001[upbeat music] (Samantha) All right, welcome everyone to the May 18th Board of Education meeting. Kinsey, would you call the roll? - All right. (Kinsey) Becker? Becker? (Andrew) Here (Kinsey) McCoy? (Laura) Here. (Kinsey) Lyerly? (James) Here. (Kinsey) Mineau? (Alex) Here. (Kinsey) Knill? (Jeanette) Here. (Kinsey) Meister? (Samantha) Here. (Kinsey) Yang? (Mary) Here. (Samantha) Excellent. We will begin, I'm sorry, briefly, we are joined by two members of our Intra City student council. Would you like to introduce yourselves? (Paige) Hi everyone, my name is Paige and I'm a junior at Preble. (Grace) I'm Grace Burr and I'm a senior at Southwest. (Samantha) Thank you for joining us this evening and please feel free to participate. We will begin with the Pledge of Allegiance. - I pledge allegiance to the flag, of the United States of America and to the
002republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. (Samantha) All right, Jeanette, would you read our mission statement? (Jeanette) We educate all students to be college, career, and community ready, inspired to succeed in our diverse world. (Samantha) Thank you. Our land acknowledgement is, we, the members of the Green Bay Area Public School District, recognize and honor the original inhabitants of Northeast Wisconsin. Our district lives, works, and learns upon the ancestral homelands of the Menominee and Ho-Chunk Nations and the current homeland of Oneida Nation. We acknowledge the 12 diverse and vibrant Wisconsin First Nations who have persevered here since before recorded time and continue to be integral parts of our community. We uphold our responsibility to repair relationships, initiate partnerships, and stand with all First Nations communities. All right,
003we are going to go into our open forum and we will begin with our Intra City Student Council report. (Paige) We have a short and sweet report today. Across all of our schools, our AP tests went smoothly and spring sports are coming to a close. East and Preble both had successful plays and Southwest has successful musical. Preble, West, and Southwest all had successful senior balls and East's senior ball is upcoming. (Samantha) Thank you. Any questions for our students? All right, thank you. Next, we will move into our public forum for the evening and we have currently four registered speakers for the evening. If you would like to speak, please make sure to fill out a pink sheet and return it to Kinsey. At each speaker, we'll receive five minutes. We will be timing and you'll
004get a cue from Jeanette here if your time expires. And just a reminder, we aren't able to interact with anyone or answer any questions. We can touch base with you after the meeting if you'd like to have any followup conversation. All right. Our first speaker this evening is Selena Darrow. And when you come up to the podium, please make sure to state your name and your address. (Selena) My name is Selena Darrow. I live at 2768 Creekwood Circle. Good evening. I am the founder and CEO of Rooted In Inc, a Green Bay nonprofit focused on food recovery, nutritious meal production, food access and culinary education. On April 30th, I was invited to speak at the advisory committee on Clean Energy Waste Reduction Subcommittee regarding Rooted In Surplus Food Recovery Model and how it can help
005reduce both food waste and strengthen food access for families across our community. That same meeting also included a presentation from McKinstry focused on waste reduction strategies and sustainability opportunities within the K through 12 school system. The discussion reinforced that food waste reduction is both an environmental and community issue and that schools play an important leadership role. Part of the discussion focused on opportunities for the Green Bay Area Public Schools and Rooted In to potentially collaborate around recovering surplus food from the school meal program. Rooted In was created to address two interconnected challenges, barriers to accessing nutritious food and the underutilization of available food resources across our community. Through our integrated approach, recover, transform, share and educate, we rescue high quality surplus food that would otherwise go to waste and turn it into scratch cooked, individually
006packaged meals, distributed through trusted community food access partners and serving families across Green Bay. We also redistribute surplus food that cannot be used in our kitchen to other organizations across the charitable food network to help maximize available resources and strengthen partner capacity. Unlike a traditional pantry, meal site or food bank model, Rooted In focus specifically on recovering surplus food, transforming it and redistributing it through our community partners. Food waste reduction is also a national EPA priority and Wisconsin DNR priority. The US has established a national goal of reducing food waste by 50% by 2030 and school districts across the country are implementing food waste reduction and food recovery strategies. The EPA food recovery hierarchy identifies the two most effective strategies for reducing food waste as source reduction through education and feeding hungry people safely by
