001[upbeat music] (James) Good evening everybody. We're gonna reconvene into open session. We had a closed session before this. And before we start the agenda, just wanna recognize some people at the table. First, to my right is our newest board member, Mary Yang. Welcome. And we have two members from ICSC. Could you please introduce yourself? (Damaris) All right, my name is Damaris Vasquez-Ortega. I am a junior at Green Bay West and I'm the secretary treasurer of the Intracity Student Council. (Zell) My name is Zell-Mauritez-Bilendez. I am a freshman at West High School. I'm just a member. (James) Thank you. And if there is any discussion tonight, please feel free to participate. All right. Since this is a reconvene, we don't have to call roll. So please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. - I Pledge of
002Allegiance. - 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. (James) Thank you. Mary, would you please read the mission statement? (Mary) To educate all students to be college, career and community ready, inspired to succeed in our diverse world. (James) Thank you. I'll read the land acknowledgement. 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 the 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 an integral part of our community.
003We uphold our responsibility to repair relationships, initiate partnerships and stand with all First Nation communities. Okay, with that, we're gonna go right into a moment where we have some very important people in the audience tonight. But we will start with inviting Jamie Wall up to the lectern. I apologize, Senator Wall to the lectern. (Jamie) Thanks for that. First of all, congratulations to the newly elected or reelected school board members. I'm here tonight in behalf of the Wisconsin State Senate to present the citation. And this is not a speeding ticket. It's the kind of citation to our retiring superintendent, Vicki Bayer, for the work that she's done here now. I'm not going to inflict all the words on it. I'm not so much in love with the sound of my own voice, but I know you
004buy these presents and it basically says that, Vicki's a pretty decent human being. Done a, what I think is the most important job in Brown County under some challenging times. I think we're gonna still be figuring out what the effects of the COVID pandemic were in 20 years upon kids in their education. She's provided leadership and continuity and stability at a time where the district very much needed that. I think it's leadership. And I think everybody associated with the districts in leadership here in this room, all of your employees, and certainly the school kids that we do all this for, you know, it was owes her a debt of gratitude. So this is a small way for me to acknowledge that and in my role as someone who represents Green Bay school district. So thank
005you for your work, Vicki. We appreciate it. I wish you nothing but the best, the next chapter of your life, whatever that may be. And here's your citation. [applause] (James) Let's please commemorate this with a photo. Yeah, thank you. Yep, go back. [laughing] Thank you, Senator Wall. I'll just say I concur. And I really appreciate the effort. Okay, I'm gonna continue. I think we have a slideshow to pair with the rest of the recognition. We will start with recognizing the ice bears as the state champions this year. And specifically, we have a Preble senior that is part of that team, Hannah VanHaden. Hannah has been on that team for four years during which they have won three of four state championships. And they were a runner up the year they did not win. Unfortunately, she
006is not able to attend tonight nor is the coach, but we felt that it was necessary to recognize this outstanding contribution and this recognize the excellence of the ice bear team. Next, last week we were honored to attend the Golden Apples. And in the audience, hopefully we have almost everyone that was recognized during that event. We'll start with the Golden Apple Educators of Distinction. And if you would please stand as I call your name, Dan Dennis. From Leonardo da Vinci School of Gifted Learners. Laurie Grunwald from Jackson Elementary. Heidi Herrala, if I said that correctly, from McAuliffe Elementary. Shelby Koll from Elmore Elementary. Terri Lesjack Decker is from Green Bay Southwest High School. Allison Nitti is from Red Smith School. And Jennifer Sloniker from Doty Elementary School. For those that are in the audience tonight,
007special event and congratulations. The Golden Apple Award of Educators of Distinction puts you in the top tier of educators in the region. And we're very excited to be here. Thank you very much. So the Golden Apple Educators of Distinction put you in the top tier of educators in the region. And seeing the representation from Green Bay was outstanding that evening. So appreciate the work that you put in every day delivering on our mission. Thank you very much. So the Golden Apple Educators of Distinction were basically the finalists for the Golden Apple Awards. And we would like to invite to the table Wes Berndt, Andrew Crane, Alexander Downing, and Jen Kelm. And I have to tell you that seeing the presentations during the Golden Apple Award and the work that you've done in your classrooms was
008inspiring and uplifting. To know that the four of you sitting here tonight represent half of the Golden Apples for the region is another spectacular accomplishment. So thank you. I'm going to open up the floor. I don't know if you have prepared anything. We tried to reach out in advance. But if you have anything to say, please feel free. Okay, so there's a little face that looks like there are there you go (Alexander) Okay. Yeah, I just wanted to quickly thank the board and Vicki for the support you've given us and our students and all the hours spent doing so. It has been an amazing experience from when Vicki and David were part of the crew that surprised me at Red Smith when I first found out a few months ago to the banquet last week.
009Definitely something that I will cherish forever. So once again, thank you to all of you. Just want to keep it short and sweet. I'm kind of all speech-ed out first. (James) Appreciate it. (Andrew) Good evening. My name is Andrew Crane from Southwest High School. So also thank you to the board for inviting us here tonight. It's been a really meaningful two months of experience here since we found out that we were recognized for this award. And this is kind of the capstone of those two months. So thanks for having us here. I just want the board to know what actually, it's funny, 25 years ago in a room very close to where we're sitting right now, I interviewed for my job here at Southwest, my alma mater. I'd like to think that it worked out
010pretty well for all of us. Teachers work really hard. I want the board to know. I want our community to know and our taxpayers to know that your teachers work super, super hard every day to educate tomorrow's workforce, tomorrow's citizens, tomorrow's leaders, and doing so with fewer resources every year. It might be easier if we taught, if I taught at a private school or suburban district, but I always say it means more in Green Bay. Good teachers can make that much more difference in an urban district. And as a result, I wouldn't teach anywhere but Green Bay. Thank you. (James) Thank you. (Wes) My name is Wes Berndt. I teach at Preble in TechEd mainly welding and machining. I want to thank you for the opportunity that you guys provided me 11 years ago as
011a full-time educator, 18 years in the district. Thank you for all the support that you have provided for our shops. It's been a great opportunity. But also remember, we're lagging behind in CTE, and Alex and I have had these conversations. But to the board, we need to up our ante a little bit and I think that's a great opportunity. I'm going to start with Bay Port, Howard-Suamico, Pulaski, Seymour, West De Pere. But thank you again for the opportunity. It's been unbelievable coming from a TechEd person to be able to represent and sit with these people here. So thank you. (James) Thank you. (Jen) Thanks, Wes. I'm Jen Kelm. I am a school counselor at Baird Elementary School, and I would like to thank you to the board for everything that you do. Thank you to
012the community for all the support. As a school counselor, I didn't think I would be here. And I think it's really great that we're able to make room and expand to celebrate and recognize all educators, classroom teachers. Like I said, you are unbelievable. It takes a village. It takes a lot of people and a lot of people behind the scenes. For me, I'm concerned about the mental health of our students. And so knowing that we have the Green Bay School District to support more student services staff, help with funding so we can be there for our students and support them and encourage them and help them build their own confidence in themselves. So I'm very, very grateful and thankful for all the opportunities to be able to help our future leaders. So thank you to
013everybody. (James) Thank you. And so Jen touched on it, but what she didn't say was she was the first non-teacher to receive a Golden Apple. So as a counselor, I too am very glad that they were able to expand and look at all the professional staff across all of those providing services to our kids. So congratulations being the first. Thank you very much. I think we need to have some photos taken. Yeah. We'll come back to it. We'll do. I apologize. We have also with us tonight Rachel Ziegler, who was identified as a Herb Kohl award winner. And she is an ag teacher at Southwest high school. And there are about 100 educators in the state of Wisconsin that receive this honor per year. So she will receive a $6,000 grant as recognition of her
014skill as a leader and agent for positive change and her superior ability to inspire a love of learning. Rachel, you want to say a few words. (Rachel) Sure. Thank you so much for having me here tonight. I would like to thank Green Bay public schools in general for inspiring me to be a teacher. I believe there are so many teachers in this district worthy of the Herb Kohl fellowship that should be sitting here today. Was it whether it was my teachers at Chapell, Franklin or West, they all were all were the teachers who inspired me to be a teacher. Although I've only been teaching at Green Bay for two years now, or this is my second year, out of my 12 and a half years, these last two years have been the best of all
015my years. So you truly do make a great impact on students and as a teacher I've never had a better experience. So thank you. (James) Thank you very much. Thank you, Rachel. Also recognized at the Golden Apple Awards ceremony was one of our students. Hana Song from Preble was recognized with about five other individuals as a finalist for the Brian LaViolette Scholarship. Hana, which is a ten thousand dollar scholarship designed to offer a student the inspiration to succeed and the financial backing to help make higher education possible. Hana is a very active member of our ICSC and is often at the board table and Hana is on her way to Princeton University. I think that concludes the recognition. So we'll continue down with the agenda. So that takes us to open forum. Open forum will
016open forum. We'll start with the Intra City Student Council report. (Damaris) All right for our April 12th meeting we have our good news. East Prom was successful. Their environmental club hosted a river cleanup for Earth Day. Their Envirothon team placed third at the FFA competition. Their jazz band went to the jazz festival. They sent students to choose for tomorrow and their environmental club also presented at the UWGB symposium. For JDAL over 75 percent of their students had 90 percent of attendance. Their water monitoring program students watched students at UWGB give the presentations at the symposium. Preble had a successful prom. Their triam recitals were successful. HOSA state was this month. Forensics as well. State was for FBLA was also this month. They had their academic awards on the 24th. They also sent their jazz band
017to this jazz festival and they also sent students for trees for tomorrow. For Southwest their little woman musical was going well. Their flag the girls football team was starting. Natural history day state. They also sent students there. Their Spongebob musical got best run crew by the Fox City's performing arts center. They also sent students to choose for tomorrow. For West the girls track were third overall at the Ripon invite. Forensics also sent students to state. We had a wealthy wildcat reality fair for juniors which was sponsored by capital credit union and as a junior I could say for myself that it was very successful and pretty fun. Our junior prom this year ball was successful. We held our NHS induction ceremony where we inducted I think six students. We had a Marquette University field trip
018on the 21st. Sponsored by Do Great Things. We will have our IB club and NHS kitty carnival next month. And we had a student Lili Zhang. She was recognized by the Fox City's performing arts center for her lead role in the school musical and she played Karen. Yeah she played Karen. That's all. (James) Thank you. So now we'll go to the public forum and I have several individuals who have identified that they want to speak. If there's anyone else that wants to speak you have to fill out a pink form and then we'll call you up in order. So when you come up unless you are a minor please give us your address and state your name. We'll start with Chris Mariucci. Chris is not a sick. All right thank you. Then we'll move to
019Lucinda Roberts. Thank you. (Lucinda) There you go. Oh there we go. Okay. Hello everyone. It's nice to see you. Thank you for having me. I appreciate your time this evening. My name is Lucinda Roberts and I'm the fine arts program coordinator for the Fine Arts Institute at East High. Thank you and and for allowing me to share a few things. I have served in this role since the fall of 2012 but had been a community supporter for the Fine Arts Institute even prior to its launch since at least 2010. I participated in fundraisers. I helped support the summer boot camp program and I knew that the program that they were looking to build was also going to be serving students that were in low socioeconomic settings as well providing opportunities that perhaps they normally would
