001foreign okay all right I would like to call this organizational meeting of the board at 5 30. Mrs um soap who just went to the room there can I get a roll call please yes you can Brian Anderson here Spencer Anderson is not available to be here this evening Amy Levy here Sean Levy present Megan Miller present Brian Nichols president and Greg Schneider all members are present with the exception of Spencer Anderson and Megan Miller has joined us virtually thank you Miss hope can I get an approval of the agenda as presented so move second I have a motion and a second and by board member a levy second of the bar board member G Snyder and um I'd like to proceed with the election of our I'm sorry we do have to vote I
002know it's gonna make one mistake um can I get a vote on the agenda please all in favor say aye all right I thank you motion carries and we will move forward with the election of uh of our president first order business is is our president and I will now open the floor for nominations for president of the school board of school district Beloit for 2023 2024 school year are there any nominations president nomination um thank you I have a motion for for board member son Levy are there any other nominations and one last time are there any other animations okay hearing nine nominations for president are now closed Mrs soap do you mind passing out the ballots for and I want to do the ballots [Music] she can text me sure oh I just
003emailed Miss Schultz okay that's fine hey thank you friend you are in a mood today thank you okay I have to um I'd like to congratulate um board member Levy um in receiving the nomination and of course um in this case being nominated for the next board president Ford excludership Lloyd I'm board president Levy um is a new president and you will now preside over the rest of the meeting thank you all right thank you for uh the honor and privilege I appreciate that I'll try to serve you at the highest level and don't take anything away from me laughing when I say that that just means I'm excited to do it again I didn't ask what the count was just assume I'm gonna leave that alone I'm just messing here okay um election of
004Vice President and um we are taking nominations I nominate Megan Miller right Amy Lee is nominated Megan Miller are there any other nominations once again any other nominations for the office of Vice President and a third time any nominations for the office of Vice President hearing none Miss Shope can you pass out the ballots and we will vote just because I didn't start that way so we could cast one unanimous vote but we're gonna vote individually here you're right it's a possible way it could go he gave me two ballots I know I'm only voting once the accounting firm of Dewey Cheatham and how right [Laughter] you shouldn't be allowed to have fun while you're doing this um I don't know if they're not contentious right now intentious Hazard C6 boats Megan Miller you are
005a new vice president thank you very much and I humbly accept and thank you for everybody's patience with my child care fun times but it really is a privilege thank you everybody thank you all right we're now on to the office of Treasurer is there a nomination for the office of treasurer I nominate Brian Anderson is there any other nominations for the officer Treasurer we have Brian Anderson all right and going twice any other nominations for the office of treasurer and then a final third is there any other nominations for the office of treasurer okay so we'll be closing on one name Brian Anderson let's just show could we have the ballots superintendent did let me know that I won with six votes I was concerned um Megan Miller one with six votes also and
006we'll know the results after this about Brian Anderson six votes for Brian Anderson you are our new treasurer congratulations are there any nominations for the office of clerk I nominate Greg Schneider okay that's one for Greg Schneider all right are there any other nominations for the office of clerk once are there any other nominations for the office of clerk and then a third and final any other offers any other nominations for the office of clerk so we'll close on one name uh Greg Schneider and we have the ballot so we can vote foreign six votes for Greg Schneider all right we are now on to the office of the parliamentarian are there any nominations for the office of parliamentarian I nominate Amy Levy any other nominations for the office of parliamentarian any other nominations for
007the office of parliamentarian and one-third time any other nominations for the office of parliamentarian we will close on one name Amy Levy and vote of six votes for Amy Levy congratulations all right and we have election of secretary are there any nominations for the office of secretary which need not be a board member I nominate Michelle the other nominations with officer secretary swans any other nominations for office and secretary any other nominees for the office of secretary it will close on one name Michelle Shope and we're ready to vote yep and six votes for Miss Shope to our secretary thank you okay excuse me Mountain Dew was a carbonation it kind of hit me there I wasn't ready for that 3A appointment assisted two reps uh representative Mr Snyder will you serve as our sisa
008two rep yes okay then we have a committee appointments that I have um for the business operations and finance committee I have Brian Anderson Spencer Anderson and Brian Nichols and those pictures not here but is what he indicated he wanted to do will you serve on the business operations and finance committee all right well yes uh Spencer serve as the chair right teaching learning equity and people service committee pardon the interruption can you just repeat the group of people again for me business operations and finance committee Spencer Anderson Brian Anderson Spencer Anderson Brian Nichols thank you Spencer Anderson to serve as chair thank you teaching learning equity and people service committee Spencer Anderson Megan Miller Greg Schneider will you two serve yes okay and Megan Miller as the chair thank you I accept one more
009time please Spencer Anderson Megan Miller Greg Schneider teaching learning equity and pupil service committee Megan Miller as the chair policy committee Amy Levy Megan Miller Greg Schneider will you serve yes yes Amy Levy as the chair all right um Amy Lee will you serve as the waspy delegate I will Brian Nichols will you serve as the delegate alternate for wasby yes okay thank you legislative rep Megan Miller will you serve as the legislative rep and I think I will be the Tiff tid rep resent invited to board president and those are the agency appointments and committee appointments for a superintendent appointments so I have three appointments that I believe are awesome to serve here in our school district um appointment to Park and Recreation and conservation advisory commission board president Levy would you serve in
010that position I will thank you appointment to alcohol beverage license control committee board member Megan Miller will you serve in that position yes I was like and the appointment of the academy steering committee which is still a very important committee that we use at our high school level and Mr Greg Schneider will you serve in that position yes I will thank you I can close my superintendent's appointments we're now at meeting close scene is there a motion for the adjournment so moved is there a second a second it's been moved by board member Amy Levy seconded by board member Brian Anderson that we adjourn is there any discussion hearing none all those in favor signify by saying is there any just you know all hearing done all those in favor signify by saying aye aye
011aye aye aye and the motion passes unanimously we are adjourned foreign we'll call as it's six o'clock we'll call the Tuesday May 2nd business operations and finance committee meeting to order Michelle can I have a roll call yes you can it's changed so I believe that would be Brian Anderson here and Brian Nichols here and Spencer Anderson is Epson thank you move out to the approval of the agenda to have a motion to approve the agenda I make a motion to approve the agenda I will second that any discussion all in favor say aye aye that passes item one e the appointment of Vice chair since the chair of the committee board member Spencer Anderson is not here tonight we're going to uh table that until our next meeting so that he can preside over
012the naming of the vice chair moving on to item 2A Financial reports Mr chady good evening thank you very much um I've got up on the screen and was communicated in the board docs materials the financial report activity for the month of March we'll review that here beginning with our Revenue analysis looking at the operating funds without grants as displayed on the screen let me see if I can even make that a little bit bigger for those viewing at home if there are any there we go March was always an interesting month it's one of the few months of the year that our revenues actually exceed our expenditures so that that bodes well for us financially and you'll see that here in just a little bit when we take a look at the March activity
013uh taking a look again at the 2223 activity uh towards the middle of the page looking then in comparison to the 21-22 activity on the right hand side and then looking to the far right portion of the page at the variance or the increase of the decrease decrease that's where we'll kind of begin our look and take a look at some of these large variances so in the middle row is revenue from State sources and you can see 2223 to dates 52.7 billion as compared to 52.1 Million last year for an increase of just over six hundred and fifty thousand dollars uh largely that is due to our general Equalization Aid that we received here in March of just over 17 million dollars we also received nearly five million dollars in our per pupil categorical
014Aid and approximately six hundred and forty thousand dollars in our special education AIDS as well so all of those things helped contribute to uh why that is so strong at present taking a look at some of the others we'll go back up to the top of the page and you'll see revenue from local sources uh 1.7 million fiscal year-to-date activity in the current year compared to just under one and a half million last year for a two hundred and fifteen thousand dollar increase uh that's largely due to increased investment earnings that the district has received over the course of the year so it's not investment earnings variance in the month of March but it's over the course of the year to date so of course interest rates being higher this year we were able to
015generate more in uh in investment earnings and as I've mentioned to the board before I'd much rather we make money than spend money when it comes to interest so um looking down the page again we'll take a look at other financing sources um a variance of nearly two hundred thousand dollars there uh Mr Duff actually helped put this together for me and he has a notation on here that that is largely due to some sales of technology for a new lease um unfortunately I can't give you really much more specifics on that but that provides some background if we take a look at the negative variances because those are always intriguing as well um we'll start with the 328 thousand dollar uh variance with revenue from federal sources where in the current fiscal year we're
016at nine hundred and thirty thousand dollars as compared to just over one point uh one and a quarter million dollars last year and that variance is largely driven by a one-time Governor's back to school aid that the district received in December of 21. that was kind of those one and done grants to the district so we received money last year that was not anticipated to be received this year and thus that helps contribute to that variance in the fact that we're trailing a little bit there and then finally if you look at the other revenues uh just under 190 thousand dollars in the current fiscal year to date as compared to just under seven hundred thousand dollars last year um again the commentary here is largely due to the timing of receipts and a decrease
017in contract liquidation fees there's probably a little bit more to it makes up five hundred thousand dollars but honestly I didn't have a lot of time to to get into the meat to the the why that is if you look at the big picture and we take a look at total revenues um kind of intriguing 55.8 million in the current fiscal year about 59 percent of our budgeted revenues take a look at last year 55.6 or 55.6 million and again uh 59 almost 60 percent of the budget revenues pretty much right on track uh is how I read it uh the good news is we're about two hundred and twenty two thousand dollars uh to the good as far as a revenants revenues go um I'll ask you to kind of keep in mind that
018total revenue row 55.8 and the 59 I'll reflect back on that here in just a bit when we take a look at expenses but before I jump forward to expenses is there any questions on the revenues there hearing none I'll jump ahead to expenses if I can blow up that's too big again if we uh go to the far right and look at that increase decrease column because that's really the one that provides the the most information for us and then we can work backwards we'll start at the top with salary and fringe benefits so you can see the increase 1.9 million dollars and you're probably scratching your head why is that you know what causes us to be 1.9 million ahead uh here in the current school year as compared to last year and
019the answer to that's actually pretty simple we actually had three payrolls in the month of March this year as compared to two payrolls in the month of March the prior year and each payroll runs about 1.6 million dollars in gross expense so if you're looking at 1.9 1.6 of that as a result of the payroll variance in about the other 300 or so thousand dollars in notation here uh payments on winter sports and other addendums that were paid during the month of March so some explanation there next take a look at that purchase service row uh 3.3 million dollars favorable with activity in the 2122 school year being 9.8 million and then in the 22-23 school year just being over six and a half million dollars um the notation here is that some accounting transactions
020were made in February continued into March that we are utilizing some sr3 funds to cover some of the cleaning and other expenses so we're taking those expenses out of our general operations and we're transferring those expenses over to our sr3 grant to help cover those expenses so when we get to the expense expenses for Grants uh here in a couple of slides we'll see that they're reflected as well debt retirement if you look at that role you'll see 434 thousand dollars in expenditures here in the current school year compared to just under 176 000 last year so an increase of about 434 thousand dollars um the notation here is that that's largely due to the timing of payments such as our Apple lease for some MacBooks that were paid in August so that uh contributes
021to an increase and then also this in March we made our uh spring principal and interest payments on our outstanding debt so that's reflected in that four hundred and thirty four thousand dollars also I think that covers the major um expenses and again if we take take a look at the total expenditure line we've got 49.8 million 49 of the current year budget as compared to 51.6 million dollars last year same point in time for about 50 percent of the budget but again if you reflect back we had 55.8 million dollars in Revenue this current month as compared to the 49.8 million dollars is expense so obviously favorable and again March is one of those infrequent months of the school year that we actually receive more money in revenues than we do in expenses so
022that that Surplus so to speak is then used to carry us through those the subsequent months is when our expenditures exceed our revenues any questions there hearing none will go on and take a look at the grants so activity uh in reports for March looking at our revenue from State sources uh just over two million dollars in activity to date as compared to a 1.9 million dollars last year so a variance of just under a hundred thousand dollars there uh largely due to the timing of a claim for a high quality instruction Grant it's just timing aspect when those claims come in and then if we look at the next row down revenues from federal sources you'll see there that we have fiscal year-to-date activity of just under 3.1 million as compared to last year
023just over four and a quarter million so we're trailing by about uh 1.16 million dollars there and the reason for that is largely again the result of timing of claims uh likely due to the transition moving some of our sr2 funds and then sr3 funds and then when we can submit claims and receive those reimbursements back from the state so again when we're talking about grants and you'll hear this from me here in about 10 minutes grants are reimbursement based so it's not the state awarding US money here's the money put it in your bank account tell us how you spent it it's a reimbursement tell us how you're going to plan to spend it spend it submit a reimbursement claim wait for the DPI to approve that claim and then receive the money back
024so it we're always behind the eight ball when it comes to receiving our grant claim revenues in return any questions there I just have one question I get the timing of it because the grants you know the way the funding you just explained but is there is there any risk to any of the programs that fall under this when we go to submit and we don't meet whatever bar is set to receive the grants because like you said right now we're somewhere between now and end of June we should get somewhere around 12 million dollars right correct reimbursement I mean we'll submit it by then yep is there any risk to not really because the risk is really mitigated up front so prior in in about 10 minutes I'll talk about the steps but I'll
025just hit on this quickly prior to us actually spending the money for Grant purposes we have to submit a proposed plan to the DPI in a budget to support that plan as to how we're going to spend the money DPI then approves that that then is our authorization to actually execute that plan so it's hard for the DPI to say well we don't think that's an allowable cost when we're operating off of the assumption but that was in our plan that we submitted to you and you as the DPI approved perfect yep good question we'll transition over then to the expenditures side of the house for the grants this already flipped my page uh maybe just easiest to to work top down here so salaries and fringe benefits um again you can see we're running
026730 um ahead of same point in time last year but again keep in mind that March of 23 had three payrolls whereas March of 22 had one so that's that's going to inflate your salaries and Fringe benefit costs when we take a look at purchase Services uh fiscal year-to-date activity in the current year 5.3 million is compared to 1.6 million dollars last year so you know on Pace you know almost 300 or 3 million seven hundred thousand dollars ahead and again uh this is where you know if you remember just five ten minutes ago we were talking about moving some custodial expenses out of the operating no grants into the Esser funded grants so that's where those expenses are being reflected here is uh using some of those funds to support the cleaning expenses next
027up I'm going to jump down to the capital objects and then we'll come back and talk about the non-capital objects uh in a minute the capital objects uh 550 000 plus this year is compared to 22 000 last year um the notation here is that the capital objects is due to some Access Control Point projects throughout the districts that were funded through a cops Grant through the U.S department of justice so security measures essentially there and then going back to the non-capital objects uh seven hundred and thirty thousand dollars in change compared to 1.5 million and change last year so a trail or a reduction of around eight hundred thousand dollars really this is due to the purchase of some reading curriculum that occurred in the 2122 school year so you know a large payment
028was made last year to support that curriculum adoption and then we don't have that yet this year I say yet might not be reading but I'm guessing that there's going to be something else perhaps coming between now and the end of June so just to kind of set the stage there any questions about the expenditures for Grants makes my job easy we'll take a look at the summary page because this provides kind of the big picture really taking a look at the total revenue and expenditure the last row you'll see revenue for the month 23.5 million expenses for the month of March just over 13.6 million so 9.9 million dollars to the good that obviously is very beneficial but months will come April May in particular yeah I mean really we don't get any big
029revenues between now and the end of the school year until mid-june and even those revenues that we receive in mid-june are oftentimes ious their monies that we are anticipating and we'll book as an account receivable but we often don't receive those monies until July or even August after the school year and the fiscal year has closed so any questions on the monthly financials no thank you is that good for that piece then are we ready to move to item 3A the talk about the federal stimulus and pandemic grants summary status yeah and I've got a uh chart that I put together we actually put this together you'll see the updated date there March 20th of 2023 and you're thinking to yourself okay Bob it's May 2nd but we really don't have any updates to provide
030beyond that March 20th 2023 date there hasn't been any claims submitted for any of these Federal stimulus grants so this report is good enough and I just kind of want to walk through everything with the board the public but I'll begin with the fact that again just kind of how the grants work their reimbursement based grants so while the report reflects almost 30 million seven hundred thousand dollars in federal stimulus funds coming to the School District of Beloit to support Grant purposes it's not like the federal government wrote us a check for 30 million seven hundred thousand dollars and sent it and it you know it's in our bank account so we first receive an award uh comes through the Department of Public Instruction the district then develops a programmatic plan and then an Associated
031budget proposal that supports that uh the spending necessary to bring that plan to fruition that is then submitted to the Department of Public Instruction for their review and approval and that's really key so we really can't start spending the money until the DPI has reviewed it and given the thumbs up and approve that plan and authorized us to go forward once the DPI has done that that then is our cue to put the plan into action and essentially start making expenses and making Investments to support the pre plan activities and then throughout the course of the grant period we can submit Grant claims and oftentimes those Grant claims on larger grants can and should be submitted on a monthly basis for some of the smaller Grant claim or smaller grants that can be submitted to
032every other month or even on a quarterly basis the key is for some regularity I would say Beloit has done a decent job but we can do a better job because again DPI is holding money for expenses that we've received and I'd like to get our cash back put it in our bank account and we make interest on it instead of letting the DPI hold it for us uh as we make those expenses and submit those Grant claims the DPI then review reviews those claims they review it with regards to alignment with the budget plan along with a programmatic plan that we submit and if it aligns the it passes their muster so to speak they okay it and then it is processed by the DPI in the state and then reimbursed to the district
033so Grant claims typically kind of Trail expenses I would say anywhere from six to maybe 10 weeks so even if you're submitting a grant claim on a monthly basis you're not necessarily receiving that cash back you know in a two or three week period of time it's often in the following months so with that background we'll take a look at this and I just want to walk through again big picture we'll start with the grant end date column because that's really important and you'll see Grant end dates there ending in September of 22 September of 23 and September of 24. the grants are laid out on here in order of priority that the Department of Public Instruction has been encouraging districts to utilize and to spend their grants so obviously you want to spend the
034grants that are nearing an end date sooner before you get into grants that are uh that have later end dates you don't want to lose any money um essentially because of a timing issue you may note Esser one in gear uh the two rows that are kind of grayed out here those two grants their Grant period has ended and on the far right you'll see an amount remaining to claim columns so of the sr1 award 2.2 million dollars eight dollars and 80 cents went unutilized I actually dug into that because I'm thinking to myself I don't care how much money it is I want to use every bit of it for this public school district as we can that was actually part of the Equitable participation for private schools award so the private schools that
035also received funding through us so that all of that 2.28 million dollars does not benefit the School District of Beloit students some of it goes to private um participation schools also but that 8.8 and the 5.5 dollars and 17 cents in the gear funding were both unspent portions that were designated for Equitable private school participation so it wasn't like the School District of Beloit was leaving little bits of money on the table Mr chady yeah to ask a question he said so in our Esser funding all of the Esther funding that we got it's not completely the school district of beloit's money it's correct going to other correct yep okay yep so whatever we were given we're sharing it with other entities also we are now the percentage that goes to some of the other
036entities is smaller but yes because of how the funds were distributed and then the local education agencies School District of Beloit in this case has to apply an equitable percentage of participation to our private schools much like we do with flow through and I think Title One funding is well yeah so then a question just like so I'm looking at this 30 million 659 151 that did not all come to us for us to spend on the School District of Beloit not entirely that is true if if I had to put a oh I don't even want to put a guesstimate because I haven't looked don't have to put it on now but yeah it just had a an epiphany as you were saying that because people have said that all of this money has
037come to us correct but that's not true exactly thank you you're you bet just just a point of clarity as well we typically in a lot of our grants we have students that have other needs in other school districts that we have to cover as well and so you know when people are making that statement I tend to if you when working inside of a school district these are the ins and outs that we you know just just they won't they won't know about and when it gets to a specific Grant percentages that's worked out through DPI they give us a number we get that number we break the number down we talk about what they're going to use the number the number with and so sometimes we just don't you know there's so much
038that goes into how we allocate funds to other school districts that it says duly noted right yeah I want to jump down to the last row we'll talk about this real quick the ARP hcy2 this is the American Rescue plan homeless homeless children and youth uh second round Grant and if you go to the far right under the notes you probably have already seen it um I've got a notation there fully consumed the ARP hcy one Grant first so we don't want to start utilizing those funds getting into that Grant until um that row that's in the middle of the chart there the ARP hcy one um that fifty thousand dollars is fully expended because first round Grant expires I'm sorry they both actually expire in September of 24. so again just kind of the
039priority utilization if we look at the three rows that are in that bark or dark bolded box those are really the three grants that are currently in operation and use by the School District of Beloit so there's the yes or two grants Award of 8.4 million if you look to the far right um you'll see that we've got about 386 thousand dollars remaining to claim there we have spent the vast majority of those funds we just are going through the process of reconciling our sr2 grant um within the wise Grant system that the DPI uses so that we can submit our final claim my expectation is that we'll have that closed out as of the end of the current fiscal year June 30th of 2023 and to be very honest that's the latest I want
040to have that done I'd like to push that forward perhaps even here by the end of May certainly early June but we want to get that Grant claim in we want to try not to have any carryover just makes life easier in the business office going forward the ARP hcy one against the American Rescue plan homeless children and youth grants the vast majority of those funds are used to support Transportation needs with students that are experiencing homelessness so that can be busing gas card parent contracts getting those children from wherever their temporary location is to their school of origin which typically is the School District of Beloit and then finally is the uh sr3 Grant uh 18.8 million dollars and this is the one where perhaps a lot of the public has had some scrutiny
041about well what are they doing with that fund they're you know that they haven't even spent any well it's not that we haven't spent any because honestly we've got expenditures that are hitting our sr3 we just haven't yet quite submitted the claim to the DPI um to receive that money back so when when we're not submitting the claim to the DPI people are looking at the dpi's public portal and it's showing zero or very little uh so I mean 269 thousand dollars has been claimed to date you know so people are wondering you know what the issue is well there really isn't one um again going back to DPI guidance they are very explicit to make sure that you close out your sr1 before you use sr2 funds close out sr2 before you start using
042sr3 and concentrating on that so we're following that practice um as directed I know nobody's here but I'll talk on this uh real quickly so there is actually an sr3 plan report that's required uh to be posted on our website and it is um and this is not produced by the School District of Beloit this is produced by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction after the grant or after the grant budget and plan has been approved and there's been some notations about you know perhaps there wasn't um the necessary public input into the grant plan but I would say that as part of the planned report approved by the DPI there is a section here on stakeholder engagement for the plan development and then there is brief narrative from the School District of Beloit that