007redirecting surplus food to qualified organizations. The need across our community continues to grow rapidly. Local food pantries have reported an approximate 30% increase in demand over the past year with an additional 10% increase already being seen in 2026 alone. Wisconsin has also experienced a 6% decline in SNAP and food share participation locally, impacting approximately 1,485 individuals. Additional eligibility and work requirement changes beginning later this year are expected to create even greater barriers for more than 27,000 Brown County residents currently enrolled in SNAP. Rooted In anticipates these changes will place an even greater strain on families and the charitable food system in the months ahead. At the same time, nutritious food continues to go unused across our community every day. Rooted In believes there is an opportunity to strengthen collaboration between schools and community organizations to
008help redirect more of that food to families who need it while also supporting the district's waste reduction goals. This is not simply about reducing waste. It is about supporting students, families, improving nutritious access, strengthening community partnerships, and building a more resilient system of care within our community. The Green Bay Area Public Schools has an opportunity to be a leader in our community through thoughtful food waste reduction and recovery efforts that support both sustainability and hunger relief. I understand that any formal partnership would ultimately require thoughtful planning, operational review, and school board approval. My hope is that tonight's conversation can serve as a starting point for continued discussions between district leadership, food service, members of the Waste Reduction Subcommittee, and community partners to explore what collaborative solutions could realistically look like moving forward. Thank you for
009your time, and thank you for your service to our community. (Samantha) Thank you. Next up, we have Chad Levenitz. (Chad) Yes, thank you, and good evening. Chad Levenitz, 3530 Bay Highland Circle. I am the Preble Boys Basketball Booster Club President, and I'm speaking tonight to fully support Coach Rick Rosinski and putting him back in place of that. Several years ago, I had the opportunity to sit in on Coach Rosinski's interview at Preble. It was, I could tell from a very early stage that it was very important for him to develop a program where the kids came first. Since that time, Coach Rosinski has ingrained himself in that Preble community. He has sat through countless hours of boring, boring Booster Club meetings. He's reached out to stakeholders, to players, to players' parents, all to foster a
010community working together. Most importantly, I think, is the fundraising part of the Preble basketball program. Of utmost importance in that school district is fundraising, raising funds for a population that not everybody may have the socioeconomic status to participate that. I have seen Coach Rosinski spend many, many hours, Saturdays, Sundays, working at different tournaments to raise funds for students. I have seen him almost single-handedly go out and get grant funding, and that allows us a couple things. The goal for Preble is to pay for all leagues and all tournaments for all the kids. That way, we don't have to keep going back to parents that might not be able to afford it. With that funding and all of his hard work, we have been able to set up a system where the student athletes, if they
011can't afford it, can discreetly approach a Booster Club because we have the extra funding, and we can get them in the program, and we can keep these kids playing throughout the winter at no additional cost to them. That is the type of leadership that we need at Preble. I have worked with Coach Rosinski over the last three years, and I can see how much he cares for the kids, he cares for the parents, and he wants to make that Preble program as good as it possibly can be. I have not once questioned that at all. In void of this leadership, I am very concerned that the summer programming, which is only a few short weeks away, there's an imminent threat to losing a lot of the programming for the kids to participate in leagues, to
012participate in tournaments, to bond. Last summer, we had, I think we only missed a few days of basketball programming during the summer, and it really brought the team together. That's all at risk because it's my understanding that potentially the hiring process could go well beyond what this open contact would be. I'm asking you, please, give the kids an opportunity to make those memories that they deserve, especially the seniors. They don't get another shot at this. Let them make the memories, let them play together, and please give me an opportunity to continue to work with Coach Rosinski to continue to build that foundation that we were trending in the right direction. I thank you for allowing me the opportunity and I fully support reinstating Coach Richard Rosinski. Thank you. (Samantha) Thank you. Next up, we have
013Beth Dornbush. (Beth) Good evening, my name is Beth Dornbush, and I am here to publicly express my strong support for Coach Rick Rosinski. My family has deep ties to Green Bay Public Schools. Our oldest daughter graduated from Preble. Our middle son, well, back there, is currently a junior and a returning varsity basketball player and currently a varsity baseball player at Preble. Our youngest son attends Edison Middle School. Overall, our academic experience has been very strong, and we speak regularly and proudly of the academic opportunities available to students in the district. But preparing young people for success requires more than strong classroom instruction alone. Today's students are growing up in a world increasingly dominated by screens, social isolation, and technology. Experiences outside the classroom, athletics, music, DECA, clubs, and activities play an essential role in helping
