Regular Board Meeting - 5/19/2026 (6:00 p.m.)

001for a long time. Mrs. Schop, are you ready? >> Good evening. It is 6:03. I am calling to order the regular board meeting of Tuesday, May 19th. Mrs. show. May we get a roll call, please? >> Yes. Carol Fox here. Tom Henkins is not with us. Bill Johnson >> here. >> Megan Miller >> present. >> Joanne Rue >> here. >> Dan Shu >> here. >> Antia Johnson >> here. >> All members are present except Tom Henkins. >> Thank you. Yeah, I believe he will be with us shortly. May I get an approval of the agenda? >> So moved. >> Motion by Carol Fox, second by Jill Bill Johnson. Any discussion? Hearing none. All in favor? >> I. >> Any oppose? Motion carries unanimously. Tonight, Dr. Anderson, who is back from his vacation, is going to

002lead us in the pledge of >> allegiance. Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you, Dr. Anderson. Good evening and thank you for joining us tonight. We appreciate your continued interest in and the support of the school district of boy. Yesterday, May 18th, was speech pathologist awareness day. On behalf of the board of education, I would like to extend our sincere gratitude to this district's speech language pathologists. Their work is essential in public education as they support students with communication disorders that directly affect AC access to learning. By helping students strengthen their communication skills, they ensure students can fully participate in the classroom, build relationships with peers, and achieve academic success.

003We are deeply thankful for their expertise, compassion, and unwavering dedication to our students. Last week, board members Carol Fox, Bill Johnson, and I attended the Blo Memorial High School underassman awards night. Several students in grades 9 through 11 were recognized for their outstanding academic achievements and excellence across many variety of areas. We are incredibly proud of their hard work, perseverance, and accomplishments. Congratulations to all of the students recognized and keep up the excellent work. Earlier today, members of the board had the opportunity to volunteer at the annual elementary track meet. The Todd Timberwolves, Converse Cougars, and Robinson Cougars competed today, and tomorrow will feature the Gaston Bandits, the Hackit Hawks, and the Merryill Tigers. The event was filled with excitement, positive energy, and strong community spirit. Most impressive was the level of sportsmanship, teamwork, and

004encouragement students showed to one another. Their behavior truly reflected the values we hope every individual connected to the school district of Lloyd demonstrates each day. During these challenging times when many of us are feeling the strain of financial uncertainty, I believe we can learn something from our students. Not everyone will finish first. Not everyone will always agree or feel satisfied with the outcome. However, we continue to show up, work hard, and do our best for our students and our community. Let us continue to support one another, appreciate each other's efforts, and remain united in our shared commitment to improving the educational experience for every student we serve. A special thank you to Vice President Fox, who I'm told volunteers at every elementary track meet every single year. Best of luck to all tomorrow's athletes. And

005thank you to staff and me staff members and volunteers who continue to dedicate their time and energy supporting our students. Last Tuesday, the board held a special meeting to discuss budget concerns and potential options moving forward. We will continue that discussion again tonight. We are grateful to the cabinet for presenting a staffing plan and for continuing to move the district forward with transparency, honesty, and a clear understanding of the challenges ahead. It takes courage to share difficult truths, including those that may be hard to hear, and it takes courage to make decisions that are necessary for the long-term stability of the school district of Blo. I would like to recognize Assistant Superintendent Dr. Malot, executive director Almonderas, executive director Beavers, and intram executive director Elwood for the tremendous leadership and work they provided during Dr.

006Anderson's absence. Their dedication, professionalism, and service to the school district of Boe are sincerely appreciated. Together, we remain committed to strengthening our district and improving outcomes for every student. This concludes my report. Thank you. Next, we have upcoming events and announcements. Board clerk Miller. >> All right. Good evening, everybody. So, these are the announcements for Tuesday, May 19th. Senior awards night is Wednesday, tomorrow, May 20th, at 6:00 p.m. at Bo Memorial High School. Congratulations to our seniors. Friday, May 22nd, the BMJ/BMJO is performing at Music in the Park in downtown across from First National Bank. Friday, May 29th, is the annual Pillwiffers golf outing with dinner. This fun emphasized event is for all district staff, including retired and spouses, both experienced and brand new golfers. There will be a 4:30 p.m. shotgun start at the

007Krueger Haskell Golf Course in Bo. For more information or to sign up, contact James Hoy at jhoy sdb.k12.wi. us or over at Memorial High School. The annual retirement party for district retirees will be Wednesday, June 3rd at 4:30 p.m. at the Rotary Center. This is an openhouse event. A short program will be held at 5:30 p.m. with cake, punch, and water served. Thursday, June 11th, please join Bloit Me Memorial High Schoolmies on the Greens of Glenn Aaron. To register your golfing foresome or to sign up as a sponsor, please contact Brian Michaels at bichelsb.k12.wi. us. Summer school registration is open. Register using Skyward Family Access. Please register early as space is limited. There will be no school on Monday, May 25th due to Memorial Day. The last day of school is Friday, June 5th with

008graduation for senior students on Saturday, June 6th at 10:00 a.m. on Jacobson Field at the John Hineki Stadium. Doors/gates open at 8:30 a.m. If there is inclement weather, the ceremony will be held in the Bargain Arena. Please save the date for the 5th annual Stateline Multicultural Hispanic Heritage Month celebration, which will be on Saturday, October 10th. However, there is a district-wide t-shirt contest happening right now. Please submit your design to your school family advocate for a chance to be the official t-shirt or to submit the official t-shirt for our Hispanic Heritage Celebration. The deadline is May 22nd. That is this Friday. If you have questions, please contact your school family advocate. The Department of Public Instruction's portrait of a graduate is a statewide effort to define the knowledge, skills, and mindsets every Wisconsin student needs

009to succeed after high school, no matter the path they choose. DPI invites students, families, educators, and community members to stay connected and engaged as this work continues. There will be a virtual listening session on Wednesday, May 27th from noon until 1:00 p.m. For specific information or to register, you may go to dpi.wi.gov or you may contact our board secretary, Michelle Schop, who can provide you with the full DPI web address to register. Her telephone number is 6083614180. Meetings coming up and being held at the Colak Education Center include Monday, June 1st, there is a policy meeting at 4 PM. Tuesday, June 2nd, begins the new meeting cadence with business, operations, finance, and HR meeting at 5:00 p.m. and the teaching, learning, equity, and pupil services committee meeting at 6 p.m. or immediately following the 5:00

010p.m. meeting, whichever is later. This concludes the announcements for tonight. >> Thank you, Clerk Miller. Next we have recognitions. Tonight we are recognizing our student representative McKenna Rounds. Student board representatives provide an invaluable service to the board of education by sharing reports and updates through the lens of the student experience, helping to ensure student voice remains at the center of our work. Throughout her time serving in this role, student board representative McKenna Rounds consistently delivered reports that were both informative and very entertaining, offering thoughtful insight while engaging all of us in a meaningful way. We are grateful for her leadership, professionalism, and commitment to representing the students of the district. McKenna, thank you for your year of service. Good luck to everything you do, and we know you will do wonderfully. Next we have public

011comment. Board Secretary Shop, do we have any public comments tonight? >> Yes, I have a couple in the room and a couple to read. Members of the public are welcome to attend all public open meetings of the board of education. Individuals attending board meetings are expected to conduct themselves in a respectful and courteous manner that models appropriate behavior for our students. Individuals wishing to comment are expected to comply with the norms found on the back of your comment cards and in board policy 187, public participation at board meetings. We ask that each of you contribute to maintaining a respectful and orderly meeting and prevent discussing confidential matters in a public forum by following these norms for public comments during board meetings. Thank you for your participation and courtesy. Mrs. show. >> The first person I

012have is Julie. >> The other person I have is Andrew. So, apparently Andrew is going first. >> Wonderful. Andrew, if you just hit the button so the red light comes on. Thank you. There you go. >> Oh. Oh, I got not this light. That one. Okay. Um, good evening, board president, members of the board. My name is Andrew Heiri. I'm a professor of bilingual education and ESL at the University of Wisconsin Whitewater. Tonight, I'm here on my own accord. Um, and I'm here to unequivocally voice my support for the dual language immersion program at your district. Okay. Um, I'm I'm going to talk about two things that uh I hope that you'll consider and then my colleague Dr. Minol Lok is going to talk about some some possibilities right to move forward. So, I really

013appreciate the district's commitment to educating all students equitably, and I'd like to remind the board that Spanish English bilingual programs started in the state nearly 60 years ago that emerged from Latino Latina community organizing. uh folks were fed up with the remedial organiz um education that they were receiving prior to these programs coming into existence. Okay. And then since then there's been a plethora of research that has supported the multiple benefits of these programs. So these programs offer academic, social, cognitive, economic benefits to the students who participate. All right? So that's why the proposals to reduce Spanish language instruction at the elementary grades or cut the program at the middle school level do not make sense. They don't make academic sense. they don't make economic sense. Okay. The proposal to reduce the program to the

014elementary grades and cut Spanish language instruction would in uh mean that you're implementing a transitional bilingual program model which basically um looks to subtract students home languages and they've been proven to offer um poor academic results. You'd also foreclose opportunities for all students to engage in rich academic learning across languages and that's a requirement for them to obtain the Wisconsin seal of biiteracy. Okay? So in effect you would be hurting the academic possibilities by cutting these programs. Also, parents know this, families know that these programs offer multiple benefits. So, cutting the program at the middle school level would invite these parents to open enroll of your district. Okay. A lot of my research has focused on public bilingual education and how it can function as a safeguard against school privatization. All right. The opposite is

015also true. When school districts refuse to recognize and respond to the dreams, aspirations, and hopes of the community, that opens the door to school privatization and charter school proliferation. Okay. So I um encourage you and ask respectfully to uh let's deepen conver uh collaboration between university and school district. There are ways that we can move forward, right? Uh but let's not forget the legacy of bilingual education in this state and in your district. >> Thank you, Professor Herring. Mrs. Next we have Julie. >> Hi, good evening um board president and board members. Uh thank you. It is nice to be here. I'm also a professor um of bilingual and ESL education at the University of Wisconsin Whitewater. I am here of my own accord. Um colleague of Dr. Hures. I'm also here as a mom

016who has two children who went through a dual language immersion program in Madison. Um they're now in college and they were able to do to to receive the seal of bi literacy um through their K through2 dual language immersion program. So I see it on the on a professional side and I've seen it on the on a personal um side with my own two children. Um like Dr. Curi, I implore you to um to reconsider the proposal um and partner with us as much as possible. Um there's a lot of research out there uh as as Dr. Hury uh mentioned, there's research that supports DI programs. Should I keep talking without the mic? Oh, it's back a little bit. Um, so can you all hear me? Okay. I thought someone was telling me to move

017away. Um, so please, we we're happy to share research with you. We're happy to interpret research, to work with you, to partner with you. Um our we have a really exciting new program here um on our campus University of Wisconsin Whitewater that is designed specifically for practicing teachers who need their ESL and bilingual lensure. Um, so it's an asynchronous, fully asynchronous program. Um, and it's accelerated, so teachers can, um, enroll in the program while they're teaching full-time. And they they what they finished with in less than a year and a half is a K12 ESL license and a K12 bilingual bicultural license. And a handful of your um, very talented um, and very enthusiastic and committed teachers from your district are in our program right now. Um, so that's a new program and it's very

018popular. It's tripled since we started in the fall of this academic year. Um, and it just continues to grow. Um, so we're able to help teachers who need that bilingual, bicultural, and ESL license get it um, in a very high quality way and and a quick way as well. So, thank you. Muchas gracias. >> Thank you, Julie. And I'm sorry, Professor Heiri, for mispronouncing your name, Mrs. Schop. Okay, the first one I have to read is from Treasure. Instead of closing Merryill Elementary, why not just pull all kids back at the homebased school like where they live is the school they should go to? like what I was told before why my kids could not go to other schools. So just pull all the kids back at their home school. It would solve the problem

019and get some of the good teachers back at Merryill Elementary. In the past, we had great teachers and put some stuff for Merryill like you did with other schools like swings just maybe to lower the dialect on the money. Maybe try to lower the amount of what is wasted. Try going back to paper and pencil. The second one I have is from I believe it's Ari. After working in one of your elementary schools as a paraprofessional student teacher on my way to graduating with my BA in special education, I can no longer stay silent about the conditions staff and students are expected to endure. My plan was to graduate and work for your district supporting my community. During my short time working in the district, I suffered a broken arm and a torn rotator cuff

020due to violent behavioral incidents. At the same time, the school was operating at approximately 18 fewer pair of professionals than were needed to meet IEP requirements. Staff were placed in impossible situations daily and students were repeatedly subjected to lockdowns multiple times a day because of ongoing behavioral crisis. I even watched second graders having to do their schoolwork in the hall on the floor for an hour because their class had to had to evacuate due to behaviors. What concerns me most is that the educational experience and safety of hundreds of students are being sacrificed in order to keep severe behavioral situations which should be in ID or have one one-on-one support with this general school environment without said adequate support staffing or intervention. The pairs are often the only people attempting to prevent escalation yet they

021are overworked under supported and now facing cuts. I also experienced serious disorganization from human resources. I was mistakenly sent to work a full day early and then denied pay for eight hours I worked. That experience alone reflected the level of dysfunction within the system. As a parent, I spent 14 years believing things would improve. I advocated for this district. I supported the referendum. I defended the schools because I genuinely wanted them to succeed. After finally working inside the system myself, I've reached my limit. I'm now withdrawing my four children from the district. The district continues to question why enrollment is declining. From my perspective, families are leaving because they are no longer they no longer feel their children are receiving a safe, stable educational environment. Teachers, parents, and students are burning out while serious behavioral

022issues continue to overwhelm classrooms with inadequate support structures in place. I hope the board truly listens to the staff and families who are speaking up before more students, families, and employees decide to leave as well and make cuts that are appropriate to deal with what in my opinion is the number one issue of your entire district. Behavior advocacy, behavior professionals, PAR support should be the last thing that you cut or you're going to lose even more students and receive less funding. That's all I have. >> Thank you, Mrs. Schult. Next on tonight's agenda, we have the student board rep with student board representative McKenna Rounds. First of all, I would like to say thank you to the board for being so kind to me throughout this year. Um, I'd like to say thank you to