020not be able to enjoy and participate in. When the opportunity opened for the fine arts coordinator position I sensed a calling. I wanted the latter part of my employment journey to make a difference and to support students in the arts. It has been wonderful and yet it's bittersweet as I'm retiring this June. Since the opening of the institute in the fall of 2011 our institute has served 729 students. We've only had 48 withdraw all these years and that's only a loss of 6.5 percent. I know you like stats so there you go. All of our students have gone on to graduate and many of them were recipients of academic awards and scholarships. Many of our alumni have been writing to you members of the school board letters expressing their appreciation for the educational supports that
021they have received during their time in the institute. We've got some wonderful success stories and you heard at the march board meeting as well as possibly tonight you know from other alumna and from students that are even currently enrolled. Some things that I want to champion is that the institute's program opportunities have provided great support and interactions with arts professionals students normally wouldn't have. For example we have a performance technologies club that's run by professionals from the community. We have private music lessons with master teachers, master classes with guests artists, guest speakers that are even from international locations. We had one from Russia that came and was a professional opera singer. Community public performances, special field trips, an annual publication of our strand magazine. We have the Sharon Rush music scholarship at UWGB which is
022a full scholarship for a student that's going into music education as their major. Weekly visual art sessions often with artists in residence. Our community engagement is absolutely huge. We have the perfect example coming up this Thursday which you all were sent save the date. I hope you're able to attend. We are partnering with the Botanical Garden and we are going to be having live performances, a beautiful art show, the strand magazine will be available and all the delicious food is actually prepared by our east culinary students and the Botanical Garden has partnered with us and they are funding the expense for the food portion. So I hope you'll attend because you will see an experience firsthand just what ROI really looks like from our amazing students. Our community supports us and that's truly significant. Now
023you may ask how has the community supported this program? The first step has been financially. Our valued community members have donated nearly two million dollars since 2007 to help support and encourage the development of the institute. Now I respectfully ask the board where will the community's ROI be if the Fine Arts Institute is shuttered? Our community will not be just disgruntled community members. These are very influential and highly regarded members of the Green Bay community, business owners who are very interconnected and recognize the value of the Fine Arts. Business owners who also believe that the Fine Arts lends itself to developing creative and insightful employees. They've stepped up and supported this program even before it officially launched. These are people with vision and they aren't afraid to try something different. The arts overall encourage students
024to go above and beyond what they originally think. You never hear "I can't do it." Instead you'll hear "how do I do it since what I've tried isn't working?" There's got to be another possibly better way. I don't know about you but if I have a surgeon operating on me I want him to be able to think out of the box and not be frightened by a challenge. By the way, many physicians have strong backgrounds in music and the arts and I have many friends in the medical field and they have told me that the music and the arts made a difference for them not only in their medical studies but one also said it humanized him. We've been told that there's an outside firm that will be evaluating and determining what the ROI looks
025for the specialty programs including the Fine Arts Institute. I can tell you what ROI looks like. It looks like the student who's been told that when they're 18 in February that guess what you no longer may live at home. You can live in your car and yet that student continued to come to school every day because of their love for music and their involvement in orchestra. I can tell you that they look like a student that has a wonderful talent but can't possibly pay for private lessons or even a decent instrument or tools to use. It looks like the students who find their people, the relationships that are developed and nurtured and enjoyed well in the institute, the support and encouragement to continue to come to school to try hard and to work and to
026develop their abilities to consider believing in themselves in a way that they hadn't before and to pursue future educational endeavors. For me those are huge ROIs. We've partnered with Saint Norbert and with UWGB over the years. We love to show our students that there are great opportunities beyond high school and that this is not the end. We've enjoyed having several fine arts days at UWGB and at the close of one of those special days one student said that they thought they'd like to go to college. That was huge. That student said that I didn't think I was smart enough but after having a day encountering professors and talking with them they decided you know what I think I could do this. I could go on but I have a few questions for you. Little hard
027words folks. How many of you have attended our events? Have you come to East to see our institute classes firsthand? Have you experienced firsthand the artistic outcomes of our students? Bottom line the arts matter and especially to low socioeconomic students. The arts make a difference and we are making a difference by utilizing the arts. Finally I'm asking you as someone who has seen firsthand the tremendous value of this fine arts institute please find a solution that allows the fine arts institute to thrive and not fade away. It's more than keeping art courses. It's much deeper than that. The fine arts institute gives so many students very unique and special opportunities to grow and to discover a passion and to distinguish themselves in a way that will give them lifelong fulfillment. That alone is worth the
028price of admission and keeping the institute. Thank you for your time. I really appreciate it. Thank you. (James) Thank you Lucinda. . Next we'll hear from Allison Fleck. (Allison) Good evening. My name is Allison Fleck from that 10568 country walk. This is in Sister Bay, Wisconsin. I would also like to speak about the Fine Arts Institute. I'm part of a three person presentation. If it'd be okay they did pre-register. I'd like to welcome my colleague Roy and his student Molly with your permission. (James) Sure. Good evening and thank you for the opportunity to speak. My name is Allison Fleck and I'm the executive director of Midsummer's Music and its affiliate the Griffin String Quartet. We are a nationally recognized chamber music ensemble mainly supported by the National Endowment for the Arts and from donors. We
029are based in northeast Wisconsin. Through our partnership with the Fine Arts Institute at East High we provide consistent string instruction, mentorship, and live performance experiences to students. Many of whom would not otherwise have access to this level of musical training. We partner with FAI because of our mission to make music education accessible. Music studies take courage, discipline, and focus. It builds confidence and growth. Programs like this directly support student engagement and belonging. A quote from the National Endowment of the Arts, "Students with high levels of arts engagement show better academic outcomes, higher rates of college enrollment, and greater civic engagement." What makes this partnership between Griffin and the Fine Arts Institute especially valuable is that it brings professional musicians into the school, expanding what the different the district can offer in a highly efficient way.
030At this point I'd like to turn it over to Roy. (Roy) Good evening. Hello my name is Roy Meyer. 1446 Langelade Avenue, Green Bay, Wisconsin 54304. I'm a violinist and I teach and perform with the Griffin String Quartet. Griffin String Quartet belongs to Midsummer's non-profit and we perform concerts in the area. We also provide outreach at almost every single school, bay area, as well as Door County, and we run programs for boys and girls clubs and many other non-profit and wonderful organizations in the area. From the Griffin perspective our program fills a gap. It provides students with access to high level instruction mentorship that would otherwise be very difficult to seek for them. Griffin teachers have performed in Carnegie Hall Chicago Symphony Center and taught at prestigious universities such as NYU. However we we came
031to Green Bay to because we wanted a challenge and we wanted to provide something that might not otherwise be here and also to teach at wonderful institutions like the Fine Arts Institute. We are not only seeing our students here improve musically but also grow in confidence, responsibility, and have a genuine connection to community and school. Griffin students have gone on to universities such as Princeton, Brown, and even our last one received a full scholarship at UW-Madison and in fact Hana Song, the recipient of the Golden Apple, as well as her brother Joshua are both students of Griffin Spring Quartet. This kind of engagement that keeps students involved and invested by violin pupil now Molly Gifford, an eighth grader at Washington Middle School and future student at East High Fine Arts Institute will now speak and
032has a one minute short performance vote. (Molly) Hi my name is Molly Gifford and I'm an eighth grader at Washington Middle School. Next year I will be attending East High continuing my violin studies under the music strength of the Fine Arts Institute. I've had the privilege of taking lessons with Roy since fifth grade and honestly I don't know where I'd be today without that opportunity. It's allowed me to find my confidence and I was created a drive in me to excel in other areas as well. Like taking advanced courses at East this year, I've developed such a love for sharing music and everything I've learned and I would love to share a bit of my most recent piece with you "Lifolia" by A. Ferrelli. [ Pause ] (Allison) Great job, Molly. As Yo-Yo Ma states,
033the arts are an essential part of a complete education. At East High, this program ensures that education is truly complete for these students. Also, Maya Angelou said, "You can't use up creativity the more you use, the more you have." Programs like this don't just teach music. They unlock creativity, confidence, and potential that continues to grow. I respectfully ask that you continue to support the Fine Arts Institute at East High and preserve this partnership with the impact on students as real, immediate, and lasting. Thank you so much. (James) Thank you. [applause] Molly, can I just confirm that it's just you or does your mother Nicole want to speak as well? Okay, thank you. All right, next we have Angela Allard. (Angela) That's a tough act to follow. I am Angela Allard. I live in 812 Derby
034Lane, Green Bay, Wisconsin. I'm here today to speak for the IB program. I hear a lot of people are here and talking for the Fine Arts program, and I haven't seen quite as much representation from IB, and I am working on that. I will apologize for not having better notes because I have a big speech, but, yep, forgot that. So I want to advocate for the IB program, and I kind of want to start with my personal story and how I ended up here in Green Bay and how I ended up here in front of you today. My family moved to Green Bay in 1992. I was a junior. I had to move in the middle of my high school career. My father had job offers. We were moving from Connecticut. He had job offers
035in Hawaii, Texas, upstate New York, and Green Bay, Wisconsin. And we chose Green Bay for the school system. I had come National Honor Society. I was playing state championship basketball. Like, this was really forefront in our minds. There were two other children in my family who were also looking forward to an educational career moving forward, and Green Bay at that time in 1992 offered better than what we were seeing around the country. Flash forward, I moved back out east. I had children of my own, and we were looking at, oh, my gosh, we need to buy a house or we will be forever priced out. So 14 years ago, we decided, you know what? Green Bay is where the schools are, and that's where we're going to move. And we picked up our family and
036moved here. I now have a son who is a junior at West going through the IB program. I am working in the community. I married a man with his master's degree, brought him back to Green Bay because of our public school system. He is now working out on the Oneida reservation. My sister went through the Green Bay school program, came back and taught in the Green Bay public schools. She also married a man and brought him, he's a professor, into our Green Bay community. And that's what the Green Bay public school system is to me. It's a place where people want to come and raise their family. And we may have to move away for those initial jobs to break into our careers. But when it comes time to have our families and put our
037kids back in school, Green Bay does it. And part of that is the International Baccalaureate Program. And part of it is the Fine Arts Program. Though our family chose West and IB, even though we live district to East, I can't bring myself to see IB and the Fine Arts competing. But I can bring myself to stand up here and say that International Baccalaureate Program is amazing. And this school board made a decision years ago. I remember when they were saying, how, what are we going to do as these numbers start dwindling, as enrollment starts, you know, changing and thinking, OK, we need to start this open enrollment. We need to start this choice program. And we're going to put IB at West and we're going to put Fine Arts at East because those were the