043talks about our stakeholder engagement the DPI approved the plan they thus approved the stakeholder engagement component that the School District of Beloit utilized prior to the plan submission to the DPI so while there has been concerns expressed about the level of stakeholder engagement whatever it was I wasn't here it was sufficient enough to pass the dpi's muster at the time thus they approved it and the DPI issued the plan report not the School District of Beloit any other questions that I can address for you this evening any committee members with any questions no I'm good thank you anyone else I just want to make sure I know the the work that we're doing right now um again it has taken some time for me to dig through a lot of these questions um you know
044when these thoughts have been brought to me I had to have time to investigate certain conversations and with the support of my team and looking through what we have done again in my humble opinion again we have met the needs of the sr1s2 and we're working through sr3 spinning that down as well and so I just want to make sure I note that for the public what am I leaving thank you sir um Mr Shady thank you for putting that together one quick question with the AARP hcy One funds um a significant portion of our homeless teens and our unaccompanied youth are also parents so those would be our save our students are those funds available to be used if their children have a need or is it just for the school district of Blake
045student that those funds can be used on oh board member Levy that's a really good question and a bit outside Mr beavers is going to come rescue me students and families perfect thank you so much the only thing I would point out is um just you touched on it but you know with this with that large amount in that sr3 we we have to again expend that and get reimbursed even if it's only a month or two of a you know of a delay that's still a significant amount of use of cash in the in the short term yeah I I don't think we're going to have any issues consuming those funds between now and the end of the grant period uh keep in mind we're going to devote about five million dollars um to
046Beloit Memorial and the HVAC system it's not going to get us where we need it to be but it's going to be in an improvement the other thing I'll just real quickly touch on with regards to sr3 is that a requirement for sr3 not found in any of the other grants is the the federal government requires us to set aside at least 20 percent of our grant award for evidence-based Improvement strategies those strategies are supposed to be intentionally utilized to improve student achievement closing the gap 20 is great and it's an easy Benchmark to hit I would Advocate that perhaps the School District of Beloit looked to double that amount and to devote 40 to evidence-based Improvement strategies you know instead of us devoting 3.7 million dollars to those efforts you know now we're approaching
047seven and a half million dollars to those efforts and that just seems to make more sense I think that leverages those funds for really what they're intended to and that's to help close the gap and improve student learning so perfect any other questions all right I am going to move back up to item 2A and we're going to want to have a motion to approve I recommend the financial reports for March to the full board do I have a motion I move that we uh we approve the uh the funds or the uh March reports the March report sorry perfect I will second that any discussion on that hearing none all in favor say aye aye aye that passes all right that moves us on to item four a our next meeting date the business
048of finance committee will meet on Tuesday June 6th at 5 30 pm and finally adjournment do we have a motion to adjourn I move that we adjourn I'll second all in favor say aye aye aye we are adjourned yeah all right all right all right all right yeah I'm going to start us at 6 34. so you're ready because we gotta um what'd you say okay yes yes yes you can handle them they are back all right I'm going to call to order the May 2nd 2023 human resource committee meeting at 6 34 pm Mr Shope could I have a roll call please yes Craig Schneider present Brian Nichols present Megan Miller present Amy Levy here Brian Anderson here Spencer Anderson is not able to be with us this evening and Sean Levy present all
049members are present except Spencer Henderson I have a motion for the approval of the agenda so move is there a second second it's been moved by Amy Levy and seconded by Megan Miller to approve the agenda is there any discussion hearing none all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye aye motion passes unanimously is there a motion for the approval of the minutes from April 18th I move approval of the minutes from the April 18th and April 25th meetings second it's been moved by Amy Levy for the approval of the minutes for the April 18th and April 25th um human resource committee meeting and seconded by board member Miller is there any discussion hearing none all those in favor signify by saying aye aye aye aye aye aye the motion passage unanimously on
050to item 2A employment recommendations a move to convene the human resources committee into closed session pursuant to section 19.85 parentheses one parentheses C relative to considering employment promotion compensation or performance evaluation data of any Public Employee over which the governmental body has jurisdiction or exercises responsibility in section 19.85 parentheses one parentheses G conferring with legal counsel for the governmental body who is rendering oral or written advice concerning strategy to be adopted by the body with respect to litigation in which it is or is likely to become involved is there a motion I will make the motion uh is there a second didn't lose that Amy Levy okay it's been moved by myself and seconded by Amy Levy uh Mrs is there any discussion Mr show could we have a roll call vote please Megan Miller
051aye Amy Levy aye Brian Anderson aye Greg Schneider aye Brian Nichols aye Sean Levy aye motion carried unanimously all right so we'll be going into closed session and we'll reconvene out here after we're done foreign problems okay foreign funny videos foreign thank you clarifies foreign emotions that is true foreign to lose God continue otherwise thank you so my other question is my position is previous administrator foreign that's not a genius it is here okay foreign process ities 16. this case thank you responds here thank you sometimes these days foreign effort I think if you experience members of tips on the board and I'm assuming you guys questions thank you foreign this question is sensitive locations foreign thank you foreign resources committee has reconvened in public session in order to take any action if necessary and
052items discussed in closed session are there any open session questions for exhibit A and B and is there a motion I move approval of employee recommendations exhibit A and B is there a second second should move by board member Levy and seconded by board member Schneider board member a levy uh any discussion hearing on all those in favor signify by saying aye aye aye motion passes unanimously on to item 3A next meeting date the next meeting date for the human resource committee which is a committee of the whole is Tuesday May 16 2023 at 6 30 PM is there a motion for adjournment so moved second board member Amy Levy seconded by board member Greg Schneider is there any discussion hearing on all those in favor signify by saying aye aye aye aye aye all
053right we are adjourned and we will start our regular business meeting in about three minutes foreign I'm going to call to order the May 2nd 2023 regular board meeting at 7 15 pm Mrs shop may have a roll call please yes sorry one second Brian Anderson here Megan Miller present Craig Schneider present Amy Levy here Brian Nichols here Spencer Anderson is unable to be with us tonight and Sean Levy present all members are present except Spencer Anderson so the Board of Education would like to let our families and viewers know that our regular board meetings are being simultaneously interpreted you can watch the Spanish interpreted meeting through the link found at the Board website under the watch meetings tab with tonight's date in order to accommodate this interpretation we will be monitoring the pace of
054our meeting to allow time for the interpretation and I'd like to remind our board members and others speaking to please speak one at a time thank you so much for your consideration and understanding item C approval of the agenda is there a motion for approval of the agenda board presently we have a question could we possibly move item 7A to after 1D to 1D after Wendy okay well we can is it the other board members weigh in fine with that okay so we'll make that adjustment foreign before the approval of the agenda do you want to make the motion then sure I move approval of the agenda as amended second all right it's been moved by board member Megan Miller and seconded by board member Brian Nichols is there any discussion hearing on all those
055in favor signify by saying aye aye aye aye aye aye motion passes unanimously Pledge of Allegiance I will lead us in the pledge [Applause] I pledge 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 right all right Mr show do we have public comment tonight yes we do have public comment I have uh one that I received via email and then I have several for people that are here okay so let me work on this part first all right Board of Education meetings are conducted for the purpose of carrying on the business of the schools the board as a representative of Representative body well the school district employee wishes to provide an Avenue for individuals
056to express interest in and concern for the schools accordingly the public is invited to attend any session of the board or any meetings of the board committees at every regular board meeting time is set aside for the personal presentation of individuals or group comments each person wishing to speak during this time shall complete the public comment card with their first and last name home address including city and state if other than Wisconsin topic to be addressed and whether you are speaking for or against this topic the comment card shall then be given to the board secretary for entering into the public record each person will be given up to three minutes to speak on their topic of Interest or concern should the individual require translation assistance a translator may be of the individual's choosing or
057one provided by the district public comments requiring translation will be given six minutes the Board of Education asks the individuals complete the public comment card give it to the board secretary and approach the microphone when called upon norms for public comment during board meetings members of the public are welcome to attend all open meetings of the Board of Education Robert's Rules of Order will be followed at all times 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 following Norms in order to maintain a respectful and ordered meeting and to prevent discussion of confidential matters in a public forum comments should be directed to members of the Board of Education and not District
058employees students or other members of the public in attendance at the meeting speech that is belligerent disorderly disruptive repetitive or which exceeds the allowable time permitted for each speaker is prohibited concerns are questions that entail the disclosure of identifying information regarding specific students are prohibited response from the board if any will be limited to clarifying inaccurate information seeking additional information from the speaker or acknowledging that the speaker has been understood the board will not debate with an individual and the board may not take action on an item raised during public comment that is not on the meeting notice agenda the chair will interrupt and Rule an individual who violates any of these Norms out of order if ruled out of order by the chair the individual's opportunity to address the board will end immediately and
059the microphone will be turned off thank you for your participation and courtesy Mr Shope you can start with the email first okay the email that I have is from Alicia wash for the last 13 plus years I've been an educator in this District I was part of the previous reconfiguration and the current one I wanted to express my support for this current reconfiguration as I think many people are forgetting the two goals of this reconfiguration and making statements that are not accurate the most important two concerns this District faces are increasing student achievement and financial sustainability our superintendent and the school board have made a decision that keeps those two things at the Forefront of doing what is best for Beloit students to reverse this decision or support the delay of this reconfiguration was would
060cause students families and staff more challenges than Solutions I was part of the reconfiguration team and also attended a couple of the open Community sessions I wanted to clear the error that there were things done without public knowledge just the contrary on the committee there was parent representation staff representatives and administrators all presentations and information shared were the same for both the reconfiguration team and those that attended the public open sessions if you review the slides and the information from both ongoing meetings it is quite clear that we are very lucky even to have two intermediates still open based on enrollment numbers and facility us as all grades six through eight could fit into Aldrich but here we are with two intermediates that have had the most facility updates done that's the reality we are
061currently faced with I understand that many are upset about how the West Side feels unsupported or represented in this but divisions such as location or inconvenience should not stop us from doing what is best to pull resources together and increase student achievement and financial sustainability in this District to delay this reconfiguration would cause the district to delay the inevitable and continue to spend beyond our means the logistics of a reconfiguration are sustainable and the more time this is pushed off the more difficult it is to plan for this upcoming school year this reconfiguration has the opportunity to give Beloit a much needed reset a chance to create Elementary and intermediate schools that increase student achievement and pull resources and expertise together believe me when I say I know how hard this is I was a
062first year teacher when Royce closed it was scary and devastating but I am much more resilient educator and experienced educator now I support this reconfiguration and believe this is an opportunity for our community to unite no longer East Side versus West side but rather one Beloit that can be proud and create two intermediates reset our elementary schools back to K5 that increases student achievement and is financially sustainable thank you Alicia wash dedicated professional educator in the School District of Beloit call it the first speaker the first Speaker I have is Teresa Johnson at um sorry I also have then shower feeder feedler I'm sorry who's yielding her time Teresa Johnson 1621 Indian Road last time I was here I suggested the district considered some old school cost-free practices to improve academics and classroom behaviors specifically
063I encourage the district to eliminate the practice of social promotion in grades K-8 tonight the cost free change I encourage you to consider is the district's adoption of the zero is 50 percent grading scale this system of zero is 50 is the second worst example of grade inflation I've seen just after social promotion great inflation is the act of routinely awarding to a group of students grades higher than what is earned or deserved grade inflation is a result of declining academic standards as a former middle school teacher in the district last year I was informed that no student was to receive a grade less than 50 percent regardless of whether or not the work had been attempted whether or not the student chose to use the assignment to write comments about yo mama or as
064spitballs or whether or not the student was even present in class I actually had to give a score of 50 percent to a student I hadn't even met great inflation is not unique to Beloit grading systems have historically been contentious and open to bias and subjectivity by Educators I doubt there is one perfect system however we can make improvements the traditional grading system is the AF system based on the scale of 100 percent the system is problematic because the failing range is the majority of the scale 0 to 59 while the passing grades account for only 40 percent of the scale the district's zero is 50 scale is also problematic this scale ignores that there is anything below 50 percent it brings to mind the tales of the Prairie Home Companion in the beautiful Lake
065Wobegon where all the children are above average when I inquire as to why the district went to this new scale I was told it was so students who were at zero percent did not feel so discouraged to prevent them from even trying to improve their score because the failing f-span is so large to overcome this way of thinking decreasing the distance to success seems to me to be in conflict of also having social promotion if a student is too overwhelmed with getting from zero to sixty percent and they know they will be promoted to the next grade level regardless what is their motivation to even try another issue with the zero to fifty percent grading system is that teachers have students who genuinely try and still only score 50 percent many teachers see this as
066an injustice to these students who put forth and effort some teachers take the 0 to 50 scale literally and simply adjust the grading by compressing it upwards making an inflated compressed scale parents May believe their student is making an effort because they've received a 50 in Skyward when in reality the student may not have even turned in anything all year like many other natural phenomena the distribution of human intelligence follows the standard bell curve hence a reasonable grading skill would also be based on the bell's curve the grading scale makes achieving the highest and lowest extremes more difficult and is reflective of the actual distribution of human intelligence I empathize with students who struggle there are times when the challenges before us are daunting yet ignoring them is not a solution we must teach our
067children and our students to be creative and critical thinkers in order to overcome some of the problems they will face in their lifetime we must also train them to be resilient in taking on these challenges right now the kindest thing we can do for our youth aside from solving the current Global issues ourselves which we can and should is to provide them with a strong education and the ability for them to be as Brave in the face of adversity let's not give everyone a pass because they feel overwhelmed let's give them a realistic grading scale and the resources they need to be successful I encourage the district to go old school and eliminate the 0 to 50 grading scale let's raise our academic standards and our expectations by increasing classroom support for our students and
068our teachers let's go old school in our approach to academics and truly meet students where they are academically with the love the care and the support they need and deserve thank you our next person is David Ramirez Carrera foreign my name is David Ramirez Carrera I reside at 556 Highland Avenue Highland Avenue in the beautiful City of Beloit Wisconsin I had a speech written out it was going to be about factors and stats and all that type of cool stuff but this is a super personal for me I got to Beloit at the age of 12 years old my first school that I came to was I'm a Lancer it was the McNeil School I remember playing hockey in the hallways red house all that stuff when I got to the high school they gave
069us that speech about the Warriors or how Audrey's blue and we're red and we come together and we become purple and like there's a whole big variety of that speech coming into our town right now making the big decisions aren't even from here they're looking at this as a North and the South when we know we have the East and the West if you're from below you believe in that River because that's what it is and no matter how you try to redo and reconfigure if we on the tag with the ladies in front of me just said it's the inflation of the graves we're not paying attention to the actual systems that are grading our kids that's the difference it doesn't matter which building we shut down because this makes the more sense because
070at least the most upkeep like there's research to be done and everything not just on that type of stuff like I still haven't seen any numbers of why our kids are getting these type of grades everything the lady said where is the research team for that where is the committee that's going to choose to be able to say you know what let's let's dig into that why do we got to figure out the buildings like to me just to leave the west side with no school over here like why how does that even make sense like parents are going to have to redo their whole life pretty much in the mornings and the evenings to be able to figure out those buses like if you're not from below you don't understand that and if you
071are from below you do so like everything you guys been talking about like I get it there's stuff that as a community we don't see there's numbers that are there our budgeting sucks we should have been done something about budgeting about 20 years ago and we're sitting here trying to reconfigure everything trying to make it make sense for the budget like is we're trying to cover holes that aren't there and the ones that are there we're trying to just what leave open like this is personal for me because it's not just about the kids my kids is your guys's kids it's the kid I was just at the gas station the gas station person had a little baby in their in his arm one year old I'm paying for my stuff and this baby is
072watching everything as the dad is putting the numbers the receipt paper coming out of the machine the way she he was handling the change like to me like I saw that kid and it's like when that kid he's going to be one year old tomorrow that's what the parent told me when that kid goes to the school what kind of school are we going to send that kid to like we're older already I'm 38 years old like I'm not going back to Middle School like that's not for me but there's kids that are coming after us that this is for them so figure it out but man y'all suck while we do recognize that this is a very personal decision and it may affect all of us in different ways that's unacceptable I said they
073said a couple of meetings before you know just be clear again the best space for us to deal with these difficult issues that we have to deal with is to one let's try to stay in right relationship with each other when I say right relationship that means that even if we have a difference of opinion that we'll still be respectful to each other I'm 46 years old I lived on the east side and the west side of Beloit and I walked all over Beloit rode a bike all over Beloit just like everybody else I have two children here what we have to do in these moments that we are in is demonstrate to our children how we're going to proceed because as you said some of these issues have existed longer than the starting the
074third year the term that I've served or anybody up here so we're going to walk our way through this decision and move together as a community but we have to have some restraint in how we talk to each other next the next person I have is Mary Ann Ewing hello how you doing um I live here in Beloit I'm a crossing guard I've been a crossing guard for 49 years here in Beloit and I enjoy my job I enjoy seeing the children grow up I love the nationality of the children and if I'm not there they want to know where I'm at and when I come back where you been if I miss one or two days I want you back try to do your appointments around our schooling they don't give us no raise
075they try to criticize us we got people trying to run us over and kill us and when we take it to the boy please they don't want to come out and help because it has something to do with the children to me you got children also so it's just taking consideration come on help me I do Crossing Garden Around Town Line to me I call the I-90 number two because semis come through they ride the whole street instead on one side we got people doing 50 and 60 miles an hour Downtown line I sometimes have to step out and try to make these cars stop try not to go on the street because some of them fly right by me when I call the police it's like a guessing thing am I going to go
076out there we got time to come out there and talk no they don't I don't see them I might see the police in two days I give them the information they don't do nothing about it so with me being a Schoolcraft I'm not going nowhere I'm staying where I'm at God didn't tell me to come and do this for children just to give it up there's a lot of people that won't do it but me I enjoy my job and I do hack it and cut ham and I'm kind of concerned where is my job going to be at when bla comes over there am I going to still have a crossing guard job over at Cunningham I know Hackett School is already zipped in so I'm not going nowhere from there but I'm worried
077about cuttingham so if somebody could help me on that part I would appreciate it because we need more crossing guards Subs permanent positions we can't get nobody to come in and talk about being a sub oh no it's too cold outside snow sleet and Hell cold summer fall I've been out there with it all almost freezing but I dress for the weather so 49 years I enjoy my job so everybody knows who I am so if you need anything just call me I'm going to be there whether you want to at night my car broke down caught the bus for almost six months couldn't get a ride from nobody but I was on time my job so everybody in here I'm Marianne Ewings you want to say hi I'm a hackador Cunningham thank you all
078for listening [Applause] our next person is Allison semro that's Allison here to speak oh there she is all right y'all I'm back Allison Summerall 2029 Forest Avenue West Side all right um I just want to reiterate my abhorrence in the regards to the reconfiguration of the middle schools the west side has over half of the population of the School District of Beloit overlooking that's and all of the bad things that will happen because of this I I just can't see how y'all haven't talked about this more um bussing students across town is absurd um I I have a hard time seeing that anybody hasn't supported this especially when you really look into the problems with it you're losing Community Schools and bussing here's a few other things that are going to happen not might they
079will it will increase absenteeism it will lower test scores it will decrease graduation rates it will lower family engagement it will increase bullying and harassment which we have a huge problem with already and on the buses the bus company nor the school district will take any any kind of responsibility for that bullying and harassment so those kids are just going to suffer for nothing um the big thing is this is going to steal a large amount of time from our children that is that's a sad thing kids don't deserve to lose an hour of their day every day every week um that's wrong it will have a devastating effect on sleep we all know how important sleep is for our kids right this is going to for the west side of course the east side
080you'll still be all right but every one of these kids on the west side will lose sleep every day every day they will not get as much exercise all of these things are proven in research these are huge problems the district will bleed students to open enrollment because of this West Side isn't going to want to drive that far every day they're not going to want their kids on a bus for an hour every day all those kids you want to keep kids in the district you want to stop the Open Enrollment why aren't you listening to the west side you're actively creating barriers you're making choices that will undoubtedly create detrimental outcomes for our kids these choices are definitely not partnering with families as per your mission do we feel like we're being partnered
081with no we don't so all that being said the outpouring of dissent from our community and then on top of that you all decide we're going to put summer school all in those schools reiterating that you basically do not care what the West Side needs or wants or what is best for students and I love the School District of Beloit you know I have always been a Avid supporter but I assure you that if you ever want to pass a referendum this decision will stop that the west side will not have it we will not come out and we will not vote Yes for it and that will be the downfall of the district and I think you all know that thanks next I have Marianne spielm Marianne's fam 1131 Richard Street in Beloit thank
082you for putting it on the agenda to be discussed tonight but that's not enough you can't just put it on the agenda you have to reverse this decision it's a bad decision it's bad for the west side it's bad for the east side I don't know there's seems to be a misunderstanding maybe of what the superintendent is putting out about statements that he did make this open to the public but we know that he didn't because there was an attorney that was brought in and then it was open to the public so when you all voted on this it wasn't announced it was not an agenda that's not being transparent and that's not being open and that's not inviting us to give our opinions you're seeing our opinions tonight and two weeks ago you heard
083them when the superintendent did ask for public input he seemed to ignore it because from what we've heard there's nobody that wanted both West Side schools closed and about bussing if you do that to the west side if you take the sixth to 8th grade students and put them on the bus buses think about the cost to the taxpayers think about the added traffic congestion the inconvenience to students and parents problems getting and vetting drivers and I know from experience that riding the bus can be a very upsetting and even dangerous experience we had uh one time our driver was insulted by one of the students that was on our bus and she got so upset that we're lucky she didn't drive that bus into the Rock River she took us over to the bus
084Barns and parked that bus and refused to take us home we had to find our own way so that was quite a few years ago and we know now that the students are no better no better behaved and probably far worse than they were when I was going over to Aldridge so again I want to ask you to revisit this consider how the property values on the west side will go down when we do not have any middle schools what kind of um Advantage would that bring to the west side and that's that's kind of less important than it is important for the students to have those schools to go to if you have to close one of them then choose to close one of them don't close both thank you I am going to