023Miss Pels for being so supportive whenever she sees me in the hallway. Um, and thank you, a special, very special thank you to Mr. Hoey for teaching me government and how and how this board works. Um, I love the school district. I have been in the school district since I was probably like four years old. Um, never been out of it. Kind of scared to leave it cuz I'm graduating. Um, but with how the school district has been trending, I know we can be better and I want it to be better for future generations and for future classes of students. So, this is going to lead me to um bring up some constructive criticism. Um, again, this is nothing personal. I love all of you here. Um, I just I just know we can be

024better and I want to help us be better. First of all, um I have noticed that there's a lack of communication among the school and school officials. Um it's just kind of confusing for students and teachers. Um and I've noticed administrators are also a little confused with the lack of um communication flowing between everyone. Um, I just think maybe we should all try to communicate a little bit better. Uh, and I know that can be hard, but um, if we truly want our schools to succeed, it we have to at least try. Um, next is a gripe I've had this entire year. Um, the AB day schedules. Um it has made it a lot harder for students to have consistency, to study for tests, to do homework, to not be as burnt out. Um just

025generally every I've noticed everything is harder. As much as we like to say that um you can do Aday homework on B day and do Bday homework on A day to prepare yourself for the next day, that's a little hard when you're getting double the amount of homework and double the amount of stress from each class. Um and a lot of the days we don't even have consistent like consistency in the classes. Um most of the days that have been cancelled this year have been A days. Um and um if students are on field trips or if they miss a school day for any reason or if they have to miss a couple, they're behind almost a week's worth of work. If they miss, let's say, B days, they're like gone a week of that

026class. It's really hard for us to learn when we don't have consistency. Um, another thing I'd like to bring up is um the bathrooms. Uh, I know that um the custodial staff is um wfully underfunded and understaffed and I respect them so so so much. They do so much hard work, but I think we need to give them a little bit more support. We have gone many times without multiple of the toilets working in each of the floor bathrooms because we only have one on each floor. Um many many of the stalls aren't working. Many of the stores don't close. Many of the stalls are lacking toilet paper and um and the trash cans don't get don't get cleaned out. The pad containers don't get cleaned out. Um there is no paper towels. Many of

027the times we've gone weeks without paper towels on the second floor. Um, and we try to help and ask, but they are so underfunded. Um, and I get that we have funding issues, but custodial staff is one of the areas that we need it the most to keep our school clean and not as disgusting and have people not hating it at all times. Yeah, you're going to hate it anyway, but having it be clean is something that you need. Um and um another issue that I like to bring up that uh teacher brought to my attention um to that I should mention is that um many of the resources that we need for projects like research projects especially at the higher grade levels um those websites have been blocked just by widespread um blocking of

028the websites. For example, I did a project on abortion for um Mr. Yonkey's uh current events class and I found a it was either.org or.gov website um that had really good information that I could see from the um overview um that it gives for each of the websites. And I tried to click on it, it was completely blocked. Again, it was it was either a.org or.gov. It wasn't a dot. It wasn't telling me where I can get an abortion, how I can get an abortion. It was just giving me information. And I get that administration and that tech didn't directly block that. But I think we need a little bit more control on what we block, especially because especially at the high school level. We're getting older. We can handle these rougher topics. I get

029it for the middle school and the elementary schools, but it's hard for us to do research when we aren't allowed to do research on the hard-hitting topics. Again, I love the school. I just I just want us to be better. Um, and the teachers are so great. Um, I really hope all of you try to um fix the system that we have. um and support our teachers more because they are really stressed and students are noticing it. Thank you. >> Thank you, McKenna. Next, we've got the superintendent report. Dr. Anderson, thank you. First, it's nice to be back. It was nice to uh I was back last week uh just in time for our budget hearing and we're going to talk about budget again tonight because that is one of the uh key uh issues

030that we need to find some resolution on. But on another note, one of the other things I wanted to give an update on is that we are meeting this week to hopefully finalize the agreement with the Hendricks Foundation um to present Skyrock and Open Literacy at two of our schools, Gaston and Converse. Um so hopefully at the next meeting we will have a an agreement to bring to both the boards um for that uh project going forward. So we've been working on it. We are working on again this week. Hopefully we'll have something at the next meeting. I want to thank uh McKenna for giving us a student perspective. It's always good to hear uh different perspectives and it's good to have a student voice. So we'll be talking about some of my topics in

031much more detail later on. >> Thank you, Dr. Anderson. Next, we've got the policy and human resources committee report. Chairperson Fox. >> Thank you, President Johnson. Um, while I I got the mic. McKenna, thank you very much for being a my buddy here there for a while while I when I first got on the board. And if you want to know anything about Ronald Reagan, she's your person. Um, the policy and HR committee met last night and we first discussed the use of the agency NEOA to help us with our policies. Nola is used by many school districts in Wisconsin. Um, Dr. Anderson felt at this time we can proceed without using or paying for this service. He plans to review all of the policies by section and will let us know what policies might

032need additional work. Furthermore, we have the re other resources such as the WB policy resource guide that we can use and we can always revisit the idea of NEOLA in the future if we feel we need that assistance. Our first policy discussion was on the use of mobile phones and electronic devices. We discussed the current active policy and an edited version that was tabled last year. The edited policy was tabled at the time because the Boy Memorial High School staff had spent time working on their own plan for curtailing cell phone use. Um the committee has asked for an update from the high school staff about their plan, how well it is working, any changes they are considering, and if there are any policy adjustments that would be of assistance to them. We also discussed

033the requirement in the state statute 118.0 07 with a five in parenthesis which requires by September 1st adoption of a policy on appropriate communication between an employee or volunteer for the district and students. Um we already have policies 528 on professional boundaries and 522.71 on social media guidelines that address many of the key issues that are in this statute. The committee will be studying whether these policies cover all the requirements in the new law or if just adjustments and changes need to be made. Um we also approved exhibit A to move forward to this meeting's uh evening's board meeting. Our next meeting um as policy only because we're changing the structure will be on June 1st. We did change the time. It will be 300 p.m. And the policy committees will will continue to meet

034twice a month on Mondays before the board meeting or the committee meetings. And Dr. Anderson thinks we'll have a lot to keep us busy. >> Thank you, Mrs. Fox. Next, we have teaching, learning, equity, and pupil services committee report. Chairperson Rue. >> Thank you, President Johnson. The TLE committee has approved forming an ad hoc advisory committee to review and update our human growth and development curriculum. And we also provided uh providing some financial support for students to compete for the first time at the Skills USA national conference. And then uh because of our um new way of structuring our meetings, our next meeting will be on June 2nd. >> Thank you, Mrs. through. Next, we've got business operations and finance committee report. Chairperson Henkins. >> Thank you, board president. Yes, we met tonight and our

035biggest or only one on the agenda was uh uh purchase approval of the student transportation which is a huge cost to the district and many all the districts of busing students around. So, uh, we put it out for RFP. I think two came back and, uh, we're going to recommend to the full board. Do we use Durham? There are some questions that I think Stephanie will answer on, uh, some of the questions that I had uh, about usage and but anyways, we're going to move to for approval the use of Durham for our next unfortunately five years. Thank you, Mr. Henkins. And next we have the legislative update, legislative liaison. Shu. Uh uh thank you, Madam Chair. I want to take a few minutes to update the board on what happened at the state level

036last week. Um because it directly affects our how we think about uh the budget funding now and in the future. Governor Ivers, uh, Assembly Speaker Voss, and Senate Majority Leader Lameu announced a special session, uh, the day we were meeting last week, um, to vote on a $1.8 billion spending package. It was build as a big win for schools and for tax relief. Um, ultimately later in the week, the state senate voted it down 15 to 18. And um and I wanted to ex explain what I've learned in my digging on why that may have happened. Here's why it matters to us. They there was $1.8 billion of state spending, but only $315 million of that was would directly could be spent by schools uh for special education funding for this year and for next.

037That's real money. Would have come in handy to our discussions tonight for sure. But um ultimately there was a a rare leftright coalition in the state capital that agreed that the fiscal math didn't add up. Uh Senator Spritzer voted no as did every Senate Democrat. Three Republicans including our neighboring uh state senator Steve Nass joined them. Senator Nass put it simply, I can't support a bad deal cut by leaders that will never face the voters again. as the three leaders are all three of them are not running for reelection this year. There's a nonpartisan legislative fiscal bureau that analyzes any piece of legislation for its fiscal impact and it said it would create a nearly $3 billion uh structural deficit for the state. Um Senator Spritzer in a public comment echoed that concern. He noted

038that much of the projected surplus only exists on paper and that was and that $3 billion deficit um even that was um uh based on rosy economic scenarios. There is another reason this context matters for this district. Most political observers believe that the state senate will uh switch uh sides. The chamber will be majority democrat next session. Um, one reason that's important to Bloiters is that Senator Spritzer is in line to be the number two position in the state senate if that occurs. Um, that would put our state senator, one that looks out for our district at the table when the next state budget gets written and then with school funding reform finally happens, we hope. Um, the other thing is legislators now, you know, what should we expect for the rest of the summer?

039Legislators are out now um collecting signatures to get on the fall ballot. So this so essentially the legislative session is done and the campaign season has begun. As that plays out, we as a board and as a district will need to weigh in on school funding proposals um through the organizations we belong to and individually. And of course, we're a party to the important lawsuit moving forward. Most of that begins really in earnest once um November election happens and we know sort of who will be the players in the state capital for our district. I in my opinion as legislative leison my the bottom line is this the structural under underfunding of public education um well documented by the nonpartisan Wisconsin policy forum did not get fixed last week didn't get worse either there's a

040real fight this district's part of that for sustainable long-term school funding this continues into the next legislative session I'll keep monitoring that and reporting back as things develop so thank you >> thank you Mr. Shuof. Next on the agenda, we have board representative and alternate for BEA negotiations. The board of education has a representative serve on the negotiation committee with administration while negotiating with the BEA executive officers. The board will also have an alternate should the representative be unable to attend. Policy 143, official board representatives, lists an employee relations liaison as one of the board representatives appointed by the board president. However, this has not been filled for several years. It is my understanding that this title has morphed into BEA board representative. I would appreciate if we could fill this position tonight. The role

041of BEA board representative will represent the board of education during negotiations. The al alternate rep may attend these sessions but would stand in if the BEA representative is un unavailable. Are there any board members who would like to volunteer or nominate someone for this position? >> If somebody else would like to do it, that's cool. I did it last year. I'd be more than happy to serve again. >> Okay. Anyone else? >> How many meetings? What does it entail? >> Miss Miller, you would probably be best to answer that one. >> It was lovely. It was a handful of meetings with wonderful people and uh you know, I mean, I don't think it was like a a giant time constraint. I mean, it was reasonable. I'd be willing to be the alternate if Megan wants

042to do the real thing. >> Thank you. Well, then I will appoint Megan Miller as our BEA rep and Carol Fox as our alternate. Are there any questions or any other discussion? Wonderful. I love it when things go that fast. One here that's not going to go so fast. U our next item is board budget proposal. And the purpose of this is to share with board members the proposed budget reductions that administration has put together for the 4.5 needed for the 2627 school year. The administration is looking for feedback from board members at this time. Before I turn it over to Dr. Anderson, I will share some thoughts that I uh shared with the board and uh one of the news media. The board understands these are challenging economic times for many families, staff me

043members and e and community members. Like households across our community, school districts are also facing significant rising costs while working with limited financial resources. Many school districts across the state and nation are also facing dwindling enrollment and financial difficulties. Unfortunately, the reductions we must consider are greater than originally anticipated. Initially, the district thought we were only going to have to make 4.5 million in reductions. That number has now grown to about 5.7 million. We continue to listen carefully to the perspectives and suggestions shared by our community, staff, and families and students. Thank you, McKenna. We consistently hear that people value strong academics, safe and respectful learning environments, and meaningful extracurricular opportunities for students. In response, the administration has brought forward three recommend recommended options for the board's consideration, which it is also important to acknowledge

044that the state funding in Wisconsin has not kept pace with inflation or the increasing needs of students. The realities facing schools today are very different from those even 10 years ago, 15 years ago. In addition, the school district of boy continues to experience declining enrollment which has a substantial impact on district funding. Despite these financial challenges, the school district of boy remains deeply committed to our students and families. We will continue to work diligent diligently to find the correct balance and timing of rights sizing the school district of below. We value our partnership with the community and will continue to work together to provide the strongest educational experience possible for every student we serve. Dr. Anderson, >> we're going to have enough um what I'll call challenging discussions tonight. So, I thought I'd start out

045with a little good news is that for the 2526 school year, the budget we're currently in, when the board passed that budget, the board looked at having to use 1,937,000 of OPED funds, which are retirement funds that well, we've already paid all of our retirement costs. So, that they're monies the district has to spend. they were going to use that to balance the budget. As of today, it looks like we will not have to use those OPED funds, which means they'll still be available. Um the reason for that is one, we sold McNeel, so that brought in revenue that we had not anticipated. Two, we had um vacant and unfilled positions that were in the budget that we did not employ. So that was a cost savings. And then there was good fiscal management um

046through the year. Uh Miss Elwood has done an excellent job of keeping an a day-to-day sharp eye on all of our expenses so that the slightly under $2 million that we are going to use of OPED to balance this budget will still be available in the future. So that's the good news. Now we have some things I just want to go through before we go through our scenarios and these basically just give you some overall budgeting. One, the first slide that you see is showing that in well the very first slide she just had up there showed that right now we need to cut $5.7 million. We had thought it was 4.5. It ended up being 5.7 because of uh in insurance increases and transportation costs. If we were to simply take care of that,

047saying we did not have a balanced budget and we use fund equity, it would drain our fund equity uh from 12% to um under 6%. It would take us from about $11 million in fund equities like our savings account for rainy day funds. It would take us down to a little over 5 million. That's not fiscally responsible to do that because after two years, your savings account would be totally dry and you'd have nothing to fall back on. We right now have 12%. The Department of Public Construction would recommend we have at least 15%. which unfortunately district has not been able to maintain for a few years. See, I have this terrible um problem is that I can't see anything close up with my glasses on and I can't see anything uh far away without

