001(upbeat music) (James) All right, thank you. Before we reconvene into open session, we're gonna take a pause for a moment of silence to remember and honor the life of Alex Pretti, a 2006 graduate of Preble High School. Alex was described by his family and friends as conscientious, civic-minded individual who cared for veterans, his community, and the people around him. His life reflects the values that we strive to instill in our students, compassion, service, and responsibility to others. As we pause this evening, I invite you to stand as we extend our heartfelt condolences to his family, friends, classmates, and all who are grieving his tragic loss. (silence) Thank you. Okay, so we convened this open session, then we convened into closed session. So just want to welcome everyone to the January 26th, 2026 regular board of
002education meeting. We'll first start with standing to say the Pledge of Allegiance. - I Pledge Allegiance. - to the flag, (Inaudible) -one Nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. (James) Thank you. Will someone read the mission statement, please? Lynn. (Lynn) We 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 statement. "We, the members of the Green Bay Area Public School District, recognize and honor the original inhabitants of Northeast Wisconsin. Our district lives, works, and learns upon the ancestral homelands of the Menominee and Ho-Chunk Nations, and the current homeland of Oneida Nation. We acknowledge the 12 diverse and vibrant Wisconsin First Nations who have persevered here since before recorded time, and continue to be integral parts of
003our community. We uphold our responsibility to repair relationships, initiate partnerships, and stand with all First Nation communities." Thank you. Now we'll move on to open forum, and we'll start with the Intracity Student Council. Please introduce yourself since we kind of reconvened in the open session. (Chanel) Chanel Leopold, Green Bay Preble. (Gwen) Gwen Oleniczak, Green Bay Preble. (James) All right, ready? (Gwen) Okay, so starting off with East, some good news is that they hosted the Shebango very well, and Ashwaubenon and Bay Port were there. Lots of show choir competitions, academic decathlon went to state and placed second in regionals. Varsity basketball went against West. Prep for the step group was made. Snowball is soon, winter pep rally is soon. Jazz band submitted videos for a competition. Teacher T, doctors, and recitalist, Jazz band is playing for
004it too. (Chanel) And then from JDAL, they had their monthly community building. They wrote New Year's resolutions down, and then student council made it into a mural. (Gwen) So at Preble, the DECA districts just happened, and six people qualified. 13 wildcard spots are available. DECA is doing a polar plunge. Show choir preview is on Friday. Show choir competition is also next Friday. Tri-M is going to see the Blue Man group in Milwaukee. First academic decathlon in their competition. Preble pride, cocoa and cram just happened. - We have a winter dance on the 31st. Show choir competed at Sparta this weekend, and center stage placed fourth with Best Cero. Rendezvous placed second, and Jazz All-Stars performed in Milwaukee at a Jazz Clinic on Friday. (Chanel) And then from Southwest, DECA competed a while ago, and the
005dance got approved for February 13th. (Gwen) So at West, IB study tables were on January 7th and 8th. Cocoa and cram by NHS and IB Club will be tomorrow. Bowling matches every final day. Music rehearsals started last week, and the Kringle fundraiser to support expenses in the music department just started. (Chanel) Yeah, we ended up not doing the polar plunge. It was canceled because it was too cold, but we did fundraise over a thousand dollars. (James) Right, was the polar plunge too polar? (Chanel) Yeah, it was too polar. It was unsafe for us to plunge. (James) Thank you. We're gonna move on to the public forum, and we have several speakers who are registered to speak this evening. If you have not yet, you still have an opportunity. There are some pink forms that you
006can fill out if you would like to speak. Our first speaker will be David Charles. As you come up, please state your name, your address, and then you'll have five minutes. (Dave) My name's Dave Charles, 5845 North Shore Acres, Brown County Green Bay School Board resident. For what it's worth, I contribute about $500,000 a year in property tax, of which the school board benefits. I have four children, seven grandchildren. They all went through the Green Bay Public School System. We've been blessed with a doctor and two lawyers as a result of that. Anyway, I bought Wequiock School a number of months ago, and you may be aware that I reached out to the board a while back and wanted to have a meeting and to talk, and I was told that we have to have