085clarify some inaccurate information the reconfiguration meetings that Dr Garrison had um he performed he he formed a committee where he sought input from District employees and parents had volunteered that he selected that was his work that the board assigned to him now the administrator chose to go about that work was his work it was not an ad hoc committee there was no posting of a meeting because it was the administrator's work a citizen um thought that those meetings should have been open the district has a lawyer the citizen had a lawyer our lawyer disagrees with the Citizen's lawyer to remedy what the citizen felt was a problem Dr Garrison held an additional three meetings so there was more input that was involved for even others that were not a part of the first group that
086is how that was handled so that the idea that a secret meeting was had or something illegal took place is not true the next person I have is John acum en John acum 2103 West Collingswood Drive Beloit Wisconsin post-pandemic there's been some Nationwide erosion in public school enrollment it fell by 1.3 million people across the nation or three percent according to the latest Federal data when I served with the school board enrollment our school district was over seven thousand three percent of seven thousand is 210. this District's enrollment has dropped by over 2 000 students that's a staggering 30 percent 10 times the national average the population of the city of Beloit has not declined I believe that retaining enrollment should be one of the top priorities of this school board my expectation is that
087this board in collaboration with District personnel has already developed a comprehensive written plan including both enhanced marketing and examination of all policies and practices in order to build rebuild enrollment which brings me to my main point creating a middle school desert on beloit's West Side by closing Cunningham and McNeil will invariably cause some West Side families to look at options other than the School District of Beloit rather than sending kids across town riding on a poorly supervised bus some affected families may choose to homeschool their children Others May look at other school options many families will prefer to drive or carpool their children rather than have them subjected to like to lengthy bus rides these families have options the map device on my computer tells me that I drive from McNeil to Aldrich takes 13
088minutes and the trip to Frozen from McNeil will take 14 minutes a 9 or 10 minute commute to Lincoln Academy or Rock County Christian would of course be shorter a 13 or 14 minute commute can also bring kids to Beloit Turner or ola Orfordville Parker is just a slightly longer 17-minute Drive moreover the proposed Middle School desert on beloit's West Side will lower property values and show at slow Economic Development on that side of the of our community so I implore you please do the right thing and move to a plan with one Middle School on each side of town thank you the next speaker is Jeff klett hi I'm Jeff klett 1980 Boulder Lane Beloit Wisconsin first of all as a former board member and present on two occasions I want to thank each
089of you for serving I know what it's like to sit up there it can be contentious sometimes and I know the work you put in for it but having been a former board member president we're not always right and we don't always agree with the superintendent and that's okay I can tell you that going back to Amy when you were here one time when I was in the board President we were going to eliminate your position because the superintendent didn't want it anymore we've heard from the public and we went from voting that position out to 7-0 to keeping it because the people spoke Dr Garrison when you came to Blade I said here I saw an interview in the paper that you did and one of the things you said that was important to
090you was to get the feedback the community from the community and from the teachers and to apply that well you have people in this room tonight that are talking they don't like what they're hearing not saying it's a bad plan but there's a lot of details left out there's a lot of people that felt they really did not get the opportunity now maybe they did and they didn't understand it but they're talking tonight they talked at the last meeting that we're not comfortable today we don't have to rush into this to get it done you have an opportunity here tonight you I taste incredibly delicious it's amazing every time my wife finds that out you have an opportunity tonight to unite the community and step back and say we're going to move forward educate us
091better look at different Alternatives or you can vote to go straight ahead and divide the community that's your choice our next speaker is Seth Anderson good evening Seth Anderson 1003 North Street Beloit Wisconsin lots of familiar faces many of you know me some of you don't but I was born in Beloit Memorial Hospital I was a Gaston tiger before they were Bandits I was a McNeil answer and I was a purple Knight uh spent my entire career on the West Side uh it's been great it was great for me it's been great for my family today I stand before you I'm pushing 40 years old I have a 17 year old a nine-year-old and a one-year-old my 17 year old now the the 17 year old and the nine-year-old we've opened and rolled to get
092out of this District um last year my 17 year old she was accepted into Turner she decided not to go because she wanted to finish with her friends my nine-year-old we didn't give him the choice I spent seven thousand dollars a year sending my son to Ola just so we don't have to deal with this District it's gone downhill that badly um I want to let you know that um as it sits right now my one-year-old he'll never see the inside of a Beloit District school you need to keep the West Side schools open focus on what your job is which is raising a student academics our test scores and man I really hope you guys do the right thing thanks our next speaker is Carol Fox apparently they did okay they were supposed to
093hopefully I won't need all of that time my name is Carol Fox and I live at 1607 Crescent Drive and I've been here before and I've been communicating with the board so but I still have concerns over the recent decision to close the middle schools on on the west side of town and transport the kids across town I first want to State I don't believe that the concern here tonight is it all about the grade band reconfiguration you rescinded you if you rescind the motion that you made on April 4th you won't be rescinding that piece you pass that motion in February all this is about is which middle schools should be used I I understand that we need to go down to two schools the the financial concerns of this District are huge I
094think we need I understand we need to go down to two schools um I sent you all a document recently with a data that I believe shows this decision really seriously needs to be reconsidered I have copies of the document with me if anybody's interested and I also recently had a conversation with Dr Garrison about many of these issues one of the questions that I've asked a couple of times and asked him again was why the choice of the East Side schools it does not to me seem like a logical choice and he answered that the the those schools had the better amenities he has a point but there are pros and cons to the use of any building I'm going to assume here that the true choice is really Aldridge or Cunningham again Frozen
095is a new school McNiel go Lancers but it's an older building and it's not that in that great of a location for the needs of the district at this point so let's look at some positives and negatives of of Aldrich and then Cunningham Aldridge does have two cafeterias two gyms at one stage one Auditorium and it is the largest building those are the positives the negatives it's an older building it's not likely very energy efficient it sits on a very busy street and it has no designated place for cars or buses and it already has huge traffic problems around around the school I live on the east side I avoid it as much as I can um Cunningham um well some negatives are that it's remodeled the remodeled part of that building was more Elementary
096and that may not be so good for middle school students and there's also no stage or Auditorium on the other hand the positives it's a newer building which should make it more energy efficient it does have a cafeteria and a gym and a courtyard but it also has a designated traffic lanes for the buses and the traffic and it's in a good location in the neighborhood so in my data I'm going to briefly hit some high points some other people have mentioned some of these things there are about 300 more for through K 4K through 8th grade students on the west side of town and they mostly live in a in a three square mile area the top of Frozen's district is empty right does someone have three minutes you want to yield to they
097they seated they were supposed to fill out the card and turn it in you got three more okay okay Cunningham sits centrally in that area and the west side has no hazardous areas that require any kind of busting just because it's a hazardous area but the east side does with some consideration for crossing guards and thank you to the crossing guard maybe we need to get her a stoplight at Townline at key points all the west side or most of the West side six through eight students could walk to school therefore what I see is that the board has decided to close a newly remodeled building which sits in the middle of a densely populated neighborhood and bus students who could walk to school to the other side of town because Aldridge has a stage
098do you need two cafeterias and two gyms an auditorium cruising also doesn't have any of those things so the district will be busing over 500 more students than it's currently busing we're crying a minimum of 10 more buses the average cost to transport a student to school in 2021 using National figures was about 1197 dollars using these statistics the district will be conservatively spending six hundred thousand dollars a year on busing alone that's conservatively and this does not take into account the financial costs to family which I also outlined in my report um when you are driving 8 10 12 miles you're spending about ten dollars um I have asked about and looked for any of the data that the board used to make this decision I've not found any data on board docs I've
099been all over it I see information on enrollment and building capacity I see no other information that was reviewed by this board I'm concerned that the board is not doing its own research or asking for the research to be done there's nothing I can find in the board documents that would indicate you looked at any information of the type that I shared or even the fiscal implications of your recent decisions for example where is the cost analysis comparing how much it would cost to bus all the students to the west side to the east side and comparing that with if you were going to just bus the East Side students to Frozen how much would that cost I see none of that out there um none of the information that I was looking for would
100be confidential or require anything to be closed or redacted yet I'm not finding anything that would indicate that as a board you have looked at any data about this project in fact what I can glean from the board documents is you had no board meeting or committee meeting where you reviewed information about this proposal prior to the April 4th meeting on April 4th several of you stated that you had individual meetings with the superintendent so on April 4th with just individual meetings and no real board discussion in committee or elsewhere you went from being presented to the proposal to approval in 50 minutes I believe that is wrong I still believe that the decision about which Middle School to use should be reviewed by a true Committee of stakeholders one that reviews the data the
101fiscal implications and the busing plans have you even talked to the bus company I'm not finding anything that says you did that Miss Fox I'm sorry however yeah thank you I don't need three more minutes I think at the very least you need to have a special board meeting where you have an open honest discussion and show the data and look at the data because you need to prove to these people if you're going to do this that that is the right decision thank you foreign [Applause] next the next person I have is Tom Johnson with Cheryl hengeveld at 1326 8th Street and Jen papke at 14 Jackman Street in Janesville both yielding time I never thought I would be standing at this Podium again I always believe that as a retired superintendent there it's
102a way of decorum to go away but finding myself the only former superintendent to live in Beloit and pay taxes in Beloit I will not stay silent any longer I will say that I see current administrators in the room today and I'm not sure if they're here compulsory or voluntarily but I find it hard-pressed for some of the people that I know that they would be able to come up here address the board and say they are a hundred percent in for closing West Side Middle Schools I do want to thank the board for placing this on the agenda I understand you need to close schools and I support it I simply think closing both West Side schools was a erroneous decision as stated before you have equal number of students on either side of
103town I heard a recently a former respected principal who's in the room also tell me that we need to keep Cunningham for when it becomes an elementary school now I don't want to pick on any schools I actually want to fill this one up to capacity honestly but you've got Merrill as your lowest enrollment elementary school are you going to tell me you're going to bust kids from Merrell someday to Cunningham because that's pretty similar to busting the west side east of course not you would field Merrill you would move students around you would make decisions about closures and you'd keep it to that side of town most likely if this is about an idea that enrollment in the short term is going to rise to some new level that is Fantastical thinking there has
104to be more resets before that's going to happen in this town I find the board process of coming to a decision a couple weeks ago very interesting I'm really curious where the sausage was actually made for you folks we are to believe that as as stated before you showed up one night you heard a presentation and you voted all in one time that's pretty amazing that's also out of the Cadence of normal board order that night I watched at home and it's like all of the roles were perfectly orchestrated I'm not saying it was you had a meeting an a legal meeting somewhere but I'm saying you had the fence sitter you had the tough questioner you had the I don't know but we got to do this tonight our teachers deserve to know tonight
105well board member Schneider when he said that he was absolutely right but it actually the problem is is that they deserve to know this months ago especially the people that won't have jobs next year the way the timing that was held in conjunction with the election was the ultimate deceit to your public the fact of the matter is you've known for months you've known for months you are going to do this you knew before you started these listening sessions it was k-568912 great let me remind you that the research on configuration shows it really doesn't matter so what you do with that new configuration is going to be important but you've known you've known you knew you were going to close these schools and yes you had these meetings and yes you talked about school
106closures but bluntly it should have been stated you're at you're three minutes I have nine okay the fact of the matter is that this should have been shared from beginning in bluntly we are here Community to close two West Side Middle Schools or two east side middle schools be prepared bluntly it was all lost in the jargon so where was the sausage made we know as a public and I know as a former superintendent there were lots of discussions about this were they all in individual board member meetings were they in other parts of boards my God you've you've evaluated the superintendent or discussed his evaluation in closed session more times than any other superintendent in the last 30 years what was going on in there even the untrained Observer knows it's not right to
107not discuss this publicly this should have been board meetings special board meetings consultations data Etc word I believe this was all done in one meeting with one presentation and honestly if this was individual board member meetings and games of telephone night and day between the superintendent and board members you are working him to death you are wasting his time this should have been done in regular order I haven't heard much humility from the board in recent years and some board members that I'd like to address are unfortunately or fortunately not here today not seated today I recently heard at a board meeting it said we haven't had a business manager for a year You're darn right you haven't and that's your fault and it's actually the fault of the prior Administration I know people in
108the business Community I know you had applicants I know you had qualified people what I don't understand is the lack of headhunting interviewing and force from the board onto that Administration to say get it done and in the process of that year you lost your Finance director as well I will say that you were miserved from the previous administration and I don't say that lightly I don't want to talk about other administrators or previous administrations but that is a fact I saw way too many lives from this Podium going to this board and Boards previously in recent years and you took it maybe there was a reason the superintendent didn't want to fill that position maybe it would expose the financial Calamity that was coming that I've spoken to a few of you about saying
109what are you doing this leads into the fact that the board and some of you that have served on you didn't balance budgets for two years I gotta tell you as a superintendent and talking to performer business manager like we didn't know that was an option we did not know we could just say we're not balancing for a couple years it's not an option you've robbed the fund balance you've allowed the policy to be changed in the last Administration to not to take away the mandate to keep it above a certain percentage what is it now a recommendation the freedom to tap that emergency fund has recently been concerning but it's just not an option to say we're not going to balance the budget use this year I sat in Old board rooms and I
110know some of you up there have too making budget cuts one year six million we were told in April we have to make six million Cuts now that wasn't easy but we had to do it you didn't have a choice that was a terrible mistake of the last few years and I feel terrible that it's dumped on this Administration to fix what bothers me most is that the people that helped do this to you and this community were left to leave with shining recommendations zero accountability in the night in summation some reflection is clearly needed some better understandings of the city Dynamics are needed one of the best professors I ever had says when you're making decisions you have to consider the internal and external components you have to mainly the third and most important
111part the ripple effect what I've seen in recent years is a complete failure to anticipate the ripple effect from decisions this doesn't mean you don't make difficult ones or unpopular ones but it means you're prepared for the Ripple and sometimes that Ripple will tell you you might have made a mistake you might have not had your ducks in a row one thing that's been brought up before is I'm not sure in the Ripple of all this you've really thought about the families that are talking about leaving the district if this stands and I understand that there are certain populations that aren't represented in this room you have to understand that there are some parents many who are afraid to come and speak to you not because you're mean people but because they don't want to
112do something that's going to impact the potential reversal they are afraid there are language barriers some of these are my former families at Hackett and Memorial who I've spoken to personally if this goes through you better believe I'll be asking next year to see your enrollment numbers on the west side [Applause] this feels honestly like no lessons were learned from the even start debacle you have to pay attention to that ripple effect you can't keep West Side schools open for middle schools you have you can keep it open for middle schools and you can keep it open on the east side it's easy you can do both I'm not going to belabor what Carol already said about busing but I'd like to know is there a document that can be handed out tonight with that
113information I doubt it we need data regardless of what happens and what you do please focus more on process and openness you knew this for months you knew what you were going to do you waited till the 11th Hour deceitful in my opinion the bottom line is we owe it to the students and families and those teachers especially the ones that don't have a job now we owe this to them five months ago thank you [Applause] the next person I have is John Peterson oh yeah good evening I'm John Peterson I live on Turnberry Drive in Beloit um there's one thing I don't know I hear a lot about diversity equity and inclusion and social emotional and learning the busing will put tons of pressure on all of our children or all the children on
114the West Side explicitly and all of those things from the bullying and everything else and I don't know I mean you have to think about the demographics of all of our communities and where everybody's at but then there's the financial side too on the east side we have majority of higher value homes unless you're farther out from the city so you have to think about you know a hundred thousand dollar house 150 000 house over a 200 000 house so on the west side of the river most average home sales are about a hundred and seventy two thousand dollars and that's the higher values and then on the east side the values can go from 250 in my neighborhood to four or five hundred thousand so there's a large Financial conflict that goes along with
115this because you're depressing and suppressing the poor population on the west side of the river and giving benefit to the Richer side on the east and that is horrible I mean when you think about it how you're going to separate you the board are going to separate these these people in that way you are segregating our community financially people aren't thinking about that and it's going to create strife then you're going to take these younger children who are going to be on a bus take them over to the east side with the East Side richer kids you're going to have another problem you're going to say well we're going to have to deal with those emotional things we're going to need to do this and do that and you know you're going to see the
116Adderall just spike in the neighborhood you know but you know that just shouldn't happen but anyhow that's one thing now here's another thing tonight the board doesn't have to vote on this they already voted to do this so if we they don't call for a vote nobody leaves it'll get quiet at that point if everybody in this room and everybody on the west side doesn't stand up and actually demand to maybe re-vote on all of these members we can't vote on Amy Levy or uh uh Brian down there because they just got elected but everybody else all of these other members are recallable that's the truth they're all recallable every one of them and it needs to be set out there publicly and and we could actually have a vote I think the first of
117September um but it it definitely needs to be brought up because none of these board members and then the other thing we need to do is look at removing the superintendent because business decisions are just supposed to be one of his Specialties and you just heard from another business person it just is not happening and maybe no offense to the doc but he's just not doing it the other thing is all the private all the meetings not all private some are open some are closed but as everybody said the data has never been given out to us where was it published in the newspaper where were all the finances published where was the the the environmental impact study from all the diesel fuel from the buses where were all these sons that they always demand
118but they didn't they kept it quiet all of these members need to be gone at some point have a good night the next person I have is Tina Peterson in the Next Room women hi my name is Tina I'm at Peterson at 2387 Turnberry in Beloit I'll speak up I'm getting some signals over here so I I'm a mom and I just consider all of our Beloit kids as my own and the thought of putting kids on a bus for 10 hours a week is just gut wretching to me so you know for the I can't imagine being able to squeeze in the before school lunch programs that probably a lot of the West Side students qualify for you know we got to factor that in but just the the number of hours that the
119kids are going to lose I think is going to be detrimental to them for a long time so I mean kids are pretty resilient and and they get over things but if we can avoid some of that bullying some of the you know just being cooped up on a school bus and being able to sleep and be with their families a little bit longer I I think that needs to be weighed pretty heavily so I mean I I know you all have heard it all night so you're getting it I think um but please these are our kids and all these hours on the bus are just detrimental to how they handle the rest of their day how they learn how they interact with everybody else so I think that it I'm begging to reconsider
120and leave uh one of the West Side schools open for the the betterment of of all the kids on that side of town all right thank you the next person I have is Dorothy Harrell and saritha Washington um giving her time good evening Dorothy Harrell 2284 Boulder Court here in Beloit I first want to say thank you Sean for reminding us that this is a discussion about public education children and respect is something we need to show I was kind of disturbed last week when someone referred to you as a as something you would ask about being low class so I'm glad that's not going to happen again tonight uh respect should be Paramount I was born on the West Side employee Memorial Hospital was on Olympian Boulevard I went to birds school I went
121to Roy school I went to Cunningham school and I lived right two blocks from this building on Chestnut in 1960 I became a member of the first class that was bussed from the West Side to Aldridge and we went all three years at Aldrich living on the west side maybe that's when the brain drained began because that's when the first decision was made to send kids from the west side over to Aldridge and then again later there was the 222 system here in Beloit and I think it was everybody that was in grade nine and ten all over this city went to Aldridge so we've done things like this before my only hope would be that there are some things that we've learned that would make it easier for us to transition easier for the
122parents to to make the decision on how to get things done come fall and that those decisions are now being talked about and made with parents students and staff I think that's the part for me that's very important I'm not going to say that I'm thrilled about the reconfiguration but I am going to support the idea that this is the time for that to happen uh renowned educator Jeffrey Canada says he ran the Harlem children's Zone he said if we're going to talk about the achievement Gap we have to talk about ending poverty that's not a discussion you hear in Beloit that's not a discussion you hear any of our governmental bodies talking about what are we going to do to address poverty in this community you talk about poverty you're going to talk about
123increasing the achievement Gap I mean you're going to talk about decreasing the achievement Gap and and scores going up but we don't have that discussion I've appeared in front of this body before to say school board you need to meet with city council you're my two elective rep local Representatives I need you to come together and talk about decisions about what we're going to do in this community about our kids if our kids are our future then that means all of us I've gone to City Council on three occasions to say city council I want you to meet with the school board and start to have this discussion this has happened over the last couple of years there has been no meeting Dr kieser when he was the superintendent asked for the meeting on at
124least four occasions our previous city manager was opposed to having that meeting so I went back to the council and I said she's the city manager you're my elected official you call for that meeting you don't need to have her in the meeting they did not call for that meeting so I think that in addition to the reconfiguration one of the things that we need to do is have our city council our school board come together and talk about education in this community and what it means for and about this community there's lots of big questions to be asked and answered and like this is like the guy says if we're going to talk about the achievement Gap we have got to talk about how we end poverty in this community thank you [Applause] the
125next person I have is Rebecca DeMent my name is Rebecca DeMent I reside at 1935 Highland Avenue I am a proud 1999 bmhs graduate a Janesville school teacher a West Side parent with a seventh grader in the district at Aldridge because of Joe viadox and his staff holding students accountable and unfortunately a five-year-old who this year is open enrolled in the school district of Turner a choice my husband and I never would have dreamed we would be forced to make when we chose to raise our family in Beloit so I am here tonight to address the root issue and cause behind why we are even here tonight talking about the closure of two schools let me be clear we absolutely would not be in this situation of closing schools if the habitual discipline in our
126schools was handled consistently properly and effectively for years our Beloit teachers and admin have been handcuffed by the district office and School Board to keep butts in the seats for funding purposes and trust me when I say this is not working because supportive parents who care and bleed purple about their child's education are leaving what needs to happen is for this school board each one of you sitting right here tonight to stop attempting to thwart this bleeding of students to other districts by keeping the problematic students in our schools these very problematic students are being empowered accommodated and allowed to re-complete havoc in our schools students teachers admin staff on a daily basis and staff cannot take much more these daily toxic behaviors are creating dangerous learning environments that are non-conducive to teaching and learning
127which is the reason parents like myself have left this once thriving district and let's get it straight and not get it twisted it is because of these chronic behaviors low behavioral and academic standards and lack of accountability and learning in our schools that we are a one star District it is time for you to please address this root issue our children and teachers deserve a safe learning and a safe teaching environment where teachers and admin are supported to be able to teach students who want to learn and hold the students who continuously break these rules on a daily basis accountable I challenge the district office and the school board to address these chronic behaviors and set most importantly and most importantly sorry enforce the policies and code of conduct in our schools and I can