014students develop leadership, resilience, accountability, teamwork, and interpersonal skills. That is why coaches matter so deeply. Coach Rosinski has invested countless hours into developing young men both on and off the court. Like so many dedicated coaches, his work extends far beyond the basketball season. He creates opportunities for students to grow, compete, build confidence, and learn discipline and commitment. What concerns many of us is simply not this decision itself, but the process surrounding it. There are well over 100 signatures from families, players, alumni, and community supporters expressing support for Coach Rosinski. Yet many families feel their voices were never meaningfully sought or considered before this decision was made. When districts lose coaches who are deeply respected by the majority of their players and families, it sends a discouraging message, not only to students, but also to the
015many dedicated individuals willing to commit extraordinary time and energy to supporting young people. I understand that personal matters are complex and that certain details cannot always be discussed publicly. However, I respectfully ask the board to consider the broader impact this decision is having on students, families, and community trust. Coach Rosinski has had a positive influence on many young men in this community, and I strongly encourage the board and district leadership to reconsider this decision and reinstate him as head coach of Preble Boys Basketball. Thank you for your time and consideration. (Samantha) Thank you. Our final speaker is Jim Hayes. (Jim) Good evening, and thank you very much. You might remember me from last week when I spoke on support of Coach Rosinski. For starters, I've been on Assistant Varsity Basketball Coach in the Green Bay
016School District for the past 24 years. 21 of those years at Green Bay East, and the last three at Green Bay Preble, my alma mater. Prior to that, I spent 17 years as a sports writer at the Green Bay Press Gazette, with my primary duties being covering high school sports. So I believe I possess a pretty unique perspective into knowing the qualities that make an average coach and the qualities that make an excellent coach. And I definitely know Rick Rozinski is an excellent coach, and deserves, without question, to be reinstated as a head basketball coach at Preble High. I've been Rick's assistant coach for 23 years, and I'm fully aware of everything he's done and accomplished throughout his career. Please believe me when I say he's never done a single thing that would make a
017reasonable person truly believe that Rick no longer should be Preble's head coach. Is Rick a perfect person or coach? Of course not, but he's building a winning program at Preble, and has tremendous support from our players and their parents, as you can see by their attendance here tonight. Rick has won 217 career games for this school district, and led East to a regional championship in 2022, beating favorite Milwaukee Rufus King down at King in the regional championship game. It was a cold, bitter winter night, and our players and me and Rick and their families will never forget what we accomplished that night. While the other three public schools, public basketball programs in Green Bay are struggling, Rick has the hornets on the verge of doing some memorable things with these players and their families as
018long as he gets the chance to continue doing what he loves to do, and that's coaching basketball at Preble High. Well, our main detractor was brought to the table who has brought us to this position right now, wrote in a email that he distributed widely that one of our shortcomings as coaches, as we haven't developed relationships with our players, I'll speak on Rick's behalf, because I have the same feeling. We love our players. They're not just kids to us, they're our families. When I was coaching at East a few years ago, four years ago to be precise, my wife died from ovarian cancer. At her funeral, I went back today and I checked this on the signage book, 76 former East players came to her funeral, and many of those had not, this was like
01920, 15 years ago that these kids played for us. They're young men. So I find it a terrible insult in a miscarriage of the truth that we don't have relationships with these kids. We do everything to help these guys, not because it's our job as coaches, but we care about them. We truly do. We care about these great families that are behind us. So to say we don't have relationships with kids, we don't do this, we don't do that, we're not perfect, but you know what? We really try. We try and we do the best we can. And there's nothing in Rick's past or whatever that he has done to deserve this because I've been there with him every step of the way. And I know what he's done and I know what he hasn't
020done. So again, I wanna appreciate you for your time, for letting me speak. And please, if you can find it in your heart of hearts to reinstate Rick, you would mean a lot to me. You would mean a lot to these kids and I think you'd mean a lot to Preble High in the community. Thank you so much. (Samantha) Thank you. Thank you for all of our speakers. That is the end of our public forum this evening. We will be moving into our discussion items and we will get started with our superintendent updates, so Superintendent Bayer. (Vicki) Okay, thank you. This is a very busy time of year. So it's an extensive update and I would love it if the students could jump in, if there's something in here that you see that maybe you're