048my glasses. So, we have three budget scenarios. So, that was the first one. Using fund equity, not a good plan. Second one is what if we do a combination of OPED and budget reductions that will help us somewhat. Um one it makes our cuts a little less severe. However, in regards to the budget we are going to have to make cuts. There is no feasible way to come up with 5.7 million without cuts. We also take have to take a look is as we're using OPED funds that is going to have a slight tax increase and we all know that from last year when parents when community members saw a large tax increase they were um shocked and not happy. I will use those words. What we will look this year is right now if

049we come up with a balanced budget we should have a slight tax decrease in the mill rate but depending on how we do it depends on the rate. If we do use uh some OPED funds and all that uh for this year um with budget reductions as a combination what we'll have is we'll still have reduction over last year. So, but as we continue to do that, it'll reduce, but it won't be reduced by as much. But right now, I just I do want the public in it to understand is that if we balance this budget appropriately, your school tax portion of the bill should go slightly down from what it was last year. All right, that's important. Now, if your house value changes, that has an impact. But if your house value stayed the

050same, we balance the budget, your taxes should go down. Now, the third option is what if we take a use of some VOP funds, some staff reductions, and also look at a referendum. If we do a referendum in November and that referendum were to pass, we can use those funds during the 2627 school year, which could then offset some of our costs. But of course, if we go for referendum, that is asking the taxpayers for a tax increase. I'm just presenting this to say there are different options for how we can go about balancing a budget, but in the end, we want to make sure our bal our budget's balanced. three scenarios. We brought up three scenarios uh last week and uh we'll bring to go back over them again. Uh each one of them

051will help us balance the budget. Each one of them have different things going on. We have A, B, and C. Now, I know that the writing is small up there, so I'm going to basically give you a synopsis of what each of these options are. Option A looks at going through all of our staffing throughout every portion of our building and taking a look at if we tried to rightsize our district for not only next year but for future years because it's no secret that the Lincoln Academy right across the street um is um constructing its second half. Now in my discussions I have found out that once it is finished for the 27 28th school year they are not going to take all of their students at one time. They are going to phase

052it in over a couple of years. So it means that um any student decline won't happen immediately but it'll be phased out but it's still declining enrollment and as we lose students we lose revenue. So the first option takes a look at all of those and at the end we're going to cut 45 individuals. 44.7 is what we would have less working in the district next year than we'd have this year. That would save us 4.4,877,216, 4,877,216, which means we still have to go under OPED for another $822,784 to balance our budget. Option B is a little more aggressive. In option B, we're going to cut slightly over 48 students and we're going to start looking at can we move programs? In other words, can we take the um Bo Learning Academy and take that

053from its present location in Cunningham and move those programs to other buildings. So, some of those programs would could go to the high school. We'd have to work out how that exactly be, but we'd be looking at utilizing space of the high school. One of the proposals also is to take Merryill and to make that an early childhood early learning center where we take the students other students move them to the other five elementaryaries and use that building as a district center. Basically would allow us to empty out the Cunningham so we could then look if we could sell that in the same way we sold McNeel. that option um would net us $5,367,418 which still means we'd have to take $332,582 out of OPED. The third option is the least aggressive. U what it

054does is it cuts 35.2 two staff and those staff are basically vacancies that happen throughout the district uh or contracted staff, but it would basically mean that the staff members who currently are working for us this year would have jobs next year. Um it may not be in the same building or at the same grade level, but if they were employed this year, they would be employed next year. However, that would save us $3,678,216, which means we still have a shortfall of OPED of 1,841,784. Each one of these proposals are going to restire staff cuts. What we have to take a look at is how aggressive do we want to have the cuts in staff for next year? because depending on the aggressiveness of the cuts will depend on how much money we have to

055use from OPED to balance it. Now, we can have the board could decide that um it does not want to use OPED funds. And if that would be the case, then what uh I would be tasked with my cabinet and with staff is to come back and determine how many more additional cuts depending on the solution that was um in favor to make sure it's balanced. Irregardless, the district is going to look different next year than it does this year. There is there's no way around that. I can't come up with additional funds. Had we hoped last week that there was been some offsetting costs, that would have been great. However, that is not the case. So, what we're need to discuss is what do we think is the best option going forward? How aggressively

056should we cut going forward? Uh once we know that um then it's up to us to try to implement those plans. Um, if none of these proposals are beneficial or I should say if none of these proposals are accepted, then I think what the best step is is determine is there a level of acceptability of use of OPED funds so that we know yes um as a board we feel that we'd be willing to use X amount of OPED for next year and then whatever the difference is we'd have to take a look at these options and determine if we needed to cut as severely as option B or cut more aggressively than option C. And that really is the discussion in front of us tonight. Once we have that, then we can look at

057um you know who is going to be displaced. The one thing as we cut things we have to realize is that when we cut individuals, it means that certain things that are being done this year probably are not going to get done. to just assume that we're going to find somebody else to take that on. I don't know that that's realistic. I think what it is is some duties could be taken on, but we have to realize some duties can't. So, that's kind of what the um what I'll call the initial discussion is tonight is to see if we can come to some agreement on how aggressively we should look at next year. And um once we do that then we will be able to make some finetuning on the determinations how are we going

058to get that number. Now I do think it's important to also note is that the board had certain things that it wanted us to take a look at that are preserved in and in all of these um options. One is staff get a raise 2.6% is built in. So irregardless of the option, there is a CPI raise for staff. Also, there was no cuts or changes to longevity pay. I know that those had been discussions forward. All of these options preserve that. So those are things that take place irregardless. All these options require us to take a look at one athletics. Now, right now, athletics, we are taking a look at recommending moving middle school athletics into uh fund 80. That means the programs still exist. We fund it out of fund 80 rather than

059fund 10. It does mean that those middle school programs are then open to all individuals in the city, not just those that go to um Fuszen or Aldrich, but it is a mechanism to keep that sports but yet um give some flexibility to fund 10. We're also looking at reducing our legal costs. In fact, I have a meeting coming up with our legal providers. They think they can help us reduce the uh expenditures that we have had so far. Uh, one of the things I will tell you is that's a that costs us a great deal of legal fees and time are open record requests. Um, I've been doing this, this is my 30th year as a superintendent. I will tell you that we receive a multitude of open record requests on a regular basis.

060Uh so that takes a fair amount of legal um help to sort through all of the things we can and cannot provide and also we have one individual that works almost entirely on fulfilling our open record requests. So it's just something to take a think of is that these are things we will respond to. These are things we need to respond to, but they are things that you know do take up time and resources. And so we're working with our attorneys to find out where can we pair down our legal costs for high school. Uh it's been no secret that for the last two years our budget has went over by $100,000. So basically we're taking a look at do we either increase by a h 100,000 or do we look at making changes um

061to be in line with our budget. I would say right now what uh we are looking at for our scenarios is to look at each one of our programs in detail and determine if there are cuts that can be made that still preserve programs. In other words, we're not going to eliminate high school athletics. you know, we're not eliminating middle school athletics, but we are going to take a look to determine how many coaches are in each of our uh sporting events. How many students do we have and is there a way that we can make reductions so that we can stay in line with our budgeted amounts? Those are just some things that in general that we are taking a look at as um as we go about trying to solve this process. Once

062we finish this budget, then the next discussions are right away are referendum. Do we go to referendum? If so, do we go to referendum in November or do we go to referendum in April? If we go to referendum in November, we need to have a question designed um and ready to put forth by the end of August. So, we would have between now and the end of August to determine what is what are the things that we would want to ask the public to financially support. Um, if we does pass, we could use those monies during the 2627 school year. So, we would be allowed to use some of those funds. So, if we had to make some initial cuts now and we put those in the referendum and the referendum were to pass and

063those are things we asked to be added back, we could add those back um during the same school year. Do we go to April? That way, we would have a longer amount of time to determine what should be in this question. These are just other things that we're going to need to discuss right after this item is done. There's in about committees because I am asking the board I want to form two committees. Um one I'll just jump ahead so you won't have to uh listen as closely next time. One of the committees is what I call a student enrollment committee and that committee is basically to find out we are draining students each year. In fact, we just got a new report of where we are currently with our student count, and it is

064we've lost more students than from our last count. So, we are right now on track to lose over 200 students for this school year from when it started. Remember, as we lose enrollment, that's less money for us to spend. So, we need to do is find a way, why are students leaving our district? What is it that we can do to stabilize that? Because if we can stabilize our enrollment so that it basically knows that from year from one year to the next, it's moderately stable with just minor fluctuations, we can create a three or fiveyear plan for how we want to deal and where we want to go. But when we continually lose 200 or more students a year, and as I mentioned earlier, the Lincoln Academy will be open in 2728 for some

065grade levels. it is very difficult to continually um create a sustainable budget when you have less students. The other one I'm looking at is that because of the opening of the Lincoln Academy in 2728, we are going to have to take a look at as we lose students, what is the best way that we can use our resources? That means our staff and also our buildings. There gets a point when it does not make financial sense to keep all of our buildings open. So, we will want to take time to take a look at each of our buildings, what it costs to run them, if we move students, where we'd move those to. In fact, I was had a discussion with a staff member today and I learned something I did not know before. Um,

066I learned something new every day. Um, but the thing I learned today was when Fusen was constructed that it was originally designed to be an elementary school and I had never heard that. So, this was a first time. So the goal is to invite staff and the public so we can have some very fruitful discussions or bring recommendations to the board on one is that we need to do to stabilize our enrollment and two uh as we if we continue to have decline enrollment how are we going to best use our facilities and our staff to make things work consistently over a period of time. Those are the large issues that we're looking at. So tonight it's the goal is if we can determine the direction for setting the budget for the 2627 school year,

067we can make the final changes that we need to bring that in front of the board at the upcoming meeting. My goal is always to have a budget uh before July 1st, which is going to be challenging because we only have one meeting in June, but or at least as close to that so when we're starting the new school year, people know what resources we're working with. If we can do that, then we can also start determining if we need to make certain cuts. Are there certain positions that we would cut that we would want to think about putting back in in an upcoming referendum? So each three of these scenarios um and it lays out um basically where we would cut in each one of our buildings and every one of our buildings is

068going to be uh is going to be reduced in staff is going to be which one of these do we think is the most which would do we like to adopt for the next year and if neither if none of these meet that what are what are the parameters that we need to go to tweak any of these to work. So, that's a lot more talking than I uh had originally planned to do, but I think it's important to set the stage. So, right now it's basically a discussion. Um A, B, and C are up there. The board members have that um is trying to make a discussion of where would you like us to go from here? because if I know where you'd like us to go, I will do my best to work

069with staff to accomplish that goal. >> Dr. Anderson, before we begin the discussion, I had specifically requested um the administrators walk us through the proposed budget reductions 2026 2027 May 12th presentation. I I understand it doesn't include option C, but I think there's a lot of good details in here that board members and the public should hear before we begin. Uh >> Yep, that's fine. We have that. >> Thank you. >> Y Madam Chair, just one point of clarification real quick if I may. I know Dr. Anderson, you spoke about the committee structure, which is our next agenda item, but informally when we understood this was coming up, there's two committees. one with like enrollment marketing. How do we reverse en enrollment? And then I understood the second one was going to be referendum and

070use of buildings. But when you just described it to us here, you didn't say it was referendum and buildings. You talked about you talked about just about buildings. So the the the second committee is the one that would help figure out if we needed a referendum, right? Well, I think both committees are going to end up tackling part of the referendum question because I don't think there's any way they're all inter intertwined. So, for enrollment, what is it that with enrollment that we may need to do to stabilize our students and as we look at the buildings and staff? So, I think that the referendum discussions are going to happen in both of those committees. >> Thank you, U board member Shu. Um, and that's a excellent question. Let's keep on the um agenda item

071at hand because there are a lot of questions. There's a lot of information and a lot of um important things we need to cover. Dr. Anderson is do do you have the presentation? >> It's up there. Um I'm going to tell you that's a different sheet than I started with. >> No, we can do it. We can I just need to look over from here. All right. So, this basically goes into how I'll talk loud so you should all be able to hear me. These go with our shortfalls. All right. So, why are we with this the situation we're in? We're in it because we're declining students. We expect that for the 26 27 school year. Our enrollment is going to be 200 students less than it was for this school year. And the bottom

072line is it probably could be slightly more than that because right now we're on track to be slightly over 200 students um fewer than we were last year. We were also estimating in 2728 with the Lincoln Academy that that could hold another 750 students and we had the possibility of losing 600. I think we can modify that number some knowing that they're not going to open all seats at one time. However, over a period of time, they are going to fill that building. So, it'll be phased in. So, we are still looking at because the building's opening, the most likely students to go there are going to be students from Bulock because it's in our town. By revenue increase, this is what the state says. Here's what you need to figure out. And there's here's

073how much money we're give you per student. As I already mentioned, if we have less students, we have less revenue to spend. These are what we're hoping. Now, special ed is what we had hoped last week was going to be increased to 50 or 60%. That did not happen. So, these are the numbers that we currently have, which we've used in our projections. We did build in the salary increase. Our health insurance increase as I said the reason we went from 4.5 to 5.7 is that our health increase went to 18% we had budgeted 10 we are also budgeting a 10% increase for 2728 we pay a significant amount of our money that comes into us um to the charter schools because that's how the funding system works. So money comes to us and then

074it goes to in this case like the Lincoln Academy or Rock County Christian utility costs just normal things are going up because inflation goes up so our costs go up and we have the same cost of your household costs. So this is why we're in part of the shape horn. These are some of the things that are just realities. But the realities are as long as we have less students and our costs increase. We have to make budget cuts to balance it. These are the forecast models I had mentioned originally. So to this forecast, if we were to take the 5.7 and we basically were to fund that out of fund equity, this line, which is hard for you to see, is our mill rate. And basically if we use fund equity it shows that