128promise you that if you shift your focus to supporting our hard-working teachers admin and families you will see families like myself return to the School District of Beloit and we certainly wouldn't be needing to close two middle schools and laying off teachers thank you foreign [Applause] Winfield oh whose camera is this can you turn it off for me please I appreciate it thank you how everybody doing today [Music] Juwan Winfield 1806 Park Avenue Beloit Wisconsin class 99. thank you so much I appreciate it um this company spread some light I figured you guys was going to get some Rowdy people there um no disrespect I understand the frustration me on the board that's probably what's the hardest thing that I ever had to make a decision on to be honest I'm not here for that
129I'm here to tell you that I and April Winfield was able to get five children through this district with the number of superintendents that we had and the number of boards that was not able to do what people in here are asking them to do which is make a decision that's going to make one part of bully happy now to say that I say this I pray for your strength because hidden in that chair Mr McNichols is there I kept it warm for you brother it's hard work and some people in this room know that but I'm not going to sit here and point the finger I was able to do what my kids needed for let me make sure I got the right dates my oldest graduated in 2015 and they went every year
130after that so I know for a fact as a parent I didn't have to hold the board accountable I worked with staff in this city that made sure that my kids was doing what they had to do and we did what we have to do collectively that's not happening no more in the city and it hasn't happened in a long time us parents need to give back and start parenting our children once that I got amen once that happens [Music] we won't be looking for the board to make decisions like this it starts at home well oh I got a minute left I don't know and I've told this story plenty of times I remember when the last refrigerator um the configuration was 2012. they closed down Morgan they closed down right they closed down
131a bunch of schools Mr Mr Winfield here had to travel through four different schools but I did that because I knew that I had to do my part as a parent now I'm not saying that to anybody else but I'm just having to have an open mind and come with some ideas that will help this board be successful because I know for a fact since my kid has been in this District we have yet to have a successful board I was on the board last year I wasn't easy it was Amy you see can't say anything I wasn't easy to work with because I'm for the kids I just advise us just to come together work together come with some ideas and all this fingerboarding has to stop praise God and the last person I
132have is Pam Charles foreign your time for me thanks so thank you Rich raft 7239 West Spring Creek Road Beloit doing reading and research about school reconfigurations the other day I stumbled upon Green Bay's situation which is a lot like ours but they're a lot bigger District so Green Bay is closing like 12 schools and here's how they did it and I just want you to know why we have a room full of frustrated people here Green Bay started a first they did a third party community-wide survey in that survey they didn't ask what great configuration do you like they said what buildings would you be willing to close and if we had a referendum would you be willing to you know fund a referendum to keep this building open if it meant not crossing
133the river to this building parents were asked specific questions and it wasn't just fluff it was really we want to know how far are you willing to drive you know will you will you tolerate taking your kid that far or across that bridge they were asked these kinds of questions they had a 26 member task force of community members and Facilities experts they did a facilities study a complete 10-year plan all of these task force meetings were open to the public no one had to hire an attorney they were just open from the beginning because what was there to hide nine times between January and today there have been media there's been media coverage about what's going on and every part of it you know the facilities plan is released here's a news article on
134it the the committee has finalized their recommendation to go to the superintendent and the board here it is public you can come to the committee now and and state your input it was constant public input constant opportunities the recommended plan was revealed months before the vote the vote won't take place until sometime in May the recommended plan was released in March that gives people another couple months to say oh you didn't think about this and time for the board to say she's right maybe we should go back and think about that the plan is out there people can look it up online they can you know go to the board meetings and express their concerns it's out there it's public no complaints I'm sure from their people there were constant opportunities for public input and
135the planning is going to continue over the next year with an implementation in the fall of 2024 no sooner in Beloit our community members our community meetings were not open to the public at first only after I hired an attorney and said you guys need to open these meetings were they opened and I'll correct an inaccuracy because I know open meetings laws and I hired an attorney that was an expert in open meetings laws anytime there's work being done on behalf of this board that's an open meeting okay you have to keep the meetings open there's no reason to be behind closed doors there's all reasons to open them because trust trust is going to make you partners with this community and communication is important if you want people to accept your plan we had
136no task force we had no ad hoc committee I don't I agree with Dr Johnson where was the sausage made that's what we keep asking is was it just a couple people that sat down and made this plan because it certainly wasn't in those meetings held at different school buildings I went to those we never got to really we got to we were asked our suggestions for things but it wasn't like we got to vote have any real input we weren't even told you know we're going to close two schools on the west side we were just told that probably two schools would close maybe three but probably two that's all we knew and people said in those meetings we do not want both West Side schools closed So the plan by the way um
137it was never revealed to the to the people of Beloit it wasn't posted there was no attachment to the agenda on April 4th total Secret but tonight you've got this you've got this budget presentation its attachment is there people could have been looking at that all weekend and coming up with questions about the budget but with this very very important issue there was no attachment and we had no way of seeing what the plan was until Dr Ursa and you presented it to the board that's incredibly unfair and it was very disrespectful and inconsiderate of the board to do that by the way the plan is still not available online I can't find it today I think the only way to find it is to go to the April 4th video of the meeting and
138scroll all the way over until you see it what is that I mean really how do any of you think you're going to get away with this you're affecting far too many lives and far too many children and families to to think for one minute that this room would not be packed you want us to respect you as board members respect us as Citizens too okay respect to Citizens by keeping the public comments the first thing on the agenda item unless you want to open up public comments to every agenda item they have to be first otherwise we sit through a whole board meeting and we don't get to say what we came to say about an agenda item don't move those public comments to the end the board that I was president of we
139talked about that we said we could never do that they would be furious and so do not do not do that to the people keep your cameras on please lots of times people at home they're seeing this lots of times they see a picture of somebody pop up they don't know if you've left the room they don't know if there's still a quorum they think oh okay well Amy's gone now because her picture's not up they're not here so they don't see that you're still here please be careful to keep your cameras on the parents and citizens of Beloit we have ideas okay we've they're the parents they know what's going to work for them you don't need to make faces Sean that's also not polite if you want to be respectful let's make it
140both ways this is ridiculous you're the board president listen you set the decorum okay no I'm not gonna back and forth you all finish my time and then you can just talk all you want but these people here it's their kids it's their families they know their schedules they know what their kids can tolerate include us in decision making some people just might have a good idea all the things that Carol Fox brought up she's right you haven't presented any of it and I don't believe you saw any of it and if you saw it in private meetings then shame on every one of you for not saying to the board president when is this going to be made public okay it has to be public it has to be open did you want to
141say something to me now Mrs show do we have any more public comment no we do not call for a re-vote Mr Peterson you're out of order so here we go we don't have our student board report here so I'm I'll start into mine let's go again since I'm from Beloit also I'm just going to be honest I understand that this is a very important decision for our community having lived on the East and the west side and attended schools on the East and the west side I grew up thinking even though my stepdad worked at General Motors my mom worked at the police department and the public library I grew up thinking the best job in Beloit was working for the School District of Beloit that's why I became an educator for 24 years
142because of the academic experiences the activities the Arts the Athletics all those things I enjoyed with many great people the reputation that I earned as a young person in Beloit the character that was developed and a harder service wisdom stature and favor those are things that I hope for for my own children and the things that I hope for for the children are Beloit that's why I knew that being a board member is one of the worst jobs in Beloit but I still decided to do it because I have a technical expertise and a care for Beloit that I would stand here with these other people and let people say things to me not that your opinion isn't valid but honestly some things that have been said the way they've been said the tone they've
143been set in are totally disrespectful and being from Beloit I'm going to give some numbers but we talk about being purple Knights that's one of the things that like it hides issues of race because we all talk about being purple we don't talk about being black white hispanic or anything else so I don't know what type of humility as a black man I need to show to certain people I don't know what um is considered to be disrespectful and I don't understand um you could always challenge the idea but sometimes those things border on questioning people's intellectual abilities and I'm just going to be honest because we're in Beloit we're having open conversation I'm from here when I listen to older people in Beloit talk about that I mean like we know what the city
144has been through we know how people came to the city and we know the conditions that we all have lived under together so some of these conversations they can run at many different levels and I'm just telling you all how I'm picking up some of it I totally understand I don't think this is a good idea this plan is wrong I get that I'm gonna I'd be less than honest with you if I didn't share with you the things I just said our strategic plan outlines a couple different things the first one dealing with equity our school students we've got about five thousand five hundred five thousand five hundred they're about looking at the last state report card on which we became a two-star district when we were a one star that's not where we
145want to be but that is a show of improvement Beloit is those students are 21.9 percent black 34.7 percent Hispanic 32.8 percent White 9.5 percent two or more races 15.3 percent students with disabilities and 70 percent the black the Hispanic the white the two or more races the students with disabilities 70 percent are economically disadvantaged that's what misses Harold was speaking about when she talked about poverty in Beloit so these conversations that we are having that is a reflection of who we are by the numbers but I think that we are more than just our numbers our strategic plan talks about addressing disproportionality because I took AP classes I had a great experience at Memorial High School it served me well but just because you walk in a building with two thousand other kids and
146in that AP classroom I'm like one or two black kids in the room out of 28. we know there's two different educations you can get walking in now but more High School and we've got administrators and board members who have sat here you've worked in these places you've been in here in the board level and you have not studied or remedied all the problems where they're desperate and different outcomes for all people we produced a strategic plan that says that is something we need to do because the best of what's in Beloit needs to happen for all the kids not just some of them so we talk about developing systems and structures for Equity work that's so that we're having conversations about learning and using the new learning Sciences that that work is being applied
147and that there's data structures and protocols so all the things that certain people are asking for it's evident it's on display if you don't know how to work on a car and you just got to take your car to somebody they can tell you anything's wrong with it as an educator with a superintendent's license as an administrator I know my role as a board member I'm not trying to do Dr Garrison's job I'm not trying to do Emily Pell's job at the high school I got a place where I go be an administrator every day what we have done as a board is pull the appropriate lovers that we as a board by our statutory role is given to pull those levers of change to make things happen in this community for our students culture
148and Leadership when I came to the board there was no strategic plan we had no vision of where we're going that strategic plan wasn't developed just by myself or the seven people here it involved community members it involved stakeholders parents and those working in the district when we didn't have a superintendent which is the regular cycle in Beloit we didn't wait a year we did what our job is which is to hire a superintendent we have evaluated the superintendent correct because superintendents in the past in this District have not been evaluated because the superintendents have come and gone through a revolving door and the board members have come and gone through a revolving door and the history is that the board members don't work well with each other we complete our Board of Education self-evaluation
149the WSB annual development tool which tells you what the key work of a school board is and that's what we focused our work to we have school board members who have completed their terms they've been appointed when other people left they served their full terms ran elections and were elected and we participate in board development we've got Collective commitments to each other I won't take time to read them but they're on the website and what that Collective commitment says that's the way that the seven of us have agreed to work with each other so we're not the rolling clown show that has been in place and that the seven of us not working together causes the professional that we hire to help the children of Beloit leave and then we're left with a mess to
150pick up and clean up we have a focus on the whole child we understand everyone's desire for students to have academic success we have data that is showing that our students are showing success we have invested in programs that address the social emotional and learning needs of our students because our students are not coming from two parent households our students have greater needs and the teachers that are coming to serve have greater needs to be able to serve those students and that is how we've tried to equip them it's a poor dog that won't wag his own tail you can't tell a story about Beloit being unsuccessful repeatedly on Loop and try to become something better 11 out of 15 years the kids that play jazz music go to essentially Ellington we have the rising
151Knights and programs like Beloit College help yourself program we have a pipeline of students who've gone to historical black colleges and universities I'm a part of that going back to 1995 when Dr Jenkins and seven kids from one school on academic and athletic scholarship we've begun a discussion of academic standards the purple Knight report card with our superintendent because people need to know if your kid is at above or below standards and as board member Winfield said there's work that you got to do in there my parents don't have a college education my dad's got a third grade education from Mississippi explains how God blessed him enough to be able to work at General Motors my mom was a 16 year old teenage parent when she married my biological father who was 20 years old
152that's 1967 different time I've got a sister who's a teenage parent and graduated from Beloit I've got a brother who was an athlete and graduated in Beloit I got a brother who has a IEP and graduated from Beloit I have a six-year-old brother that was hit and killed in front of Merrill Elementary School when there was no fence you don't know much about the people that you were saying very mean and nasty things about it's okay not to agree with the decisions that have been made when it comes to engagement which is the fourth area of our strategic plan we had an ad hoc referendum committee to talk about where our finances are we've had referendum listening sessions the superintendent pulled together people when he could have made his own decision and to make sure
153that we're doing things the way they should be and there's no confusion we sought our legal counsel we said yes let's hold the meetings again there's been listening sessions after our April 4th decision and there's public comments but what we're trying to do now is chart a way forward through a divided community and the community's been divided before today and before April 4th this is just a flash point we've discussed our finances having a 4.4 million dollar budget deficit having 9.8 million in the fund balance currently had the ad hoc referendum committee to study those needs should we go to ballot we didn't make that decision alone but looking at the numbers you could they said go where we went two questions 100 votes are sold 300 votes or so this conversation is about right
154size in our district everyone knows that if you lose 2 000 kids you can't keep the same 850 employees that's not a new conversation there have been adjustments to our Workforce administrators that should have two-year contracts were given one-year contracts and we know they could have been given no contract but at the same time each employee group has a different timeline obligation that we have to meet and as their employer and those are things that we have worked to do 103 teacher positions reduce Frozen or laid off and most of those we come down to the Last Action that we take that that affected two people two schools Consolidated and we're talking about this closure Dr Garrison and bringing him in as you'll hear when we have this Finance report will detail how we've saved
155about 4 million of that four point million that was a deficit having someone here has preserved our ability to make the pivots that we need to make that were not in place because the Personnel was not here so as the seven of us sat and now Brian has joined us we have to make choices for the future of Beloit and we are making some of the same choices that other people around the state and the country are making your community is changing your community has already changed school closures and consolidation are not unique to Beloit we've got four intermediate schools the largest one on the east side that can accommodate all the children the newest one on the east side that was recently built but even then people said should we build it but it
156got built an elementary school that was renovated and proved to become an intermediate school on the West Side that's the one I went to Cunningham and the building that received the lease repairs or upgrades McNeil we need to restore our fund balance we need to have an increase in the state budget for education because we're dealing with other things that other communities are not but we are improving we're Rising but how do we get there it's not by turning on one another it's not by being rude and unneverly to each other what do you want for the children of Beloit and understand that through the electoral process school board members coming and going serving their terms working with administrators who decide to stay that's how we're going to get there the thing that we've all
157determined is that we'll take votes and no matter how the vote comes out we're not going to fall out with each other and many of the things that people have said these are not new things to us I say this all the time we could say there's about eight steps that we need to take in Beloit and many of us would agree that the first seven are the same we were going wrong and let's get on the right path when we get to step number eight that might be where you think we ought to go left and I think we ought to go right we're trying to take those first seven steps participation and engagement is a part of it and that's why we're here we are responsive to our community but if you've already
158been here as a board member it's understood that you didn't get it right every time you did it we won't get every time get it right every time we do it but we're going to make decisions we're going to try to move us forward that's the place we're at and that's the place that our service comes from superintendent's report well thank you for president Levy um I will be a little um I really want to take this time to first of all thank our teachers who are going to uh teacher appreciation week next week and so if you're a teacher in a room I want to go ahead and give you a shout out now can you wave at me if you teach in the room at all shout out now thank you so much
159for everything that you've done and let me go back thank you for that golf clap let's really give our teachers some really some real love for everything that they've done for us um and so again I want to thank our teachers for all the hard work that they've done for our school district across the United States this is a conversation that we have around this time but I think sometimes it falls on deaf ears personally I think that we publicly don't think our teachers enough for the hard work that they do on a daily basis we wait to a specific time of the year to really try to bring it up a lot but again I've really tried to make sure that our teachers know that I appreciate everything that they've done for our students
160here in the School District board and against popular beliefs we are making some changes as pertains to our achievement here in the district you know when I first got here I was going to put it under the table on top of the table one of the things I heard about this district is was the worst we couldn't make it discipline was all over the place I heard that in my interviews heard that prior to him even coming here because you ain't got to do much but type in school district or Beloit and you'll see a lot of visceral things about us that I honestly want to say to you all as the superintendent of the school district here that is simply not true when I walked into this school district when I walked in here
161one of the things I really wanted to do was sit back and think how is all of this negativity helping our students like how so everyone knows that I'm a heartstring for students I've always been always this is who I am and you know one could argue that this is an emotional thought these are emotional times for a lot of people and we all at this board in this boardroom in our city in our state are having some very tough conversations about where we want our students to be when they leave our school district that's a fact that is a hard fact but we have to figure out how is it that all of the negative comments all of the over and over bashing of of us and Beloit how is it helping our students
162a lot of people say no we're not doing that I get it a lot of people say that all you have to do is look at what you're saying put type in the School District of Beloit and see what people are saying about us it is very at times as a school superintendent disheartening because we are so much better than that I'm not being honest with you we are so much better than that I walked into this district and the first thing I did was I visited all these schools I wanted to go see how bad are our students how terrible our students are I want to go see this this this notion that we're bullying every day and kids can't learn and there's fighting I wanted to go see if that was happening and
163on a daily basis I walked into the school district and I did not see that and then so so hear me out wait a second and see that that response alone states that there's a belief that we are that curveball how is it helping our students it is not if they hear every single day every single day that they're a problem that they can't make it that they are their discipline issues that they are a consistent um burden to our school district how does that help them and no one can really answer that question for me no one can answer that question how does how does hearing that every single day going to help our students this is not a time for Mr there's not a time for a back and forth part this is
164not what it is but I'd love to talk to you one-on-one sure okay and I thank you for sharing that okay I thank you for sharing that but it does not help our students it doesn't and I refuse to believe that the majority of the people that live in the school district Beloit believe that to be a true statement about our kids because I hear them every single day doing great things making great decisions coming to school every day doing this supposed to be doing learning and going back to their homes I hear it all the time and I see it all the time and as a school superintendent why would I say something different why would I say we the worst we're never going to make it that all of our school districts is
165a discipline problem that all of our district not only is a discipline problem but but they're the burden to our school district as a whole as a superintendent you will not hear me hear me lean in that conversation because I believe that again we're better together than we are apart and like I've stated from the beginning since I've been here our teachers that are in our school district do a wonderful job in educating our students and again I want to say thank you for that amongst all of the noise again I want to say thank you for that coming and showing up for our kids on a regular basis again I want to say thank you for that again we do not hear it enough and it's unfortunate that our great School District don't celebrate
166our greatness on a regular basis every single day my humble opinion is that this past past few uh I'm not possible my humble opinion is that our school district has the opportunity to make a lot of great um changes for the better but I also believe that this was the first time as a school district that we've came together with the School District of Beloit Beloit College Lincoln Academy Our Lady of Assumption Rock County Christian and the Turner School District where we came together publicly and wanted to thank our teachers that was the first time it happened at City Hall this past week well actually sorry yesterday yeah it feels like a late car um it happened yesterday the district actually to be honest with you all they reached out to the School District of
167Beloit to help lead that conversation and bring us all together and so we wanted to have five different proclamations you know because we can actually do it all together I truly believe that those opportunities for us are not fleeting those opportunities for us are not fleeting to figure out how we can steady come together as a school district and do what's the best interest for all of our students and staff it was a very significant moment to do that down at City Hall so to hear some people say that we want to start working together those are the things that I am trying to work on as a school superintendent I am trying to figure out ways that we can become more together in this conversation because at times I am the you know middle
168person I came here under the notion that I was going to serve at the highest level I have not stopped doing that and for whatever reasons that I believe that you may believe or people may believe or the community may believe that I have not served at the highest level I will continue to show up every day and serve at the highest level to to erase the thought that I'm not because that is that is my job that is my job and I want to do it right I want to do it right but before I even came here that was my that was my that's how I moved I've been hearing the the conversations around you know my service or me not being a boarder um it's something I want to publicly address with
169you all and I have stated this before and it's not going to be anything different from what I stated before my address does not stop me from me serving this school district it does not stop me from serving this school district at the absolute highest level if you go lucky about my track record from wherever where I stayed or everywhere wherever I lived or and or served people will say the same thing about who I am as a person I will serve at the highest level and I would do it and I would show up every single day that is my that is my that is what I want you all to know and in time and over time and you would be you will hear some of it tonight I have tried to make
170some changes for our school district to better position us to be successful three to five years from now you were here tonight again from the start when I walked in here we was working on a deficit and in five months I've tried to erase that deficit in the millions of dollars that has not happened before in a five-month period of time so I am coming here and I'm serving at the highest possible level that I can but I do need some time I do need you all's patient I do want to still work with everyone I still want to make sure that we're able to come together and figure out what's the best opportunities for us to you know continuously move forward a decision we will talk about later again that was made I know