038two inner city schools that were going to struggle. And we're going to open this up to choice and we're going to let people choose. If you move to Green Bay, you can live in whatever neighborhood you choose in Green Bay and you can send your child to whatever school is going to give them the best opportunity. And I have researched a lot of the stats on IB, and I will probably be reaching out to you individually and whatnot. And I just wanted to stand up and put a face on this because the program offered at West through their International Baccalaureate is amazing. Watching what the School of West and their diversity gives to the IB program and the IB program gives back like they couldn't exist separately. Right. These the IB statistics for success, the
039IB program looks exactly like our community. Right. And that is truly an amazing thing. A couple of things that I wanted to make sure I didn't forget to say in person is educators, people who study education, send their children to West. When we look at the numbers, we have NWTC professors who are here in our community. They choose to send their children to the IB program and to West. UWGB professors are sending their children to West for the IB program. Our teachers within the school system love to send their children to West. And these are choices that are actively made for the IB program. I believe we even have some of our IB students have been like the district administrators, like people who know the educational system choose the baccalaureate. And when I think about
040losing the baccalaureate system, because we're worried that potentially people would, if we advocate too much for IB, we'll pull them away from someplace else. Right. And I think, no, if we don't advocate for IB, we will watch other schools pulling our potential away from us. Right. Bayport has an IB program and private schools have IB programs. And the fact that we offer this as a public program at West High School is truly, truly amazing. I think there were a few other things that I really wanted to make sure that I caught right now while I had you. Families who choose the IB program, we do it for more than one child. I have someone who my son is a junior in the program. My other son is going to be a freshman next year. And
041he chose West because he chose IB. And when he heard that I'd be like not be there for him. And there are other families that are making that same choice to choose IB now, but that means it's a choice for the next six years for the rest of the family siblings. So thank you. Again, I will send more information and more specifics, but I just wanted to have a voice up here saying West High School is amazing. IB programming is amazing. They need each other and we need them because they're the ones who will come back and look at this 20 years from now and say, oh my gosh, it all looks different. What are we going to do for budgeting? Thank you. (James) Thank you, Angela. I have one sheet left. Last call, if
042anyone wants to speak, we'll hear from Peter Bilksi. Bilksi? Remember to state your name, address, and you'll have five minutes. (Peter) Peter Bilksi, a 1915 treeland drive. And was it Molly who performed? (James) Correct. Molly, I just want to say when I was in eighth grade, I was still learning to walk. And you know, I'm going to ask some tougher questions on the financials or some suggestions on financials, but there are always ways in tough times like his board faces to preserve things like violence. And I saw a good example of that tonight. You know, I'm a retired business manufacturing guy, but the phone still rings and I'm still doing consulting in various parts of the U.S. And usually what I'm doing is helping companies who are facing financials. I'm looking at operational efficiencies, bottom
043line, and also helping them become employers of choice where people want to be and want to stay. So it's that kind of an approach that I'm taking. I just don't feel that I've read enough about the tougher decisions yet that need to be made. You know, for example, from just online, from the systems that I've read, at the end of nineteen twenty year, there were twenty thousand forty two students and now there are seventeen thousand eight hundred sixty two. So we've lost twenty one hundred and eighty students, almost 11 percent of the district in the last five years. So the first question I ask as a homeowner, I would ask myself, have we reduced our budget? Eighteen percent or I mean, eleven percent. You know, I know there's inflation, but I'm saying is there been
044these are the questions that I think are out there that need to be asked. What about the budget? I read online about five hundred and sixty four million dollar budget. So my questions would be, how did we do against our budget this past year? If we need it or did we balance it? You know, as a homeowner and an individual who is a homeowner, if if I have less money coming in, I have to adjust. There's not an alternative. So the question I have is between meetings, I'd like to meet with somebody just to find out what the budget was five years ago versus what it is today. You know, and and revenue limits, I think you're according to the website, we're at about eleven thousand six hundred fifty per student now. Does that sound
045right? I think that's from your website. That's how much you get from the state. So what did we get in nineteen and twenty that year, five years ago? And I know I keep reading about how inflation hasn't kept up. A cost of living adjustment was taken away. But I think every year that amount of revenue goes up. So there is an inflation fighting factor already built in. The student to teacher ratio now at the risk of not offending teachers, I happen to love teachers. Teachers have been a huge influence on my life. In the last 10 years, I've been asked to be an adjunct professor on occasion when they when this when a district was in trouble or missing somebody. So I've been a teacher. I know what it's like to be in the classroom.
046But I know from I think that the meeting at Southwest, our teacher to our student to teacher ratio is 17 to one. And that's that's way too low. I can just tell you from feedback graduation rate here is at eighty seven point six percent. That doesn't sound fantastic. I'd like to know more about what the total revenue is in the last five years. What's the total revenue coming in each year? Has it been increasing or not? I'd like to know a little bit more about the history of operational referendums. Property taxes. In the last year, the property tax here in Brown County went up five percent. That brought in five million dollars more in revenue. I know my tax at home went up six percent last year and I'm not looking for another six percent
047increase this year. And then I asked the hard question of what's the direct to indirect ratio. I usually ask that of all organizations. Direct is the people actually doing the job. The teachers know and how many are how many other support people are in the district. I can tell you from experience if that ratio was good or not. Once I find out what it is. And then my final comment is what's the report card of the board of the school district. It's the student test scores and they aren't good in the green bay school district. Their lowest of all areas schools. And you know that's I'm a concerned citizen not one complaining. I'm just saying these are how you get to the tough questions. So I'd like I guess the permission of the board to
048work with maybe your CFO who I met before who seems like an extremely capable person just to get a couple of answers to these. And then I can report back to the board at the next meeting. So is there do I need an authorization or anything to speak with her. I mean how does that work. (Vicki) It's inappropriate to engage. (James) Right. (Peter) Yeah. And I think you know my motivation isn't. (James) But the topic is not agenda. So I can't tell you what to do but I'll come find you after the meeting. OK. So there is one more person registered to speak and I'm going to apologize in advance. I'm having a hard time with the handwriting. So if you want to come up to the lectern and introduce yourself so I don't make
049a mess of this I would appreciate it. And then say your address. You have five minutes. -(Inaudible) I live at three twenty five St. Francis Drive. Green Bay, Wisconsin. (James) Thank you, Beverly. (Beverly) I'm kind of winging here because I really didn't come here and think I would say something. But I'm I'm supporting having fine arts as a robust education program and actually all of the magnet schools. They we we really need them in our in our economy. I I volunteer and work on an organization called Envision. I'm on the board of directors of Envision and I in particular I'm chairman of a signals team called Arts Culture and Entertainment. In about three years ago there was a study done of fourteen hundred people in the community in Brown County. They were the interviews. The
050study was done by a national organization interviewing fourteen hundred people business people and community members asking about what they think about arts and community what they wanted in the community. And what we are compared to what we already have. The study talks about there right now there are sixty four hundred employees in the in Brown County that are involved in some way or another with arts. They're easy to overlook. It isn't just an artist. The Green Bay Art Colony has one hundred and eighty members that do visual arts. The the arts have some facts that really help their their work and the results of the arts education is such that arts teaches habits. You if you're going to play an instrument you have to practice at it. It it proves that there's time involved that
051people are dedicated to taking time. And when they're dedicated to practicing or taking the time they're learning this as a skill in school at a young age so that they can become a productive citizen. It teaches doing homework and sticking with it teamwork and bringing together creative solutions in an industry so that it's easy to overlook the fact that when you're driving around Green Bay just two efforts. Somerville as a building you know you think oh well those are just artists or art excuse me architects or engineers. No those are they there are artists who are creating those buildings and you can tell by looking at it by looking at some of the new construction. You Nicolet Bank is another different kind of art where yes you talk about bankers need to have my money
052or they're helping me grow my money as a doing things but also. The advertising that goes into a Nicolet Bank art wherever you see it is artwork those are watercolor ads that appear throughout documentation documents that we see every day in their advertising. Everybody has a left brain right brain but those two sides of the brain. When they're done. Either one will dominate and they and everybody is not a stem person and they're sorry and what we're proposing is that there's art added to stem and you make it steam and that adds the problem solving component of that of the. Of studying one of the statistics that we came up found and we have a drivers of change booklet that we've issued and this year we have some trend cards that we we also we
053worked on with at world futures day and. One of the statistics when a student takes four years of art. They will get they will get a higher score by approximately 150 points on their SATs than other kids and that's it's a fact that gives me goosebumps and so i'm. Just letting you know that the community and if you wanted to study I can send it to you all it's 145 pages, but there is an executive summary and it arts are very important and the. The focus is that the schools have with their four aspects of magnet schools is really critical and I wish that we would take a different look at. At the budget for the school district I realize there's a huge budget and I would say you know raise the taxes other opposite
054of you and let's let's fund these schools and i'm tired of politicians who don't want to do that. it's critical and we the kids today in schools, even in college in five years, many of them are four years or even middle school are going to be our leaders and our workers and they need a broader broad education and need to focus so thank you, I appreciate it. (James) Thank you very much. Thank you Alex. could have just pushed your button. Okay, so thank you that's the that is the end of public forum so every April on the board takes an opportunity to leadership elections to organize itself and that's what we're going to go through now. So we'll start with an election of the for president process that we use is we will I will
055ask for nominations, you can self nominate you can nominate others. And then I'll give those individuals the floor to say a few words in support of their nomination and then we will call for vote. At that point, when you are called upon you just say the last name of the person that you want to cast your vote for right that requires a majority. Vote. So in the event that no one candidate gets a majority will take a pause, we will start that process again if you feel like you want to opt out at that point, you can or will open the floor. If you want to say a few more words. If there's another person sitting in this seat at the end of that we will rotate and then that person will run the rest
056of the meeting. Just for the record, our meeting management software is down and we are running basically off paper on tonight. So if it gets a little bumpy apologize in advance. That's not typical. All right. So at this point, I will wait a second. Let those that want to take their leave. Kinsey please keep me honest if I make a misstep in the process. All right. Thank you. So at this point, I'll open the floor for nominations for president. (Samantha) I nominate James Lyerly for board president. (James) Okay, I'll accept the nomination. No, no seconds. I have to accept the nomination. Any other nominations. Okay. I'm not going to waste people's time on saying words. So Kinsey if you'll call the vote. McCoy. (Laura) Aye. (Kinsey) can you say the person's name. The last name.