075because we have less. Now this is not what you want to do because you can only do it for two years but basically it shows the mill rate going down. All right. our enrollment context by building. What you'll see is I said we average we lose an average of 200 students per year or at least we have been the district total in 2024 we had 5,200 kids 25 we had 5,000 right now 4,76. That's why it's not sustainable. As we keep losing students, we keep losing revenue because our revenue is based on our student count. So every time we continue to lose students, why the reason I said we need the committee, the amount of revenue we can spend goes down. Our elementary school was 2484, then 2,455, then 2356. Elementary school goes down. Middle

076school was,5 then 987 921. High school 1,339 dropped to 1,219 dropped to 1,132. The only one of our schools that are increasing in enrollment is our virtual school, which we had 85 and 24, 86 and 25, and 142 or 142 in 26, which was 000 it would have been better but it's the only one that's increasing our alternative programs we had 205 and we dropped 182 118 the bottom line is that we are losing student enrollment now as you lose enrollment and when I was here three years ago and came I gave a similar presentation to the board at the time what I told them at that time is they'd lost at that time about 25% of their student body but they hadn't decreased increase the staffing and I said that was unsustainable. What it

077is we're continuing we're continuing to lose student enrollment. However, in the last several years they have been cutting positions. So now I mean it's just a reality is that issue when we have less students we need to have less staff. Just another enrollment chart basically shows you in each of the schools how much we have. We are going down into enrollment. A lot of the slides pick that up. But the reason we keep emphasizing that is not only I want to drill home that is we have less students we have less revenue. But it also means that when we take a look at our students, if we have less students, where are we going to make staffing changes? Because obviously we need less staff if we need less students. The trouble is they don't all

078fall one spot. They fall different spots. So it makes it harder to say, well, we can just cut at the elementary because that's lose the students. Now we lose students throughout the district, but we still have less students. So then we have to take a look at our offerings and where can we where can we reduce teachers because we don't have as many students in elementary classrooms. or can we reduce classes at the middle school and high school level because our enrollment has dropped so that we don't have as many students in those classes. That's what all these options took into consideration. But if you can go back one more I'll just quickly go through this basically shows how many students especially in our building. So if we look at Converse it has it by

079grade level. Converse has 439 students. It goes gas gon by grade level. I'm not going to touch the screen. And it shows. So we've looked at every one of the schools in the building. We've taken a look at how many students are in each one. And we're trying to take a look at where do we need to make modifications. But irregardless, the student counts are going down. The student counts are going down. I think next one is homelessness. All right. One of the things also that we have about 13% of our students in this district are homeless. That is a large number. Homeless students have the right to go to any school in the district. We don't prevent that. We just have a larger number than most. When you have a larger number of certain

080types of students, it just takes more resources to help with those students because of the situation they're in. 13% is much higher than it's much higher than the average district. So, it's just one of those things that we deal with. So, that's why sometimes we take a look at where can we make cuts. You can't make them equally across the board in all areas. Can't just say we're going to cut staff by 10%, high school 10%, middle school, because the types of students we have and where they're located, it doesn't fall so neatly. special education students also. So when you take a look, special education students have what's called an individualized education program. I always forget the program or plan which is it IEPs and each of the IEPs help dictate what these students are

081going to receive for additional support so that they can live up to their um potential. This sometimes requires additional support in like instructional aids. It requires staff providing them minutes. So it's not that well our student or if our population goes up sometimes the instructional services tell us that we need to provide more resources. There was a question I think it was one of the um public comments that were read about pair professionals in the special education program. We have to take a look at not only how many students do we have in special ed, but we need to take a look at what are the requirements of their IEPs. How many minutes do we have to meet in different types of instruction? So again, it's not just an easy cut that says well because

082actually our special education population is expanding and not decreasing. Excuse me. We can go to the next one. As we're taking a look at all of the things, what we did is we tried to take a look at where what positions could we cut in each of the buildings, in each of the departments. In other words, taking a look at what are our student needs, what are our staffing needs, what are the basically the budgetary limitations we're living under. And so we went place by place to take a look at what are going to be cut first. First, we cut, as I said, like an option C. If there are vacant positions where people may have retired, if people may have left for another position, if it was a position that we'd had in the

083books, but we couldn't fill it for a while, we took a look at, you know, eliminating those right away and then trying to say existing staff, where can we move them? We also took a look at going farther than that with A and B and saying we're going to not only eliminate the vacant positions, we're also going to take a look at what other positions do we have and if worst came to worst, where would we do layoffs? Where would you tell people that are currently working this year they don't have a job next year? So, we went through each of them keeps changing. We went through each of the we went through co-ac and each of the buildings to make some determination. So like here administrative assistance so administration so we're taking a look

084at you know what are the cuts where can we make cuts where can we make cuts administrators building grounds. One of the things in two of the plans in sections A and B is elementary schools wouldn't have deans next year. So if we take A or B, one of the things that they used to have assistant principles that was reduced to a dean under A and B, we would take away the dean position. So the principal would be in charge of the elementary school. We cut administrators at the aac. So we have some who are we have basically three major areas we looked at cutting. We looked at cutting the director of nursing services. We looked at um cutting the director of alternative programs and we looked at cutting the coordinator of steam education plus

085uh secretarial staff. So we we didn't leave anybody out in any of the discussions. So there was no sacred building or sacred department that couldn't have reductions. Like I said, the end result's going to be is how deep do we want to go in this first year. So, as I said, we went to deans. The biggest one is that there would be no deans. We went for instructional support, secretarial staff, security officers. Every area we took a look at. So, we can keep going, but this is building capacity. So, as we take a look, especially with their second one, as we keep losing students, you know, all of our buildings can hold more students, when is it going to make sense for us to say we can close down building X and move the students

086to other buildings so that you know we can have reduction. We can have then a reduction in, you know, heating lights, you know, those types of things gives possibility of a building to sell. So, we took a look at where's the capacity. All of our buildings have capacity. All right. They were we had more students, they could hold them. We have less students. So, each one of our buildings have excess capacity that we could make changes. So that's one of the reasons that I have one of the committees to take a look because if we lose even more in the 2728. It's not going to be feasible to keep all of our buildings open. We're going to have to take a look at which building doesn't make the most sense to close and what would

087we do? Do we sell that? And then how do we rearrange those students or programs in different buildings? That was building. You can go to the next one. All right. She said option C was in here. Option C is what I presented last week. If you take a look, basically takes our total reduction. So option A, as I said, is aggressive. We would cut 45 staff members from next out of next year's budget. B, we would cut out of uh the budget and we'd also be moving closing buildings or at least using buildings. We'd be closing Cunningham, moving those programs into the high school and into Merill. We'd be moving Merryill, making it a different we'd make an early learning center rather than an elementary school. This goes through each one. So central office currently

088we have 73.5. We would take a look at the net reductions of losing eight positions in the elementary school. We've currently have 316. We'd be looking at almost 10 reductions. Facilities we'd be cutting two. Facilities are like our maintenance teams. High school or journal of education, we'd look at cutting 12. Middle school, we'd be looking at 12. And here it just outlines each of the buildings. So Aldrich 5 and a half, but uh learning academy 3, Boral High School 9, Converse 2.2. When it has a point, it means we're sharing staff with other buildings. Um want to go through converse to District office 8 facilities operations two Fuszen 6 and a half Gaston 2.2 Hacket 1.2 Mel 4.2 2 under a Robinson we'd actually add a.3 and shared staff in Todd would be losing a

089point 2. These are all basically to say we're going to have to have reductions in all of our buildings. Each of our buildings are going to look different depending on how aggressive we are. They're going is going to depend on you know where's like I said B A is aggressive B is more aggressive and we didn't have C on this because that came one after last Tuesday and as I said C basically maintains all the building structures the way they are leaves the deans in the buildings but it uses the most OP funds just shy of $2 million in OP to balance Option B is said we had option A and B. Again, I I know this sound repetitive. Basically, option B would have the same cuts as option A, a few more cuts than

090that. And then we'd also be looking at how we're using our buildings. This was the basically a summary page for A and B and I'll add C to it. A, it maintains our current structures and meaning all our buildings stay in place with targeted reductions in staff. B, it basically we're redesigning the system. We're going to use Merryill differently and we're going to basically empty out Cunningham and so we'd be using the high school differently. we'd be using meril differently. The reductions uh on option A 44.7 option B 48.2 2 in structures would change because Maryland would come to early learning center. The other ones would absorb the K through five or the and doesn't show up here, but we'd also have to use BLA and move that into Poland Memorial High School. The efficiencies,

091if we keep everything the same with the students, it's some efficiencies, but basically the buildings are still used as the buildings. It's not a big change as far as what's it take to operate a building. If we option B where we start closing things, obviously we can close buildings down. That means we're going to save on some of those what I'll call uh facility costs. Student support under A since we keep all the buildings the same, it's um it's less disruptive because the buildings stay the same. So Merl remains to be an elementary school learning academy stays at Cunningham. It's just that we're going to have them both less staff. If we do um B again we're making more changes in buildings total savings. This would give us as I said 4,697,216 in savings which

092means we still need to use OPAD. D is more aggressive. I would say was 5,187418 would still use OPED and as I said C is not up here because C wasn't in that original document. C we would have to use almost $2 million of OPED. It would keep the building structures the same. It would basically um minimize staffing cuts to the vacant positions. So about um and would keep deans in the elementary schools. legal costs. As I said, we're trying to look, we use uh for various reasons we are trying to reduce our legal costs in um our legal costs were about 475,000. 2425 they were just shy of 500,000. Uh right now um as of March we are tracking 334,000. So, we're trying to take a look at how can we reduce our legal

093costs um so that we so we can use those dollars elsewhere. One of the things I had suggested if we go back is looking at potentially in-house counsel. Some other districts that are about our size have their own attorney on staff eight hours a day and that might be an option to look at that might give us some cost savings. All right. And the next slide. These are smaller ones, but every dollar we save is a dollar is like cutting professional development travel. In other words, can we basically limit when we're going to leave? So, if it's not funded by a grant, basically we would try to limit. So, we didn't do it. We do have grant funds. Um, if I cut grant funds, it doesn't save any fund$10 dollars. It doesn't help balance the

094budget. But we can take a look at other than spending dollars, professional development dollars out of fund 10. How can we minimize that as much as possible? How do we can we keep things in district so that we don't have to travel the food, hotel expenses? They're not it's not large numbers, but as I said, every dollar we save we can reallocate somewhere else. Next, deferred maintenance is an issue. There are projects that should be done this summer. We have already put them on hold and said that we're not going to do them. To the projects, one is the parking lot in Aldrich. If you've driven there, you realize that it has issues. However, to fix it, we were looking at between three and 400,000. So, I said we're going to scratch it. We're not

095going to put that in. We can put it in a referendum. Roof maintenance, depending on how you use Cunningham, you can decide not to. Boy Memorial, we're going to use. But again, those are projects that are going to cost us a million dollars. We've said we're going to delay those. We can look at whether or not we put them in referendum, but there are maintenance costs that go up. One of the things that McKenna mentioned is restrooms and that. You have to realize some of the cuts that have already been made is we hire contract cleaning out. cuts have been made in the past so that the amount of days and hours that we have custodial crew in our buildings was reduced. So we don't have them, you know, as much as we used to

096have in the past. That's why there's some issues every once in a while that we work with H. They're doing, you know, they're doing a good job with the staff and the hours that they have available, but there are things that we've had to let go. We have other things we have to worry about, we have to consider. Informationational technology in 22 23 we spent just shy of 800,000 We spend that in 23 24 and 24 25. We were projected to spend that this year. We looked at earlier in the year. What about Chromebooks in replacement because they're getting older. Right now we're seeing if we can basically do some things inhouse to keep our, you know, so we don't have to go out and spend a lot more money on new Chromebooks. Um, one,

097we're not letting them go home at middle school. We're going to keep them on site and we're determining how much we're going to need them at the elementary school. High school uses them on a daily basis. That will, you know, they'll continue to take those home. But if we keep them at the middle school, if we keep them in the house, it there's not as much damage. If there's not as much damage, we don't have to have as many repairs. We get to save some dollars. As I mentioned, custodial, we've already been cutting back on that. Um, is a cost-saving measure and print services. We do print services in house. Just trying to cut back. Again, the only reason this is up here is to show you we are trying to look at every area.