171people have their difference of opinions about that but across this entire nation we're having this conversation around declining enrollment unfortunately in the School District of Beloit and this is part of my report unfortunately in the School District of Beloit we've had thousands of students leave our school district and that's prior to me and it's also right now with me so I'm in this conversation I'm here in this conversation I want the students to know that's in this room today that I do believe in you that I do believe that you can achieve to your highest level I do believe we have what it takes for for you to to be successful in our school district I do believe that and I'm not second guessing that thought I do not want our families to to choose
172a different opportunity but realistically 10 years ago some of these opportunities weren't here 15 years ago some of these opportunities weren't here 20 years ago some of these opportunities weren't here they are now though and it's our responsibility to address the elephant in the room we do want to have Higher Achievement and when we become three stars we'll be the same three stars as everyone else around us and we will keep moving in that direction that is a fact when we become three stars we'll be the same three as everybody else around us so the idea and the notion that we are so far off from this opportunity is simply not true and I know we can do it I have to believe that too though right I just can't say it I have to
173believe that that's why we study have conversations around student achievement since I've been here that's why I've opened up the doors for people in this room to come see our buildings come walk in our school buildings I've had conversations with people in this room and outside this room and asking them specific questions when was the last time you walked in one of our schools it's been years so just by chance things could be different by chance things could be different and so I would hope that you'll give me the opportunity to continue not only to continue serving the school district at the highest level but I hope that you also give yourself the opportunity to see that we are trying to make some changes and I just completely understand that we may not always agree
174but I will not sit back and not fight for the School District of Beloit students and families and sit back and believe all of the commentary that comes at me or the school district on a daily basis my goal is to paint a different person paint a different picture and that's what I've been doing that is what I've been doing if you look at what I've been doing since I walked into this room and start to serve right away you will see that that is my time I truly appreciate the opportunity to serve in this capacity Mr President can I have a moment of personal privilege please board member Schneider yours okay um not too long ago the state line Community Foundation held a scholarships award program which invited students from all of the local
175schools to come and as they've receive their scholarship Awards and I tried to jot down all of the numbers as I could I some of them I'm not quite sure exactly what the numbers were but as I quickly added them up students from Beloit Memorial High School earned a little over 95 000 in scholarships that one night I mean that's the that's the students that are coming out of our high school they're able to compete and receive that amount in scholarships during that one evening and I think we should really be proud of all of those students for that the work the hard work that they have done in order to pursue their dream their careers in the future and earn the scholarships thank you so go on to our committee reports ask the chairs
176to speak and start with business operations Finance just to recap of what happened this evening is enough so the business operation and finance committee met earlier this evening went through the March financials and touched on the the different Federal stimulus and pandemic grants I mean we'll see some more of this this evening in in Mr chady's presentation later teaching learning equity and pupil Services committee we did not meet this evening but I would like to Echo the sentiments of board member Schneider and just remind us that what we heard at our last meeting is that our district has been asked to be National presenters for the conference it's called the nctm it's the National Council for teachers of mathematics for our Cutting Edge leadership in the field of curriculum adoption regarding mathematics and as a
177point of personal privilege I'm very proud to share that thank you yeah all right the governance the governance committee met on April 25th we discussed our timeline for our board organizational meeting reviewed our committee structures and made a request of data structures to support that we reviewed this season 6 dapes model that's the evaluation model that we use to evaluate our superintendent we went over our Collective commitments Board of Education and superintendent roles and responsibilities our wasb annual board development tool we reviewed that survey we discussed academic goals and standards for our children and discussion of parent and Community participation and feedback regarding Board of Education decision making board member Levy perfect timing on my legislative report is attached and the policy committee will meet tomorrow Wednesday May 3rd at 5 30 right here if
178anyone would like to join us all right that was a legislative updating policy that was that correct okay so we're on to the consent agenda is there a motion for the acceptance of the consent agenda I need to have item M special meeting minutes from 421 removed please thank you is there a motion um for the approval of the consent agenda minus m so moved second it's been moved by board member Schneider seconded by board member Amy Levy is there any discussion hearing none all those in favor signify by saying aye aye aye motion passes uh board member Levy uh m M I just need to abstain oh because you weren't present all right is there a motion for the approval of our special media minutes from April 21st so moved second moved by board
179member Megan Miller seconded by board member Greg Schneider any discussion hearing done all those in favor signify by saying aye aye aye aye aye motion passes could we just have the record note my at that I'm abstaining thank you I'll leave his abstention you're now at item five a covid PTO benefit 19 PTO benefits sure um so last year in the 2022-2023 school year a PTO up on this kind of pay time off benefit was granted to District employees five additional days were added to all employee groups um not on a 52-week calendar and prorated for a full-time for the full-time and part-time status this PTO benefit has a sizable Financial implication and that must be board approved and it wasn't board approved and the last and previous administration so as the school district is
180working through this conversation I wanted to publicly let the district know that this is an action that the Board of Education will need to take a formal action on in subsequent board meetings at this time we are seeking legal counsel on how to address this this non-approved board action as pertains to the paid time off benefit that was granted and so I want to make sure I brought the you know the public up to speed as it pertains to um this again sizable Financial implication that was not on board approved last year and it will need to be board approved and or um a former board action will need to protect will need to transpire maybe just probably some more clarity there was an action taken by Administration that was not board approved we are
181receiving legal counsel but this is the portion of this event uh incident that needs to be discussed in public session and as we're conferring with the lawyer we will work to how it'll be resolved and take action in public 5B state of District finances presentation hey good evening my name is Robert chady I'm your new Executive Director of Business Services certainly is an interesting time to come into a school district but I knew what I was coming into before I got here and I still came so I'd like to give you a little bit of a snapshot we did this presentation last week to the governance Committee of the board just kind of a snapshot of the state of the district's finances it'll be a little bit of a recap of the past history and
182perhaps an Outlook of the future we'll begin with the fund balance um geez you're probably all aware right so I could probably just bypass this slide we'll talk a little bit about the fund balance policy uh the use of fund balance Through The Years um fund balance as of typically it's the value that's reported as of June 30th fund balance changes every day think of it as your checking and savings account at home as you get paid goes into your account the value goes up as the district receives money our fund balance goes up likewise as we write checks fund balance is depleted as well so it's a floating number that changes uh really daily um the potential need for the district to short-term borrow to meet our daily cash flow needs the the district
183does have a line of credit with a local financial institution to draw upon I think we're going to make it through the end of the fiscal year in satisfactory condition uh it's really kind of doubtful to be very honest with you that we'll be able to make it through future fiscal school years without the need to draw on that line of credit and then talk a little bit about the need strategy to rebuild that fund balance our fund balance policy the board's fund balance policy 662.3 summarizes it here in this sentence uh the maintain a fund balance between 14 and 25 with the board's further goal of at least 18 percent it's pretty standard range for school districts throughout the state to be honest with you there are some that are lower typically not in
184good Financial shape there are others that are higher my small school district that I left to come to Beloit was approaching 30 percent so it's a variable amount unfortunately the district's fund balance has declined from 22 percent uh just back in the 2122 school year to a projected fund balance this year of 10 percent many of the speakers have commented about that uh unfortunately I can't tell you the reasons why per se because quite honestly I just haven't I've been here for like five and a half weeks I haven't had time to dig into and answer that question though it is a question that I have myself and I do need to find an answer to the benefit benefits of adequate fund balance it obviously it's Financial stability for the school district it lowers borrowing
185costs credit ratings for any future debt acquisition that would need to occur uh and then of course cash flow to just pay our daily bills growth and fund balance typically results at the end of the year you either have a surplus or a deficit when you have a surplus then those funds can roll over into the fund balance and help to grow that you know but just as an example we may have a 500 000 Surplus at the end of the year some of you are thinking holy crap that's a lot of money keep in mind it's a hundred million dollar budget but even if you have a 500 000 Surplus that's kind of a drop in the bucket when you've used 10 million dollars over the past couple of years of fund balance so
186it takes a number of years perhaps even decades to rebuild fund balance all through that time you're likely needing to draw upon your line of credit you're likely needing to borrow money to pay daily bills and of course when we borrow money we pay interest expense on that and that's unfortunate I mean it's the reality but it's what we'd like to try to avoid for your benefit I'd much rather have our funds in the bank making interest for you than us drawing uh funds from the bank and paying interest history slide of fund balance I'm sure many members of the public have seen this before so we won't spend a lot of time on this it was utilized from the ad hoc referendum committee planning considerations but it kind of shows the the variability of
187fund balance you know back in the day 12 it reached its peak 24 that that was good but unfortunately you've seen the slide the past couple of years of course earlier last month now we had two questions on the ballot that spoke about uh operational and capital Improvement needs we'll go through those to a little bit of detail the results were the re what the results were they kind of speaked for themselves and outside somewhat independent uh perspective of it is it we really missed an opportunity and I understand the reasons why votes were cast the way votes were cast but the missed opportunity was to maintain that 4.78 mill rate and to utilize those funds for the benefit of the students of the School District of Beloit and our facilities in space doesn't necessarily
188mean that we can't come back in in the future with similar questions though it does make it harder so question number one of course was uh to seek voter approval for nineteen and a half million dollars for uh infrastructure improvements to our facilities um it it lost by 112 votes if you look in the lower right hand corner you see 113 because that's the number that we really lost by 112 it's a tie in in the question fails so you really need that one plus question number two talked about the operational needs in a large portion of question number two would have been helped to replenish that fund balance to build that back up and to help prevent the need for short-term borrowing unfortunately question number two also failed uh 406 votes there to be
189very honest with you an outside perspective been involved in a number of different referendums in a number of districts admirable efforts by the School District of Beloit in the time period that they had and for the community to support on both sides of the equation yes and no um you know a very strong effort and very close I think everybody would agree part of my job as your Executive Director of Business Services is really to try to be Visionary and to look forward to to address and to plan for what's to come in order to do that we have to refer to this chart which is a uh chart over the next five years of the regular election dates and we put those dates on there for a couple of reasons one to remind the
190public about opportunities for school board members but also too and perhaps more importantly for myself is to plan for future referendum efforts if that need were to arise don't get me wrong there hasn't been anything determined no matter what anybody thinks nothing's been determined yet but there are some things to think about and most importantly is the bottom line and I'll just read it because it's kind of small school boards are limited to asking two questions also called referendums per calendar year so you can come in the spring and ask for a question it can be an operational question it could be a capital question but you've used one of your questions you can come back in the fall and you can do a second question but you can only ask two questions so you
191can ask them both in the same election cycle you know we can come back in a spring election cycle in an even number a year because an odd number of years there's no fall elections but if we come back in the spring election and ask two questions in one of one or both of them fail we're done for the year so we have to be very strategic especially when it comes to operational questions we'll turn our attention a little bit to the 2223 budget um we're going to talk really big picture here you know the impacts of Staffing transitions uh the original budget as approved by the Board of Education had a 4.4 million dollar deficit you heard a prior speaker talk about he didn't know that that was possible um you know it really
192shouldn't it be but it you know it does happen in in other school districts Beyond Beloit it does happen it's not obviously a good practice changes to date we'll talk a little bit about savings we've had some vacant positions some additional costs that have come about uh and perhaps even a little future projection big picture overviews on the left hand side of the page it uh displays our revenues for the year just 95 million dollars total revenues on the right hand side of the page big picture reflection on the expenditures 99.4 million dollars and again we've got that 4.6 or 4.4 I'm sorry uh million dollar deficit not a good thing however we've made some strides the school district has made some strides uh throughout this year to help reduce that deficit and we're on
193track I'm not going to put money on it and say we're to the break-even point yet but it's looking very close and perhaps even favorable so salaries and wage savings the district had some budgeted position or resources budgeted for positions that weren't filled and it wasn't that we weren't able to fill or we weren't trying to fill them it's that we weren't getting suitable candidates to fill those positions so earlier this year Dr Garrison implemented a hiring freeze on most vacant positions not all some of the positions we still need to fill and if we can find that qualified applicant we're going to do so but that hiring freeze kind of locked in that budgetary Savings of about two million dollars so now our 4.4 million dollar deficits 2.4 that's a good move employee benefits
194last year the district had a really painful year when it comes to our self-felt self-funded health and dental insurance primarily our health insurance our claims this current year are running about two million dollars behind what they were at this point in time last year again very favorable for us not to say necessarily that at the end of the year we're going to have a two million dollar savings there there's still time between now and the end of the plan year where our insured individuals and their dependents can suffer those unfortunate medical situations and cause those claims to change but current projections are showing some favorability there the last bullet point is really just attempting to better control our year-end spending you know towards the end of the year uh School budgets departmental budgets you know
195there's always an emphasis of how much is left in the tank you know what can we buy what can we spend and this is the year of any years to try to curtail curtail that and say you know what if we don't need it let's not do it because the school district really needs those funds this year to help rebuild that fund balance and to hopefully position us at the end of the year in a positive favorable light are we going to wipe away 4.4 million dollars between now and the end of June is going to be close time will tell looking forward to the 23-24 budget work we'll talk a little bit about the timeline we're going to talk a little bit about some of the major changes um keep in mind this is
196all kind of a work in progress you know that we're really waiting for the state biennial budget um you know the state legislature to do their thing with the joint finance committee typically they don't get to public education until about Memorial Day so we've got another three weeks or so before we really have a good indication of uh what and how much resources will be coming from the state so we'll look at the Timeline here we are in May you know we've got requests out to school and departments for their budget requests for the next year actually I believe they're due back Friday if I recall correctly I see some nods even in the crowd at the state level we talked a little bit about the joint finance committee you know they'll undertake their Public
197Instruction portion of this biennial budget the latter part of May the Board of Education will be asked to consider preliminary budget hopefully in July it might be an ER I'm sorry hopefully in June it might be an early July time frame the preference would be in June though we're just trying to acclimate Beloit to a stronger budget process and schedule to be honest with you uh the new fiscal year begins July 1st and then here in the fall it's kind of odd because we rely upon these three key dates our third Friday pupil count which will occur on September 15th that'll be a large driving factor in our Revenue limit how much Aid we're able to receive from the the state as well uh we have our October 1st Equalization property values by the Department
198of Revenue and then October 15th the Department of Public Instruction will certify the state Equalization Aid and as many of you realize the vast majority of state or of funding in the School District of Beloit is State Equalization Aid funding so we wait until October 15th what is that like six weeks into the school year before we really know how much money we have to work for the rest of the year kind of an interesting thing but we work through that all in late October the school board will be asked to adopt the final budget and establish the tax levy and the resulting mill rate for next fall and then in early early November we started all over again you know we we distribute the tax levy certifications to the municipalities and then we begin
199working Earnest on the 2425 budget so that's time frame some some big picture stuff with regards to next year's budget Major Impact salary and wages uh negotiations with bargaining units over salaries and wages have not really commenced yet of course that kind of plays a factor into next year's budget the CPI for collective bargaining agreements and units commencing on July 1st 2023's eight percent that amounts established by the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development um so that applies Statewide uh I do have some questions about the affordability and sustainability of awarding a CPI not to say certainly that our staff especially those that are here tonight aren't deserving of that I think we would all agree that our staff deserve everything that we can give them but we also have to be able to afford that
200and be financially sustainable health insurance or I'm sorry employee benefits we've already facilitated some changes with health insurance that will impact deductible the maximum out of pocket in the district's HSA contribution all of which are favorable to the employee and the district and should result in an anticipated Savings of about eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars so we're starting work in Earnest on the big picture items for next year reconfiguration impacts you know the right sizing of Staff the transfer of those impacted staff members to positions that were previously filled by limited terms staff or positions vacated by retirements resignations layoff previously vacant ballpark estimate on that is about a three million dollar savings Transportation obviously is going to be some additional costs we're working with Durham on on that you know again I've been
201in the district five and a half going on six weeks met with Durham three times I meet with them again on Monday um so you know every two three weeks we're sitting down with Durham at the table and talking about the changes in in really the outcomes of the school board decisions so um so obviously we need to do a better job for planning beyond the current in the next year you know that's that's pretty standard stuff but we really need to start looking at our budget models and worry about the the years thereafter typically school districts you know the you concentrate on the current year you you work next on the next year the following year and then you should be looking like three years into the future because that helps to paint the
202picture of the challenges ahead and helps position the district so that we can strategize and how we can address those challenges in an appropriate manner and this is just an example you know uh don't take these numbers for accuracy I wanted to use an example and I what I went and I I pulled up the beard budget model there's lots of variables that come into play as to you know how much you're rewarding and like a staff increase uh staff salary and wage increase how much you're anticipating for health insurance increase and if anybody you know knows what to anticipate can be really precise on health insurance come and talk to me uh you know most districts will go for like a 10 to about a 14 annual increase so it's just kind of the
203nature of the beast but what this does is it allows us to input various variables and then it provides us the opportunity to see scenarios if we do this then what what's the long-term implications of this so again you know if you're looking at the 2024-25 even out to the 27 28 columns it's there for a display purposes the values there even myself I don't put a lot of credence into them yet but I wanted to show you you know the tool that's there the tool that we should be utilizing um to a greater fidelity and lastly I'll close with a slide um the government Finance Officers Association based out of Chicago represents Municipal Finance officers throughout the state or I'm sorry throughout the nation school districts City municipal you know technical colleges other colleges
204Municipal sewage districts Etc they have a program called the smarter School spending and it's something I think seems to me to be very appropriate for the School District of Beloit to research and to perhaps Implement going forward and it really talks about a five-step process to budgeting you know when first you plan and prepare second steps you identify your priorities the third steps you figure out how to pay for those priorities then you implement that plan and then finally you ensure sustainability it's not something that we're going to be able to put in place for the 23-24 school year but it is something that's on my radar to research to become more Adept in and then to work to implement for 24.25 and help us to align our spending practices in Beloit for going forward
205with that that concludes my presentation and if anybody has any questions or remembers any questions yeah I have one um so Mr chady thank you so much for the presentation it was very thorough and really appreciate you taking the time um what is the impact would you say of the um so the state of Wisconsin is currently sitting on a seven billion dollar budget surplus is that correct so like sizable yes so yes I think it's so according to AP on March 6th and it was previously reported in January also so it's also through AP and PBS and NBC 15. so with the seven billion dollar budget surplus at the state level have you heard any and are there indicators that there'll be more than zero per pupil funding in this biennial Budget on like
206last biennial budget where there was Zero per pupil funding we have been told that Municipal entities throughout the state will receive more funding in the future than they have in the past how much more and in what capacity or method that flows to us is yet to be seen right so I just want to clarify because I think there's some misunderstanding sometimes like some so the money that was like allocated for education in the last biennial budget none of that was able to be spent directly to students that was in property tax relief is that am I understand that right that would be correct and I would also offer an example that the legislature or the state may award a revenue limit increase in the first and or the second year of the biennium which
207typically would be helpful to school districts however if you're in a declining enrollment position because of some of the harmless hold harmless impacts within the revenue limit while the state may allocate additional funds to schools through the revenue limit increase we really won't see much if any of that so it's one of those we gave you more money but we didn't receive it so to be determined thank you very much you're welcome any other board members of questions from Mr chady I do Mr chady how does the school district restore its fund balance the restoration of fund balance really through two um two efforts or opportunities one would be to rely upon an annual Surplus in your operating fund to be able to help replenish and and to close that Gap the second would be
208to essentially do what the school district attempted to do and that would be to seek voter approval for an operational referendum where a portion of those funds would be utilized to replenish that fund balance at one point in time it it's painful I mean you're asking the public to essentially give you money um but in the long term you know best interests of the school district that is the correct route to go thank you you're welcome I was like to note that um you know the presentation today was you know of course put together by Mr chady and myself and the team I appreciate the the work that you've put in since you've been here it was a task of course to try to find a business manager and again I'm glad of your service
209um and thus far I will say that um we have started these conversations around budgets and school finances and trying to really get to the point where we can say we're on the Surplus side and in time I believe again as a board I want the board to know this and time I believe we'll be able to consistently be in the Surplus side we do still have some challenges that we will need to of course address in their future but we have worked very hard to try to eliminate our deficit that we walked into what I walked into back in November to be at a be out of zero as Mr Shady has stated um we believe we can get there we'll have to see um we'll have to see I I think we can
210get to zero which is again a sizable conversation whenever you are talking about millions of dollars um being replenished if that makes any sense so whether you're going up in a surplus for a million dollars that's great but also if you're releasing it that's the same conversation and so I want to make sure the public is aware that we are trying to do some things in our conversations around getting our budget right for our school district 5c reconfiguration of middle schools discussion so Dr Garrison will begin with this presentation as he's getting the technology to work sorry um every once in a while has asked me to go back out and come back in so it's kind of what took that delay so um I'm here to talk about our reconfiguration and it pertains to
211our school closures for 23 2024 school year first of all I'd like to thank um all of the conversations that happened tonight I know sometimes people believe that I'm not listening for whatever reasons but I am listening and I have heard these conversations before I'm making this presentation tonight as it stands and um here's the information I would like to share naturally we've had this conversation as pertains to our declining enrollment it is a real conversation in our school district and unfortunately we are in this conversation that pertains to losing thousands of students over the past in this case this snapshot is over the past seven years I've stated this multiple times in multiple places for one one specific reason one is because sometimes people say it but necessarily don't believe it you know we
212say okay we've had you know thousands of students have left our school district but in this case I think it needs to actually be stated to the point of where that has huge implications we've also had some decline in 4k enrollment trends when we're thinking about enrollment Trends 4K is where you will see a lot of our students come into the district right and so when you have 4K enrollment Trends it's a very important conversation um as you can see our 4K enrollment Trends is where has been declining in this case I put a snapshot here since 2012 2013 but as you drop all the way down to where we are now 2002 2023 we're at 303 students on um that coming that came into our school in in the 4K area 4K is again