007a secret session with the lawyer to figure out how to negotiate this, and you can't come to that, but you could come two weeks later at the meeting and we'd work on it. But anyway, after that, I found out that apparently a vote was taken at the meeting not to even consider the proposal, and I was told not to come to the meeting, and if I wanted, I could come to this open forum, which I'm doing tonight, to try and reach out and say, "Look, we bought this building for your full asking price "after it sat vacant and empty for a year, "and you spent 100,000 bucks kind of maintaining it." And so I think I helped contribute to that, and then relative to the value, the other two buildings don't seem to have done
008really well, so I think I paid a pretty good price for the building, and everybody won. I had sent an offer to the board because we had looked at a number of charity operations to donate the use of the building to, and the one that we've landed on right now is Holy Cross School. They have an application that that school could be moved directly across to, and we've met with council and looked at everything in the legal documents that we signed when we bought the building, and we are simply moving this group of enrolled students to another building. They're not adding, they're not directing, and in the offer I gave you, I said I would pay you an additional $100,000, and I would guarantee that the student population didn't grow competing with the school system,
009and again, I guess one of the things I heard is somebody advised you guys that personal guarantees aren't any good and can't be enforced, and so I'm still willing to make that guarantee to control that there is no competition. We are simply moving an existing group of students which won't have any impact. Those students aren't gonna leave that school and come to the school system, and the system shouldn't lose any students to move those over, so our intent is to enter into a lease with them for a dollar a year to let them move into the building, and so I'm reaching out to you all in advance saying I'd really like to save all of the grief, aggravation, cost possibly of legal fees, depending what everybody wants to do, and I would even raise my
010offer to 150,000 to make this thing go away, to give you the guarantees. I'm sure you can always use the money. I hear rumors that budgets are tight and maybe there's some shortfalls, so between the savings we've delivered and the option to give you 150,000, if you agreed to a very restricted utilization of the building with a guarantee that it won't change, we would like to go ahead with this without hopefully going through the whole legal system, so I'm really here asking you if you would accept the 150,000, modify it to meet all of your needs and to meet all of our needs, and we can go ahead and move them in without all sorts of wasted time and energy that don't help educate students. Any questions I can help with? (James) So unfortunately, unless
011a topic is agenda, we can't engage with you and ask you questions because of public meeting laws, so we can't answer questions, so appreciate the discussion or the presentation, but we're prohibited from engaging with you. (Dave) Okay, I mean, again, I called significantly ahead and thought that's part of what we were doing, but it's not the first time. Anyway, I hope you'll all think about it. So what are you recommending? Now I should try and schedule something. (james) If you stay, I'll come out after the meeting, and we can talk about that. (Dave) Yeah, great, thank you. (James) Thank you. All right, our next speaker, Carol Miller. Remember to state your address and your name. There you go, thank you. (Carol) My name is Carol Miller. My address is 2517 Orion Trail, Green Bay, Wisconsin.
012I taught at Preble High School for 18 years and continued on a few more years to help direct the musicals and the spring plays, so 20 years total at Preble High School. I'm here to just give a tribute to Alex Pretti. Alex was in the musicals and the spring plays that I assisted, directed and directed. And the one thing that really stood out to me about Alex was the fact that he was the personification of kindness. Sometimes when you have a senior, you might get a senior who likes to push around the underclassmen, maybe tease them or taunt them, or not maybe feel them welcome. But that was not Alex. Alex was totally the opposite of that. He went out of his way to welcome the freshmen and the sophomores to the theater program to
013make them feel that their contributions to the productions were very important. And I think that was something that he probably portrayed in his adult life, being full of kindness and care for the veterans that he nursed. The other thing I would like to think is that Alex probably made some of those veterans smile with his wit and his charm. And one of the things that he always did was brighten everyone's day with a joke or a witty comment. And I can see him doing that with the veterans as well. just to see a smile put back on their faces. He led and he mentored with care and compassion. And he was just a very good person. And we will also always value his leadership and spread some of the kindness that he gave to others.