098Some areas have already been cut over the past. So district has had I don't know in the last time the board had a budget discussion says we're going to add x amount of dollars to make the pot larger. The discussions have been for the last several years at least. What do we have to do without next year that we had this year because we have less money. That's where we're at. We did, as I mentioned earlier, we were able to sell McNeel, so that added some revenue back. Take a look. We do that. We do have some lots for sale. So, one of the things we mentioned is if we have excess property um that were purchased by boards when they thought we were going to grow, maybe we take a look at starting to

099sell those. >> Clarification, those lots are not for sale yet. We are discussing whether or not we're going to sell them. So don't send us emails making us offers yet. >> But it's one of the things we've talked about is that as we when we sold McNeil and brought in some revenue, should we take a look at other pieces of property that we have and see if that will also bring in at least some one-time revenue? I mean, we're taking a look at KO. You know, this is a nice building, but with the staff that we currently have, could we reallocate ourselves into like the building operations center and disperse those into some of the buildings and then put this building up for sale? We're not. There's no idea off the table that we're looking

100at. Technology and staff, I think I already covered that lots. We cover that technology. We address that a little bit. All right. Learning SIS students and staff. >> This basically is curriculum materials. In other words, when we took take a look at the materials we use in our classroom, are there reductions that we can make? are the things that we are using that we don't think that um the value we're getting for the product is it less than what we're paying for the product. So we're trying to take a look do we have duplications of some materials you know some technology that we can say this works better we can reduce this. So anyway, what we're taking a look at is what types of things do we have in place that we can either reduce

101or eliminate because we think we can cover it in some other way. In OPED, I've mentioned it several times. OPED is the dollars that were set aside originally for retirement. We have now paid out the required cost. The rest of it is money that can be reallocated and used. I mean, the suggestion was since our fund equity is low, do we want to put fund we want to put it back into fund equity to raise that up? Because right now we're at 12. They would like us to be at 15. But as of February 28th, we had $4.6 million available that could be used to offset costs. This is not for this budget, but it is going to have to be for the next one. We are going to We used to have auto shop

102over by the Eclipse Center. That went away. So, we are looking at moving the over to the high school. Uh take a look the building in the parking lot um to expand that. However, that is going to require at least a $500,000 investment next year that I would have to build into that budget or it would have to be funded through a referendum or the program we're going to offer would have to be greatly decreased from what we what we were offering because we just won't have the stations. Fund 80 is I mentioned fund 80 once before. Fund 80 is our community fund. I mentioned middle school athletics. It'll be open up to all students within the district. So it' be open to the Lincoln Academy, be open to Rock County Christian. You can use

103fund 80. Fun 80 are dollars that the whole community is taxed on, but you can take them out of fund 10. So it gives you some um savings in fund 10 because you're moving somewhere else. I think these are just for elections and taking a look at when we would do potential referendums. One, we could do a referendum in November. If we do that, our question has to be ready in August or we could look at a referendum in April 6. Then we'd have more time. But those are the dates you're limited to having referendum. >> Thank you, Dr. Anderson. I really appreciate that. Are there any administrators that want to add any information or thoughts um to this presentation? If not, I will open it up to the board. And Tom, you had your

104hand up first. >> Thank you, board president. Um I'll have to excuse myself a little early, so I'm happy you got me on. Um just in general overview on uh budget proposals. To me, it's a hybrid of the three. I don't I I I would not be in favor of choosing A, B, or C. I think there's a hybrid mix of all of them that I would be in favor of doing um different parts out of one, two, and three. So, that's just my first comment. Um, when you mentioned and McKenna Rounds mentioned uh, Hess and and you kind of covered up for him. I think that's extremely disrespectful. They are paid to do a service to our district. They are a service provider and if they're doing the job of doing the basics of

105cleaning a bathroom and providing towels and whatever necessities are needed in a bathroom, they should be called on the carpet for that. It's not that's not a reduction in uh our services. We pay them to do a service. I'm sure it's in their contract. So, I wouldn't pass that off. I would get on it and get on HS to make sure they're doing what they're supposed to be doing. And obviously, they're not. If M kind of tells us that, that's why she's on the board to tell us those type of things that we don't know. um with we do meet with Hess on a regular basis to review if there's complaints and all that and to try to address those. So it's not >> this the first time you've heard of that Dr. Anderson is

106>> this complaint that McKenna said tonight. >> It's the first time I've heard that they didn't have toilet paper or things like that. Yes, >> that's pretty basic. >> Yes. >> If you clean a bathroom and I've been in the service industry all my life and that's the first thing you do is make sure your bathrooms are clean. It's just I don't want to get get into it, but I'm just saying that's discussing and should not happen in our schools. Um the fund 80 existing balance. Uh Stephanie, do you have what we have existing in our fund or excuse me, fund 80? And I know we've taken some money out of it. >> Is she? >> I'll have to get that number to you. I'm not sure off the top of my head. But we've

107I heard today that we took monies out to pay for Fourth of July from last year. >> We did, but it's very minimal. >> Correct. But at the time, if I remember correctly, back >> and correct me if I'm wrong, which you will, >> we had like 230 $40,000 existing in that in that fund. >> That is correct. And we did not levy for fund 80 this correct this this fiscal year. But the expenses that have been happening are partly some community activities that had happened in 2526 and also the even start program. And I think the Even Start program, don't quote me on this, it's somewhere around 60 or 70,000. It's not very much >> and correct me if I'm wrong, but even start is a a part an expense to our district being

108at Cunningham and they're also being a drain on on our fund 80. Is that then not correct? >> We did move it into fund 80 because it is a community program because it is um open to anyone in the community that wants to be a part of it and it's um >> but they don't provide any revenue to the district. It's just a drain. I'm not saying that the program is not good. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying revenue expenses. >> Yes, it is an expense to the district and there is no revenue attached to them. Yes. So normally would uh even start be a normal fund 80 tax taxing levy levy. Is that part of it? Normal. I mean since we have an existing balance it just comes off of that. But when

109we have zero balance then we'll have >> Yes, that is correct. If we didn't have a fund balance in fund 80 we would have to levy for those expenses in there. That is correct. >> Okay. Thank you. Um Dr. Anderson, you talk about moving things out of uh Cunningham and then selling it. Have you looked the salailability of selling Cunningham or any of our buildings? And I know this is a long road ahead of us and I I certainly know that we going to have to sell some buildings and downsize to me and I've toured less than a month ago. How wellbuilt and a solid building Cunningham is and to shut it down completely uh makes no sense to me. And and who's going to buy that building in the middle of a neighborhood? my

110thought and I'm just saying this out loud right now and I've expressed it to you before uh selling frozen which is a marketable place on Milwaukee Road and moving those people you know around town and we've already broached that we've already moved students you know let's go back to the west side and and make sure that uh we do that and you know appease that side of it but more than that a business sense would be to sell that marketing I mean I'm not the expert on marketing But I do know that Milwaukee Road is a much viable uh uh interest space than Townline would be. And I think that's makes more sense. Cutting was built to be an education center. It is an education center, but it's not being utilized properly. Um and we

111get no revenue from the people that are in there. BLA is doing an excellent job and I compliment Dr. Schroeder and I think in if we all put our minds together we could find a good way where to put the programs that are at Cunningham and move forward. I don't think that moving everything out and then selling Cunningham is a I I will not be in favor of anything like that but that I'm only one. Um Kolak I think is an excellent suggestion. I think we should go forward with that. We have downsized and paired in the last three four years. Kolak uh we have a business op center which I think we should keep within our fold it's on our campus as this is but that's more on our campus you know how much

112we can of coach we can put in the op center how much we can put in um the high school or other avenues uh I think we could you the brain trust could figure that out and Kolak I think is another this I mean this property not per se but this building is very marketable. Uh I'm I'm uh and I will I'm just being very forward and I'm the only one and I know that. But uh those are my thoughts on those things as we move forward. Um but going back to the >> can I just ask for a clarification just for my taking notes. So if I heard you right um you would one of your thoughts would be I won't call it your recommendation. One of your thoughts would be for us to

113close frozen, move the students from frozen into Cunningham, so we had a middle school on both sides and sell frozen. Correct. >> Well, that's kind of the dream over overview, but I'm not sure how that all fits. I'm just saying that's just a thought. I don't know if that's correct. I mean, that's my thought. >> I mean, a thought. All right. >> It's a thought. I'm not sure if it works. I'm just saying if you're proposing to close that, I say propose selling frozen and close that. >> As I said, since it was mentioned to me today, I never realized that Fusen was maybe originally intended to be an elementary school. >> Correct. >> What you might be better off doing if you did that would be to um if you went to middle school

114on both sides, move the students, but then use frozen as an elementary school and look at closing a couple of your elementary schools. You could probably close multiple elementaryaries and fit them in frozen. Now to do all this by September is going to take someone greater than me. And before you go any further, I appreciate what you're saying and I agree. That's why I just want to open up everybody's minds into thinking so we get don't get pigeonled into anything. Everything should be on the table as you said earlier. And I just wanted to make sure I'm on that wavelength of opening our minds to all the buildings in our district and reconfiguring it because we are going to do that. Thank you. >> Thank you, Tom. I want to remind everyone that we did

115get some unfortunate news today about the condition of our high school. That was news to me from McKenna, you know, the the condition. So, um, you know, there are things that we don't know. We I don't I doubt that uh Dr. Anderson has been in any um female restroom at the high school. So he probably doesn't know the condition of the >> I have been in the male restrooms and all that and you know I wander I try to go to all of the buildings. So, and I >> my point ultimately is again we are here to work together and I I want to make certain that our tone is collaborative and let's not try to avoid using um charged words what may be a financial drain which I I understand that's what you meant

116but somebody else may take it as oh a drain on the system where it may be a financial drain but it may be a lifesaver. type of program to a family. And we have we really should try to keep the compassion and love in our hearts as we're moving through this very difficult time. Um, and just another thing for for clarification in this uh proposal, selling Cunningham wasn't part it was just shuttering Cunningham at this time because the the energy cost per student there is so great and if those services of the staff members are redundant and can be moved to the high school, there's a cost savings there. So the the you know could could Cunningham be shuttered this year and we reap those savings. Yes. And then could it be repurposed next year

117as you're mentioning? Yes. Abs. Absolutely. The idea is a few years ago for those who don't remember the school district of baloy on very short notice closed two west side middle schools. I would hope that we would avoid that. Again, moving programs out of a building is much easier than saying, "Oh, the board's making a decision tonight and we're going to close schools." I would really hope that we don't do that, but um smaller programs that could save us money today to help us over the next uh fiscal cliff next year, I think is a is a good discussion to have. Thank you. Uh Mr. Henkins. >> I I just want to just follow up and and thank you for uh I meant no disrespect to Dr. Anderson or anybody in this room about my

118comments and uh Hess either. I'm just saying that I think Hess could do a better job. Thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Hengins. You know what? We all can do a better job. We can. We can all myself first and foremost. Miss Miller, >> thank you so much. Um Dr. Dr. Anderson, I appreciated how you started out with with some good news. So, I would like to first offer some positive feedback and some things that I think make a lot of sense and I really appreciated uh that I heard this evening and that I've seen throughout. Um then I I have a couple of points of feedback and and some questions requests for going forward. Is that good? Okay. I first want to start by saying um and I know I'm not alone

119on the board here in saying this. The premise of this whole discussion and I think we're on the same page about this should be like what do we want to provide our children like what is the optimal and ideal education look like for them given that as you've you've explained really nicely we're going to need to you know redefine our new normal like our our baseline for enrollment is going to be very different from what it was even last year right over the next several years. So that's the context that I'm approaching this from. Um so some positives that I really appreciate. First, I I thank you so much for bringing us um and I'm mostly going to talk about option C uh which I think is the one you were more recommending. So, in

120the context of option C, um I love that we are building in the CPI and no cuts or changes to longevity. So, yes, please let's keep that one of seven. Another thing that I really appreciate was uh utilizing fund 80 for middle school sports. I think that's a win for everybody and you know Bo's uh often thought of as it's it's it's we're big and small. I mean the the more kids you know relationships they make the better. That's wonderful. Thank you so much for that. Um I absolutely love hearing that. Um there's a few different options for us to reduce legal costs. Tons of sense. Thank you so much. Um I know Coach Den sent us an email earlier today and I heard you allude also. So, thank you for for raising that up

121um about just, you know, making sure we're being efficient with our coaching staff and how we do sports and how we and how we staff that so that we can, you know, continue to offer as many opportunities as possible to our kids. Love that. So, thank you. Um I was really, really, really excited to hear you describe your vision for the committees, particularly the student enrollment committee. I think that's wonderful. I know there's already people who are excited to uh you know roll up their sleeves and do this work with us out in the community. So, thank you for for bringing this to us and for that opportunity. Um and I also really appreciate that, you know, we're not being put and I think board President Johnson just alluded to this a little bit with

122the comment about Westside Schools. Like, thank you for not putting us under the gun and saying like we ought to do this right now. I think like no decisions are made well in haste. So, I think that this has been a good process. And then um the la last like really good highlight I really wanted to share from my perspective was I really appreciate keeping the deans and option C um you know our kids and teachers really benefit when we have good administration and good administrative teams. So thank you. So those are my my big positives. Um some concerns that I had. I'm going to talk a little bit about DLI in a second. So I'm going to skip ahead to the other ones. Um, first I'm not at all in favor of cutting um

123our library media specialist uh folks down to half time. I I love that we're working in a scope of, you know, cutting through attrition, but cutting somebody's full-time employment to 0.5 is essentially not really cut. I mean, if somebody's livelihood is depending on a full-time position, cutting to a 0.5 is not really cutting through attrition. I also think the practicality and and I am so oh I forgot to mention this in a positive all in favor of reducing uh the onetoone especially at the elementary school at the middle school while we still have Chromebooks it is a full-time job in and of itself just to deal with Chromebooks like I my office at work is situated in a library and it is like high traffic Chromebooks like day and night when we're there I don't

124think it's practical or reasonable to cut at least at the middle school those media specialists down to.5 five or and I'm not I'm not quite sure of the details of that if we have >> or remember we're sharing. So if a person had a full-time job this year, they would have it next year, but they may be in two buildings >> and and I hear that and I and I think that that's well thought Oh, that there's something happening. Sorry. It's well thought out. I I still think, you know, middle school, the more caring adults that we can consistently get with our kids, the better. So, in addition just to the practicality of dealing with like the nightmare that Chromebook uh situations can be, having a safe space for kids um sometimes comes in the

125form of, you know, a custodian, a library media specialist. It's the more adults we get consistently, the better. So, that's one piece that I I didn't love in option C. Um, I know this wasn't in option C, but it just since I've gotten a couple of emails and some feedback about it already, I'm in like absolutely no way interested in moving BLA into the Memorial High School. I think that it presents a lot of issues and I do know that we're looking at option C this year potentially, but like you said, and and you're very wise to say that like next year we're going to still be doing a lot of like probably drastic reshaping. And so I just like on the record right now, I think that's it's a bad idea for many reasons

126and we don't need to get into it all today. Uh because you know we're mostly talking about option C anyway. Um want to talk a little bit about DLI. I was a little shocked to see in option C and I just want to read off it here so I don't misquote it. It looks like the language has to do with uh is it's a ch Okay, no, I'm not going to find it now. But changing the DLI positions to ESL and so yeah, right. And so I think, you know, Miss Fox actually, you know, when we put together kind of those priorities from the board, I know one of the things that we highlighted a couple times on there is wanting to preserve services to students that we felt are, you know, needed and necessary,

127but also could potentially like stabilize or, you know, even increase enrollment. I feel very passionately that we need to to maintain DLI. And the reason that when in these previous discussions that we've had talked about like okay we need to take a moment and reshape some things right to kind of figure out staffing that was all in the interest of preserving the DI program. So I was a little startled to see language about cutting DI or re recategorizing it into into an ESL position. So that's something that I really don't want to touch and it makes me and I' I've asked a couple times already. I'd really like for us to revisit our discussion at a at a different meeting about DLI and what that looks like once we once we get to a point