057(Laura) Sorry. I forget it's different. Aye, Lierley. (Kinsey) Yang. (Mary) Lyerly. (Kinsey) Meister. (Samantha) Lyerly. (Kinsey) Knill. (Jeanette) Lyerly. (Kinsey) Becker. (Andrew) Lyerly. (Kinsey) Mineau. (Alex) Lyerly. (Kinsey) Lyerly. (James) Lierley. (James) Okay. All right. That election is over and we'll move down through to vice president. So I'll open the floor for nominations for vice president. Samantha. (Samantha) I would like to self-nominate for vice president. (James) You accept? (Samantha) Yes, I accept. (James) Okay. (Mary) I would like to nominate Alex Mineau. (James) Alex. Okay. Others. Okay. So, Samantha, why don't you go first. If you want to say a few words. (Samantha) Absolutely. Yeah. I would just put my name in the hat for vice president of the board this next year. I believe that my experience that I bring not only in K-12 education systems,
058but also on a number of other leadership roles, both in K-12 and in higher education, position me well to support James as we move into this next year of change, specifically with onboarding a new superintendent. I think having James at the helm for president as we're bringing in Mr. Hernandez, as well as then myself with somebody who has a great deal of background knowledge about educational systems, especially about evaluating leaders within those spaces. I feel like I could bring a lot of positive assets to that role. (James) Thank you. Alex. (Alex) Sure. Thank you for the nomination. The biggest thing that I would say is I think that I have the most diverse and well-rounded understanding of our district and our community as a whole. And I think that's really important as we become so
059diverse in so many different ways. I've grown up here my entire life. I've lived all over the town in the area. I went to eight different schools in our district. I taught, taught, coached, was an athletic director or assistant activities director. So many other leadership roles, Dean of students, you name it, in a variety of our schools. I've also been a long time, obviously, community member, a parent, and I'm connected to a lot of different diverse groups and organizations in our community as well. And because of that, they're routinely reaching out to me. I'm in constant contact with all different aspects and community groups all around. And I feel as though I'm a very broad representative and a point of contact for a lot of different parts of our community in and outside of our
060district. And ultimately, I plan on hopefully being here at this table for quite a while and continue to want to do all the best work that we can. And I'm also not afraid to really look at things and make hard or sometimes differing thoughts and perspectives and opinions on things. But at the same time, I always want to hear and learn from everyone on everything that we do. And ultimately, I feel that I can be extremely supportive and I have the ability to be available as well. And I guess I'll leave it at that. (james) Thank you, Alex. Andrew. (Andrew) Thank you. I think there's no bad choice here, certainly. But I do think that in looking at president and vice president being the two people who will be spending the most time in the
061meetings onboarding the superintendent, I think having one of the two people in the room have some significant significant historical knowledge about this district is very important. So with no bad choice among the two, I think that's the reason I support Alex for this because I think we really need someone with knowledge of this district in that room for those president, vice president, superintendent meetings. (James) Jeanette (Jeanette) I agree, Andrew. We need to have somebody with knowledge of the district. We have Samantha who not only knows our district because she has students in our district, but she also is in our district educating teachers, evaluating and she's embedded in our district as well. So I feel strongly that because we are onboarding a new superintendent and Samantha is very close to being a superintendent herself, if
062she wished to take that role, that she has a heck of a lot of experience that doesn't negate the community experience and connections that Alex has. That's great. But I think this next year, those community experiences, as many of us have, we will get information from our constituents, but having Samantha in the room, monitoring might be too strong of a word, but working with our new superintendent onboarding, I think that is very beneficial. (James) Mary. (Mary) I chose to nominate Alex, actually could have gone either way, really. I chose to nominate Alex though because I'm new to the board. Today is my first session here. But as I am out there and I was campaigning, I heard a lot of people mentioning Alex's name to me. And so that really resonated with me. And that's
063where I'm like, you know what? It sounds like this is somebody that the community can trust and turn to. So that's one of the reasons why I had thrown Alex's name out there. I think that anybody would be great in this role. I know that everybody up here does have the passion and want to continue making sure our schools are at its best. (James) Okay. So I will kind of give you my position on this. I agree with Andrew. There's no bad choice here from a level of experience and passion. So really when it comes down to it is what type of experience within the district are we looking for in the context of that onboarding process? Right. So as I cast my vote tonight, it will be for Samantha in that she has an
064amount of experience and education that kind of makes her appear in that room with the new superintendent as their onboarding. And this superintendent has not been a superintendent before. And so the supports that exist in that room are I think transcend community involvement because both of you are very involved in the community. And what I look at the two of you, just the amounts of experience in the study of systems and administration is informs my vote. So okay. If there's no other comment, Kinsey. (Kinsey) Yeah. Yang. (Mary) Mineau. (Kinsey) Meister. (Samantha) Meister. (Kinsey) Knill. (Jeanette) Meister. (Kinsey) Becker. (Andrew) Mineau. (Kinsey) Mineau. (Alex) Mineau. (Kinsey) McCoy. (Laura) Meister. (Kinsey) Lyerly. (James) Meister. (James) Okay. So if the two of you, would switch spots we will finalize the musical chairs for the evening. Okay. So with
065that completed, we'll move on to the election of treasure. Open the floor for nominations. (Alex) I'd like to nominate Andrew Becker. (Andrew) I'll accept. (James) other nominations. Hearing none. Andrew do you want to say words. All right. Kinsey. (Kinsey) Becker. (Andrew) Becker. (Kinsey) Mineau. (Alex) Becker. (Kinsey) McCoy. (Laura) Becker. (Kinsey) Yang. (Mary) Becker. (Kinsey) Meister. (Samantha) Becker. (Kinsey) Knill. (Jeanette) Becker. (Kinsey) Lyerly. (James) Becker. (James) All right. Thank you. And we will now move on to the election for clerk. Now open the floor for nominations. (Mary) I nominate Jeanette. (Jeanette) I accept. (James) Other nominations. Okay. Jeanette, do you want to say words or? Let's just move on. All right. Okay. Kinsey. Yeah, I know. (Kinsey) Mineau. (Alex) Knill. (Kinsey) McCoy. (Laura) Knill. (Kinsey) Yang. (Mary) Knill. (Kinsey) Meister. (Samantha) Knill. (Kinsey) Knill. (Jeanette) Knill
066(Kinsey) Becker. (Andrew) Knill. (Kinsey) Lyerly. (James) Knill. (James) All right. We'll move on to the election of the secretary of the board of education, which has historically been a function of the administrative person attached to our board. So is there a nomination necessary? Okay. I will nominate Kinsey Lehr. (Kinsey) I guess I'll accept one more year. (James) Okay. Thank you. Any other nominations? Okay. Kinsey. Oh, sure. Absolutely. (Jeanette) Well, I just want to hold Kinsey up because I couldn't ask for a better partner in the clerk duties this year. I was very nervous about this. There was a little bit of education that had to go on with the job that I took that I was told it was absolutely nothing. And without Kinsey, I think I probably would have resigned. So thank you, Kinsey.
067You got my vote. (James) Yes, Laura. (Laura) I just want to second that. I worked closely with Kinsey for the three years I was president, and I leaned heavily on her. And there's a lot asked of her on any given day. And like, for instance, today when board docs went down, I can't even imagine what it was like to prep for this meeting. There's a lot that goes into our meetings, and Kinsey takes care of all of it. So I don't know how she did, you know, like I'm sure her day was really, really complicated and challenging. And her days are often complicated and challenging. And so she fulfills her duties with a smile, and I just always appreciate that. (James) All right. Go ahead. (Kinsey) McCoy. (Laura) Lehr. (Kinsey) Yang. (Mary) Lehr. (Kinsey) Meister.
068(Samantha) Lehr. (Kinsey) Knill. (Jeanette) Lehr. (Kinsey) Becker. (Andrew) Lehr. (Kinsey) Mineau (Alex) Lehr. (Kinsey) Lyerly. (James) Lehr. Congratulations. (James) Now I second what Laura said and what Jeanette said. You are a person that holds us all together. Okay. So that finalizes all of the elected positions on the board. Now we have a few positions that are appointed, so we don't have to nominate, and we can have a more unstructured conversation around these. So the first one of the appointments is legislative liaison, and I've spoken at length with Jeanette about this. Jeanette, are you still willing to take this on? (Jeanette) Yes, I am. If it wasn't for WASB, this would be a really difficult job, but it isn't. And so, yes, I'll continue doing it. (James) Anyone else? Everyone else okay with that? All right.
069CESA 7, liaison, and representative Alex, this is something that you performed this year, correct? No? Okay. We didn't have a liaison this year. Is anyone? Historically, this is the one where you mostly it's about that one meeting, right? Correct, yeah. So historically, we give that to the new board member usually. I think I might have technically, but the only meeting was like a week into my arm. Yes. So yeah, because I think it came up in April right away, or May. Kinsey? (Kinsey) I do have the meeting date here. It is Wednesday, May 13th at 6 30 p.m. So. (James) Mary, can you make that meeting? All right. While you're doing that, the WASB delegate alternate. So, Laura, you were the delegate last year, and are you willing to do that again? (Laura) I've done
070this a number of years. A lot of it has to do with availability, but also just I've gotten kind of used to the process and being in that giant room with people from across the state, listening to them debate really very serious educational issues. And I go to the convention every year. So, yes, I'd like to do it again if possible. (James) We didn't have an alternate last year. Is that correct? We did. Who was the alternate? Okay. I was there. I was not in session. So, I appreciate that. So, basically, the second person that usually goes to the conference identified. Okay. And we'll talk about conference attendance as an agenda item at our retreat. Head Start representative. Mary, I had a conversation with you, but that conversation didn't end with you saying yes or
071no. And so, I'll put it up. This is a position that Lynn had performed for the last two years and found it very fulfilling. And it was the board representative to Head Start. We had a conversation. Do you have a position on that at this point? (Mary) I'm looking at this list. I was actually curious and interested in the Head Start and or the district safety. So, but I'm really open to any. Okay. Honestly. (James) Alex, were you looking to chime in? (Alex) I was just going to say that I could be interested in the Head Start representative if needed. Probably not for the CESA 7 this year, but I don't have a super strong interest. So, I can be flexible as far as if somebody, you know, Mary or otherwise once that's a representative.