014And that's the ripple effect. And I think that's where his legacy therein lies. Thank you. (James) Thank you very much. - Sue McAllister. (Sue) I am also here to speak about Alex. My name is Susan McAllister. My address is 2921 Bay Settlement Road, Green Bay, Wisconsin. I taught in the Green Bay schools from 1972 to 2007, 23 of those years, the last 23 years of my career work. Preble High School. Alex Pretti was a student of mine in the music program at Preble from 2003 to 2006. Alex had an engaging and friendly personality. He was smart, well-liked, respectful, had a great sense of humor and was unfailingly kind. He had a beautiful voice and was a leader in chamber choir, show choir, madrigal singers, vocal jazz choir, and in the school musicals and plays. I
015can vividly see him in my mind standing in the bass section right in front of me, second row, encouraging the young men around him with his quiet leadership skills. I also can hear his full boisterous laugh. He had the knack for knowing when and how to break the ice during some pretty rigorous rehearsal moments at just the right time to reinvigorate the choir or the cast. Alex was the guy who took the underclassmen under his wing, mentored them, accepted them as an important part of the choir or the cast, and consequently gave them confidence in themselves. I quote from one of these young men who posted this about Alex. This was a freshman, Michael Brand, Alex was a senior. In a long post, I pulled out this quote from Michael. Quote, "He was generous with
016his time, "welcoming by nature and the kind of person "who made you feel included without trying. "He deserved to grow older, "to keep showing up for people the way he did for me." Unquote. That was Alex. As a music teacher, it is a great privilege to work with students for multiple years. We get to know these young people in their most formative years. I remember parents saying to me, "Mrs. Mack, you've seen my kid a whole lot more "than I see him these days." We see them in their academic choir during the day, rehearsals after school, rehearsals in the evening. We travel with them on weekends. We go away for trips. We really get to know these kids. And as any teacher knows, you love your students. And once they're your kid, they're always your
017kid. It's 19 years later that I'm saying this about Alex. My heart is broken over Alex's death. And of course, like everyone else, I am deeply angry. But I am also so proud of the young man I knew who then went to spend his adult life in a caring profession and gave the ultimate sacrifice in the act of helping others. There was a tribute on Facebook from a student who had no idea about Alex, graduated in the late 90s. But I felt this was a tribute not only to Alex, but to our schools and to teachers. Libby, and this is what she said, when you are educated by kind, smart, compassionate, funny, empathetic teachers, coaches, and directors, you don't just learn hard skills like phonics and algebra and physics. You learn to be a good
018human being, the kind of human being who does the right thing under difficult circumstances without hesitation, just like Alex did. Thank you. (James) Thank you. (clears throat) Travis Vandenhuevel. (Travis) Good evening. Travis Vandenhuevel 515, Meadow Lane. Not the first one to try to get this to stay up and fail. Aren't they? Alex was a childhood friend of mine and I have a lot of fun memories, time spent with Alex. And I was asked to come here and share about him, thought about what that might look like and channeling Alex and who I knew. I'm gonna say we as a district should be incredibly, should be incredibly proud of this young man who we as a community, as a school district, helped to raise. And up until the time he died, he was a helper. He
019was kindness incarnate. The other thing I think Alex would want me to convey is a thank you to you all, to his teachers who helped form him and for the service that you guys continued to provide, the children and the staff and faculty in this district. So on behalf of Alex, my sympathies, we lost a former student and alum and thank you. (James) Thank you. - Kerry Green. (Kerry) I'm Kerry Green and I live at 202 East Mission Road and I'm a proud parent of three graduates of this district, Webster, Washington and East. I'm going to speak for myself, but then I also have some notes from a retired teacher who could not be here tonight from the district, but she was very compelled to share her reflection of Alex. First of all, I'm here
020tonight because I want to honor Mike and Sue Pretti, Alex's parents, to let everyone know that Alex was indeed a good man and that's what they asked for in their statement. Let everyone know that Alex was a good man. Alex was a long time member of the Green Bay Boy Choir while I was an associate director with the choir. I knew him to be a fine singer, a fine friend and kind to all. And the thing that has been most comforting are the tributes that have poured in from his fellow Preble singers and his fellow Boy Choir singers. And I would like to reflect on the theme that they have all resounded and that is the theme of kindness. Alex was kind to me, he was kind to everyone. He was kind to the new