213very important because this is where you start to see how you can actually map how many students you will have for an entire school system um if you bring in 303 each year you multiply that times 14 you'll get your overall 4K to 12K enrollment um this this conversation here is one of the things that through the reconfiguration conversations once we made the great band change once we made the switch to go back to K3 68 912 that did leave gaping um holes in our current Middle School configuration and so um one of the things that has been driving my conversations with the public is we would have four middle schools with on the average in this case about 260 or so kids in the four middle schools okay now we have again some pretty
214large buildings and these numbers that you see here are snapshots from 2018 2019 um school year we probably could have additional students in that number but I also want to use the most accurate information that I had at the time to kind of give us a snapshot of kind of how many students can actually go into our buildings as it stands so you see 1300 there but it could be let's say 13.50 plus or minus okay you see 9.75 there it could be a little over a thousand and so um it's very important to note that again when you're talking about declining enrollment it's going to hit somewhere okay in this case it's in our in our case in the School District of Beloit is hit across K-12 okay we've had declining enrollment for many
215years and that's this declining enrollment has hit elementary middle of course and high school none of our buildings are at capacity I just want to make sure that's noted none of our buildings are at capacity even with moving our sum of our 4K actually with moving our fourth and fifth graders back to elementary schools they still wouldn't be at capacity okay um yes it was uh this is a very important conversation that we need to understand because all of our buildings are impacted by again our declining enrollment conversation and so I'll I also wanted to know in this conversation that the the 260 or so students that is a projected number okay um like it's been stated in multiple places there's a lot of movement in the School District of Beloit for various reasons we
216have families that are coming to our that are moving to different places we have open enrollment we have various conversations as well as it pertains to when a student or family will make the decision to stay with us or not so it's estimated to be at I'm on average here 260 but that number could easily look lower than that okay again these are estimations um at the current time and a lot of times districts have these conversations because we have to we have to think about well my job I have to think about well what does that actually mean we're saying 260 but it could be anywhere from about 240 to 260 in one building okay or it could be lower than that based off of where the enrollment actually falls in the near future
217or lands in their future um so what I did was I wanted to give you an estimated snapshot breakdown and so right now we have currently on average have about 5 200 students in our district okay very important number to kind of just start with to kind of frame this start as a school district 3K to 12th grade we have about 5 200 students 4K through three the 4K three year enrollment or three ye averages 309 students okay it's 309 students that's the three year average we use three-year averages in state conversations with superintendents across the state a lot the state usually uses it for us in enrollment projections this is a similar thing that I did for us as it pertains to our three-year average for our school district so we're averaging about 309
218students this year we have potential graduating students as well so you got the students coming in and a lot of times we're not talking about this we've got the students coming in but you also got students graduating going out and you what you want to do is see about the same number coming in that's going out right that's what you would want to see in the school district or more coming in I'm sorry I'm not going to say let's graduate but you want to see a lot more coming in and it kind of balances itself out as the years go on and so because sometimes graduating classes are a little lower but in this case if you add up our potential graduating um seniors from all of our programs in our school district we're looking
219at around 405 students to graduate this year and so you have 300 300 not on average that can possibly come back to us but we also have 400 excuse me and five students that are graduating from us um we also have another conversation that's that's real close to us um potential area school enrollees and I don't want to name any schools or anything like that over possibilities where students will go but I've had conversations with other area conversations and um we're looking at about 110 students that other area schools could actually take from the School District of Beloit okay about 110 students and I used the 110 because I could easily say 110 to 125 based off of whatever the needs are of the surrounding area schools and our open enrollment opportunities that we have
220here in the school district so I use the 110 as a lower number because I really want to say hopefully it'll be around 110 not 150 or so potential K-12 and and I use the three to four percent attrition conversation now again since we have natural attrition that happens in every school district over the years and we've been having nutrition as well I use the three to four percent attrition um numbers so pretty much either 156 students um could just buy attrition leave us and or 208 students just by attrition leave us based off of the three and or four percent attrition measures and so a lot of times again District administrators look at these hard numbers and thoughts around where we will we be projected for a enrollment that'll kind of help balance where
221we want to move as a school district From budgetary perspective and of course Staffing and so this is what I did I just you know gave us some basic information here 5200 students you added 309 students that'll bring us up to 5500 students but quickly after that you have to subtract what will be leaving from us that'll bring us to 5100 um and then of course you look at our area schools that are still accepting students um possibly 110 students leaving from there that brings us to 49.94 as you can tell our numbers are still going down um the 208 that's the four percent attrition number and not to leave it by itself I also added the um the three percent attrition numbers from both and so on average one could expect us to see
222anywhere from 4 700 students to 48 or so 100 students next year down from where we are currently at which was around about 300 students that were losing um per year okay now if you look at our three-year third Friday account averages we average right out right average out around around 4 900. so these numbers are real close together as it pertains to kind of where we are from an estimated enrollment conversation and again that's lower than where we are currently at right now okay this Lord and where we're currently at right now and so this information is again very important information that we have to have you know serious more serious conversations around because we have buildings again that are not at capacity and it's a very we we have to have some conversations
223around consolidation and or school closures because of our overall population has decreased exponentiously over the past few years and as I've stated before I do believe that you know our reconfiguration efforts to keep our elementary students back in the elementary schools could be a possible help to keep students in our district because I've heard from you know a lot of parents that they wanted the babies to graduate from third grade and move down the hallway to fourth grade um and and we've had additional conversations about the fifth graders also returning back to the elementary space to add more numbers to our elementary buildings so I wanted to also look at some reconfiguration um just future details and conversation steady overall declining enrollment will lead to additional conversations regarding School consolidation and or closures um it
224goes without saying that when you continuously have low student populations you have to start thinking about what is it that we truly need for our school district um I've stated this before but this is not the first time that we've had this conversation as it pertains to declining enrollment in our school district whether we've made changes or not this is still a conversation that we have to have as pertains to where we are based on the current enrollment Trend moving all middle school students to one building Aldrich intermediate Intermediate School would have been a recommended what would have been recommended and so in my conversations based off of the based off of the third grade I'm sorry based off of the Middle School enrollment we could move all of our students into one building we
225could we can move all of them into one school building that would definitely mean still that the West Side school district West Side schools um being in this case Cunningham and McNeil would not be open that's what that would mean this was stated in multiple places um and I've made that statement very publicly known that we could either have again one school did one school on one side of town two schools on the other side of town or two schools on the same side of town um that statement has been you know shared in many um different platforms and spaces but in this case I did this this could have happened okay this could have happened and again the West Side schools in this case uh McNiel and Cunningham would not be the school where
226we would move all of our middle school students to so the West Side schools would not have a middle school if I was to move them all into one okay um so board you know I've made this this conversation um again publicly known but in doing so I want to also know this would have meant that our elementary buildings would um because would be in consideration for school closures as well so if I would have moved all of our students to one building I would have had to look at possibly consolidating elementary schools because again we're 4 800 we're going towards that number of of overall student population So Not only would I had to of course move close three middle schools but also possibly other elementary schools and that wasn't the step that we're
227that we're making right now that wasn't the stuff that we're making right now the move to um to two middle schools will mitigate the need to close Elementary buildings in the 2022-2023-24 school year and again moving students back to the elementary schools kept all of our elementary schools open at the current time that's something that I just want to make sure everyone is aware of you know again if I would have moved them all my recommendation would have been to move them all into one school we would have had additional conversations around additional elementary schools being closed because again we could consolidate some of our elementary buildings and much larger and much larger in this case middle schools okay So based on enrollment projections our district could move towards having Four elementary schools one middle
228school and one high school I think that's something that you know is something that hasn't been discussed hasn't been talked about but our enrollment has steadily declined and if it let's say it declines Beyond this year now we're talking about another 300 I'm talking about 4 500 students and these are the conversations that are definitely impacting our decisions right now my recommendation to the school board is surely based on where we will potentially have to move what we would potentially have to move and I think it's very important to note that because again if we keep having declining enrollment the one building that they could possibly again fit into comfortably would be Aldrich if we have declining enrollment from there comfortably they could actually fit into our brand new state-of-the-art building which is Frozen I've
229also made the statement that if Frozen and Aldrich was on the west side of town and McNeil and Cunningham was on the east side of town I will be telling the east side of town that you're gonna have to move to the west side of town that would be my that would be my recommendation still because our assets and our buildings right now become very important we do have a state-of-the-art facility that's brand new no one here well in this case board I really want everyone to know that that's that is an asset for us it's a brand new facility um it is and Aldrich is also a facility that we could actually use to again to fit all of our students and that is what we have as assets right now as it stands
230Cunningham itself has been an elementary school was an elementary school if I'm not mistaken okay I've been told that people have been saying that Cunningham has been in elementary school it was an elementary school yes we did add some additions to that as it pertains to the additional floors for the Middle School wing and some of the changes that we made with the front entrance as well with the cafeteria space but overall the building was fitted for an elementary school so I would not move all of our current middle schoolers into Cunningham that would not be my recommendation at the current time and So based off of that thought I also moved to have the additional conversations around well where could we comfortably fit additional 520 or so students and I did choose Frozen as
231that opportunity because again it's the brand new facility that we have here in our school district and it's hard to argue the fact that we didn't want to I did not want to leave that school vacant I did not want to leave Frozen vacant and I don't want to publicly make that make that known because it's a brand new asset that we have to have that we have in our school district and when you have declining enrollments you have to look at your assets you have to look at what you currently own as potential to be you know I hate to say this but potential other opportunities because I don't want to say we're going to end up selling you know Frozen or even Cunningham and so we have we have those options that we
232have to look at as pertains to when you have the client get more what are your assets and so that's an asset for us Frozen as an asset for us as a state-of-the-art building period um I've heard conversations and I want to also State this here that you know one could argue well did we need Frozen um well I I wasn't here to determine whether or not we needed Frozen or not but I can share with you um that is one of our school buildings and I am um here at the state again that it is an asset for our school district and so I want to make sure that's clearly um stated and noted Cunningham again was originally structured to build an elementary school McNiel has some upgrades that unfortunately was not completed and
233or started in either referendum opportunities that we had here in the School District of Beloit and again I can't you know I'm not gonna you know you know form famous of what did and what didn't happen but it's very clear that in this conversation that although Cunningham is being repurposed under my current um recommendation to be the um bla site um it does have potential to grow into other opportunities as well with the community I'll have my teaching and learning team actually help support me in this conversation at the mic please and one of the things that I want to set forth in this conversation and that when we're thinking about consolidating the school district you're moving from four to two schools there's a lot of different things that we will see being impacted in
234time and so I wanted to make sure I gave teaching to learn the opportunity to kind of run through some of these options here sure thank you um so some of the things that we've really talked a lot about is how to improve programming across the sites and just thinking about some of the trends as far as vacancies go and then also looking at the students that we serve and how the spaces that we have available for our students that we serve how they best serve kids and so um one of the things that we looked at was by merging buildings we're able to mitigate vacancies and maximize licensed teachers and classrooms I know that that has been something that has been echoed that we really uh want and desire the best quality teaching staff
235for our children and so valuing licensed teachers and so by merging buildings we can help to to do that um and in these times across the country we're teaching uh is is a practice unfortunately that enough people are going into there are Staffing shortages everywhere and so this is strategic in that way unfortunately this school year we've had the most a pattern of the most turnover actually in the last two two school years at Cunningham and McNeil and so thinking about a healthy culture and sustainability there those other two sites uh do have more stability in their Staffing yeah we will be working with staff as we pull them over to those other sites right as you're creating a new culture that is emerging of two staffs to Service uh one body of children another
236thing is that when we had the four sites we were spread thin on our project lead the way in Career Tech teachers at the middle school level so what was happening is a lot of our music art Fayette teachers were having to pick up at additional Project Lead the Way class which was out of content this is something that has been stressed across the staff as as a burden and something that they were hoping that we could work towards so this definitely does that we were able to preserve our four teachers now within those two schools so no longer will we be asking our map teachers to teach out of content it's also a fiscal savings because in order to teach Project Lead the Way courses you have to train the teachers have to be
237trained so every summer prior to um uh coming to the district we were in this cycle of training music teachers and Fayette teachers or anybody that the principals could pull to to fill the gap on some of these projects lead the way courses and so now we have four people that are fully trained in that and again that will bring stability uh to the to the system and offer better programming because you have CTE and Project Lead the Way teachers teaching those courses and you have meat licensed teachers teaching those courses um another piece is um our current band and Orchestra directors uh will continue to service Frozen in Aldridge and then they will absorb our students that is another um in receiving feedback that we have heard is unfortunately there's been a hard challenge
238in having a fulfilled um positions on the west side and so this will Inc this will be more inclusive in the sense of bringing music and band and Orchestra offerings to all kids throughout the district because they are merging into those two buildings where there is already a more um uh stable scenario and what's exciting about that too is as we work through offering uh fifth grade band across all of our sites we're hoping to have by the tail end of that we get to our high school write our jazz band and those types of things that we have a more diversity of representation across our band and Orchestra in the district which has also been another concern that's been brought up um another strength in programming is our K five and six eight by
239putting our fourth and fifth grade teachers back to the K5 that's really the model right when a teacher goes to to college and they're getting a first grade through sixth grade licensure they are generalists and so the way that the fourth and eighth grade model had been you were departmentalizing fourth and fifth grade which really isn't a best practice and also we have overlapping curriculum so you had your a strain on your 4-8 buildings trying to be working through fourth and fifth grade curriculum materials and then supporting sixth seventh and eighth grade materials so a real example of that is like our Arc reading program that's a K-5 program so now that won't be straddled between two grade level spans everyone can focus on all of the arc materials in the K5 building setting right
240the coaches the teachers the principals to lead that work so that that is exciting when we think about already the traction that we've had in academic outcome improvements in reading and how that sort of condensed Focus can really um move us and Propel us forward and then the last piece I really hope I'm sorry I got one more bullet because this is about servicing students and on the in Cunningham we will be servicing students approximately 204 students benefit in our alternative programming in our district many of those students live on the west side and Cunningham is an appropriate place for high school students and for other growth and when we think about programming and so I just wanted to call the light to that because when we think about Equity across the district and access
241our the current location of our bla students is a making do situation and I can say that with the principal in the room they do the best that they can to offer quality programming to our students that attend bla but this will allow access to a gymnasium Library right now we have a teacher there that is writing an exceptional environmental science course but they have been working on how to have a science lab because there are no classrooms there that at uh that don't have Carpeting and really a science lab should have floors they also do not have a sink in that classroom because of the layout of that building and so I just want to bring that to light that this opportunity will really create access and Better Learning experiences for our because we
242have two high schools in the School District of Beloit and this will bring better opportunities for our high school students that attend Beloit Learning Academy okay I will address pupil services so when I'm speaking about people's Services I'm talking about special education and student services with the reconfiguration of schools we will be able to expand the Continuum of services for our students with disabilities from 4K through 12 and what this means is we will be able to support students programming to specifically meet their disability related needs in and outside of the classroom more equitably we will also be able to increase special education and support staff assigned to the elementary buildings which will allow us to have a better focus on early intervention so we can take the displaced staff from the two intermediate buildings
243and reallocate them to the elementary so we can deliver more intensive interventions at the elementary level in regard to Student Services we can reallocate our staff from the intermediate buildings to the high school to really align with that Academy model so we have student services team assigned to each Academy a counselor and a social worker assigned to each Academy we can reallocate psychologists FTE at the elementary school right now we have a 0.5 psych at each Elementary School with the reallocation of Staff will be able to have a full-time psychologist in each Elementary School and we've worked very hard to have full student services team equally across the schools one counselor one social worker and one psychologist and this will support our Equitable multi-level systems of support model and then um the the reconfiguration will
244support the consistency of special education staff at Aldrich and frusen like Teresa said we've had very consistent staff at Aldrich and frusen and a lot of turnover at McNeil and Cunningham [Music] good evening with regards to Staffing the human resources department identified some benefits that much as expressed by Teresa pertaining to teacher and learning some of the things that came up early on in this process was how our strategic plan is really laid out and what how we're implementing it with our music program as Teresa expressed it was the equal access to the same quality education the same the same program so that when they transition into the high school that everyone's on the same level so having this reconfiguration will allow for that in addition to that being able to adequately staff I know
245some of the feedback that we have received have been individuals that have had are not fully licensed or in progress they're going to programs to achieve their licensure and you know it is an unfortunate reality as we've discussed here tonight the teacher shortage is not exclusive to Beloit so being able to adequately staff with our fully licensed staff is also going to be a benefit when we reduce to these two schools and we will maximize on those staff credentials the skills and abilities of the teachers that will be continuing to provide those services in those classrooms to our students and of course in getting our two schools to combine it improves the cross-training and work efficiencies it is not unusual for one school to have developed certain processes that are very efficient but another building
246does things differently so I think it's also great opportunity for our district to get the best of all of those efficiencies from all four buildings and apply those to the two remaining buildings and others talk about some of the financial impacts um first more effectively and efficiently utilizing District facilities quite simply just optimizing the use of the space of our current facilities cost reductions under the current plan the cost reductions associated with fewer positions is and staff is approximately three million dollar annual savings we anticipate a 330 to 360 thousand dollar cost reductions associated with lower utility and maintenance costs at the vacated buildings and those are detailed there kind of a a range for each of them they each vary a bit because of the square footage the amount of utilities this is not
247a cut the core turn off the electrician electricity uh no longer heat we for those facilities that we do vacate attempt to repurpose we still need to have some air circulation through there to combat against mold and other things so we will still have some utility costs additional cost savings not yet estimated or determined associated with reductions in contractual custodial costs I know how much we pay uh each month for custodial costs however I don't know how many positions hes provides in each of our buildings and while some of those positions may need to be reallocated to support increased student needs in custodial cleaning in other buildings there will certainly be some opportunities for reductions that's still to be determined again the ability to repurpose some of our vacated buildings to meet Community needs we
248talked earlier about the 2223 budget adopted with a 4.4 million dollar deficit you also heard me speak a little bit about 2324 that budget forecast currently calls for a deficit for next year there is opportunities to continue to meld that budget a lot of that will depend upon the state Buy and deal budget and What flows to us from there and then of course how the district and the board settles with the contractual bargaining units over 23-24 salary and wage adjustments and really you know I I sum up the finance portion with the this closing bullet you know our challenge is really our financial ability to maintain our current level of services and operations um the reconfiguration plan provides an annual Savings of approximately three and a half million dollars while still maintaining or expanding
249our opportunities for students it is painful but the benefit to the students I I hope is there talk uh quickly about facility and maintenance you've heard some of these before so I won't elaborate too much on them McNeil uh you know it's been a while since the school district has made investments in McNeil Aldrich has some facility assets uh that you know go to support a larger school and use frozen newest building energy efficient um fewer anticipated maintenance needs of course with it being a newer building Cunningham really perhaps better suited for high school students and then the adjustment to move Beloit Learning Academy there Dr Garrison if you want to jump to the transportation one for me thank you let me uh start let me start a show for it conversation so there has
250been additional conversations around Transportation I have been you know I have had conversations with the public around like you know the transportation needs and that we will experience for our change such as what we're presenting um the district has been working collaboratively with the Durham's um School services to address student transportation needs as it pertains to the reconfiguration um as Mr Shady has already stated he does meet with the bus company has been meeting with them and prior to him it was us meeting with the um transportation Transportation conversation because of the needed thought of moving our students from the fourth and fifth graders back to elementary schools and want to make sure they'll be able to have transportation as such what's going to be needed to to try to jump start so all six
251eighth grade students residing on West of the river in this case would be offered bus transportation services I'm not sure if that was a misconception but I wanted to make sure people know that that's something that we're going to be offering um Durham has identified the need for additional non-buses um to meet reconfigurations needs these buses would be reallocated from other Durham bus services um locations I should say avoiding the need for new asset requisition costs and so I'm not sure if most of you know that in the state of Wisconsin There's a real funny rule stating that you know if you gonna you either have to build a bus in the state of Wisconsin in order to use a use the bus in the state of Wisconsin it's a real funny little rule with
252that um in this case they're not they can actually pull from other Durham locations and use buses and bring them here to us which would actually save them um costs so yesterday there's going to be a cost related to increased bus driver recruitment efforts to support additional routes and substitute needs but we are open to on the possibility of having a centralized stop such as Cunningham um with before opportunity with the support School opportunities I heard that you know this could be a possible problem for a lot of our families to you know not be able to get back and forth to school and we are open to having conversations around this possibility we are currently working with um the school start time we will probably end up keeping our school start times the same
253I think there's you know maybe a misconception again that um we will you know change this our start times we believe that we can still meet the needs of all of our students with our current start times however we will address the needs of all of our families and with concerns that they may have as it pertains to transportation and so again Durham has committed to this opportunity Durham has committed to making this opportunity work for our school district and at the current time I do believe that's a good Stan good stance they haven't came back to us and stated that they can't do this um as it stands they believe that they can do this and so I want to make sure that it's something that I put you know openly and publicly to