072That's fine. (James) Okay. Yep. (Laura) I did that for three years just before Lynn. And it is very rewarding, very interesting work. I would recommend it to anybody. I don't want to do it this year, but if you know, if you have any questions about that, what that's like to serve and a lot of the meetings you can attend via Zoom too. Like I don't know if they're still doing it that way, but I guess the time I was on was during COVID. So, maybe that was the nature of it at the time, but our two Head Start locations are just wonderful facilities and the kids and the families and the people who run it are just wonderful. And it's rather joyful actually if I had to use one word. Yeah. (Mary) Yeah. I think
073that with that note, I would take on the Head Start as a representative. Yeah. And also I did check my calendar. So, long as the WASB event is in town. Oh, sorry. Is that in town? Yeah. Oh, yeah. You can compare. Oh, yeah. And that would be the WASB orientation. Yeah. Yes. So, I'll mark me down for that if you guys are good with it. (James) All right. And that leaves District Safety and the committee board member. (Laura) I'm currently on the safety committee. It just sort of started ramping up recently again and very engaging and interesting work and of course very pressing in our district at all times. So, I would be very interested in continuing that work as well. (James) I want to talk to Chris because I was intending to do that,
074but it does not work with my schedule. When those meetings, they are usually like eight o'clock in the morning is when they typically are. Yeah. Right now, (Laura) yeah, we just had one a couple days ago. It was from eight to nine. Went a little bit later than that. You can attend via Zoom. For that particular meeting, I like to be in person, but you can attend via Zoom. A lot of the people who are on the committee do because they're in schools already starting their day and to come downtown is inconvenient. (James) All right. Okay. Any other questions? So, in the agenda, there is a board member school assignment that has been published. So, please just go and look at the schools that have been assigned to you. If there is any questions, please,
075you know, we can talk through with Kinsey about those assignments. So. (Kinsey) James, did you want me to notate an alternate for the WASB or leave that blank at this time? (James) Can we have that conversation during our and finalize that at our retreat next week? I would appreciate that because we have an agenda item about conference attendance. So. Okay. So, that is the end of our reorganization effort. And so, we'll move through the agenda to discussion and that leads us to the superintendent update. Superintendent Bayer. (Vicki) Thank you. Yeah. I think you're going to have to advance it for me, Kinsey. Okay. Thank you for the opportunity. I'm going to talk about some things that have been happening in the district over the past month. And honestly, I think you all know this 39
076schools, we could fill hours and hours. So, apologies to the schools that I might have missed celebrating this month. April 17th was indigenous cultural teachings day at Howe Elementary Community School. Students and staff and families got to participate in a round dance. That's the pictures that you see here. And they learned about different parts of the indigenous culture. This was the event was put on by our title six First Nations team. Our team mentioned this, our ICSC team mentioned it. The Fox City Performing Arts Center Awards happened last month. And once again, Green Bay Schools, we had students acknowledged. Caitlin Melberg from Green Bay Southwest won the Inspiration Through the Arts Scholarship. That's her on the top left. And I think that was the Spongebob production looks like it. Outstanding performance in a lead role.
077This is the one you guys mentioned, right? Lilly's on. Am I saying her last name right? Chung. Lily's long was Karen in Green Bay West's Mean Girls High School Edition. So that's her on the top right. And then that crew on the bottom, that's the amazing Green Bay Southwest student crew. And they wanted the outstanding student crew for their Spongebob musical. Flag football is becoming a thing in Green Bay. Our East girls competed on April 18th in the Packers girls flag football open and they ended up taking second place. Their next game is May 1st at East High School. You guys mentioned this one too, right? West High School had their very first reality fair on April 9th. It was in collaboration, as the ladies mentioned, with Capital Credit Union. There were about 150 juniors
078that moved around from booth to booth. They could buy a home, pay for childcare, purchase a car, get insurance, pay utilities. What stood out to you? What was the biggest surprise? Go ahead and use your microphone. -I would definitely say the situations I did not really like. I'm pretty sure I received the situation where I had $75,000 in credit card debt and $42,000 in student loan debt. I also had a husband and two children in which their childcare was $2,000. So just yeah. (Vicki) It was a good turnout and it was a great opportunity to have community volunteers come in and help support the education of our youth. Some of the students were overheard saying things like, "Wow, childcare really costs that much?" And what do you mean I owe $400 to the insurance company?
07960 volunteers supported this activity. We're coming upon the Hall of Fame announcement of who will be inducted for 2026. I wanted to acknowledge that the recent mission to space included the assistance of a graduate from Preble High School. That's Amy Dill. She graduated in 2001 and her role was the capsule communicator, which means she's one of the voices that the astronauts would interact with throughout the mission. Green Bay Area Public School District graduate who says we're not doing good things. We were honored to host Dr. Underly on April 6th for an educator workforce roundtable. It was a good conversation. It was primarily discussing teacher retention across the state and we were really grateful to have the chance to talk about the fact that we have a really high retention rate. We're at about 92%. We
080have the highest retention rate of all the Urbans and higher than the state average, which is about 86%, I think is the state average. So it was great to have an opportunity to share that with Dr. Underly. Dr. Meister, you were there. Do you have any comments about the experience? (Samantha) I just think it was a really amazing opportunity for us as a district to highlight the incredible work that we're doing with the variety of people represented at that table as well as one of our own educators who works to mentor new teachers in our schools while she's also teaching. I thought it was just really powerful. I know I was there in my higher education role, but I was just blown away by the work and the commitment of the folks from within the
081district that were there representing with Dr. Underly. (Vicki) Yeah, and it's a tribute to Mike Friis and his leadership in the human resources department. We've come a long way in just a couple of years with stepping up our teacher retention and the mentoring program as well. ESP stands for Educator Support Professionals. ESP. Three members of the Green Bay Education Association traveled to the NEA ESP conference in March to join the health and safety programs to teach American Red Cross CPR AED and first aid. It's an initiative that was grant driven. Nine GBEA members have been certified to become instructors. And while they were at the conference, Jamie Kamarowski, she's bottom left in that beautiful gown. She facilitated, co-facilitated a session at the conference on implicit bias. And she was also recognized as Wisconsin's ESP of
082the year. This is the second year in a row that in Wisconsin, it's been a Green Bay Area Public School District employee. I've got the award here. We recently attended the Brown County United Way banquet and were surprised to be honored by Brown County United Way for the excellence in nonprofit leadership award. And the award highlights the collaboration between our two community schools, Howe and Nicolet and the United Way Foundation. Doty Elementary. Alex, I don't know if you got over for this one. They did a LEGO event. Yeah, you were there. Could you talk a little bit about it? (Jeanette) Well, I'm a little bit of a geek. When I was a kid, it wasn't cool for girls to build things, but I had, they didn't call them LEGOs at the time, but I had
083some kind of building blocks and I loved it. So this was right up my alley. But the cool thing about these LEGOs, they were able to program them so they moved. And my biggest impression here was how excited all the students were. Now those two girls in that bottom left picture there, the teacher said, "Go talk to them." And so I said to them, "So what did you think?" And they thought, "Oh, we thought this was going to be so stupid. We don't like building LEGOs, but once we realized we could do whatever we wanted with it and that we could make it move with the computer and we could make it go forward and backward and we could put flowers in." And they had like an egg as one of their people on the
084ferris wheel. It was just an exciting time to be there. The kids were so excited and then the other classrooms that were coming in to see it, they were all asking really good questions and the kids were interacting with each other. And one another project that isn't in one of those pictures, but it was a young man who had made a miniature golf thing. So he had to program the computer for the golf club to hit the ball so it would go in the hole. And he's like, "Let me show you how to make it wrong." And he went in and so the ball went shooting off to the side. He was just so excited about the whole thing. And they did this basically without much intervention from the teachers. They were given their kit
085and they had to figure it out and they did. And these were fifth graders. These are not high school kids. So very impressed. (Alex) So I'm assuming this is one of their more recent events that they had. So this is very cool. I was not able to partake in this, but they do a lot with Legos at Doty. So for a number of years running now, Ms. Miller heads up a Lego competition. And I don't even know the total amount, but kindergarten all the way through fifth grade, there's dozens of kids bringing their projects and they have a huge competition and it's always really fun. So I'm always in on that. And I'll be honest, I actually think girls, I think both my girls took first this year in their respective grades. They're all in
086with the Legos. So I'm going to pump them just a little bit. So they, you know, the staff, they're doing an amazing job at Doty and finding all sorts of ways to get the kids to do just creative and new things. So I'm definitely excited about what they have going on. (Jeanette) Can I say one more thing? So I talked to the librarian. This was a library activity and she worked really hard to get a grant to fund this. So this didn't come out of our, we got this money through a grant and there's a lot of that having to go on because of our financial situation. And so luckily for all these students that this librarian was very proactive to get the money. Yeah, that's (Vicki) Susan Bernard and she's amazing. The fifth grade
087teacher is Kristen Westcott. So her class is the one that put together the activities and they were just thrilled to teach the other students. It was a great event. I think the young ladies mentioned this one too. Southwest High School, their weekend wrapped up the Little Women musical. It was phenomenal. I told you last time when I went to see Southwest Spongebob that it was one of the best musicals I've ever seen, even counting professional. This one was amazing as well. Absolutely phenomenal. These kids are outstanding and it was a great turnout. Two Green Bay Area public schools were recognized as high impact schools by the Wisconsin Department of Instruction, public instruction for the 24-25 school year, Chappell Elementary and Lincoln Elementary under the leadership of Chris Warden and Janee Banks Wilson were recognized for
088serving a high percentage of economically disadvantaged students while having above average achievement when compared to similarly situated schools. We're very proud of those two and all the staff that work in those schools. And then lastly, just a reminder that this Sunday we will be holding the open houses for the schools that will be closing at the end of this school year. The schedule is staggered to allow the public and the board opportunity to go to all of the schools if you so choose. And there will be a time probably right in the center of each of those where there will be a drone picture or any of the staff or former students to come out and have their picture taken in front of the school. And that concludes my report. Thank you. (James) Thank you,
089Superintendent Bayer. And next we'll go to the Clean Energy Advisory Committee update. (Cale) Good evening. Just have a brief update from the Clean Energy Committee meeting that was held on April 14th. We did have a few board members attend, so thank you for those who came out. So a few notes. One, the meeting was, I would say there was a lot of discussion about emphasis on transitioning to education. We've done a lot of physical work and discussion with that team as far as solar panels, the geothermal, developing our revealed dashboard that is inching closer to a public reveal. So a couple of our members had a few suggestions on bringing back into the focus the educational elements. One member had requested that we have someone from the teaching and learning side join the committee, at
090least commit to coming to some of these meetings to see how we can integrate that into the classroom with some of these great opportunities. We have learning opportunities with our energy conservation that we're doing as a district and bringing that into the classroom. So we'll be bringing that back to the committee in our next meeting and furthering that discussion. He also brought forward, and this had been brought up in the past as well, some opportunities for our staff to attend some free education that's covered. Transportation stipends are included. So we have some information on that. I know some of our board members took that information. So I just wanted to state that in the board minutes here that if anyone is interested in attending that in July in Madison, there's some great opportunities and we