021kids, he was kind to the kids who were left out. I'd like to quote one of his friends. He's a Preble grad and he was also a long time Green Bay Boy Choir member, Josh Atkins. Josh gave a stunningly beautiful interview today to honor Alex. And he said, "Alex influenced him "in so many ways, but he was definitely the best of us. "He was the best of us." And he also reflected on the fact that Alex was so kind and giving to everyone. And Josh said, "Kindness can be such a revolutionary act." And I agree with Josh. And Josh is a high school teacher in Grafton. So we can be proud of that also. I'd just like us to endeavor to be the beacon of kindness that is revolutionary, to honor such a good man
022and to let the world know that Alex Pretti walked among us, sang among us, shared life among us, and we will continue to honor him all the days of our lives. Now I have a reflection from Susan Carlson, who was a retired teacher from East High School. And Susan writes, "Our current federal administration "has a diabolical playbook. "First they assassinate a good person "and then they assassinate his character. "It's positively shameful. "While I can do nothing to bring Alex back to life, "I can do my part to stifle the second death "by speaking the truth about his character." Alex was my student when he was in sixth, seventh, and eighth grade. But because he was in my daughter's class, I knew him from kindergarten on up. He was a great student and incredibly funny. He
023had a comedian sense of humor, perfectly timed remarks delivered at exactly the right moment, and we'd all dissolve into laughter and then move on with the lesson without missing a beat. Above all though, Alex was innately helpful. He had a knack for seeing what someone needed and helped. And he'd just jump in to provide that help without ever even being asked. Sue says, "When I'd ask for help with something, "Alex would volunteer before I'd even finished "explaining what I needed help with. "And I would ask, would someone please?" And he'd say, "I'll do it." And I'd say, "You don't even know what I need help with." And Alex would smile and say, "It doesn't matter." I'm not at all surprised by the man Alex became. At his core, Alex was a helper. I'm not at
024all surprised that he became a nurse. I'm not at all surprised that he worked with veterans. I'm not one bit surprised that his final act on earth was to help a woman who had been viciously thrown to the ground, and that his last words were, "Are you okay?" Because all of that is completely in line with who Alex was. So he was not a domestic terrorist. We will not let them control the narrative. We will not let them gaslight us into believing this was anything but what we can see with our own eyes that it was the vicious murder of a beautiful soul who just wanted to help. Rest in power, Alex. We love you. (James) Thank you. Next, MarkBecker. (Mark) Thank you, everyone. So I represent the Green Bay Boy Choir. I don't represent,
025but I sang it in there for years. (James) Can you say your-- (Art) Oh yeah, sorry. Mark Becker, 707 Cover Wagon Trail. (James) Thank you. (Mark) But even from the Boy Choir on all these decades later, if Ms. Green asks you to do something, you show up. And so I've been very hesitant to say anything about this because of a couple different reasons. The first is my well refined Catholic guilt tells me that I didn't know him as well as others. And there's people that have grief much deeper than my own. And the second is, I also learned this weekend that because of some of my civic involvement, if I say something, sometimes my words travel further than I would like them to. And I made a post that kind of went viral and was
026contacted by every news station in the area, but I never talked to them because I knew that ultimately they would want to say, oh, well, we'll hear from both sides. And there's no both sides of this. There's one side of what happened. And it's the side we can see with our eyes. But Alex was someone that we sang with. And he was someone that always was helping the little kids, the Green Bay Boy Choir. To understand what that means, you have to understand how tight knit of a group it was. We would rehearse at St. Norbert Abbey for hours upon hours every single week. We would go on trips. And this was before you have communication in your pocket. And so parents had to talk to other parents and children had to talk to other
027children. We were a really tight knit community. And so when something like this happens, to borrow a phrase from Star Wars, it's kind of like a disturbance in the force. And I grieve, of course, for Alex because what happened to him was unjustifiable. But I grieve for the community because this was not just an attack on him. And of course it was, but we all lost on Saturday, whether you knew him or whether you didn't. I'm fortunate enough to know him. But what happened to him to honor his parents' wishes, he was murdered. And we can't stray away from that. And it's awesome to hear who he was growing up and being the kid that would take care of the little ones as they were just coming into the boy choir. And he would give
