entire >> I'm only asking this >> because if you instead how many are the full times outside of the situation you just described where the job requires it are fulltime because of the insurance >> a lot
200I mean I was just going to say you could incent by making that a bigger delta but say go do that you make more per hour >> and then we save on the >> Yeah but and and I think to that point we never have a problem filling our full-time positions because they get the benefits, >> right? >> And and there's only a small number of them. So, almost always those positions are filled internally. People that are in a in a part-time position want to get into a full-time position and so they jump in. >> I'm not saying that. I'm saying is there a way to insurance? Well, and that's that's >> I don't know that insurance is the whole hook, but it's definitely a big part of >> and and that's where that's where
201it comes in of you just you just raise the hourly rate for part-time parents uh option B. Um because because then you say, well, if I don't want insurance, I'm going to take the part-time because I can get but um even in that case You know, if you're making 1450 as a full-time, if I'm moving to 5.75 as a part-time, even making $16 an hour, I'm not making as much as I would if I was full-time. >> Well, that's because you're working more hours. >> Yeah. But but again, you know, like >> Yeah. It's still, you know, $16 an hour is 19, you know, less than $20,000 a year. >> Yeah. >> Now, granted, it's only 182 days, but um you know, it it's it's difficult. It's a it's a difficult problem and um something
202you guys need to think about. actual. Are we voting on this? >> This is justation. >> We're just This is a follow-up presentation from December. >> Okay. >> So, it's a $5,500 55 $5,510 difference between A and B, too. >> Yeah. >> Brandon probably says a million here, a million there. Pretty soon you're talking serious money. But I appreciate our love for our students. I am a part 27 years. that time but I've had 27 years of experience like you raise much appropal for certain highly ocean special And I don't know what they do. I was special for 11 years. I know you're right. But I am happy that you're talking about it because some of us have had 15 20 25 plus years in the corporation. you're proposing what you propose is more than
203I love my job. I feel like God given me my job and I will do the best of my job for all students. There are times I've had 47 students in a day up to 55 students in a week and that's so We love our jobs as parents, but we wouldn't be doing it if we didn't pay. But I appreciate your discussion on this. I'm going to do my best no matter what. I love my app. Thank you. >> Thank you. and thank you for your years of service. >> Okay, I don't know that we have anything else on that topic. We just felt like we needed to come back after our uh conversation in December and bring some additional information. We would like to do something as quickly as possible. Doing something is going
204to involve leveraging something perhaps that we may not feel entirely comfortable with. But does that mean that it shouldn't be done? No, not necessarily. It's just going to be uncomfortable. So that's what makes me nervous about it. And >> go ahead. >> I'm also at this 20th year and I love my job and the Lord has provided very well for it. Um, I see where the raises do need, but I also see if you raise those 1450 up to $16 again, they're almost making what I make after 20 years. It's a difficult job. I'd love for you to do it one day. Just come and do follow us and see what we do every day. We really could appreciate this. And I do it I do thank you for that longevity. >> Yeah. So just
205to clarify um because one of the things on there was what was that one column you had with the two check marks? >> Um >> what you call that not communication internal equity. >> That would not be an issue for you. who's been here 20 years that somebody's gonna be hired in and start right out at 16. You think they would I mean >> well and to that point um that's what I'm trying to show here is and if you look at option A part-time so so like if you're making if if currently if somebody's making $16 right now uh they would move up maybe they they would make some more than uh what they're making now. So like all of the all of the paras would get a pay adjustment because um you you
206know we wouldn't want we wouldn't want somebody who says hey I was I've been here for 10 years and I'm making $16 an hour and now all of a sudden you're you're here for a year and you're making $16 now. >> So so that person would get bumped up, >> right? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. That was my just you're advocating for everybody. >> Sure. >> Okay. All right. Let's go on to the additional action items. Um update on high school ELA curriculum. >> Thank you very much, Mr. Bokart. Uh I wanted to just take a few minutes to clarify an item related to high school ELA materials. Last spring, the board approved and the adoption of new high school ELA instructional materials. During our annual curriculum documentation review, we identified that while the new adoption was
207presented and approved, the full list of literature and reading materials that were already in use at the high school level was not formally brought to the board at that time. So, there are no new materials being introduced through this item. All texts referenced are currently in use, aligned to state standards, and have been part of instruction. This information has been publicly available and is posted on the district website. To maintain proper procedure and ensure transparency and keep our curriculum records complete and accurate, we are bringing the full set of currently used high school ELA materials forward for formal approval. This action allows us to correct the prior adi ad omission and ensures that all instructional materials have been reviewed and approved by the board as intended. A detailed list along with notes identifying any selections
208that maintain mature sensitive themes have been provided for your review. At the next board meeting, we are asking the board to approve the materials as presented. So again, um these are these were materials that they had been using for years and uh last year they only brought forth or we only brought forth the new materials that they were using, not the entire list. >> Okay. And if you have any questions, I'm feel free to answer. >> Okay. >> Fashure alternative program educational services. >> Yeah. Each year we um just renew anou with them for um students that we may place there. So we currently have a couple five students that are placed at Basher. So we renew that each year which is what that is. >> Okay. >> Didn't we approve something from Basher previously?
209when >> maybe last month or the month before. >> Oh, gotcha. >> That's different. >> That one was the the first umou was for three students and now we have an additional two students there. >> Yeah. Okay. >> Thank you, Tammy. >> Other items real quick. Um just to to mention this um at our board meeting next Tuesday then um that is our annual restructuring meeting >> right >> so the board will go through the process of um nominating and voting upon a the officers. >> Uh we will also conduct our annual board of finance meeting immediately following the regular board meeting. Um if you remember correctly that was uh a couple years ago we transitioned to all of the board members being members of the board of finance as well. So uh we will
210do our um annual presentation of the DOAB report uh indicators the distress units appeal board um indicators. So actually Dr. Penrod sent me that earlier today. We've got that ready to go. So that'll be in your board packet. >> Um but that is coming. and then the other typical things that we do during reorganization um will happen as well. So that's always a unique meeting and >> it is >> in the fact that we do reorganization but um other than that that's it. >> Okay. >> Anybody else have other items? Okay. Uh brings us to patron comments on agenda items only. Nope. Okay, then we are wrapped up.