021aware of as well, okay? So let's start towards the end of April. Howe community school hosted the read your heart out. And I can't remember, where anybody's at? Sam, can you talk about that please? (Samantha) It was an excellent opportunity. We had a number of community readers come in to our classrooms where we had a great kickoff celebration with Green Bay's Poet Laureate who led the kids and an opportunity of creating their own poem on the fly together as a full school community was awesome. And then I got to sit in a classroom and listen to one of the texts be read with a class and do an activity, it was great. (Vicki) So this year marks the sixth annual read your heart out event that's held at Howe. And the amazing woman in the
022picture is Robin Davis. She is our CEO of Brown County United Way. She does a lot for our community and does a lot for our school district. So great event. This was the first year I learned about the Preble versus Pulaski culinary showdown. It's been going on, I didn't write down how many years. I wanna say 20. Do any of the parents in the audience from Preble know? I think it's about 20 years. This started when Discover Green Bay really wanted to highlight the culinary field and have more students interested in going into this field. So they started a competition between Preble High School culinary classes and Pulaski classes 20 years ago. Pulaski won the first event. And when they came to the stage to collect their check, because the winning team gets all of
023the money, the Pulaski students said we wanna split it with Preble. So that began a tradition of every year. The award is divided between the two school districts Preble came in third place this year. There were 10 teams from each of the schools and each team had to make two appetizers, one hot and one cold. To get into the event, it's only $20. They sold over 300 tickets. The place was packed. It was at Rock Garden. I strongly encourage everyone to watch for this next year and consider attending and supporting our amazing students. Then we move on to the GBAPS Honors Choir. This event only happens once every three years. And it was just held at West High School. This was in late April. The students from each of our secondary schools are nominated to
024participate. They practice with their own teachers at their home school. On the day of the event they all traveled to West High School and practiced together for the first time. And it was absolutely beautiful. On May 3rd, we held our open houses to celebrate Elmore, Kennedy, Langlade and MacArthur. And I know many of you were there, if not all of you. Great turnout at each of these locations. Justine had the drone set up, so they were group pictures. They're reconnecting older teachers with their students from way back when. Elmore, some of the people that came to the event, they were the first students at Elmore. So a reminder that we hate doing this. This was not a decision that I think any district in the state of Wisconsin would make, if not for the underfunding
025of public education. So those four schools will be closing at the end of the school year. You'll hear more in a little while about one of the places that those students will head. Okay, come on. Right? This was the Student Success Award. About 88 students across the district were recognized by their teachers and came to an event at Riverside. When we said dress up, they dressed up. And that's just one example of how proud our students are and their teachers and families for them to be recognized by the district for character, really, and hard work and integrity and being good people. There were participants, award winners as young as, I think we had a kinder or first grader, and then all the way through senior year. -One of the most joyful-- Do you wanna? Oh,
026sorry. (Laura) One of the most joyful rooms you're ever gonna be in. It's just a wonderful, wonderful event. (Vicki) Anybody else? Okay, last week we had the Bridges Construction and Renovation Celebration. In front of those young men and one woman, they, I don't know what to call these, their tools, but they were donated. The students, what are they called? Alex? Drill sets, very expensive. That's, those were all donated by an alumni from our district who wanted to give back. So all the students that participate in Bridges, those are juniors and seniors, received two of the tools, and then they also get those standup toolboxes to take home. The last ICSC Final Quarterly Meeting was this week. Ladies, can you tell us how that went? Last week. (Speaker 1) Yeah, I was there. It was a
027very productive one, and it was just a good last goodbye to everybody. I'm a senior, it's my first year doing it, but I made a lot of good friends doing it, and it was very nice to be able to put my input and just feel seen and make connections, like Vicki and yeah, thank you. (Vicki) Board, they voted on next year's officers. So those are set in stone now for next year, and it's spread out this year, so not all from one school. We kept getting ties for Vice President multiple times, three or four times, and then finally you went to what was the last thing they had to do to figure out who won. (Speaker 1) So for Co-President, they tied like six times like that, so they did a rap battle to decide,