028them a home and help them feel seen. Just like the last person said, it's no surprise that he grew up to take care of our veterans. And his last act was one of courage and one of selflessness. And I think we could all take a page out of that book. Ms. McAllister, I'm so sorry. I'm sorry for everyone and be more like him. Thank you. (James) Thank you. Next is Jeff DeGrave. (Jeff) My name is Jeff DeGrave, 1055 South Northfield Road. First and foremost, listening to the stories about Alex is inspiring. It's a man who was trying to make a difference. My son's not here tonight. Congratulations. He was a young man trying to make a difference, trying to make things change, Trying to make things equal for all students, level the playing field, making
029everyone equal. At the last meeting, my son courageously got up and spoke the truth in his speech about no one listening, no one willing to make a difference. As my son bravely spoke, a board member literally did everything possible not to listen. I encourage everyone, and I mean everyone, to watch the last board meeting. As this member tries to talk to another member as my son is speaking, as she swivels in her chair, she pushes her computer forward and pretends to type. Never, ever, not once looking at my son. Then she tries to talk to the person behind her. I compliment the two people that she tried to talk to for not engaging with her and showing my son that respect. I truly, truly appreciate. After the meeting, we got lots of phone calls, emails,
030text messages, social media messages about the lack of respect. Local media called and wanted to do an interview. We declined at first. I ask, is this how the board members want to be seen? The example we wanna set, I contacted several board members after. Not one has called my son to talk to him about what happened. I do wanna thank the board members who I did talk to for being positive and saying they would check into it and see what they could do. Jackson said today in his own words, "This is what's wrong with the world. "No one wants to listen, no one cares." This board member proved it. Jackson did learn a lesson, an important lesson that no one listens, no one cares. Trying to better yourself may be a waste of time. Lessons
031that I thought he would never have to learn. One thing I demand from my children is to always show respect no matter what. I think it should be my demand that he is shown the same. And I expect an apology. Thank you. (James) Thank you, Mr. Grave. That's all of the registered public speakers. We will move on to discussion and the superintendent update. (Vicki) Okay, thank you. This is a weird transition. Thank you for speaking today. I wish I had a break to say thank you, Travis. Thank you, teachers. I have some good news to share. This year, 12 school counseling programs received the prestigious Program of Promise Award from the Wisconsin School Counselors Association. And I'm really pleased to share with all of you that Washington Middle School was one of those schools. The
032Washington Middle School Counseling Program supported eighth grade students in successful completion of courses that count towards high school credit. They did a targeted approach this year, collected a lot of data, identifying which students were struggling the most and then provided intervention, targeted intervention. And it was remarkable the increase in the number of students that were successful. So that's why they were recognized and we're really, really proud of our Washington Student Services team. The Green Bay Area Public Schools Education Foundation Board of Directors surprised educators across our district who received funding from the fall 25 grant cycle. This was on January 13th. They worked their way around our school district. 23 grant proposals were partially or fully funded, totaling over $60,000. And I can promise you that our teachers are putting those funds to very good
033use to better the experience for our students. The funds will be used to support a school garden, fund field trips, purchase exercise equipment, stem clubs, buy additional books and so much more to enhance the student learning experience. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, was that just a week ago? Was that just a week ago? Okay, there were celebrations all across Northeast Wisconsin. On the far right side, that's a picture of some of the members of the Southwest Girls Basketball Team and Kerry Rogers, one of our family engagement coordinators, supported them on a trip to the Brown County Library to do some volunteer work that day. This is just one example of a lot of things that our students did throughout the city that day, along with our staff. And David Johns and Ingrid Parker Hill helped
034facilitate the celebration at NWTC. And David gave some remarkable closing comments. If you get a chance, I think the video is still out there. If you wanna see a class act, take a look at his presentation. Thank you. Jackson Elementary School held a ribbon cutting to celebrate the first harvest of lettuce from their new hydroponic flex farm. That was on January 20th, it was a great turnout. We actually, I won't say we, they actually held the event during lunch. So we were surrounded by, I don't even remember what grade was it? - Third and fifth grade. They had no idea what was going on. It was quite fun. The ribbon cutting in that picture on the left, they cut the ribbon and then opened it up and the hydroponic unit was filled with fresh greens