091can, the Clean Energy Committee can help connect those people with the appropriate representatives of that group. And then a big event for or a long time coming, I would say with the Clean Energy Committee is we are meeting on April 30th at Preble High School for what will be our kickoff of our Waste Reduction Committee subcommittee. We are hoping to have a strong student presence in that, and we plan on rotating schools in the district. Our first one here at Preble, we will have some speakers to help kind of get some ideas starting as far as waste reduction at the school level and then continue that conversation, hopefully again with a big student presence. So that is, I believe the board members are invited to that if they're not, I can add them. That is
092April 30th at four o'clock at the Preble cafeteria. And then following that, we'll have our regular meeting May 12th. That I know all the board members, I'll have to add our new board member on that meeting. So I'll make that adjustment as well. And then the final notes I had was one of our student members wanted to make us aware of the Preble community market on May 2nd, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. There's a booth there, specifically why I'm mentioning it with our Clean Energy Committee. There's going to be at least one booth there that is engaging in environmental conservation and humanitarian issues that are directly related to our Clean Energy Committee. And that group is Roots and Shoots, but also plugging for that event where there could be some more opportunities as well, as
093far as learning about what our student clubs are doing and what our Clean Energy Committee are doing as far as energy conservation and carbon footprint. Any questions? (James) Jeanette? (Jeanette) So you had mentioned at the advisory committee, you had mentioned some numbers about savings, didn't you? Could you share those with us this evening? If not, that's okay. (Cale) No, I do plan on sharing that when we do bring forward the reveal dashboard, but I can prepare those numbers alongside that too, in case we're not quite ready yet by the next update to at least bring some high-level numbers as we head in, certainly to a referendum as well, understanding what our efforts in the renewable energy sector has done for us. (Jeanette) Well, I just wanted to bring that up a little bit because we
094are discussing budget, and I know there are people in the community who feel that we're not tightening our belts enough and we're spending money in places, but the money that has been spent overall with solar panels and, well, we don't know the savings we're going to have at STARR because that's not finished yet. But what we have done so far has been a considerable return, a considerable return on investment. We heard that a couple times this evening, ROI, and that's just another way that the school district and the board are working to save dollars and cents. (James) Laura. (Laura) I was able to go to the last meeting, and these meetings are always incredibly interesting and full of good news. I just want to piggyback off of something that Jeanette said about how we're making
095so much progress, something that the folks at McKinstry always say pretty much every time I've been at one of these meetings is they always remind us of how well we were already doing before we started this work. We already had made a huge commitment in energy savings and had taken advantage of every single incentive to make sure that our schools are energy efficient to the best of our ability. This is a different level of commitment. This is a much bigger process, and it's going to take years to fully implement, but actually probably the work is never really going to be done. I think we can probably all say that, but huge strides have been made. I just think when we start talking to the community about a referendum, this is something that I think a
096lot of people should know more about. Because it shows that we are very committed to saving money, and this is just one of the ways that we've been doing it now for many years. (Cale) I forgot one thing as far as saving money, and a shout out to the group at Net Zero Pathways. They had a grant funded some studies on our buildings to help McKinstry and us continue maximizing our efficiencies. They did go back because there were some additional dollars, grant dollars, so no cost to the district. They did put out an RFP for a proposal at Nicolet Elementary for a future geothermal site, so we did get a response from them. I just want to say thank you to that team for doing that work, and we have that information now in hand
097at no cost to the district. So that's a potential future geothermal project at Nicolet Community School. (Laura) We couldn't even really consider that if we hadn't done this land swap, right? That it has been part of this long process of consolidation in the cooperation and coordination with the City of Green Bay. (James) Other comments or questions? Thank you, Cale. And that takes us to the legislative update. Jeanette? (Jeanette) All right, so everybody received the report, so I'm just going to make a few highlights here. Something we've been talking about for a while is the state surplus. There has been no progress made on the state surplus and distributing that. The Assembly has gone back into session, but they gaveled out, but they have not, I mean they gaveled in, but they have not gaveled out,
098so they are actually still in session, though they're not meeting. So we'll see. We're going to keep our eyes on that, and I think they have until maybe mid-end of May. I don't remember the date somebody told me, but I did not keep that in my brain. But I do want to point out that the state has a $2.5 billion surplus, and that there is a proposal that they use $1.3 billion to help out public schools. Remember, Green Bay loses $14 million a year to voucher schools. I could be a little off on that by a million or two. It might be a little higher, actually. It is definitely not lower. We have not had a raise in revenue since 2008. Since 2008, we have not had an increase in revenue. We are not a
099revenue-producing organization. We do not sell widgets. We educate children. Our children come from extremely diverse backgrounds, not just ethnicity, but many children with special education. The legislature increased our education budget to 42%, but actually that's a sum certain amount which is a complicated system that Amy knows much more about than I do. With our needs and predictions, we would be getting, I think, about 36% of that or 35% this year because of the way the formulas are working out. It's really complicated. It's not so much that we're not managing our money right or tightening our belts when we're not getting income because our needs of our students change, and that costs us more money. We have students in our district. We are the most diversified district in the entire state. So that being said, I'll
100go on and say that the referendums, actually some did not pass the referendums, but there was referendums passed, and WASB has a lot of that information for any school board member who is interested, and any community member who is interested, might, they can reach out. But on April 7th, we saw 75 school referendums statewide in 73 different school districts. There's a reason so many referendums are coming up, and that goes into my first comments, and I'm not going to repeat it because of time. And then we have a federal update that the president has released his budget request. It's a budget request. It doesn't mean that it will happen. There will be discussion, et cetera, et cetera. The budget request largely mirrors his request made for the 2026 fiscal year, which aimed to kickstart the
101closing of the U.S. Department of Education through large cuts to federal education programs and consolidation of many programs into singular block grants. Many of these programs affect our children with special needs, but I will say again that Congress makes the final federal funding decisions. I will remind everyone there is an election coming up in November. Statewide, all our assembly reps are up for election and half of the Senate. So please pay attention to who's running and ask hard questions and ask them if they support public education, public education, public dollars for public schools. WASB has put out a wonderful report, and many people have shared it on Facebook. If you're not on Facebook and you're interested in seeing it, I believe all the board members have had access to it. But if you're a community
102member and you're interested in seeing their report, I will gladly forward it to you. It is a public record. You do not have to be a member of the Wisconsin Association of School Boards to see that report. And yeah, that's it. Thank you. (James) Okay, so Jeanette, that was you acting as the legislative liaison. So acting as clerk, can you please do the report of canvassers? Yeah, it is hyperlinked from the agenda. (Jeanette) Okay, Kinsey, since this is the first time around, I'm not sure, am I supposed to read all of them? (Kinsey) Everything. (Jeanette) So I should start there. Okay, but I don't have to read those other. Okay. Okay, I think I've got it right. Certification of the Board of Canvasers. We, the undersigned, certify that we are members of the Board of
103Canvasers for the Green Bay Area Public School District. We certify that the attached tabular statement of votes cast and summary statement of the Board of Canvasers canvassed and prepared by us are correct and true as compiled from the original returns made to Jeanette Knill, board clerk. We further determine and certify that the spring general election received the following results on April 7, 2026. Samantha Meister, 14,715. Mary Lou Yang, 14,535. Laura McCoy, 14,234. Eric Reamer, 11,013. (James) That's it. Thank you very much, Jeanette. Okay, so we'll move on to the consent agenda. Will someone please read the motion? (Samantha) I move that the consent agenda items as presented be approved. (James) We need a second. (Andrew) Second. (James) All right. Discussion? Kinsey? (Kinsey) Yang? (Mary) Aye. (Kinsey) Meister? (Samantha) Aye. (Kinsey) Knill. (Jeanette) Aye. (Kinsey) Becker?
104(Andrew) Aye. (Kinsey) Mineau? (Alex) Aye. (Kinsey)McCoy? (Laura) Aye. (Kinsey) Lyerly? (James) Aye. (James) Okay, so that is done. We'll move into the action items. And before we start, let's just, you know, I'll get organized a little bit. There are a couple things up front that fall into operations. So either Jeanette or Laura, if you want to read the motion for those items, I'd appreciate it. And then there are a series of policy statements. Andrew, if you wouldn't mind reading the motions for those. Then we'll go back into some operational items with the salary. And either someone, Laura, Jeanette, if you would read those motions, I would appreciate it. Having said that, let's start with action item A, 2026-27 fee schedule. (Laura) I move that the 2026-27 fee schedule as presented be approved. (Alex) Second. (James)
105Any discussion? Kinsey? (Kinsey) Yang? (Mary) Aye. (Kinsey) Meister? (Samantha) Aye. (Kinsey) Knill? (Jeanette) Aye. (Kinsey) Becker? (Andrew) Aye. (Kinsey) Mineau? (Alex) Aye. (Kinsey) McCoy? (Laura) Aye. (Kinsey) Lyerly? (James) Aye. (James) Thank you. We'll move to action item B, the suspension of administrative tuition reimbursement. Laura, would you please read the motion? (Laura) I move that the suspension of administrative tuition reimbursement for the 2026-27 school year as presented be approved. (Alex) Second. (James) Any discussion? Kinsey? (Kinsey) Meister? (Samantha) Aye. (Kinsey) Knill? (Jeanette) Aye. (Kinsey) Becker? (Andrew) Aye. (Kinsey) Mineau? (Alex) Aye. (Kinsey) McCoy? (Laura) Aye. (Kinsey) Yang? (Mary) Aye. (Kinsey) Lyerly? (James) Aye. (James) Thank you. Action item C, the revision of Board of Education Policies and Rules in the 600-700 series. Andrew? (Andrew) I'll move that revisions to Board of Education Policies Rules in the 600-700
106series of policies related to fiscal management support services as presented be approved. -Second. (James) Any discussion? Laura? (Laura) For people who are watching, we have had at least one chance to discuss all these items. So if it looks like we're plowing through them, it's not that we haven't ever given them any consideration. Of course, we can give them more consideration tonight, but I just wanted to mention that. (James) Thank you. (Mary) I am interested in discussing 640. I know that you guys, we had gone through this already, but me being newer to the table here, there's just a technicality I wanted to update. So if we are able to move in discussion. (James) Absolutely. Go ahead and. (Mary) Yeah. So let's see here. I'm looking at the the item number 640 school funding sources under
107implementation section A. If looking to amend the first sentence here, where it says all grants that involve district property students or personnel are considered district grants and are subject to requirements of this policy. Just looking to shorten it up to say all grants involving district property students or personnel are considered district grants. So I was just looking to take up the capacity piece. It looks like it seemed a little wordy, but you know, help me understand if there is a reason why I could the capacity as employee pieces in there. (Vicki) Can you reference again which part you're looking at? (Mary) Sure. So under section 2 A implementation. Yeah. -Abby, do you have information on this one? (James) You have to come up. You had to come to the table so that people watching the
108stream can hear you. (Abby) So I don't have specific as to exactly why all of this language is important. However, I think it's talking about making sure it's clear that these individuals are receiving that grant in their capacity as an employee. Like it's not their personal grant funding. They're using it in their capacity as their employee. (James) That's it. Andrew. (Andrew) I think if we took it out, there's a risk that could almost look like even though we wouldn't do this, but it could possibly look like if you got a grant somewhere else that we'd try to snag it, which we're not going to do that if you get a grant for building a wind mill or something and you happen to work here. I think. (James) Samantha. (Samantha) I was just going to say
109I can speak to this because I am a staff as a board member, but I receive grant funding through my other job at the university. So it would be very, very clearly delineated that it would have to be in my capacity as a staff member here. So I would say I understand the desire to want to tighten up the language some, but I think that is really particularly important. (James) Jeanette. (Jeanette) As somebody who has been involved in writing grants and receiving grants, grantors can be very particular. And this could keep us, I mean, it seems simple, but this could keep us from receiving grants. So I think we need to keep the language as is. (Mary) Thank you for helping me understand that piece. I was, there was just words that kept tripping over.