028and then we actually decided they could both be Co-President, so we just made them do it anyways. (Vicki) Yeah, they decided secretly they're both going, they're gonna do Co- and then brought them back into the room and told them we're gonna decide who's the Vice President by whoever does the better rap. That's really mean. All right, last week again, we celebrated Southwest teacher Amanda Borst. She was selected as a recipient of the 2026 HMH Education Read 180, Excellence in Education Award. This classroom you're seeing are students that for the most part came to our country not being able to speak English, and Amanda and her team from the ML departments work very, very hard to help integrate and help them learn English. In fact, the young lady who's holding the certificate to the right of
029Amanda, the way we're looking to be to her left, to our left, came to the district two years ago, didn't speak any English, and now it's beautifully fluent, and she's been in Amanda's classroom the entire time. So her to be recognized for this honor was very, very special. The students absolutely love her. I hope you know Atticus. If you don't, you have a couple weeks yet to meet him. Atticus is a senior at Southwest High School, and as I think the board has learned a couple of weeks ago, he was honored with an appointment to the US Naval Academy. It's a high honor. The appointment and acceptance to the academy is a challenge that less than 1,500 young people across the country have had the honor to receive this. He's also the son of an
030employee in the district. May volunteers of the month, where Lynn and John Tenney combined, they've donated over 700 hours of volunteer work to our students and staff over at Chappell Elementary. The Tenneys help by building literacy skills, supporting math learning, guiding special projects, and mentoring our students. Along with the Preble Pulaski competition that I'd never heard of before, I had never heard of the Goody Duathlon, and I'm wondering if any of you have. Anybody from Preble? This has been going on for 15 years now. Students pair up with a student with disabilities, and they go to Pulaski High School, their stadium once a year, and they compete as partners. So the student with disabilities and the student without disabilities, they do two events. They do a running event and a biking event, and it's districts
031from across the area. Students from King Elementary spent time learning about gardening and caring for plants on May 6th, thanks to a spring planting initiative from Wello. They've been a great partner for us, and this was supported by Botanical Garden. We had about 130 students from various grades planted lime basil and purple basil. Teachers plan to have students take care of the plants before they're eventually planted in the school garden. And again, that's over at King. Also at King, they had a STEAM activity. I snuck into one of their classes and sat just to watch the engagement in how they're utilizing the LMSs that in the old days, we would use our libraries strictly for books, but now a lot of our STEAM activities across the district occur in those same locations. In this particular
032one, students were given materials and one sheet of directions and told to make a flashlight. These were third or fourth graders. Those might be fourth graders. And they couldn't ask any questions for the first period of time, 20 minutes of, I believe David Johns calls it productive struggle. It was amazing because a good portion of those students were able to create a working flashlight within that 20 minute period of time. I was not one of them. I had productive struggle. David Johns, I could not figure it out. Beaumont Title I and STEAM Family Night was two weeks ago. This event's a result of creative partnership between the Beaumont LMS, the principal and the technology integrator. They created a lot of interactive stations designed to bridge classroom innovation with family fun. So the students and parents,
033guardians were given challenges at each of the stations. There were about 20 different activities, fully engaged, a lot of fun. There were prizes at the end, really great event. Thanks to Shelley Geyser, their tech integrator for helping create this. Two weeks ago, 12 students from Bay Link Manufacturing Program at West High School recognized students were presented with CNC operator certificates. And there was a good crowd there to celebrate their hard work. David students from every high school can participate in this, right? Last Monday night, Newer Sun, along with the rest of the band, had their West Spring Band Concert. Do great things. Another really wonderful initiative that's happening in our district. It's been going on for five years now. They started it right during COVID, the return of COVID. Jim and Tracy Ryan, who Jim
034graduated from West High School in the 1980s, became a successful businessman and decided I want to give back. And he started this initiative where they collect funds from other graduates and then fully fund scholarships to Marquette University, UWGB, and NWTC. This is created because of our amazing alumni. Very special event over at West High School. The Ambassador Academy, class of 26, had their last meeting. This was also two weeks ago. This time they had an opportunity to actually get into some classrooms and take a look at what Portrait of a Graduate looks like in action. It was a really good group and Board, you will meet them next month. Jefferson Head Start two years ago started an art show. It's spread out through their entire building and it looks just like an art museum. If