254the um conversation that actually concludes our conversation um as pertains to the reconfiguration um as it stands um my recommended action is still intact I believe that moving our students to the west from the west side of our school district to our east side of our school district is still in best interest of all of our the best fist in needs of our school district and and when I say that again knowing that we have declining enrollment and we will possibly be moving them into one building it will still be at on one of the East Side schools because that's where we can fit comfortably over a thousand plus middle schoolers um and that's where we um are currently with the conversation board members okay um just a question Mr Shady thank you for for
255putting the the numbers up on the screen if I'm understanding it correctly going from the four intermediate schools to the two is a savings of about three and a half million dollars um and and feel free any one from the administration team um since Cunningham is not closing did we look at the the Staffing and I get that it's a layered issue because we want to focus on having licensed teachers we want to make sure that we are fully staffed for our pupil Services Etc at both of our buildings um do we have the capacity to have three intermediate schools with Staffing and if yes that would take our three and a half million dollar savings to what ballpark I'm not sure that I can address the Staffing component I would defer to my colleagues
256to my right with regards to that uh that would certainly impact the three and a half million dollar savings um quite substantially I I would fear um sure so I can speak on oftentimes when you do Staffing you think about it as either a zero a 0.5 or a one and so if you're dividing staff between like let me just use music for example because that's a recent conversation we were having you have one band teacher that's stretching across to to intermediates that's 0.5.5 so now if you add a third it's like an odd number and so you're trying to staff somebody that's not a 0.5 and not a 1.0 um and and that creates all kinds of issues because people don't want to work part-time right they don't want to receive under without benefits
257or you're trying to fill positions now with somebody that doesn't really have a licensure so you might have somebody that has a choir degree but dress them to also teach band right and so those are the types of situations with a three Dynamic that makes Staffing very tricky even when we combine the two schools the the four schools to two we will still have vacancies where we have to ask people back we just met with Joe today to look at Aldridge numbers and Staffing because that's the nature of the Beast even on a regular school year right we still have people that have not told us yet that they're going to leave we had people on board wrecks tonight so so adding back a third school just puts more stress on the system for filling
258positions for trying to figure out scheduling so now if you have a master schedule where you have band in an orchestra divided between two buildings we've lined up the master schedules between the two schools so those instructors can travel when you add a third it creates another Dynamic of Master scheduling students are picking courses this week all of that works starts very very early on in the system because we have a database that we're ready to roll over and it's like a it's like a lever and it just puts everything into motion and so the other pieces in that equation we no longer are offering a new opportunity for our for our bla students and now let's Missy and Dede speak on a little more Staffing if they have anything to add thank you I
259think as we're looking through all of our staffing for the next year with only two buildings housing the middle schools we have a number of vacancies that we've already identified even with the movement of Staff as well as the potential need to bring back some of the staff that would otherwise not return on a limited term contract I think that if we were to add a third school to be open the the number of unnecessary staff and I say that because much to Teresa's comment it would not be sufficient to add another full FTE but you're not going to find someone that's only going to work part-time so you're going to be running into those difficulties as well where you're going to have not enough programming for a full FTE but having to staff a
260building thank you yeah just to come back and try to address the financial question for the board I pulled up a document that tells me our Intermediate School costs for the current year so this is current year all in in Intermediate School Aldrich runs about 3.9 million dollars that's the lowest of the four Cunningham is the most expensive of the four at almost 4.9 million dollars you know so they're all in that four to five million dollar range to run an intermediate school in the current year and of course probably three plus million of that is Staffing you know maybe that's where I was headed so the number that you just gave or how much it cost to run the building that's the facilities which we aren't going to have that much of a savings
261on because Cunningham is still open but also the Staffing and the programming correct thank you foreign I have several questions but I don't want to be like a mic hog so I'll just ask one um so on the topic of Transportation um one of the concerns that was raised at our last public comment um had to do with after school so could you please speak to her would anybody please speak to will it be possible to ensure that students have timely Transportation home to participate like in sports or whatever other extracurricular activities whether they're offered in the district or through the why we have like a lot of great Community Partners right that provide programming for students so if we could speak to um whether that that is is that going to be something that
262is a barrier for students to participate and so all after school activities are happening with students and naturally we have to provide transportation for them to either get to the to the opportunity whether it be in the sport going away and in this case also provide an opportunities for our students to get back to get back home schedule is something that we look at a lot when it comes to you know looking at after school activities and how we can actually have it fund funded we will continue to have those opportunities in our middle schools as we have to because those opportunities for our students to participate and be connected to our buildings we would not want to in any way shape or form disenfranchise any student from participating in after school activities we will
263still reach out to the Boys and Girls Club and other surrounding opportunities in our district to see if there's additional after school opportunities that they could participate in as we would do in every school year um but as it pertains to Athletics that is something that we will definitely still move forward with I have been having conversation with our athletic director about what that actually looks like what conferences we could possibly join it actually increases our numbers on our teams um naturally because more more students will be participating um but it also gives us the opportunity to make sure that we have um level competition across the across the board and so um yes we will have opportunities for students to participating after after school activities and transportation has always been provided in those situations
264and we want to continue that moving forward thank you I have some more questions regarding morning Transportation programming and start times but I'm going to yield my mic moment to share the floor but if we could come back is that okay for president Levy it was fine other board members well um we've we've had a lot of input tonight and uh a lot of input from the public as we did a couple weeks ago a lot of great input from from uh board member liebe and and Dr Garrison um I'm new to this but I really think I think we should move to rescind the April 4th vote and uh do some more research and uh not uh and not close not not be so Hasty to close the two schools on the west side
265so at the form that has a motion and we'll help you do that uh Mr bukema can you come and address the board and the crowd I'll rob you come up District legal counsel uh the board asked for some clarity on procedures um and so I'm going to address my my comments to the board but hopefully the public will get some clarity as well as to what Robert's Rules requires as it relates to reviewing emotion that has already been approved by the board Robert's Rules is what governs the meetings of the board and the business of the board so the two options for the board if you would desire to reconsider the decision would be a motion to reconsider I'm not going to say much about that because it would not be timely it would
266have to that type of motion has to come up at the meeting or directly after the meeting and there's rules about who can make those motions if you weren't part of the vote originally you couldn't make a motion like that but that's irrelevant because it's not a timely motion anymore so if there is a desire to consider the decision again there's two types of motions emotion to rescind as was just mentioned or to amend um something previously adopted to rescind would be to strike out the entire main motion without any replacement or to amend would be to change a part of the main motion or substitute a different version the motion must be seconded and they are debatable there's further questions on the number of votes needed to sustain a motion to rescind and that
267relates to whether or not proper notice has been been given of the desired motion I looked at the mo the posting tonight it's obviously very clear in terms of having a discussion on the reconfiguration it's under the discussion and action items where I believe it would be lacking in terms of proper motion uh posting would be that if you were going to take up a motion to rescind the posting of the meeting should contain a notice that says there's going to be a motion to consideration of a motion to rescind and that has to the phraseology used in Robert's Rules is there has to be complete substance of the proposed change the impact of not having proper notice now again it was a proper notice for the meeting and the discussion I don't want to
268raise any concern about that but is there proper notice for consideration of emotion to rescind the impact of that is on the percentage or the number of votes needed to approve a motion to rescind if no proper notice is given and I think that's the situation that we have this evening then you need a two-thirds vote of the board to approve such emotion or you need a majority of the full membership of the board who are voting and tonight you don't have a full membership of the board that would be because one member is missing so you would have two-thirds vote needed um for for approval of a motion to rescind if it would be reposted for a future meeting with the proper consideration of what the board would be looking at then it would
269be a majority vote happy to answer questions try I've tried to make that as clear as I could spend the rules just a minute Mr Fitzsimmons you can't suspend a Robert's Rule you can't that no you cannot suspend Robert's Rules and tell the board's governed you could suspend a whole policy but just a minute everybody so yeah I'm directing my comments to the board I'm not I'm not going to engage this is the thing as we're working through this there's proper notice given for the meeting I'm the board president I work with the superintendent to post the agenda I am not making the recommendation so and I did not receive prior notice to the agenda being posted that that was desired so we're working through the process there are seven people here that were all
270elected and this is the decision-making space we will work through it together as I already said it doesn't mean that the action can't take place where we're working through right now is how to do that and that's why we brought the attorney so Mr buchema so a motion to rescind or a motion to amend something previously adopted tonight would need a second like any motion if it doesn't get a second it doesn't move forward correct no action taken and then if it got a second as we are composed six people a 3-3 vote does not move it forward and to achieve um the the intended action of the motion it would take a four four person majority tonight right okay I have a clarifying question um correct me if I'm wrong but I get the
271notice specifically to rescind and that didn't occur but it's my understanding that we either need a two-thirds Vote or a majority of the full body which we're body of seven so that would be four whichever count is lower is that accurate yeah no those are two in the alternative one is two-thirds majority two-thirds majority if no notice is given or yeah a majority of the full membership of the board so that would be four before votes either way so we would be okay to move forward with rescinding the motion and that could pass as long as it had four votes right I did not say it would not be in order I just said that no I just wanted to clear that I did not say it would not be in order I just said
272that it was not not under the category of properly noticed because the public and the board did not know that there was going to be consideration of a motion to rescind at least on the posting of the notice correct okay thank you Mr Nichols Nichols okay let me try this again I move to rescind the motion relating to the April 4th vote to reconfigure the plan is presented by Dr Garrison with fourth and fifth grade students returned to elementary schools Frozen intermediate and Aldrich intermediate serving all district 6 through 8th grade students and Beloit Learning Academy moving to Cunningham which was adopted at our April 4th 2023 meeting put a motion by Mr Nichols is there a second a second there's a motion by Mr Nichols I've been seconded by board member Brian Anderson is
273there any discussion I still had some questions is that okay to ask your questions now all right thanks pull my thingy up here all right lost my document all right cool so um in reflecting on like we talked about a governance committee and reflecting on the concerns that were brought forward about transportation and Equitable timing I just wanted to bring up a couple of things um I'm going to jump around a little bit so I've long been an advocate for later start times for schools there's a lot of research that shows that later start times are of great benefit to children and Miss more attack was kind enough to entertain a discussion with me about that and and recommended that I reach out to our teachers union to make sure that that wasn't something that
274would poorly Impact Staff or delivering programming to students so I did reach out to Mr Vedra on Friday and asked you know would it be possible to start school at 8 45 instead of I believe it's 8 25 and the reasoning for that would be if there is a centralized Transportation spot like a hub of sorts at Cunningham so that kids could still be dropped off by 8 20 which is what they are now could they all pick up a bus get to school and when I looked it up and maybe my Google Maps are different but when I looked it up it's like 11 minutes from Cunningham to Aldrich in like 12 minutes from Cunningham to Frozen as an aside my daughter goes to Frozen we live like maybe a five or six minute
275drive away and she gets herself on the bus every morning and spends at least 20 minutes on the bus to go to school she's totally cool with that she's done that since fourth grade and she appreciates my 11 going on 40 year old daughter tells me she appreciates the time to decompress but that aside would it be possible to cut down the transportation time so we get all the kids in one space they get to the school to stay by the same time that they have to be there this year which I believe is 8 20. they get Bust from one spot to their respective buildings which then would mitigate the I think the very valid concerns that people have raised about the extended time on school buses so I just wanted to put that
276out to Administration is that still something that is like an option to be considered so school start times is again is real difficult because it's not just you know I believe that naturally what a lot of our students and and staff we would love to start school whenever we ready can actually get there um but we are working closely with a transportation company and what the needs of us of our staff in this conversation and families so I like to call it it's like a triangle or approach to how a district actually lands on start times currently again as stated I do believe we could still meet our current start times for our for our for our school district um based off of what the bus company has already given us as pertains to the
277additional buses to meet the needs of our current start time and so from that perspective students will still start school in Middle School in this conversation at the regular start time and Elementary the same in high school the same to keep some similarities of when start times will be okay so um board member Miller has been kind enough to let me jump in to ask a clarifying question from her question um is the administration open to having Cunningham as a hub if I'm understanding it correctly so instead of doing a bus route and you get picked up door by door by door which would lengthen the time that our students were on buses they went to what was their home school and take a bus route from that school to the school you're attending I
278just want to make sure that I understood the concept you were describing yeah that's correct and the reason that I was bringing up the start time and I mean I'm sure that that could still work I was just considering you know I'm a lot of people have raised the concern about shortening the time that that kids are going to have with their families in the morning my own lived experience reflects that struggle and it's just something that I'm was hoping that we could maybe problem solve in response to those issues that were raised and nothing is in a game from uh creating a hub it's not off the off the table I know there's some boys and girls club could be a possible Hub there's other community spaces that could be a hub for possible
279drop-off points um but I just want to make sure everyone is aware that we've never necessarily figured out busting in April and May and so um these are ongoing conversations that happen naturally in the school district and so again I'm not sure if any school district has it all figured out and may hasn't changed the transportation um I'm sorry yeah in May because we already made a second week ago um we haven't figured out all of those um opportunities but we are working towards making sure that those opportunities are are given what I can make a promise is again we will have transportation for our students to receive transportation to their school thank you another a couple of questions they had was okay so with regard to breakfast and warning programming if we were able
280to do that with a combined effort of whatever facilities are available and we have food trucks is it possible to offer a breakfast option to all students on the west side and potentially provide like open gym study table um would was is that something that we have the elasticity to absorb with Staffing and offerings or through Partnerships with their Community Partners so Staffing is that's a big part of that conversation um naturally when you when you're having conversations around where kids will be in the morning time or whether whether it will be in or where they're going it's about who's receiving them right and so you have to have Staffing to receive the students to provide the services um naturally in the Staffing conversations that we're having whether we're making adjustments to our staffing that'll
281of course increase the Staffing in certain areas in certain areas but I do believe those are possibilities I can't make any commitments to having staff being able to receive x amount of students across the school district right now even um and so I would have to look at the possibilities around that um in the future but that is something that we're open to exploring that is something we're never I always tell people maybe that is something that we can definitely explore I appreciate that um another question I had regarding Transportation concerns um so I guess like twofold one um are there do we have people available who would be able to be present at whatever spots are available so in case a child misses the bus you know like with you know again own loved
282experience you know I'd have to like come home from work and take my kiddo to school and not a lot of you know not everybody has that option and I'll like really have that option either but of course I'm gonna you know help my kid out but in a case like are there are there District grown-ups that can be available to assist if a student arrives late at a spot so that they're able to secure Safe Transportation to their building um you know truancy to school or targeted school or whatever whatever variants you want to look at that's a hard one to answer um because kids arrive to school at various different times even now in your current neighborhood and so to say that we will be able to have this Hub of possible late
283bus pickups for students I can't necessarily commit to that um again that's just not something that we have the at the current time even capacity to do because kids are late across the school district more or less in moving into next year and so I'm not sure if we can commit to something as such no totally at you and then I just had one more question so one more response from Mr shady I didn't see I am so sorry I just wanted to offer that Durham does have a here comes the bus app that would be deployed could be deployed to help students families know where the bus is and you know provide encouragement for them to get out to the Bus location on time I think most middle school students probably have devices are
284pretty accustomed to that GPS based it's not always spot on of course because it is GPS based it's got to transmit to the satellite and back so you know the bus is typically ahead of the little blue dot on the map but there is technology in place that can help provide that awesome thank you and then I was just curious if um if there's capacity and I don't know if this is um maybe I'm jumping in and this is like a principal piece but I know in the past like we've had people reach out very enthusiastically about being volunteers for the district and I'm wondering if there is capacity or I guess like logistical possibility of organizing whether it's through staff in the district already or you know whatever the proper procedure is like with
285background checks and stuff for volunteers to be like bus buddies for students because I understand that you know I also was a kid who rode a bus to school my almost my entire School career um and yeah the buses are not always an amazing place as a parent I've had a very positive experience with busing in the School District of Beloit but I know that that doesn't reflect everybody's experience so do we have the ability to you know work with our neighbors and coordinate something to that effect so the first part that that question I will answer and then of course I'll answer the second part as well um yes yes students have potential issues on buses there is a report that I have to I want to Garner from the um School District board
286from the School District transportation services and bring back to the public to just make sure that we are again we're stating that there's problems on the buses but also want to make sure that there's data that supports that statement and what we need to do to make sure that our students can arrive to school and go to school safely back and forth and so I want to make sure that that's noted in this conversation as well I don't have the data right now in front of me to determine whether or not we're having all these bus issues that that has been stated but when I get the data I do want to make sure I bring that bring that information forward to either say yeah we do have a problem on our buses and we
287want to get there right or that's not true and so I want to make sure those two thoughts are put into the room as it pertains to your statement about discipline on buses um going back to the volunteers piece of course um yes you know we have volunteers across our school district and we reach out a lot for volunteers um after they pass certain background checks they could possibly be a bus rider volunteer um in the morning and I don't think that's a bad thing at all um and as it pertains to your suggestion I really appreciate that thank you other board members in the discussion yeah I got a I got a couple of questions of course I'll say thanks to everybody for the feedback not just tonight but you know we've all had
288other conversations from from the community and I appreciate all of them um two questions um you know one well first I think what we heard tonight too is we had a long road of Common Ground where people say we know we need to do something and and a lot of agreement where we need to we know we need to close schools right and I think where we veered off is there's two things one people don't feel like they were heard okay um you can say there was opportunity you could say there was an opportunity the reality is if you feel like you weren't heard and you weren't heard okay so hopefully we've got a chance to get some of that out tonight now you also did a good job of laying out while you've got
289to the recommendation that you did so my first question is then and I don't want you to rehash anything that's in there but on a take a take the flip side of it and say why won't one school on each side work one middle school because I think that's to me I feel like that's the Crux of you know what people need to not necessarily agree with but you need to come to an understanding of so when you're thinking about the conversations that I've been having um since we arrived here number one is again declining enrollment and so one school on either side of the town does present the conversation around when will we move to one school on one side at a time and so it it it further exasperates the conversations that we're
290not having that we have declining enrollment and our building capacities right now still won't be at capacity it won't be a capacity with with our current configuration it still will not be at capacity and so the the thought of we can continue this without having deeper conversations and that's what we're we will be continuously having in our school district um it just it's almost like you you have to see the the see the opportunity that we have right now that we can actually get in front of this conversation around moving our students to the east side of school because if we had to put them all in one again I've made the statement it'll be in a East Side School period that's where it will be and it does mean that we will not have
291a school on the East end or I'm sorry on the west side of town and so for me it's about actually getting ahead of this conversation around Transportation around moving our students to the east side of Our Town based off of our assets and what we have to offer best educational spaces to learn in as it pertains to the the space it's the spaces itself and so that's something that we have to take into consideration to or this overall conversation and so to address the the conversation in the room or do terrestrial conversation or your statement East Side West Side school um now we're into the future we will be moving students to one building if we continue to have declining enrollment now with that being stated with these other open buildings right because we
292will have in this case you know Aldridge could be open Frozen could be open mcniel's still um closed um and um Cunningham as it stands will still be used when will we have additional conversations around our declining enrollment in our elementary schools all right and so that's another big thought around kind of where we're going with 4 800 students potentially next year these numbers have been steadily declining and we can't keep all of our buildings as it stands intact now there's also referendum conversations in this okay and like I've stated before Cunningham itself was built as an elementary school we added an addition to it to provide the larger space for our bigger kids that's what we did okay because we knew there were going to be six seven eight graders one day and the
293curveball to that is that space is the only space that really would fit all of our all of our students because when we bring 500 plus students into that building bigger space bigger students and as I say bigger students but the students overall needs grows as they get older um the space does need to mirror that so from an educational perspective that space still fits better and Frozen and Aldridge as it stands to keeping two schools open right now and when we make this shift to possibly moving to one school we can look at third Friday accounts we can start making conversations around possible cuts that we may need to already make to start making that shift to saying okay now we're gonna have to move them into two schools and then it gives us
294time to look at what we're going to do with a wide open Frozen possibly and again a possibly wide open um Cunningham because I could still move the bla students to a different space as well so there's just this there's it's a layered conversation but this is just a piece in this in this step Park in this step process all right my second question is you know we've got we've got a motion on the floor to kind of halt and and talk about this some more so what what's the impact if if there's a delay so temp you know for for more conversation is you know pros and cons what's what's the impact to do on that so number one the motion as it stands would stop everything that we've moved forward to do everything
295um the the fourth and fifth grade conversation stops all that all the information that we've well if you and I'm sorry just a minute this is not this is not we're not this is a conversation at the board level at this current time okay and so please please understand that this is a conversation at the board level this is still a board meeting the current motion that has to be rescinded would reach what's reconsider our fourth and fifth grade students return to the elementary schools because that's what the recession would have to First State and it will also move Frozen from being our Frozen and also being our current middle schools as well so there would need to be an action around are we amending this conversation or are we stopping all of this from
296happening now I've sent out letters families have gotten information elementary schools have already moved this process to K3 to fifth grade a lot of that stuff has already happened and all out my administrative staff jump in if you would like to as it pertains to other things that's happening as it pertains to Staffing some of it we've already covered in the Staffing portion of this presentation but I'll let them sure I can talk a little bit about behind the scenes so when you voted in April that was marching orders for this team and I say that to say there is a lot of work to do um at the central office level just to end a school year start up summer school and to start a new school year that that's a Cadence that we're