035and then students and audience members had an opportunity to partake and it was great. This is just another example of students learning differently today than what we were exposed to when we were kids of just sitting in a desk and learning from a book, they're actually getting their hands dirty and experiencing things like this. Congratulations to the Jackson team for putting this together. State Education Convention was last week and I can tell you that Green Bay was well represented and acknowledged by districts from across the state. 421 school districts and all of them, not all of them, many of them were asking what's going on in Green Bay and how can we learn from you? We had three different presentations at the convention. Amy Jacob presented on technology and the importance of leadership in that
036field on the bottom, is that you? Bottom left, right? Bottom left. The top picture is Cale Pulczinski. alCe gave a presentation on facilities and planning for the future. Both of those were really well received and then it was a full house for the bottom right where Lori Blakeslee and Laura McCoy and of course Denise Gomer Hutchinson presented on tax levy transparency. And that audience was filled with board members from across the state who wanted to know more about transparency and how to make sure the public is aware of how funds that appear to be going to public schools are actually funneled to vouchers and private schools. So I have no doubt that Green Bay is the leader and this one is going to change Wisconsin. And a proud district moment you guys, music teachers, you
037would appreciate this. It was the final day of the convention last Friday. A no student, no teacher day because of the cold. But we had about 30 of our students get on a bus and ride down to Milwaukee and got on the stage and played, this is our all-star jazz band. It formed in 2425 and they looked very tired when they got there. But they were the main act for the general session right before the governor of the state of Wisconsin was going to speak and they got up and played and they received a standing ovation folks. It was really very, very good. And then I bet a lot of money they got on that bus and fell asleep. You would have been very proud. They represented all of our schools. They did a fantastic
038job. The nominees for the golden apple, the list is getting smaller so it started with all those that were nominated and then a committee narrows it down. And this is the list of our school district teachers who are identified as educators of distinction. So they made it to the second round. And now there's another round that will develop the final list and the remaining staff will be the ones that are recognized at the golden apple. I think that's going to be in April. I'll get you more information as we get closer to it. It's a wonderful event that recognizes teachers across the whole area. For updates on the budget, we will be presenting to the board during your work session in February and update on our budget and steps towards addressing the budget deficit. And
039following that, we will do two community roundtables, discussions, gathering feedback from the community about generating ideas on how we can best balance the budget collectively as a group. Those dates are February 17th at 6 p.m. at East High School and February 18th at 6 p.m. at Southwest High School. And the public's welcome and encouraged to help us figure this out. In order to address the budget deficit over the years, you know that we've had to make the difficult decision to consolidate schools. At the end of this school year, four buildings will be closing. And so we are going to have open houses, an opportunity for people that maybe went through that school or taught at that school, and they want to say goodbye. We're having open houses. The date has been chosen. It will be
040May 3rd. I think that's a Sunday. And the times are staggered in case anyone is interested in attending all four. So we have Elmore, we have Kennedy, Langlade, and MacArthur. And then finally, I want to acknowledge this afternoon, David Johns, Melissa Thiele-Collar, Mike Fries, Lori Blakeslee, Cindy Olson, and I went over to Preble, met with some students who had contacted us yesterday, and said they wanted to talk. And it just completely, David reminded me of what they had to say. You would have been so proud. Sorry. Thought I could do this, sorry. (laughs) They demonstrated the portrait of a graduate, okay? What we expect our students to graduate, being the skills to do. We were very proud of them. They spoke so eloquently. Teachers from 20 years ago, you would have been so proud of