035you ever get the chance to go to this event, I'm gonna show you some of the artwork and I want you to keep in mind, these are four-year-olds that are making this kind of art. Ready? You ready? (laughs) This also was created by a four-year-old. Look at that. Is that great? Four-year-olds. Yeah, the glow room, yeah. So their tasks, they came with their guardians and were given a star and their task was to take their guardian around the school, find their artwork, and then put the star on the one that was their favorite to make. It was a great event. Preble had their spring concert, I believe this was last week, another one that was really well attended and beautiful voices. The YWCA had a fundraiser last week over 300 people in attendance at this
036and our own Ingrid Parker-Hill was the keynote at the event followed by her daughter, Prashay, who is a math teacher at Washington Middle School. And they spoke about the benefits of YWCA, who is one of our partners with the district. And then one of our students got up on stage. That's Bryn Mays on the right side. She's a sixth grader at Edison and she and her friend were featured at the fundraiser for their participation in Tech Girls at the Y. - Thank you. - Oh, please. (Laura) I ran into her mom on the way out of the building and her mother was just incandescent with pride. It was lovely. It was a wonderful, wonderful event. And I think it was like 380 people there. Yeah, pushing the boundaries of the fire code there. (Jeanette) I
037was in attendance as well and I overheard one of the servers go up to Ingrid and say, "Everybody on the staff just loved your talk. It was fabulous. It moved us all." She's a treasure. (Vicki) She is and we're very proud of her. NEW School of Innovation update here they are in the process of renovating a facility on the NWTC campus, not far from where they're currently located. But this is an upgraded, secure location that will be ready to go this fall for our students at that campus. Last week, we had the honor and privilege of touring Starr Elementary School with Bart Starr Jr. That's him on the far right. Some of you might also recognize Dan Sipes. I think he serves on the board with the Green Bay Packers. So we, and Lori Blakeslee,
038of course, we did a tour. This is the first time he saw the school that's named after his parents. And he donated this picture. This was a family portrait that was supposed to stay in the family, but he spoke to the grandchildren and they all agreed that they'd be honored if it actually hung in the walls of Starr Elementary School in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Green Bay Area Public School District, we partnered with Downtown Karvana Coffee House to launch the Cup of Kindness Project that kicked off last Friday. It's a new initiative celebrating student creativity, community connection, and the power of simple acts of kindness. Each disposable cup purchased will have a sleeve that was designed by either a Fort Howard student or a West High School student. And then finally, just an hour ago, we
039were downstairs celebrating some of our finest. We had the staff recognition awards to highlight some really great things going on in the district. So a very fun event. I know that was a lot. Thanks for hanging in there. (Samantha) All right, thank you. Next up, we have a Clean Energy Advisory Committee update. We're being joined at the table by Cale. (silence) (Cale) Hey, thank you, I have just a brief update from our Clean Energy Committee last Tuesday evening. We did have some light attendance, so discussed with the group, potentially adjusting sometimes to help those, even some virtual options to help some of our members be able to participate in that. It's difficult to get that group together. But we did recap our, as you heard from a speaker tonight, we recapped some of our waste
040reduction subcommittee notes and some next steps that we're looking towards, moving towards with that group to try to take some action. We spoke with our students about getting on a future ICSC agenda to help discuss some of the waste reduction pieces as well. And then some of the discussion was about how to incorporate some of our great technology that we're incorporating into our physical plant, our solar, our geothermal, and how to incorporate that into learning. One of our members had discussed some workshops and opportunities like that outside of just standard classroom curriculum, also highlighting all the great things going on at Starr Elementary, among others in the district, but with being a new school and utilizing a lot of this technology to try to highlight that as we open the doors of that building. So
041beyond that, again, it was more of an informative meeting as we look to potentially have one more before we break for summer. Any questions about the meeting? - Any questions, Laura? (Laura) Cale, I'm gonna ask you a question that I already know the answer to, but I think other people might really be interested in the answer. So the cost of energy obviously has increased a lot in recent months. Can you just talk about the effect that all these energy saving things that our district has done, how that has helped our district in terms of cost? (Cale) So as of right now, we can only talk in terms of projections. Obviously a lot of this technology has just come online. Four of our largest solar arrays recently in the past months have come online. So as