297already in but what we had to do was it we have to adjust all of the databases so for example for the past two weeks our person that runs our database CIS has been doing all of the data entry because we roll over the system at the end of the school year and that moves all of the data that informs everything across the district Finance attendance reports we do that at the end of the year we roll that over so we've already started because we had to reroute all of the students to the different School sites and so that's sitting kind of like on in ready to be triggered and so we would have to backtrack and begin entering all of that data back in we are also on a staffing timeline so we have
298already started that first wave of of letting teachers know where they are we've begun the Staffing conversations we will be finishing them up this week so I think we're about halfway through that we have met with all of the principals assistant principals we have met for hours to play staff to make sure that we have the right staff in the right places so that would undo that work because we would have to again look at Staffing that's Staffing is driven by FTE and that's driven by the number of students in sections so if you move the kids around you move the number of students and the number of sections we also do Master scheduling which determines the schedule we start that conversation in January we're still in that conversation but just this week we passed
299out to students to start enrolling in uh courses that they want for the middle schools and and again that would undo some of that work as well I've also notified DPI because when you made that vote we have to change our entities we have grants tied to that we have State Testing tied to that so there are multiple conversations that we have to go back and undo and redo what the Department of Public Instruction so those are just some things I'm not sure if my colleagues want to add some additional things two points real quick um the school board is going to be need to meet in special section next week for two purposes one there are final notices of non-renewal that will need to be extended to the two individuals that receive the preliminary
300notices of non-renewal uh there's contract or there's a number of days after the preliminary notices given before the board can meet but that uh the final notices need to be approved or adopted by the board and communicated to those two impacted employees by May 15th and then May 15th is also a statutory deadline that we need to issue contracts for teachers for the 23-24 school year four so you know talking about changes and delays and costs we're really coming up again I mean we got a week other board members questions okay just for clarification Ms Shope if you could read back the original motion language that was made on April 4th so as we've there's a motion on the floor in a second to rescind so everyone's clear exactly on what is being rescinded potentially
301sure do you want Mr Nichols um read the April 4th resention I like the motion that was made on April 4th because Mr Nichols if I'm understanding you correctly that's the motion you wish to rescind correct okay so the motion on April 4th was moved to approve the reconfiguration plan as presented by Dr Garrison with the fourth and fifth grade students returning to elementary schools fruits and intermediate and Aldrich intermediate will serve all districts 6th through 8th grade students and Beloit Learning Academy will move to Cunningham okay so any other questions board members this is still the discussion um I actually do have a couple more questions but board member Schneider did you have anything okay I'll miss more attack I'd asked you before and I just I just could would you um too okay
302so there's like so three issues that I still see as I'm looking through my notes Here were um there's a concern about the disproportionality of students in poverty or students who are disadvantaged on both sides of town so I was wondering if you have data to address that um I did have a comment that I want to make and then I just while you're looking at that Dr Garrison would it be possible to miss Harold's point to reach out and maybe um engage with the city and discussing some of the issues that have been raised I believe are are at least to some degree outside of the scope of the school district is it something that we could and I'm not asking for an answer right now but I'm just raising forward I think that
303it would be really productive for us to meet with the municipality to address some of those pieces so I can address the the city conversation one of the things that that I've done since I've been here is I have reached out to other public officials that work for the School District board I work for work with the school district employee and naturally we have those conversations and we should have those conversations all the time I've had conversations with police chief sales and as a matter of fact I do have a conversation with Mrs Duncan um scheduled this week um just just so happened that we have a a scheduled conversation I have met with our village manager um this conversation um one of the things that um Jerry city manager sorry um as a Gabrielle
304I say it wrong Gabriella's thank you um he's we've had conversations as well I think the part of my position is to continuously make connections with all public officials and I have started to do that and I've been doing that all along the way so yes some of the concerns that was brought up tonight I can easily have conversations with other City officials as well um and move forward with those conversations thank you I'm Miss martech thanks so when asked about the social economic status across the four intermediates uh I was approached with that I think with somewhat of an assumption that it's possible that that might be different across the the city but based on the title one allocations which is all we look at um the high poverty rates um really the four
305intermediates are about the same they're all within a 70 to 3 point range so um Cunningham is 77 McNeil 75 Aldridge 71 fruits and 72. so they're all relatively about the same poverty rates currently the demographs across the four intermediate schools and just to kind of bring another layer to that disproportionately much higher is 93 percent poverty is in the mayoral community things is that what you're asking it was that's exactly what I was looking for thank you and then one last comment because I'm just trying to like pull out themes from comments here that people have made um there was like a lot of discussion about neighborhood schools and the importance of that um that's some work that we started a couple years ago with Dr Keyser was looking at kind of community schools
306and we've been able to partner with Community Health there are food pantries clothing closets and all of these things that my own speaking just for myself can hopefully continue to build and I just wanted to point out that one of the the reasons that I appreciate the plan that was brought to us is that it leaves intact all of our neighborhood elementary schools which is a central point where families are currently getting those Services met and so I just wanted to add that commentary thanks any other board members and what I'll do also is I'll give everybody that one last chance to kick that as we work on that consistent part but any other questions yet well to answer I think I think you had a question a minute ago or or board member Amy
307did but no I I I don't really think we need to we want to change the fourth and fifth graders back into the middle schools no but my point then you would need to amend the motion because that's why I wanted Miss Shope to read back the motion that was made on April 4th because it did include the great band structure with the repurposing of buildings that that was the point both of those things are included so to rescind the motion undoes all of that so what we'll do at this time hold on one second so when an option is if you were interested in amending the motion instead of rescinding but totally up to you because you're making the motion at this time we'll pause for a minute because I have comments too and
308discuss I want to make this clear so first this is the sausage being made this is the sausage being made already made so um in communication I had with citizens that these are all the things that are going on in the district this is the procedure our superintendent is following he'll make a recommendation to the board the board will make a decision there'll be public input as there has been and we'll react to that before he made the recommendation we're all just talking about things that we all agree need to happen but no one has initiated so that's the first point the second point I'm just going to lift up our board Collective commitments because as we are conducting our business tonight these are the rules that the board are working by as we interact
309with each other and I hope this is the beginning of our community being engaged not just on this one issue but as you heard and see we have many things to talk about in our district like I said divided Community when you look at those votes so there's going to be a lot of conversations and this can be the practice but they have to be more civil than they have been our board commitments number one we commit to respectful discourse on each item as needed to honor the individual voices of the board and lift up concerns we have heard from community members we further commit to assuming positive intent we commit to leaning into uncomfortable conversations that will produce growth so I think we've had some uncomfortable tonight four board members are clear on the
310decision that they are being asked to make we have on topic robust and respectful discussion we make the decision and then each board member supports the decision of the board even if it doesn't align with their personal vote so in my two years of serving as we have worked with different iterations of people on this board because every time someone news joins the sport it's a different board that's but people employed say the board and don't even know sometimes who's on the board with this vote I think what people have to respect is what we are committed to and what we're fine with is that some of the votes it might be 4-3 it might be 5-2 it might be six one it might be 7-0 but it takes time and work to get to
311any of those places when we're going to take a vote and have it a practice that we have used is to develop consensus before we make decisions and we've also also taken uh the time to hear something the first time and then wait and make a decision on it the second time around when we go to our practice of how we even came to this decision board member Levy brought that up but six other people said no let's do this so that was how we proceeded and then there was still a 7-0 vote what people don't respect or understand is what it takes to get to that vote to what we say achieved the will of the board not just what Sean wants or or Greg or Brian but this is the full board speaking
312and then lastly and even even in that one to number four Mr Nichols is new on the board and we've all needed help at times but it's also my role as the board president I provided the motion I didn't play a game that says you don't know what to say so I'm not going to help you the motion Mr beukuma explained we could have a motion to rescind or a motion to amend something previously adopted there's two choices in ways that we can go Mr Nichols chose I moved to rescind the motion relating to the approval of the reconfiguration plan as presented by Dr Garrison we have fourth and fifth grade students returning to elementary schools Frozen intermediate and Aldridge intermediate serving all districts sixth or eighth grade students and Beloit our current Learning Academy
313moving to cuttingham which was adopted at our April 4th 2023 meeting that's specific because it's taken directly from board docs because that's the motion that board member Greg Schneider made now we're at a place in the Parliamentary procedure that if you're fine with the fourth and fifth grade part which we decided because we didn't decide to close two schools right away we had citizens comment and they gave yes let's have grades four through five as the grade band so that's where that's where we got to on that part so now we possibly have an issue and this is what the discussion is for and then number five we have seven commitments but our fifth commitment is the board commits to operate ethically by embracing accountability with integrity and transparency we agree to approach District business
314with an open mind and we acknowledge that positions May evolve based on new ideas or information this is an important point because for our staff Dr Garrison as the superintendent he's like hey where you guys going to be on this thing for our staff that works in the district people that are used to the previous history of the boards in Beloit saying or not doing but to our staff we also we've had this conversation before I understand the trauma that our district has been through but we also as we work through this together have to recognize that as a board what we're saying to you all is hey we value your work I know what it is to be an administrator to make something and hey that ain't it go back and do it again
315nobody cares about the six seven eight twenty times you did it it's got to come back it's got to come back but we do value your work into our staff even as we go through these processes you can't let that turn into the space of see they're not doing what they said they were going to do because the thing that I would argue as a board what we have done is the things that the things we said we were going to do we have done the compensation came through last year the Compensation Plan the um the supporter or president no that we need to keep since we're in debate we need to keep it germane to the motion that's on the floor okay thank you yeah so the things that we've said that we're going
316to do they've happened the hiring of a superintendent this is the superintendent that brought the recommendation I don't I didn't really think you were going to hire a superintendent we did so even at this vote if it doesn't if it changes maybe people that voted 7-0 evolved in their position but that's something that our superintendent working on a day-to-day basis with those employees will work through those employee groups with so those are those are our commitments three four and five and those that's part of how we have made decisions so I'm going to offer board members that last time uh to kick and then I'm gonna call for the roll call Vote or I'll ask Mr Nichols do you want to change your rescind because we're in the discussion space and then parliamentarian what would
317we need to do to get that out so the motion is the space so the motion is already received a second so at this point the motion would need to be voted up or down motion is already received a second we're going to move forward with what the parliamentarian tells us your participation is limited from that space the lawyer works okay listen we're going to do what the seven of us working together come up with no one's trying to disenfranchise Mr Nichols and what he's trying to work towards Miss Charles you're out of order Miss Charles I'm going to ask you to leave in a minute are doing right now because listen ing so point of order there hasn't been a request by Mr Nichols that he wants to amend so we're not in a
318position to put words in his mouth and we shouldn't be yelling out back and forth at the board meeting the action again to take if Mr Nichols would like to amend his emote his motion he can do that but if I just ask if that's the motion you wanted to make there wasn't a response so with that being said we would need to vote the motion up or down no I would like to amend it because I I did not want to really to stop the third and fourth grade at fifth three through five moving back to elementary school okay then are are you prepared to make an amendment foreign so I'm I make a motion to um amend amend the motion relating to moving to approve the reconfiguration plan as presented by Dr Garrison
319with frozen intermediate and Aldridge intermediate serving all district 6 through 8th grade students and Beloit Learning Academy moving to Cunningham which was adopted at our April 4th 2023 meeting so the only issue there is you repeated the same motion so if you want to amend the motion that you just made you want to exclude out the language for the grade Bands then we'll vote on the amendment that will be voted up or down and then we'll go back to the amended motion and vote on that so instead of repeating the same motion that you made you want to exclude language that talks about fourth and fifth grade going back and for sixth through eighth grade to be served at Frozen and Aldridge does that make sense that that's that's what he read oh I still
320heard the language of the fourth and fifth grade going back no there's two parts of it but could we repeat the amendment so we can make sure that that's documented properly okay move to amend I move to amend the motion relating to moving this this is not right I'm going to come in to approve the reconfiguration plan just a minute okay so what happens is I got you hold on for a minute give me the so what happened the first thing is to rescind the vote that took place on the fourth he started with the language to rescind the vote exactly as it's listed so this is what I believe you want to do Mr Nichols and please correct me if I'm wrong your original motion was to completely undo what was done on the
321fourth now the issue there is that combines grade bands with school closures so that motion is still on the floor if you want to amend that it's a separate amendment to amend the main motion so what you may want to read you can read the exact same thing but leave out anything that's great specific does that make sense out I'm gonna push we're ready so you may want to amend your emotions to move forward to just the great bands if that's what's wrong with you so this is the motion you want to amend it to say I move an amendment of my previous motion turn fourth and fifth grade students our mentoring level and to service sixth through eighth grade students at middle schools in the school district is that what you want to do
322and then we can go back and deal with this does that make sense so you want to amend your previous okay I want to I want to move to amid my previous motion to return to return fourth and fifth grade students returning to elementary schools and to service sixth through eighth grade students and to serve Sixth and eighth grade students at Frozen and Aldrich intermediate location to eighth grade students at intermediate schools watching technically there'll be Middle Schools they're middle schools oh okay we Goodman show hold on no that's going to be in the main motion we're just talking about grade bands right now yep yes the language is the first thought to rescind to present that motion's still on the floor right and that's that's what it is that's the exact motion but he
323wants to amend that motion to rescind to just deal with great bands listen to me yep okay this is what I have tell me if it's accurate move to amend the previous motion to return fourth and fifth grade students to the elementary schools and to serve 6th through eighth grade students at middle schools so for the benefit of everyone up here if you vote yes that means we want to keep the grade bands that we approve back in February if you vote no that means you don't want to keep the grade bands the way we approved them in February we are not talking about buildings being repurposed or closed or any of that right now that's the second step the first step is just the the amendment of the main motion everybody on board awesome
324point of order does that Amendment have a second yet as I had seconded the existing motion I'll second the amendment I just want to make sure the board recognizes the motion on the floor is to rescind the motion so it's got to be an amendment to the motion to rescind I didn't hear anything about the motion of her sin he's at his previous motion so we're amending his previous motion which is the only other motion he made tonight and that was a motion to rescind correct okay so he's amending that motion and then once we deal with the amendment then we'll go back to the the amended main motion okay but I think it's got to have phraseology of the of the rescinding in it and I right now I'm just hearing an amendment to
325the grain grade band so um just a minute we're going to make it clean Mr buchema give me your advice I'm just saying so we can make it you have to take the motion as it was said to rescind and then you say the amendment is to only rescind X rather than rescind Y and X I mean so then the amendment has to be I moved not to rescind the grade band but I want to make sure the board understands what it's voting on I mean because it's confusing I mean you're doing you're trying to make it clear so it foreign for the board is just to Simply bolt down the original motion and then come up with an amended motion but the amended motion was just stated okay so we're gonna are we ready
326to have a vote on the amendment and then the next step is to vote on the amended main motion so what I'm going to do board members I'll ask your consensus I think the cleanest thing to do is what Mr buchema just suggested is and I've already talked with uh board member Nichols he came in here tonight intending to undo the motion from that was taking place on April 4th 2023 and the language was provided so that's the fourth and fifth grade because that's what board member Schneider said we're going to you have the option to cleanly vote against that rescinding and then Mr Nichols will make a new motion to amend something previously adopted and when he makes that motion he will not talk about fourth and fifth grade he'll just name those schools
327that were in that original motion and I will address the Middle School part of this at that point uh he has to get a second again and then we will be voting on The up or down part of that board members as our consensus are you fine with that path to move forward board member Schneider yes I think it's six on one hand half a dozen they're the other he either amends the main motion and we vote on that and then we vote on the amended made motion or there's an amended motion on the floor so it has to be addressed so it's either a two-step process or a three-step process so if I'm understanding you correctly we need to vote down the amended motion to get back to the main motion and vote that
328down so he can do a new motion not to rescind the act the October the April 4th decision but to amend it so that's actually adding another step I don't think the amended motion got a second so he did okay yeah I'm gonna count you as a no find me can I ask a clarifying question finish pulling the board first just think about it hold on to it I'm fine with this tributecommon's recommendation um yes uh Brian that gets us there yes Mr Nichols yes okay so I'll pause because board member Levy Sonic you said that Mr Anderson did second Mr Nichols Amendment we just another step because you have to address the amended motion on the floor got it and then you have to address the main motion that if the amendment is voted
329down is on amended and that will clear the deck for a new amended motion 100 there so what's going to happen is Mr Anderson uh seconded Mr Nichols amended motion so we have the choice to vote for that or against that foreign if it's voted against then the amended option will go away if it's voted for then we've got an amendment to a to a main motion that he does not that's not how he stated he wanted it so then secondly after that is gone we'll go back to his main motion which as he started out with a motion to rescind approval of something that that is not what he wanted to do because that included the fourth and fifth grade grade bands we'll have to vote that up or down if that is voted
330down then he'll offer his motion to amend something previously adopted which will not mention the fourth and fifth grade but will address the middle schools you understand what we're doing okay so it's been moved and properly seconded Mr Nichols amendment of his motion to rescind any discussion no but I like a roll call vote please roll call vote Miss Shope absolutely Brian Nichols present no I need an irna oh do you want I suppose you could abstain too but that would can you restate the the impact of the irony sure the amendment on the floor is to undo the grade band portion so to keep the great bands that we approved in February if you would like to keep the great bands that we approved in February 3K through five six through eight nine through
331twelve then that would be an I vote for the amendment if you don't want to keep those grade bands which is the amendment you would vote nay as we're in this discussion the purpose of voting against the amendment is to clear is to clear the amendment out and then and then to take the second vote what you your main motion was a motion to rescind but you want your main motion to be a motion to amend something previously adopted so that's a no vote and a Novo and then your new vote right so the board is reaching a consensus to vote these the amendment and the initial motion to rescind vote those down with the Positive intent of retaking up the issue of an amended motion thanks for the play-by-play please okay Brian Nichols no
332Brian Anderson no Megan Miller nay Amy Levy I Greg Schneider they Sean Levy nay the motion failed five to one now that was the amendment now we're at his main motion which was to rescind the approval of something it included those fourth and fifth grade bands which we didn't want to address um so it received a second so we can vote this down and then you'll offer up your other one right so um roll call vote please yep it's been moved and seconded moved by board member Brian Nichols and seconded by board member Brian Anderson uh a motion to rescind the approval um to approval of the reconfiguration plan as presented by Dr Garrison with fourth and fifth grade students returning to elementary schools Frozen intermediate and altered intermediate serving all district sixth or eighth
333grade students and the Beloit Learning Academy moving to Cunningham which was adopted at our April 4th 2023 meeting roll call vote please Michelle certainly in Miller nay Amy Levy nay Brian Anderson nay Brian Nichols nay Craig Schneider nay Sean Levy nay motion failed unanimously okay I moved the to amend the motion right relating to approving the reconfiguration plan as presented by Dr Garrison with frozen intermediate in Aldridge intermediate serving all district 6 through 8th grade students in Beloit Learning Academy moving to a Cunningham which was adopted at our April 4th 2023 meeting okay just a point of clarification that sixth through eighth grade that's that's still talking about the great bands and I thought the point of doing all that was to separate them out no the point of the processes that we just went
334through Mr Schneider's motion on April 4th 2023 was the approval of the reconfiguration plan as presented by Dr Garrison with fourth and fifth grade students returning to elementary schools Frozen intermediate and Aldridge intermediate serving all districts 6th through eighth grade students and learning academy moving to Cunningham which was adopted at our April 4 2023 meeting so that whole exercise that we went through Mr Nichols began first trying to motion to rescind the approval of something I'm so sorry can you just tell me where we are now okay Mr Nichols with what what the current motion is please the current motion that Mr Nichols just read you got to look for the difference and I can show you the paper because it might help you to see it on paper it's the same motion that Greg
335Schneider made but it takes out the four fifth grade parts so I'll read it for you but it used to why would you take out fourth fifth grade but then mention sixth eighth grade because the part that the contention is as I see the issue as Mr Nichols it's the we have four middle schools they all fit in one and we're having a decision about where to put the two or any of them so that's the part that is going to be voted up or down to the um uh to the recommendation or as we stand right now the decision we made on April 4th is what's in place with this motion to amend something that was previously adopted he would be changing that Frozen intermediate and Alders would be serving grades six through eight
336in Beloit Learning Academy we would be moving to Cunningham so at this state our fourth and fifth grades are back at the elementaries but the decision of what to do with the middle schools if this motion were to be successful is something that would have to be decided so I'll repeat there's a so there's been a motion by Mr Nichols the the motion is to move to amend the motion relating to the move to approve the reconfiguration plan is presented by Dr Garrison where Frozen intermediate and Aldridge intermediate serving all district 6 through 8th grade students amberlight Learning Academy moving to Cunningham which was adopted at our April 4th 2023 meeting that is Mr Nichols motion is there a second well as before we start if you want to Second it that seconds it I'll
337second that motion so it's been moved by board member Nichols and seconded by board member Brian Anderson is there any discussion no because we have a roll call vote please okay so for clarification roll call vote misshope and clarification if you are voting yay you're voting to undo our April 4th decision if you are voting nay you are voting to maintain our April 4th decision is everybody clear [Music] okay Mr short roll call vote please okay Greg Schneider hey Brian Anderson nay Amy Levy nay uh Megan Miller nay Brian Nichols nay and Sean Levy nay motion failed six zero to six so the part that we can go to I mean this is hey everybody will talk about this you remember this where were you so we have our vote uh what happened in and
338put out interrogating board members about their vote so we've just voted and it was unanimous what happened is we voted the emotions were made and we are still supporting what was recommended on April 4th 2023. so that that is the place that we're at um let me find our place in the agenda so our place in the agenda is six future board meeting dates foreign special human resource committee meeting Thursday May 11 2023 at 5 30 pm special board meeting Thursday May 11 2023 at 6 45 pm teaching learning and equity and people service committee meeting Tuesday May 16th at 5 30 pm human resource committee meeting Tuesday May 16th at 6 30 PM regular board meeting Tuesday May 16th at 7 pm governance committee meeting Tuesday May 23rd at 7 pm and since we
339moved public comment to the beginning we are now at our meeting closing is there a motion for adjournment so move second it's been moved by board member Amy Levy seconded by board member Megan Miller is there any discussion hearing on all those in favor signify by saying aye aye aye aye aye we are adjourned which is unanimous oh