041this group of kids today. I mean, these two are examples of that. Graduating with character, okay? Let's just close with that. All right, thank you. (James) Thank you, Superintendent Bayer. - Okay. Okay. All right, move to a legislative update, Jeanette. (Jeanette) Thank you. Little trouble putting this legislative report together because the WASB site was down today, and I rely on them quite a bit to get my information. So cobbled together what I could. So an important thing that's happening Wednesday, January 28th at 10 a.m., the Senate Education Committee is having a public hearing on Senate Bill 611. The Companion Assembly Bill passed in November. The Wisconsin Board for People with Developmental Disabilities is very concerned about this bill passing. This bill will make it easier for teachers to take students out of classrooms if the
042teacher says the student's behavior is disruptive and it will add time-consuming paperwork requirements that can delay a student's return to the classrooms. Students with disabilities are already removed from class more often than non-disabled peers. Many common behaviors could fit the definition of disrupted incident and cause the child to be removed. Requiring additional paperwork adds barriers and delays to students returning to class. If this is a concern of yours, I would ask you to reach out to your Wisconsin State Senator. I believe most of the people, probably all the people that live in the Green Bay District, that would be Senator Jamie Wall. You can find his information if you just Google his name or go to the state site. This is important stuff because, well, we need to protect our kids who have special needs
043and this would be more problems for them. There's a few other things I highlighted in the report, but something else I wanted to bring up, information from the Wisconsin Public Education Network regarding funding for special education, which sort of fits with the last item that I mentioned. Assembly Bill 859 and Senate Bill 852 would guarantee a full 42% reimbursement rate in special education funding and guarantee a 45 reimbursement rate in the 26-27 school year. That is what was put in the budget. Unfortunately, because of the way funding is that we are under a sum certain instead of a sum sufficient, the dollar amounts for this reimbursement are quite a bit lower. I believe about 35%. Students who attend private schools on a special needs voucher are entitled to a 90% reimbursement rate and they are
044guaranteed a 90% reimbursement rate because those schools receive what's called sum sufficient allocation. So we want to make sure, we want to make sure that our students get the same benefit that students, or at least close to the same benefit, they don't get 90%. So I would ask you to reach out to your assembly representative and your Senate person that these bills get passed. Information from Wisconsin public radio Sean Johnson on January 16th, he reported that the Wisconsin state government may have a lot more money than previously expected after new revenue projections show the state's budget picture improving by 1.5 billion. That's a B, billion. The estimates from the nonpartisan legislation fiscal bureau would leave the state with a 2.5 billion at the end of the two year budget. The state was previously expecting a
045balance of closer to one billion. Still a lot of money. While the numbers are still just projections, they're based in part on trends in actual tax collection and represent a significant uptick in revenue, particularly from corporate and income taxes. So I tell you this because it relates to the above comment I made regarding needing the reimbursement rate for our special education students. Our state is not filling the obligation they have in funding public education. Even with the 42% rate reimbursement, it still doesn't fund what it needs to and it doesn't fund the other things. It doesn't fund the things so that we can provide money to special sports opportunities or forensics or any of those extra special things and the schools are not raising taxes for the heck of it to just fund frivolous things
046and we're closing four schools this year because of the lack of funding, one of the reasons. So I urge you to contact your state legislators regarding this. If we have a budget windfall of 1.5 billion, that's on top of the already budget windfall we have sitting there not being spent that could be providing special opportunities for our kids that a lot of parents and students would like to see. So that's my rant for tonight and I really urge you all to reach out to your senator and to your assembly reps. Thank you. (James) Thank you, Jeannette. Laura. (Laura) Just gonna add a little bit that pertaining to funding. So the Education Convention last week, funding and all its different complexities, special ed, everything about school funding was just so front and center to every conversation
047that I was part of. There was just a, I don't wanna use the word despair but it often felt like despair. As administrators, school board members, teachers, people who work with children every day and just wanna do their jobs, have to worry and spend time and energy and resources begging politicians to care about public education. And okay, so we'll do that if we have to. I'm starting to wonder if it'll ever make a difference. So, but it was everywhere and all the time at this convention as people worry about how they're going to keep their districts afloat and how they're gonna serve the needs of children in their community. (James) Thank you, Laura. Others? Okay, we'll move to the consent agenda approval. Lynn, will you read the motion? (Lynn) I move that the consent agenda