110I'm like, Hmm, I feel like I need to bring this to the table and discuss that a little bit more. So thank you. If I can retract that amendment. (James) Thank you, Mary. And always ask questions, right? And make sure that you have a clear understanding before taking your vote. There's no harm. All right. Any other questions or discussion around the board? Kinsey. (Kinsey) Knill. (Jeanette) Aye. (Kinsey) Becker. (Andrew) Aye. (Kinsey) Mineau. (Alex) Aye. (Kinsey) McCoy. (Laura) Aye. Yang. (Laura) Aye. (Kinsey) Meister. (Samantha) Aye. (Kinsey) Lyerly. (James) Aye. Aye. (James) To raise point of order, Andrew. Is there opportunity to collapse or consolidate? (Andrew) Sure. I'll move to, I'll move that items. D, E, F, G, and H be consolidated. (Alex) Second. (Kinsey) Sorry. Can you repeat those? (Andrw) D, E, F, G, H. (Mary)
111Um, D, I actually wanted to discuss F. You can leave that one out. (James) Let's just run through them, Andrew. (Andrew) Okay. I'll move Board of Education policies and rules in the 600, 700 series related to fiscal management support services as presented be approved. (Samantha) Second. (James) Discussion. Kinsey. (Kinsey) Becker. (Andrew) Aye. (Kinsey) Mineau. (Alex) Aye. (Kinsey) McCoy. (Laura) Aye. (Kinsey) Yang. (Mary) Aye. (Kinsey) Meister. (Samantha) Aye. (Kinsey) Knill.(Jeanette) Aye. (Kinsey) Lyerly. (James) Aye.(James) Moving to E. (Andrew) I move that revisions to Board of Education Policy 171.1, public notification of board meetings, means of other governmental bodies of the school district as presented be approved. (Samantha) Second. (James) Any discussion? Kinsey. (Kinsey) Mineau. (Alex) Aye. (Kinsey) McCoy.(Laura) Aye. (Kinsey) Yang. (Mary) Aye. (Kinsey) Meister. (Samantha) Aye. (Kinsey) Knill. (Jeanette) Aye.(Kinsey) Becker. (Andrew) Aye. (Kinsey) Lyerly.
112(James) Aye. (James) Moving to F. (Andrew) I move that revisions to Board of Education Policy 458 wellness as presented be approved. (Samantha) Second. (James) Any discussion? Mary. (Mary) Yes. Under, so as I was reviewing this, looks like we're really just making pronoun changes to this documentation. I'm looking at this and I want to make sure that we have that consistency across the board and even moving forward with future policies if we're going to be continue to change the pronouns. Under implementation, section 2A, second, the last sentence there, there is a section where it says he slash she, a few words right before, towards the end there. I you guys are able to see what I'm looking at. Let's see here. I was looking to change that section to actually change that pronoun. Yes. to they.
113Just so we can keep the language consistent. (James) Okay. So in that, doing that, what you would do is you would raise a motion to make the edit that section. We will, I'll go ahead and second that motion so that we can just go ahead and is there any discussion or questions, concerns with doing that? All right. So we're going to vote on that motion now. So Kinsey. (Kinsey) McCoy. (Laura) Aye. (Kinsey) Yang. (Mary) Aye. (Kinsey) Meister. (Samantha) Aye. (Kinsey) Knill. (Jeanette) Aye. (Kinsey) Becker. (Andrew) Aye. (Kinsey) Mineau. (Alex) Aye. (Kinsey) Lyerly. (James) Aye. (James) Okay. Now we're down to the base motion, which is the policy itself. Any further discussion or questions? Kinsey. (Kinsey) Lyerly. (James) Aye. (Kinsey) Mineau. (Alex) Aye. (Kinsey) Becker. (Andrew) Aye. (Kinsey) Knill. (Jeanette) Aye. (Kinsey) Meister. (Samantha) Aye. (Kinsey)
114Yang. (Mary) Aye. (Kinsey) McCoy. (Laura) Aye. (James) Okay. We'll move to G. (Andrew) I'll move that the revisions to Board of Education Rule 458, procedures for implementing district wellness policy as presented be approved. (Samantha) Second. (James) Any discussion here. Kinsey. (Kinsey) Yang. (Mary) Aye. (Kinsey) Meister. (Samantha) Aye. (Kinsey) Knill (Jeanette) Aye. (Kinsey) Becker. (Andrew) Aye. (Kinsey) Mineau (Alex) Aye. (Kinsey) McCoy. (Laura) Aye. (Kinsey) Lyerly (James) Aye. (James) And to H. (Andrew) I move the revisions to Board of Education Policy 824, use of electronic surveillance or monitoring technology in public areas of school buildings and district policy as presented be approved. (Samantha) Second. (James) Any discussion? Kinsey. (Kinsey) Meister. (Samantha) Aye. (Kinsey) Knill. (Jeanette) Aye. (Kinsey) Becker. (Andrew) Aye. (Kinsey) Mineau. (Alex) Aye. (Kinsey) McCoy. (Laura) Aye. (Kinsey) Yang. (Mary) Aye. (Kinsey) Lyerly. (James) Aye. (James)
115All right. That I think finalizes the policy-based motions. Before we move over to operations again, we're about to take several votes that establish the Board of Education's intent to give cost of living increases to the staff of the districts in a time when there is a deficit that we're trying to overcome. It may be of interest to the public as to understand why we're doing this. First, we have a strategic initiative to create a thriving workforce. Right? We've heard statistics this evening about how we have improved our staff retention in the district from 88 percent, well, sorry, up to 91.8 percent, which is above the state average. 88 percent of our employers, I'm sorry, our employees, our educators, report that they would recommend us as a place to work. And our worker compensation claims have
116declined 14 percent. Second, we have made over the course of the last couple of years some very strategic and some very difficult decisions about how to balance our budget. And even earlier this year, we took a decision to alter the benefits package of our staff and some would say significantly. So it is our desire not to balance the budget solely on the backs of our educators, and that is unfair. And it is an indication that in the face of legislative inaction, we as a board value our educators enough to potentially go back and look for other ways to make the budget work and to stretch the dollar, including as we prepare for a referendum to make sure that we understand and allow our community to have a say in how we value our schools and
117not just take an underfunding from legislative action and deliver it to our number one cost center, and that is human resources and balance the budget that way. So having said that, I will turn it over to operations to guide us through the motions, which will be starting with I. (Laura) I move that a 2.63 percent base wage increase for educators be applied to the educator educator salary schedule commencing July 1st, 2026 for the 2026-27 fiscal year as presented be approved. (Jeanette) Second (James) discussion. Andrew. (Andrew) I would just also point out that as far as I'm concerned, 2.63, a basic consumer price increase indexed is modest. I work for a private for-profit company that is not huge, and I got a 3 percent. I don't think it's anything weird at all to be doing 2.63,
118and that's in accordance with state guidelines for these raises. (James) Any other discussion? Laura. (Laura) I just from my own point of view do not think of these as raises, even though it doesn't increase the salary of our employees. They're basically just keeping them whole from cost of living, and it's important for people to know, especially heading into a referendum, that the state limits us. This is it. This is all they allow us to give. If we could give more, you know, this is well, it's not an option. So we can't just pay our employees whatever we want to. We, well, we have to, this is the this is the max that we can give them, and the fact that we are going to do it is a good thing, but speaking only for myself,
119I wish it could be more. (James) Thank you. Jeanette. (Jeanette) And if we look at what's happening when you go to the grocery store or any place else, the cost of living is much higher than 2.63. And yes, we are looking at some significant deficits and having a referendum, but we've already asked our teachers to make a change in their health benefits and many, many teachers I know contribute to their classrooms out of their own pockets. And that has been going on for years when my daughter was a teacher, my husband and I used to buy all kinds of supplies for her because as a young teacher, she couldn't afford to do it. And I know that there's other families that do it. And I have personally bought a few supplies for some teachers in
120our district, not because they asked, but because I knew it was necessary. So we should be able to have enough money to pay our teachers and to pay for the needs that they have in their classrooms and not ask them to take part of their money out of their pockets. So giving them 2.63 raise, which is the max. I agree with you, Laura. I would like to give them more, but can't. So we need to do this. (James) Alex. (Alex) I just want to briefly remind everybody of just two simple things. One, our district has gone through a lot of analytics on all of our programs and everything that we have in order to make as many cuts as possible through a variety of measures. We've previously spoken about it many meetings to help make
121this happen. And also because of family relation, conflict of interest. Since we don't have our normal system, I will be abstaining for this particular voting item. (Mary) Yes, I was conflict of interest. I will also be abstaining from this vote. (James) All right. Superintendent Bayer (Vicki) I just want to reiterate what Mr. Mineau had just said. We were able to through substantial cuts this year for the 2627 school year, we were able to allow this to happen. So it wasn't without a lot of work behind the scenes, but we will be entering the 2627 school year with a balanced budget. (James) Any other discussion. All right, Kinsey. (Kinsey) Knill. (Jeanette) Aye. (Kinsey) Becker. (Andrew) Aye. (Kinsey) Mineau. (Alex) Abstain. (Kinsey) McCoy. (Laura) Aye. (Kinsey) Yang. (Mary) Abstain. (Kinsey) Meister. (Samantha) Aye. (Kinsey) Lyerly. (James) Aye.
122(James) Lets move to J. (Laura) I move that a 2.63% base wage increase for paraprofessionals, First Nation specialists, student learning advocates be applied to the paraprofessional First Nation. Tied to paraprofessionals First Nation specialists and student learning advocate salary schedules commencing July 1st, 2026 for the 2026 27 fiscal year as presented the approved. (Jeanette) Second (James) discussion. Kinsey. (Kinsey) Becker. (Andrew) Aye. (Kinsey) Mineau. (Alex) Aye. (Kinsey) McCoy. (Laura) Aye. (Kinsey) Yang. (Mary) Abstain. (Kinsey) Meister. (Samantha) Aye. (Kinsey) Knill (Jeanette) Aye. (Kinsey) Lyerly (James) Aye. (James) Okay, we'll move to K. (Laura) I move that a 2.63% base wage increase for the trade staff be applied to the trade's salary schedule commencing July 1st, 2026 for the 2026 27 fiscal year as presented be approved. (Jeanette) Second. (James) Any discussion? Kinsey. (Kinsey) Mineau. (Alex) Aye. (Kinsey) McCoy.