128where we have a better understanding more clearly about what our budget will look like this next year. I mean DLI that was the decision made by the board earlier when the recommendation was that we needed to come up with a plan that would you know be that we could sustain for three years so that when we have that in there that was based on a decision the board had made at an earlier meeting >> and I'm just going to interrupt this because we need Thank you so much Mr. Johnson. Do we need to make a motion to extend the meeting? >> Yes and as um Dr. Anderson pointed out last time this is in policy. So at 8:00 to keep the board uh and everybody cognizant of the time and our the time of our

129staff members who are here and this is this is their hours. So this we are using their time and this is could be considered inefficient work time that they're here that I do continue to ask that we keep this policy going. If a board member would like I would entertain a motion that we extend the meeting until 10:00. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Oh god. >> Yeah. >> Object. >> Motion. Motion by Bill Johnson to extend the meeting until 10 p.m. Seconded by Joanne Rue. Any discussion? Hearing none. All in fa? >> I >> Any oppose? Motion carries unanimously. >> Thank you so much everybody and and thank you Bill for putting that out. So we don't need to I understand that that was a board-directed thing and it was in the interest of

130like maintaining and sustaining a program. That's the gist of it. We don't need to, you know, get into it. And I think, um, and, you know, for the record, I think you've done an outstanding job fighting for, uh, you know, staffing changes at D. I'm excited to hear at, you know, at a later time how that's going. Um, it's it's been good. I mean, we're we're in a bad situation, right? Um, I just because we're talking about the budget and because it's an item C or sorry, an option C, I just I'm really not interested in in messing further with DI right now. If anything, I think which segus actually into a couple of just points of feedback if that's okay. Um, in the spirit of sort of what I think um, Tom was saying,

131we definitely want to open up our imaginations. I think this is a fan I like option C a lot overall. I think it's it's in the right spirit of where we want to go. Um, like you said, we're going we'll kind of tweak and, you know, clean things up and five other board members still have feedback to share. So, a couple things that I considered was uh to bring up is in order um you know in the interest of preserving DLI, have we considered um you know looking at Cunningham it it is it's a building that was was sort of retrofitted to it was used as a four through eight and I don't I'm not the facilities expert so this might be a really terrible idea I don't know but you know if we could

132do like a DLI magnet school situation where we have the continuous like elementary through 8th grade DLI offerings there. I don't know if that's and probably not for next year, but if that's something that we could maybe put into orbit as as a thought, um DI is like a huge draw for the district. All three of my children are in DI. I am so thankful for the benefits that they've received and it's not not just uh you know, I mean, it's it's helped my child who's who deeply struggles with reading is like two years in a row now reading and doing math at grade level and in the DLI program. It is just like we've heard in public comment um phenomenally bene beneficial and it's something that I really want us to keep. I also

133understand that we're in the situation that we're in. So being creative about our buildings and kind of like you know what he was saying earlier about the configuration is something to think about. Um another piece of feedback I'd like to give in addition to being creative about how we preserve DLI which would be our first one. My second piece of feedback would be um staff retention just it includes teacher agency. I think like the CPI increase is fantastic. The longevity increase is fantastic. Um, you know, this whole situation again with DI that we've been hearing about like with Hackit and not letting teachers like, you know, hey, we've got a system that's working for us. It's producing results. You know, things are going well, but there's decisions being made um that take away their voice

134in being able to do their jobs the way that that data supports is going well. I think that's something we need to consider when we think about staff retention. I would much much rather spend money on our teachers than on hiring new ones. So, you know, there's a lot to be said for institutional knowledge and expertise. Um, a third piece of feedback that I have um would be just for the again for the building reorganization at all costs, and I know this might not be totally realistic, but at all costs, I would like to preserve our neighborhood elementary schools. Um, I think that there's a lot more that elementary schools, particularly in neighborhoods, offer to our students and families than just the and I shouldn't say just because it's it's its own thing, but uh

135beyond just the uh K12 public education that they offer. Um, I would like to also again bring back to kind of what Tom was saying, consider Cunningham's potential. um whether it's some kind of like you know specialized you know K8 4K8 program type piece um or like do we keep our like even start and you know you know keep even start there as well as like repurpose Cunningham back to being a middle school like a six through eight and then do we make frozen like the all dead across grade level since we were considering doing an elementary school all dead piece um frozen I mean kids. I have no I think Ferzen's a great school. I've been really happy my daughter's about to graduate and go into the high school from eighth grade. I got

136a sixth grader going in. Nothing bad to say from my perspective about Fzen as a parent. Um I think like it's facility-wise makes the most sense. If we're going to do alternative education, which includes like flexibility and schedules and transportation, all those things, localizing in one place that is already suited to be elementary up through higher grades makes sense to me. So that's just a suggestion, but like Tom's like I didn't do like deep research on that. So in conclusion, in the spirit of like how do we how do we build this around a vision for what we want to do best for kids, which we're all on the same page about wanting to do um going forward, um I would love to see to again the greatest extent possible like a fiveyear, three to

137five year enrollment projection just so we can kind of figure out what that new normal looks like. Um you've alluded to some you've already given us some really good numbers. I think just refining that to like three, if we could do five years, that would be ideal. So, we can be a little bit more specific. Um, I'd like to see a referendum draft that sort of answers that question like what does optimal funding look like for that new normal enrollment number, which like what does it mean to get our facilities in a much more acceptable state? What is it what would a referendum question that fully funded that vision for for that declined enrollment number, right? What would that look like? Um, I'd love to hear a little bit more about other potential partnerships for

138Fund 80. Like I know Community Action comes to mind. We already do a lot of uh partnerships with them. Thinking about things like Fresh Start, um, other programs that have come and gone. I'd love to see maybe an update on that when that makes sense. And then um, yeah, actually that's um, and I think I'd already mentioned the Chromebook piece. I I'm totally in favor of eliminating one to one for elementary school. I mean, as soon as possible if if if we're able to. And I don't know if we can sell some of those or something. Um, and I would love to see that based on what building principles and teachers have to say like phased out um with the middle schools and going back to classrooms uh or like carts or classroom sets. >>

139Got my notes. >> Thank you. >> Oh, Joanne Rue. >> Yes, thank you. Um so uh okay looking at the three options um there's huge differences in the colac cuts for each of them um and a lot of these are brand new reductions um I believe I don't remember seeing a bunch of this so like what does it look like if we reduce the um director ctor of finance, director of careers, director of health, um, executive director, TLE, what does that look like? Who's doing those things then? >> All right, for director of finance is that that was Stephanie's position. She's been doing interim, she's been doing both roles. So, in fact, in a few minutes, I hope or at least later on tonight, whichever comes last, is that we are recommending Stephanie to be

140in that position. We then eliminate her current position. Um, we are looking to hire someone in accounting to help with that. If we lose, if you look at A and B, it does talk about losing one of the secretaries, uh, one of my secretaries. Um, if that happens, um, I mean, one of my secretaries deals a lot with, um, the open records requests. I mean, that truly is a full-time job, and the bottom line is I don't know who will do that. I can't simply say that one secretary can do both. But so that we would have to take a look at what's no longer going to be done. If we take a look at um director of alternative education there I mean there are simply things that are not going to be done. I

141mean that um individual deals a lot with um career in tech which is one of our strong points at the high school. There would mean certain grants that he works on right now that bring in money. There may not be anybody to do that to bring in the money. There are simply going to be things that are not going to be done. We knew that every cut would be painful. That's why I have advocated for number C where it keeps those individuals and gives us a chance to look at potential referendum. But I mean he deals with lots of program one that's the most your most common with his CT if we did got away with the person who coordinates steam that's personally goes in to help with the academic achievement works with other coaches.

142It just means that there's one less body that's going to be able to help direct that. If we take away the director of nursing services, that just means that the person that currently coordinates our Medicare and our nursing nurses and our health assistants, that position would be eliminated and we would have to find how could we maybe disperse those duties to nurses. I don't have an easy answer for who's going to do the work. I'm going to have to tell you that in regards to cuts, there are things that we will have to determine what will no longer be done because there just not the manpower to do it. >> Okay. And then the executive director of TLE. So that one is eliminated in all three of them. >> That is because that position is

143now the assistant superintendent. >> Okay. So it's not actually it's just already gone. Okay. Thank you. I was I was really confused by that. Um Okay. Okay. So then my second question is all right. So imagine math is listed under um uh curriculum or you know things that we use in our schools. Um so three that have been mentioned um the NGL uh school pace and seven mindsets have been mentioned by staff members. How um well one I can't find anywhere where NGL how much that costs um our district annually um is seven mindsets is that a annual cost of $115,000 um and so I mean because we're looking at every dollar again um so those are three other things that people mentioned where we could make uh reductions I'm going to ask from assistance

144from my cabinet. They maybe can speak um more succinctly to this. >> Anyone? >> Not typically. >> So like every other year or every three years. So, it's $115,000 for three years. >> No, but I will get you the cost. >> Okay. And >> we've >> Okay, >> the Ford NGL contract for next year is uh 29,000. I think it's it's right around the $30,000 mark. There's a couple of different breakdowns, but um this past year was just under 25. We took something off and we've looked at adding something back. So, it's right around $30,000 for the year. That is an annual contact. >> And then is it possible for us to um again this is these are people emailing and asking about these things that I'm hearing a lot of people saying they don't

145understand what we are getting um in return for that investment. And so um if we could have information about uh what what we're getting for the amount we're paying. >> You want us from here? I don't care. >> Yeah. So, what that does, so we it provides we have um monthly meetings with our uh our support coach from Ford NGL. It provides some uh trainings, links to trainings that we can do. We get resources from them. Um we pay for extra professional development. I pay for some of those out of my grants um for us to do. We get our buy our yearly um uh visit and then reflection and feedback for us. So again, it's it's helping provide our structure as we get to the implementation stage. Um again, are you asking me could

146could we do absolutely do without are we in a position where we're to the final stage ofmies? Uh I let Miss Pel join in a little bit. Yes, I would say we absolutely could if we had to. Um I do believe that the the services we get for that cost because we have brought it down. It was in the 60s and $70,000 range and we've brought this down to again roughly around $30,000. Thank you. Any other qu questions, Mrs. R? >> No, thank you. >> Carol Fox. Okay. I have a bunch of uh comments and questions on my own. Um I am really not a fan of plan C, not because it's not a good plan, but because it does doesn't do enough. Um, and I think you asked us how much OPED money do

147you think we should be using and I think given the fact that our fund balance is so low, we need to use as little as possible at this point. Um, so I think we need to be u more aggressive than plan C. And when I look at it, um, I do see some title one, um, uh, positions in AGR, not maybe AGR, but title one positions that doesn't really save us any money. So the question is how are we using our grant money and all those kinds of things to help us? Um I have an option D. Um because I do think we need to move BLA to the high school. Um if you look at that capacity enrollment, we're underutilizing Cunningham by 794 students and we're underutilizing the high school by 1300 some students.

148So, we're really underutilizing our buildings and we need to do something different about how we're going to use our buildings. Um, you know, we can leave Cunningham unoccupied for a year um until your committee decides how we're going to how we want to use our buildings, but it you could at least save some costs on on some um heating and air conditioning and some other kinds of things. I think we can do that, too, because of their their older kids. those kids don't need transportation. Those kinds of things. I really like the idea of an early childhood center. I think we need to approach that. But I think at this time of year, um we haven't approached transportation. We don't know um you know how how that would work. It would be moving lots of

149people around, which is something that we're going to be doing next year. So I think moving um BLA and getting that piece taken care of because I think at some point that's gonna have to happen, right? whether we do it this year, we do it next year, it's gonna it's gonna have to happen. Um, you know, we're going to be needing to use Cunningham for other things or we're going to need to sell it. And so we might as well bite the bullet. And if we're going to think about moving early childhood to Merryill, even start can go to Merryill now. I don't think there's a problem with doing that. Um, I think we need to reook at what's going on at COLAC. Um, seriously, um, you know, we talk about combining positions and doing

150other kinds of things other places, but we're not really talking about combining positions and doing things differently at COLAC. And I think we can um, and I think, you know, one of our goals was to have the services as close to the students as possible. Um, you know, having a, you know, some of these directors is is nice, but that doesn't get us to the students. And some of that um could be totally redone. I mean, I look at the, you know, one of the ideas was a combination of an assistant principal and a and a um athletic director. How about a combination of the CTE person and and an athletic director and put them at the high school so we don't totally lose the CTE, but they're at the high school where they belong

151and they can do some other things. I mean, we need to start thinking more creatively about how we use our positions. um we are, you know, we're a approaching a 4,000 school district and if we lose more, we're going to be less than that and we have to think much smaller. Um I looked up some other 4,000 student districts um around and you know they have three three elementary schools, a middle school, and a high school and and a very minimal central office. And you know, we got to start thinking that way because that's kind of what we're going to look like. Um, we can look at um increasing our enrollment and we certainly need to look at increasing our enrollment and keeping students in our keeping with them us as much as possible, but

152it's going to be very hard to compete with what's up on the hill. So, we we can pretty much guarantee we're going to lose quite a lot of students up there and we're going to work to hard to keep the ones we can, but um that that competition is very difficult for us at the moment. So, we we got to face some realities. I I heard you say last week, you know, we have to do pain now or pain later. And if we don't do the pain now, the pain later is going to be harder. And it's just like um you know, um you were not in favor of using OPED and and some of those kinds of things. I think we did we need to come to grips with that. And um I think

153we need to use a minimal amount of OPED money. Um, so we're looking at either option D or option A, right? We got we got to do something a little bit more aggressive than than than C. I don't think that's aggressive enough at this point, especially given what we're facing in the future. >> I'm taking notes. But what was option D? Because I don't want to >> Option D is is to kind of do half of B. It would be moving BLA to the to the high school and but we would leave um Merryill elementary and Merryill would still be an elementary school but even start would be at Merryill but I don't think we can do the early childhood piece um much as I'd like to. I don't think we can move 4K kids

154to um Merryill and move all the Mel kids out between now and August. I just don't think that's a doable piece. I think we can do the BLA piece and um you know, if it doesn't quite happen, you know, I mean, you can move the kids and if you don't have all the stuff moved by um August or September, we could continue to work on that. But I I I I think that's a more doable piece. It's not not a lovely option. Nobody likes it, but you know, we've got to start being a little bit more aggressive. >> All right. I just wanted to clarify. >> Thank you, Carol. And none of these are lovely options, you know. Yeah. But but it is the reality. Dan Shu. >> Uh thank you, Madam Chair. Um uh

155thank you, Dr. Anderson. I appreciate your recommendation for and putting forward option C. That's um you know, if we had to vote on something, that would be the one I would support. I wouldn't support going farther. As I mentioned last week, um I really appreciate these committees that you're suggesting and I agree completely that they interact with each other. We have to decide what the community wants our schools to be. We have to have a conversation with more than the people at this table or in this room, but but but deeper. And so these committees that you get get at get at the core issues. We're going to then once those committees um help uh decide what this community wants for their schools. What kind of schools do we want here in Bo? What will

156that cost? And you know, how do we fund it? Is it something that can go to a referendum or some other means? But the key thing for this table here and for the people in this room and all the people that work for us is when do we shift to a growth mode? The work that has been done, there's been a lot of work, but my colleagues, I just got here two weeks ago, but there's been a lot of work here to make pretty dramatic changes in how we run the schools. We're uh we're later today gonna um hire a search firm or get get closer to hiring a search firm to hire a permanent replacement. A really key decision. But this may be the summer that we need to shift to the growth mode.