042we project out, we're looking at a bare minimum trying to become cost neutral to offset the large increase in utility costs, gas and electric. So at a minimum, looking to offset that with some of these technologies that also goes with obviously some of our consolidations with our buildings as well. But at this point, we are working towards getting our dashboard that will display some of these energy savings and be able to give hard numbers for people to see how much energy won from our carbon footprint being reduced, but also from a cost standpoint, as we've again, consolidated, incorporated energy efficient technologies into our construction. And then also what we've done, we're currently in the process of retro commissioning our buildings, which is mainly trying to get the most efficiency out of existing equipment, not replacing
043equipment. So that as well has helped reduce some of our energy costs. So with all those, we are trying to get that onto a dashboard that we're able to share publicly and then provide some actual numbers of what we have accomplished. And then also again, still project out of what we could potentially be saving with all these methods that we've approached. (Laura) I think it's just really important to repeat it as often as possible that in a time of austerity, those investments that we've made and will continue to make are really carrying their weight in saving our district and ultimately the taxpayers in this community. So thank you. (Cale) One note, just to emphasize that though, Laura, I think as we project out right now, even being conservative, we would not be able to, we
044have chipped away significantly at a deficit just because of the efficiencies that we gained from not only consolidation, but these technologies. So that we can confidently say in our projections, but again, as we work towards firming up those numbers. (Samantha) Any other questions or discussion for Cale? - No, thank you. All right, next we'll move into our legislative update. So Jeanette. (Jeanette) Thank you. So short legislative update, as many of us know the assembly and the Senate, the state assembly and state Senate are not in session on a regular basis. On May 11th, a 1.8 billion tax and school funding package was proposed by Governor Evers and Assembly Speaker Robin Voss and Senate Majority Leader, Devin Lemieux. They came back into a special session on May 13th. The proposal passed the assembly, but was defeated
045in the Senate. Subsequently on May 14th, Wisconsin's five largest school districts, superintendents, including Vicki Bayer, wrote a letter, I'm sorry, Vicki Bayer, wrote a letter to lawmakers urging them to return to the table on special education funding. Nothing is in the works right now. So if nothing happens, they might come back into session in the fall. There's an election in November. They might not come back until after election. And that's where it stands. (Samantha) Any questions or discussion for Jeanette? Thank you, Jeanette. All right, with that, we will move into our consent agenda. At this time, can I get someone to read the motion? (Laura) I move that the consent agenda items as presented be approved. (Jeanette) Second. (Samantha) Any questions or discussion on any of these items? No, all right, Kinsey. (Kinsey) Online voting
046is now open. - Andrew, do you want a voice vote? (Andrew) I'll vote aye. (Kinsey) All votes have been entered and the motion is carried with all board members voting in favor. (Samantha) All right, then that takes us to our action items. So item 6A, the school counseling resource adoption. Can someone read the motion? (Alex) I move that the school counseling resource adoption as presented be approved. (Jeanette) Second. (Samantha) Any questions or discussion on this one? All right, Kinsey. (Kinsey) Online voting is now open. Andrew, do you want a voice vote? - (Inaudible) (Kinsey) Oh, I got it, thanks. All votes have been entered and the motion is carried with all board members voting in favor. (Samantha) Okay, that takes us to 6B, Board of Education Policy 345.62, graduation ceremony. Can someone read the motion?
047(Alex) I move that the revisions to the Board of Education Policy 345.62 graduation ceremony as presented be approved. (Andrew) Second. (Samantha) Any questions or discussion? Kinsey. (Kinsey) Online voting is now open. All votes have been entered and the motion is carried with all board members voting in favor. (Samantha) Sure. (Jeanette) I just want to remind everybody that all of these things were discussed last week. So if anybody is thinking, oh my gosh, they're just voting for things they don't know about, we've discussed these things last week. (Samantha) All right, so that takes us to item 6C, revisions to Board of Education Policy 343.3 on independent study. Can I have a motion? (Andrew) I move that revisions to Board of Education Policy 343.3 independent study as presented be approved. (Mary) I second. (Samantha0 Any questions or
048discussion? All right, Kinsey. (Kinsey) Online voting is now open. - All votes have been entered and the motion is carried with all board members voting in favor. (Samantha) All right, and that and that brings us to the end of our agenda. So I would entertain a motion to adjourn. (Laura) So moved. (Andrew) Second. (Samantha) All those in favor? - Aye (Samantha) Thank you and have a great rest of your evening.