123(Laura) Aye. (Kinsey) Yang. (Mary) Aye. (Kinsey) Meister. (Samantha) Aye. (Kinsey) Knill. (Jeanette) Aye. (Kinsey) Becker. (Andrew) Aye. (Kinsey) Lyerly. (James) Aye. (James) L. (Laura) Okay. Is it okay if I pause here and just mention, I mean, this is a really good illustration of all the people who work for our district and make it work every day and taking these votes is just really important and just a solid reminder of what it takes to run a district our size. So I move that a 2.63% wage increase for executive assistants, office personnel, food service, maintenance, hourly staff with benefits, van drivers and monitors, elementary and secondary be applied to the executive assistants, office personnel, food service, maintenance, hourly staff and benefits, van drivers and monitors, elementary and secondary, salary schedules commencing July 1st, 2026 for the 2026
12427 fiscal year as presented be approved. (Jeanette) Second. (James) Any discussion? (Mary) I will be abstaining from this one. (James) Thank you. Kinsey. (Kinsey) McCoy. (Laura) Aye. (Kinsey) Yang. (Mary) Abstain. (Kinsey) Meister. (Samantha) Aye. (Kinsey) Knill. (Jeanette) Aye. (Kinsey) Becker. (Andrew) Aye. (Kinsey) Mineau. (Alex) Aye. (Kinsey) Lyerly. (James) Aye. Okay, Laura, let's go to M. (Laura) I move that a 2.63% wage increase for managers and technical professionals be applied to the manager's salary schedule commencing July 1st, 2026 for the 2026 27 fiscal year as presented be approved. (Jeanette) Second. (James) Any discussion? Kinsey (Kinsey) Yang. (Mary) Aye. (Kinsey) Meister. (Samantha) Aye. (Kinsey) Knill. (Jeanette) Aye. (Kinsey) Becker. (Andrew) Aye. (Kinsey) Mineau. (Alex) Aye. (Kinsey) McCoy. (Laura) Aye. (Kinsey) Lyerly. (James) Aye. (James) N (Laura) I move that a 2.63% wage increase for administrators be applied
125to the administrator's salary schedule commencing July 1st, 2026 for the 2026 27 fiscal year as presented be approved. (Jeanette) Second. (James) Discussion? Kinsey. (Kinsey) Meister. (Samantha) Aye. (Kinsey) Knill. (Jeanette) Aye. (Kinsey) Becker. (Andrew) Aye. (Kinsey) Mineau. (Alex) Aye. (Kinsey) McCoy. (Laura) Aye. (Kinsey) Yang. (Mary) Aye. (Kinsey) Lyerly. (James) Aye. (James) The last item on our agenda is per policy the school board member compensation is to increase by the same cost of living increase given to administrators. So there's not a motion in the agenda but I will entertain a motion to increase board member compensation for the 2026 27 school year. Laura. (Laura) I would like to have a discussion. (James) Can we start with a motion? Then we can discuss. Okay. (Laura) Except that my motion would not be to increase. (James) Okay. So let's
126start with a positive intent and then we'll have a discussion. Okay. Jeanette. (Jeanette) I move that we increase compensation for school board members by 2.63% commencing July 1st, 2026 for the 26 27 fiscal year. (Alex) Second. (James) Discussion? Laura. (Laura) I know people have mixed feelings about this. I feel pretty strongly that we should probably just stay in pause on increases for school board compensation. It's a gesture. It's not a lot of money but it is a gesture and to show the people that are in our schools every day that we that we can take a hit too. We can cut we can tighten our belt a little bit too. And we did it last year and I guess I would like to do it again this year but I don't know. I haven't talked
127to any of you about this. I don't know how you feel. (James) Andrew. (Andrew) Having having skipped it last year, I don't I don't want to get. You guys get a precedent going that someone it's going to feel like maybe it's a good idea this time to do it again and again. Certainly if we were in some kind of position where we were giving staff less than the CPI, I would vote against a board member raise. I think we did skip it last year and I think we should try to just keep relatively on pace. That's my opinion. (James) Thank you. Mary. (Mary) Thank you for that, Laura. My exact thought. I. Being new to the board and I'm going to say that often for the next few sessions here. I didn't I did not
128run for the money. So I'm looking at this and I'm I know that we are at having budget issues. I don't believe that we should be raising this at all. If we are going to stay the same, I will vote for that. If we are going to even decrease it, I would even be open to that. But I am a newbie here and I'm going to propose to stay the same and not have any increases. (James) Right. Jeanette. (Jeanette) I know that we did this last year. I don't know who noticed other than us. I didn't run for the board to make a salary, but I strongly believe that if we want to grow good representation on this board, we need to compensate. If you're on the city council, you're getting compensated more than we're
129getting compensated. And I don't know. I think we all worked a heck of a lot this year more than city council. But forgive me city council members. I love you guys too. So but I think in the in the idea of forward thinking, we did we did not raise our compensation. Any board member that feels that they do not want their compensation, I believe you can still waive that. I think we're still no Kinsey shaking her head. Not anymore. There's certain the law says you have to do it by a certain time. So okay. So we can't do that. But you can do it next year then. But I think to keep the integrity of being a school board member, I think we need to give ourselves a raise this year. You can always give
130back a little bit by buying some school supplies for a teacher who needs them. (James) Alex. (Alex) Yeah, I'll echo some of that and throw in a few more little nuggets. Ultimately, we decided you know, to not to not do a raise at all last year. And at the end of the day, I know that I put as much effort as I possibly can into this endeavor. I believe I go to some extent above and beyond and spend a lot of time and energy trying to fulfill my role for the community as best as I can. And as you were kind of alluding to for what it's worth, most of if anything that I get is essentially dumped back into the schools most of the time anyways, between all the different events, the fundraisers, the
131sponsorships that I might provide for different things, and you name it. But it is important, you know, that there's some moniker of appreciation. Not that we aren't appreciated, I'm looking for it. But, you know, as well as what Andrew said, as far as a precedent and so many other things, I think it's still important that we value ourselves enough to know that we're still, you know, we're here for a purpose and we all do a great community service. And it's okay to be, you know, ever so lightly rewarded for that from time to time. So I'm definitely in favor of a slight bump. (James) Others? Samantha? (Samantha) Do we have a total dollar amount of what this would equate to? For all? (Andrew) 1325, 1325. Approximately, yeah. Because we're, you know, no, total, the whole
132year. Yeah. Yeah. (James) So, and given that information, that's what informs my vote. It's a no vote. In that, I hear what Alex and Jeanette are saying, but a cost of living accelerator is not, I think, the mechanism for doing that. I think at a particular interval, if we want to address this through policy where every five years, whatever, we reanalyze the stipend given to board members to align it with other municipal functions, I would be open to that because I do agree that you don't want to be so far behind other municipal positions. I just don't think a CPI accelerator is the mechanism to do that. So that's my no vote. (Laura) Just a little short history lesson. And I think Andrew is the only person who's on the board at the time. We
133did revisit this maybe, I don't know, five or six, seven years ago, possibly, where we had fallen way behind on comparable compensation from other boards and other, the city council. It was pretty stark. And everyone kind of agreed that it was finally time to do something about it. And we did. So, and addressed it. And for a couple of years, we did do the cost of living. We're just in a state right now, money-wise, that it's not so much the money, it's the sending of the message. It's kind of what I'm looking to, to the people, again, who work in our schools and in our classrooms and do all the heavy lifting every day in this district. And that's kind of what I'm looking at. So I'll leave it there. (James) All right, Alex. (Alex)
134And to be honest, a lot of the message I get from a lot of the teachers and the public is usually often along the lines of, you couldn't pay me to do that job. So, I do hear that. So yeah. And to your point, James, unless I'm missing something, ultimately, we can essentially accomplish the same goal, no matter how we do it with how we have it now, because we can decide to motion for anything up to CPI. So we can really make it nothing. We can make it CPI, which we're maxed out at, or we can make anything in between. So we have all the mechanisms available to, I feel like to do what we need to in a given year. So again, (James) you can correct me if I'm wrong, Superintendent Bayer but
135the board is not bound by the same legislative constraints around CPI. So that's what I'm saying a couple of years ago, when they did it, it was a significant change in compensation versus an annualized CPI accelerator. (Laura) So we did it over two years. We did it in two stages because it was such a large amount that we didn't want to do it all in one year. We did half one year and half the next. (Andrew) I think we went from the weird formula based on what counts as a meeting times $35, but sometimes there's four meetings in one night. I think we went to $400 a month, $500 a month and $600 a month over a period of three years, quite some time ago, though. And we are still, if you look at, we
136represent a population of about 150,000 among seven of us, that is a ratio much higher than what city or county rep does as well. (James) Okay. Any other discussion? Alex. (Alex) According to what I'm hearing and to Andrew's point, just to, again, provide a little bit more perspective and I'm learning on the spot as well. But we represent over 130,000 people. And now that I'm trying to pick a fight, I love all of our people who are willing to serve the community, but I think the number is roughly 25% less compared to a city council member. And again, I think that's a big thing. I think we put in a lot of work and we service an extremely large area and a lot of communities. So I'm okay, especially with even if we're not bound
137to CPI or anything like that, I think that that's or even anything less than that or up to that is, I think people can understand and appreciate that. Now, if we were to even consider going over, I would have no interest in going over what we're willing to give the rest of our staff, which we're not doing. So I think those couple of things are worth considering too. (James) All right. So I think everyone's had an opportunity to express their opinions. So we have a motion to give ourselves 2.63. We have a second. Kinsey. can we call the vote? (Kinsey) Knill? (Jeanette) Aye. (Kinsey) Becker? (Andrew) Aye. (Kinsey) Mineau? (Alex) Aye. (Kinsey) McCoy? (Laura) No. (Kinsey) Yang? (Mary) No. (Kinsey) Meister? (Samantha) No. (Kinsey) Lyerly? (James) No. (James) All right. Motion fails. And that is
138the last agenda item for tonight's meeting. I would entertain. Well, before we entertain a motion to adjourn, I want to call out our secretary, Kinsey Lehr, who, finding out that we were not going to have our meeting management software this evening, rearranged her afternoon to prepare us for this meeting and it went swimmingly. Thank you very much for your efforts. [applause] All right. I'd entertained a motion to... (Kinsey) James, I have one thing. The meeting schedule is linked here and that is the remainder of this year and then it also has the meeting dates for 26-27 just so everyone has those dates. (James) Appreciate it. Thank you very much. You're so used to just seeing it as an attachment at the bottom. I appreciate that. Okay. I'd entertain a motion to adjourn. (Laura) So moved.
139(James) All in favor? -Aye. (James) We are adjourned. Thank you.