157That's the toughest decision a big organization will ever face is when you move from cutting expenses to shifting to growth. And um option C preserves uh the vast majority, nearly all of our staff. Um maybe not in perfect ways, but we'll have to tweak around the edges on that. But I'm in favor of um getting those questions answered as quickly as possible to use the resources we have, including OPED and other things and possible referendums to make this the summer that we shift to this future plan and put together the three and fiveyear plans we've talked about to really um deliver a school district um that this wonderful community deserves. So, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Shuof. Bill Johnson. >> Yes. Um, being kind of a sports guy, I don't see what the drawback would

158be of putting opening up the district to fund 80 money for kids to get to come and play sports. I mean, maybe we can get some of them to stay in school here. And, you know, I just think that's good. And the other question I have is is there a reason why we have so many open enrollment requests? >> You mean are you talking about open enrollment or open records requests? >> Open records. I'm sorry. >> Is there something we're doing wrong that they keep >> I mean I don't know that I have a good answer. I mean I'll give you I'll give you my thoughts which doesn't make it any more than that. I think that there is there's been maybe a lack of trust of what is transparency or is what people perceive

159as transparency in the district. So they want to find records to to find out is what we told someone. Is that true or not true? Now that's just in reading all the records that come across because I see every records request that comes. I would that is what my assumption is but that I don't know that that's factual but I think it's people have people just want to question whatever is being told them. Um and one way they can do that is by asking for records to for us to prove yes that is truly what we told you that happened. Here are the records that prove that what we told you is true. Thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you, Bill. >> I was really hoping that we would come up with some concrete actions

160for you tonight. Uh Dr. Anderson, >> so do I. Um, I I know we have staff members that are on pins and needles and I would like to give them peace of mind to know whether or not they should be looking for another job right now because now is the time for educators to to be in the market. Um, and it's sounds like we're not there yet. We're kind of all over the place. um none of it doesn't sound like any of us really embrace any one of these options and there sounds like there's some more information that some members would like to to have you come back with but ultimately the question I have is how are we going to improve academics and behaviors while making these cuts because if we're going to talk

161about a growth model or why people are leaving the district. It doesn't take it doesn't take but a couple open records requests of our emails to see what we're hearing about behaviors and academics behaviors behaviors. Behaviors and I think we really need to take a different approach to what we are doing in our buildings. And nothing is different in any of these options. It's just reduced. What are we going to do differently to make these improvements? And that's what I I have been encouraging the departments. You know, you talk to to your talk to your staff, find out what we can do better, find out what cuts we can make. We need strategic ideas so that we can get to a growth model. Unfortunately, I I love the idea of a growth model bud budget,

162but the the reality is is it's going to be a few years before we get there. It really is. As long as we are losing students, it's going to be a while before we can start growing. And I think we need to address the issues of behaviors. In in reference to that, I truly believe if you take the deans, I mean, you had assistant principles at the elementary schools. Yep. >> You will reduce them to deans. >> If you take the deans out, >> I think that's a mistake behaviorally. >> I I Dr. Anderson, I agree with you, but there are some other positions here in option C that financially don't make sense to me. And I and I want you and the cabinet to understand before this board decides to go to referendum, there

163are seven people in this room that have to be confident that we will go to referendum and it will pass. And if we are telling our constituents that we are going to um preserve positions at Kolac but not positions elsewhere, that's a real hard cell. It's a real hard cell to go to this constituency here in Bo and say we are going to pass a deficit budget. Please give us more money. Until we have a solid budget that we can get behind and say this makes sense to us, it's going to be hard for me personally to convince my husband on a fixed income and my son, a private business owner that they should be contributing more money to the school district of boy if we're not changing anything. And I think we need to

164make some changes. What I'd like to know what in these plans reflect the changes that will bring about better improvement and better academics. I think things that we haven't talked about that are kind of the white elephant in the room um our concept of self-contained classrooms and EBD classrooms. In 2008, when I was a special uh uh substitute teacher at Aldridge, we had an EBD self-contained classroom. We had a self self-contained specialed classroom for sixth grade, 7th grade, eighth grade. We had the CDS self-contained classroom. Five self-contained classrooms for special services for our students. I am all for inclusivity. Don't get me wrong. I love the idea of inclusivity. It's not working. It's not working the way it was intended. Our teachers are not trained to teach special ed. Our teachers are not trained to

165deal with the behaviors of special ed and EBD students or 504 students. It's it's not working for our district. And I think that maybe we should also be looking at making some of those changes there. Tonight we heard about the AB schedule. This isn't the first time I've heard rumblings about an AB schedule. How much loss productivity is there with an AB schedule? How much loss learning time is there with an AB schedule? Maybe we should consider going back to the old model. I think we should also put in this uh budget more actually more money for janitorial services. When I was on the board in 2009, all of our janitorial services were inhouse. Maybe that's something we should return to. I know some of our legal fees even had to do with janitorial services

166and some hub that happened a year or two ago. Maybe if we have employees in house, we can retain them and keep them happier because then they are reporting right to us and we can work through whatever issues they're having websites being blocked by it. Um I I think the world of TC networks and their staff, but even tonight we're having problems with technology. I don't know the last time I've been to a board meeting and we've not had issues with technology. Um I I hope that we can stop spinning our wheels because we really need to take a very different look at all of this. Um Mr. Hoey said at the last meeting, I can't wait until we have a year when we can actually look at academics. Oh my goodness. Me too. I

167re really really I think that's what we need to be doing. But our budget is not being none of these really jump out at me saying hey I align with the academic goals of the school district of Deote right now. Our academic goal is get out of last place last place. I can't remember last time. Well actually I I do. It's but it's been several years when we were not in the bottom 3% of the state. The bottom 3%. We are so much better than that. I know we are. Uh public comment spoke of the obituary of the school district of boy. First not on my watch. We're not here to write the obituary of the school district of boy. None of us ran for that. We are here to make the school district better

168as it gets smaller. That's the reality we're at. Dr. Anderson, I am looking to you for recommendations how you want to proceed. I think the first thing is I'm taking all of your notes to figure out how my I mean here's the difficulty I'm in. We are seven board members who have a true divergence. So I'm trying to figure out where do the major I mean so I mean my thought is what is the majority of board members going to support because I don't know that I can bring anything to you that seven people are going to have so I'm trying to to take a look at here are the things you have told me how am I going to put that practice and the answer is I'm going to make you all upset I

169mean that's the bottom line because I because you are so far apart hurt. I mean, I will tell you it it was not a secret. I told you that last Thursday. I would rather go with option C because of preserving the positions. Is it optimal? No. But what it does is at least gives employees that have a job a job and it gives some time to come up with an a longer range solution. If that's not acceptable, I have to come up with something that's going to be less than that because you're not I would say you're not gonna accept more than that. But several of you have said I should look at adding more back to which is going to increase the amount of either cuts in other areas or it's going to increase

170the use of OPED. So I'm going to sit down with my cabinet. We're going to take a look and see what does this mean to all of us and what can we come up with. I'm not going to wait till the next board meeting. I will probably as I get there I'm going to send them out to you and say, "All right, here's option D. Not Carol's option D. Here's my option D. Tell me, you know, until I can get something because eventually we have to make a decision. I will implement whatever it is that you ask me to implement. All right. I am a strong advocate to retain as many people in district as possible to give me some time to come up with a longer range solution. That means you use more OPED

171dollars now than you will in the future. It's going to lessen it. I know that that's not popular with everyone, but the bottom line it gives some time to determine. And the big question with the referendum, if first a referendum has to be a 70 vote. If you don't all agree, it doesn't make sense to go because you can't win. We now, if we're going to go to referendum in November, we have to have a question done in August, which basically means I have June and July. So I have two and a half months to get a final document or to get a document to you. Writing the question is easy. I can write the question in 10 minutes. What that will contain is what takes all the time. And then we have to make

172sure we tell people and have the discussion. If a referendum doesn't pass, what does that mean? What are you not going to have in the future? because that is going to be key if a referendum doesn't pass to make sure we tell the people here is what you are not going to have. So the next item on the agenda and we can probably co-mingle them is the committees that and I already have emails ready to go out to the staff um to look for volunteers in all the buildings and in all different areas. My biggest ask because one of the things you always ask me T is what can I do for you? I would one of the things I would ask of the board is what are give me names of people in the

173community that you think would be good individuals to put on one on either one of these committees because they're not going to be on both because they're too much time. But what can they be on so we can have those discussions because as soon as we get this one of the other things is I'm going to start arranging meetings in every one of the buildings you know for both staff and parents so we can talk about all these things going forward especially what will the district look like and how are we going to so I mean the committees will give me input from other people's ideas that I can bring back to you but right Now, I mean, where to go in the budget? I will see if I can take all these ideas and

174put them into something and I'll send it out to you as quick as I can. Um, and they're not secret. So as soon as you say Wayne, you can share this with people, I will share it out so that by the time we meet next, we have come up with as close to something that will pass a majority of the board because I do not think I can bring anything to you that's going to be a 70 vote. I just don't think so. So I'm going to have to try to figure out what is the majority. What can I do to bring it as close to possible? But we do have to have an solution. As you mentioned, if I have to cut people's jobs, I want to give them as much notice as possible

175so they can look somewhere else. I'm doing my best not to do that. But if that is the case and that's what we decide to happen, I want to give them as much leeway going forward as feasible. So, I will take the information you've given. I will sit down with my cabinet. I'll sit down with the principles. They'll sit down with their staff. I'm going to staff meeting already tomorrow anyway. In fact, a couple I have two staff meetings tomorrow, you know, to try to get elicit ideas from staff so that I can bring something to you by next week. It'll be, you know, we don't have a a meeting and maybe we can have a special meeting just to talk about budget again because it is something that we need to we need to

176wrap up so that we can get started on next year. and then you know start working on some more of the some of our other big issues. So I appreciate all your comments. Like I said my the difficulty that I see for for us is we have widely divergent opinions and how am I going to put all that together? And the answer is I don't know yet but I plan on praying a lot tonight. >> Thank you Dr. Anderson. Um, and just to wrap it up, I appreciate you your care that you have for our staff and seeing them as individual people. As board members, our perspective is a little different because we need to we have the duty of care and loyalty to the district. And so the way I approach it is not

177to look at it as the person, but as the position. What is this position contributing to the district? What's the history of this position? Looking at it and looking at it, projecting forward if we if we keep this position, what's going to happen versus if we cut this position, not not the person. It's it's a little bit different than your approach. We still care about all of our people. We really do. But we have to care about keeping the school district of Bo a viable entity and how are we going to improve services for our students. And lastly, the OPE. One of the reasons I am very reluctant to spend OPEB is because that is an interestbearing account and as you mentioned in March, we have a tale of two budgets. This year is the

178easy year. This is the easy year. I would rather have OP earning interest this year so that next year well when the proverbial okay yeah when we have to make really really deep cuts that we have that money to fall back on when it's really really a rainy rainy day >> in the end we're going to work as a team. Yeah I know if you didn't care about all the people you wouldn't be sitting up there. >> Thank you. Can I just jump on that? I'm going to jump in because it's I don't think it's we we don't want to we don't need want to lose these people. I think we need because we need the work and we need the people but the positions that they're in probably need to be gone and they

179have to be transition to something else and we have to figure out where they can do the best work and where they can help us. I don't I don't know that anybody needs to lose a position but we need to um um or at least their job. They may lose their position, but I don't think they need to lose a job. And it might, you know, yeah, reality it might be a little less pay, but we should be able to find things for them to do. And that's the one of the reasons why I I keep harping on that, you know, what are we doing with things like Title One and some of these grant money. You know, can we finagle some of that, move some of those positions in there or, you know, retitle

180or do something different, combine things together um other kinds of jobs. But I don't want anybody to lose their position either. Okay. Or a job. But it might be a position, not a job. >> Megan Miller. >> Sorry. Thanks. So, just um in the spirit of I really appreciated what you said, Board President Johnson, about trying to, you know, get us closer to consensus so people get, you know, right off the bat, I think you said um just get some concrete feedback, right? So, in the spirit of a little bit of consensus building, um I guess if I could ask my colleagues, is anybody opposed to whatever our next iteration looks like? Can we maybe see that aligned to like sort of that academics and behaviors piece like you said? I mean, I agree with

181you. That should be our goal. I think it's a bit of a tall ask to say we've been here for a really long time and now next year we need a budget that's going to fit. But I but building toward that I think kind of satisfies what you were saying uh board President Johnson and what I think Dan was talking about with his the growth mentality. So I think like capping off like here's here's the next iteration you know here's the feedback. This is like what we the moves that we believe will be in service of increasing academics and in service of better you know at least putting us on track right to better address behaviors. Is that is does that characterize where we're at? >> I Yeah, I do agree. And actually, I'm glad

182that you mentioned that because if my recollection is correct, did the board come to a consensus about the uh Dr. Anderson had asked about the 100,000 uh increase for athletics and we were in uh uni I believe a unanimous consensus that no don't we're not going to increase the athletic department's budget by 100,000 they we need to make reductions >> you know and and I guess another question I have which um maybe miss would help help me understand throughout this week. If we can put middle school sports in fund 80, why can't we put high school sports in fund 80? That that would be a huge savings, too. But just throwing that out there. So, >> it's been pretty widely accepted putting middle school because of the age of law. Schools have tried to put

183in the high school portions or at least portions of it and it's always been told by the auditors and DPI you can't do that. >> So, just Okay. So, like it sounds like we're all on the same page about, you know, to help us move forward to get where, you know, get us across the line. Um, kind of characterizing like this is how we want to reshape or cut or, you know, whatever. And this is kind of the vision. And I think that might help move us toward, you know, some some consensus. And then the other thing is, um, I just want to ask I guess my colleagues, are we okay asking then for like that enrollment projection? And I I could catch a pitch three to five year. I I don't want to create

184a burden but whatever is reasonable and I know there's certain data out there right that like you know bear does and all this kind of stuff um is that something that we all agree that would be helpful for how we can move forward or is anybody against that >> I don't know how we project some of that >> no I think that's actually would be very beneficial and I believe Dr. Anderson even has some idea of what how much how many numbers we'll be losing over the next few years um to some of the other local schools. >> No. Yeah, I have no doubt there is. Is there anything else >> you want us to respond Megan? >> Well, yeah. And I guess and I'm done because I was just going to say like as

185we wrap up, I mean, if there's anything else that people think that we can all kind of just that way you at least have the here's we we for sure are in agreement might be helpful to the process. That's all I was after. Well, I we already gave Dr. Anderson the board guidance. Um, and I think just reading through that that says exactly what we're what we want. We want to keep class class sizes as close to what they are now. And we we do have a policy of um at the high school the a it's 15 students. the I forget what the averages are for the other bit the other levels but there are it is in policy and that's what we should be striving for. Now does it mean we'll actually get there?

186Maybe not. But I I do want to make certain that we're doing our best to preserve the learning environment. We did look at that. >> We did look we did look at that with all the options on you know on classes at the high school low enrollment classes to the elimination of those you know what do we have at our elementary schools. So it's not that the options you have we didn't already look at those we have. >> Thank you. >> So >> Mr. Schu. >> Yeah. Thank you Madam Chair. So, um, I really have a lot of respect for the people at the table with me tonight and Tom who's helping a family member. Um, so one way to be efficient was I agree with Megan that we um these projections are going to

187be really helpful. But, um, maybe for Stephanie um, say her name so I don't so she hears this. So, one way to be efficient would be the things the board is asking for on on enrollment projections and things that Stephanie and people at Baird and stuff can help us project for referendums could be the start of briefing documents for those committees. So, you know, like we quickly could get some help with our budget to have some projections or updated, you know, from that enrollment report and then some more how you might model um how you might model different options for referendum. We're going to need to brief those committees anyway with those type of documents. So maybe we could start on some drafts of those because we have these factors that might tell us this

188is the year to shift to a different mode. OPE which could help inform shared costs in that formula. We have a referendum. We have an election that has three times as many voters as an April election and there isn't another one of those for two and a half years after this. So there might be some reasons why we want to do exactly what um Madame Chair said which is focus on academic achievement and the the uh culture and behaviors that are in in our buildings. All those could be part of that question. What do we want in our school district? and it might help us get to a consens a budget consensus and help uh you're going to need to staff those committees and provide documents to those committees. So maybe those type of things

189could really help. They'd help me as a brand new board member understand what's possible and would help us with budgets. And so that would be my suggestion. >> Thank you, Dan. Any last comments? Our next agenda item is committee formations. The purpose of this is to share. >> What's that? >> Oh. Um to share with board the board information regarding the two administrative committees Dr. Anderson suggested forming for reviewing and working on the 2728 budget as well as a possible referendum and a second committee to look at ways to curtail students from leaving the district and how to recruit students to or back to the district. And this is uh policy 262, the administrative committees. The superintendent of schools may establish and appoint committees to study, gather data, research, and advise on matters relevant to

190the district, its operations, goals, and policies. The creation of such committees and its respective charges shall be reported to the board of education. The superintendent shall have the authority to recruit and select members of any committee or committees. They may establish and to determine the duration of any such committee. So Dr. Anderson is not here for board action but just reporting to us >> and I think I've already talked about this a couple times so this will be short is that I'm looking at creating two committees. uh one as I said to look at how can we stabilize our u our basically our student enrollment. Why are people leaving? What is it that we can do so that we can start having a stable student population? And the second one is what will we do

191uh in 2728 when we need to take a look at how we can probably move around our staff and use our buildings. Both of these are going to discuss about referendum what people support etc. I will end up putting um an email out to the staff looking for volunteers tomorrow. One of the things I need from the board is I have people that I've already, you know, met during my time here that I think would be interested, but if there are if there are particular people that you think would be beneficial to serve on either of these committees, if you would give me their contact information, I will contact them. These committees are going to be uh open so that everybody so that anybody who wants to attend can attend. I'm not looking at you

192know any um they're all going to be open. They're all going to be posted. I'm not looking to have board members serve on the committees, but they'll be posted. So board members want to come and you know hear what's being said and discussed, they're going to be welcome to do that. And then I'll try to give reports uh every month to the board because I'm looking at these committees to one to be done you know at least by probably the first semester and the second one to be done maybe a little bit into the second semester. So we'll be meeting a regular basis. I'll give you updates. But basically, this is a chance to start hearing from ideas from others that we can that may help us in the decision-m process. >> Do board members

193have any questions for Dr. Anderson, Carol Fox? Um I just I think you know a short statement summary of the name of the committee, the purpose of the committee, what you expect to come out of the committee. Um and maybe even a suggested of meetings might help before we, you know, reach out to people and say, are you interested in serving? It might make it easier to um for us to be able to say, "This committee would be great here. Here's a description of the committee. Are you interested? >> I can have that done and sent to you if not tomorrow, Thursday. >> Any other questions or comments for Dr. Anderson? >> Go ahead. >> Yeah. No, I I love that that we're doing this. I think it's a fantastic idea and I'll be excited

194to hear um more about I guess just like the different populations and like you know what constituencies that are able to participate. So, thank you. Any other? Okay. Our next agenda item is the superintendent search firm selection. The purpose of this is to determine which of the search firms will be selected to conduct the superintendent search with the board of education. Board member members interviewed the forward firms WSB, WP and assoc WP and Associates, School Exec Connect and Hazard Young, ATA and Associates on April 27th and May 26. The board then did a um the board secretary sent out a poll of the board members and the poll had the rating of Hazard Young at Associates at 2.29 school exec connect at 2.0 and BWP Associates at 1.17. I will open uh Dan Shu. Uh

195yeah. So we talked a little bit about consensus earlier in the night and I think this is the poll shows that there's um a pretty strong consensus around um Hazard Young and AI and Associates. I was actually one that rated them number two, but uh you know the vast majority, six of us um have said that, you know, that's their one or two choice. So, I think it's I I'm going to move um and I'll look for guidance exactly on what the motions should be, but to get the discussion going. I would move that we select Hazard Young at Ten Associates. You know, there I would certainly amend my motion to have any pending reference checks by either the board president, vice president, or um staff, you know, at the district, whatever is appropriate, just

196to if you we wanted to do that. So, I'll I'll make that motion. Um, >> so a motion that I might suggest would be um move approval of moving forward with HYA and Associates to conduct the superintendent search with the board of education. And the reason why I'm leaving it a little bit um open-ended there is in case um as we're finalizing a contract with them or some there might be some I don't I don't want to surprise an end surprise after we've already made a motion saying this absolutely is the one we're going to go with. So just move let's maybe a motion moving forward with this and then once the contract if it if the contract is over what is it 25,000 then it comes back to the board. >> Yep. So moved.

197>> Second. >> Any discussion hearing? None. All in favor? >> I I >> I. >> Any opposed? >> Motion carries unanimous. >> Sorry. >> Could I just clarify was uh Miss Rue the second? Miller. Thank you. >> Oops. Our next agenda item is the consent agenda. Typically, there is no separate discussion of the items unless a board member so requests in which event the item or items will be removed from the general order of business and considered in their normal sequence on the agenda. Are there any board members that would like any of these items removed? Mr. Shu, >> no. My >> Oh, thank >> my hand is still up by accident. Sorry. >> Any other board members? >> The Medicaid billings do >> the medic. Okay. Any other? Okay. I will entertain a motion

198of approval of the consent agenda with removal of B. >> So moved. Second. >> Motion by Joanne Rue, seconded by Carol Fox. Any discussion hearing? None. Oh, Mr. Johnson. >> No. Getting ready to move. >> Okay. All in favor? >> I >> Any oppose? Motion carries unanimously. We are at item B, Medicaid billing and software. Joan Rue. I just um with all of the discussion we had earlier about um making budget cuts. Um I'm just not comfortable with um purchasing something that's more expensive. Um the area school districts, Jainsville included, all use Compass Care, so I'm comfortable with keeping them as our provider. >> Any other discussion? >> Mr. Schu. So um in the budget I'm sorry in the business um committee uh the chair is not in attendance right now. Um the discussion we

199we had a special meeting to talk about this issue and um essentially we got guidance from cabinet level folks that uh there was a change in law in the fall last year that allowed us to bill for more things and um they're very confident that the streamlining of this the new program that they're recommending will easily have us bill at least um the difference which is like $10,000 um and really very likely much more when they streamlined the system. So I started with the same place you were um uh member Rue um but I we ended up the committee was unanimous pushing it forward. Of course, that doesn't presume board action, but this is why we did it was we were um the administration felt strongly that that brought efficiencies. It was easier to use,

200especially with the expansion in Medicaid that was a a change in state law. So, that's why we went forward with it. So we asked the same type of questions there had the same sort of preconceived um uh with everything going on all the moving parts but that's why we ultimately went with um the administration approving the administration suggestion >> any Megan Miller >> just a clarifying question so um totally empathetic to where Mr. was coming from. And um just is this a can you remind me is this a one-year contract that we're doing with the new one? Is it three? >> Okay. So, and I mean I think like as we're you know as we're looking at the budget and things like that. Um and I think this came up in that first committee too.

201I mean, I think just like kind of maybe if it makes sense annually just to kind of say like, hey, like here's our change, you know, if any and like billing and things like that, like I think, you know, that could help. I appreciate like you know it's a bit it it doesn't sit well right to buy something while we're cutting things and I completely feel that but I think like knowing that you know community is going to know that we're going to be able to see like whatever returns are on that and just the efficiencies that it'll take with staff to better utilize who we I just I'm comfortable moving forward with it but I I'm really glad that you brought that up. I think it's important to consider and I appreciate the administration's

202willingness and sharing that out with us. I think it's also important to note that part of those discussions the committee was that our current providers known about the change in the law for the last several months and yet has not made the motions to help us get maybe some of the additional dollars we could have had we had a different system. So I think the belief is is that if we go with this new system, we will be able to recoup more revenue uh than the expenditures so that we can have more of a positive revenue stream. >> Thank you, Dr. Anderson. Carol Fox. >> Yeah, my understanding it this is the one that matches Skyward, right? it it it integrates with Skyward. So, it should take the staff a whole lot less time to

203input the information and do what they need to do. So, it would save a lot of money uh in that way on staff time and allow them to do other things for the the students in the district. >> Any other questions or discussion hearing? None. Is there a motion? >> So moved. >> Second. And I'm assuming Mr. Shu, your motion is approval of >> Oh, yeah. Yeah. >> Okay. >> Yes. Move approval. >> Okay. Okay. Okay. Just so we're all on the same page. And motion by Dan Shu, seconded by Carol Fox. Any other discussion? Hearing none. >> I. >> Any oppose? Motion carries unanimously. Our next item is human resources. Are there any open session questions on exhibit A? Are there any closed session questions on exhibit A? >> I have a close session

204question. >> Okay. A motion may be made and a vote taken to convene the board of education into close session pursuant to section 19.85 85 parent one parent C of the Wisconsin state statutes relative to considering specific personnel recommendations. Is there a motion to go into close session? >> So moved. >> Second. Come back and vote. >> Motion by Megan Miller, seconded by Dan Shu. We got >> I mean uh I'm sorry, Carol Fox. >> We have to do a roll call for closing. >> Yes, we do have to do a roll call. >> Mrs. Dan Shu. >> Hi. >> Megan Miller. >> Hi. >> Carol Fox. >> Hi. >> Joan Rue. >> Hi. >> Bill Johnson. >> I. >> And Tia Johnson. >> I. >> Motion carried unanimously. >> Thank you. The board of

205education will reconvene in public session in order to take any action on these items. discussed in this close session. Okay, it is 9:27. We are reconvening our open session portion of tonight's meeting. Is there a motion for exhibit A? >> I move um approval of exhibit A. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Motion by Carol Fox, second by Bill Johnson. Any discussion >> hearing? None. All in favor? >> I >> Any oppose? >> Nay. >> Motion carries with one in in one in opposition. Our next item is executive session. A motion may be made on a vote taken to convene the board of education into close session pursuant to section 19.85 PAR one parf of the Wisconsin state statutes for the purpose of reviewing the expulsion orders of the independent hearing officer pursuant to

206section 9 pursuant to section 120.13 parent one parent E4.H H dot of the Wisconsin State Statutes of the Board of Education shall upon review approve, reverse, or modify the orders and um we're missing something here. What is the >> Okay. And um section 19.85 parent one parent of the Wisconsin state statutes uh considering specific personnel recommendations. Thank you, Mrs. Schul. Um is there a motion to go into close session? >> So move second. >> Motion by Joanne Rue, seconded by Carol Fox. Mrs. So, >> Carol Fox, >> I >> Bill Johnson, >> hi. >> Megan Miller, >> I >> Joanne Rue, >> I >> Dan Shu, >> hi. >> And Tia Johnson, >> I. >> Motion carried unanimously. >> Thank you. The board of education may reconvene in public session in order to take any

207action if necessary on the items discussed in close session. Otherwise, we will adjourn from close session. Thank you. Good night.