048items as presented be approved. (James) I have a second from Jeanette. Discussion? Kinsey? (Kinsey) Online voting is now open. (Laura) Kinsey, I'm not gonna be able to vote on my computer tonight. I'll figure it out, but I'm a yes. (Kinsey) Andrew, do you wanna voice vote? (Andrew) Oh, I'll vote yes, I'll ready to. (Kinsey) All votes have been entered and the motion is carried with all board members voting in favor. (James) Thank you, we have three action items this evening. Seven, A, the general contractor award for community room remodel at Nicolet Elementary. And will someone read the motion, please? Lynn? (Lynn) I move that (inaudible) construction be awarded the bid for the general contractor for the community room remodel at Nicolet Elementary Community School in the amount of $423,000, $423,515. as presented be approved. (Samantha)
049Second. (James) Discussion? So I know that this is a first read of this. So I think, Vicki, if you have any prepared remarks or whatever on this topic. (Vicki) This is the Nicolet Elementary Community School project that's been talked about for several years now. We're ready to move forward with it. And so what you see in the memo are the qualifying bids for the work associated with the project. (James) Laura? (Laura) Remind me, so this is a referendum money or is this a referendum project? (James) Yes. Lynn? (Lynn) And I just want to point out that by creating this community room, of course, Nicolet is a community school now, and by creating this room, the school will be able to allow community people in to provide services and have meetings on behalf of the children,
050et cetera, like dentists and doctors and whatever, and they will have their own private entrance. They will not have to walk through the school in order to get to this community room. (James) And the space is sufficient for the activities. Right now it's insufficient for the activities over at Nicolet. Other discussion? Kinsey? (Kinsey) Online voting is now open. (Laura) I vote yes. (Kinsey) All votes have been entered and the motion is carried with all board members voting in favor. (James) Thank you. 7B, open enrollment space designation 426 and 27. Lynn, will you please read the motion? (Lynn) I move that the open enrollment space designation as presented be approved. (Samantha) Second. (James) Discussion? Andrew. (Andrew) I'm gonna vote no on this as I have in other years. This is an unfortunate situation where if one
051school district opens spots and other school districts don't open spots, it can put the school district that does the right thing in a bad spot and find themselves with people coming in that they may not be able to hire enough teachers for. It's my opinion that although it's a difficult situation, I think it's important to make a stand for doing the right thing. I realize that it's maybe not practical unless all school districts were to agree to do this, but nonetheless, I voted no and I'm gonna stay consistent to that. I don't think it was a bad recommendation. I think it's an unfortunate recommendation that probably staff would rather not have to make because of the way this works, but nonetheless, I think you have to make a stand for, we should make it, it
052should be easier for special, special education students to transfer in and it shouldn't be made impossible by structural problems. (James) Thank you, others? Kinsey? (Kinsey) Online voting is now open. (Laura) Kinsey, I vote yes. (mumbles) (Kinsey) All votes have been entered and the motion is carried. The results of the individual board member votes are as follows. Becker, no. McCoy, yes. Lyerly, yes. Gerlach, yes. Mineau, abstained. Knill yes. Meister, yes. (James) Thank you. We'll move to 7C, contracts under Wisconsin Statute section 118.24. Lynn, will you read? (Lynn) I move that the issuance of contracts as outlined under Wisconsin Statute section 118.24 with the 2026-27 school year as presented be approved. (Samantha) Second. (James) Discussion? Lynn? (Lynn) Maybe Vicki can answer this for me. I just want to understand this chart thing that we're looking at. Where
053it says contract year and then there's no years but there's an asterisk here and there. Could you just tell me what those asterisks mean, please? (Vicki) Yes. - It indicates whether the staff member is on the first or the second year of their contract. (Lynn) So which is it? What's that mean? (Vicki) Mike? - Sorry. (Vicki) That's okay. (Mike) Yes, good evening. If you just scroll down to the bottom of the second page to asterisk, that indicates someone who will be receiving a contract this year. - Thanks, that was easy. (Mike) Yeah, sorry, thank you. We know that this one is always, it's consistently done this way but it does always raise that question. So I appreciate you asking, thank you. (James) Other discussion? Kinsey? (Kinsey) Online voting is now open. (Laura) Kinsey, I vote
054yes. (Kinsey) All votes have been entered and the motion is carried. The results of the individual board member votes are as follows. Meister yes, Knill yes, Mineau abstained, Gerlach yes, Lyerly yes, McCoy yes, Becker yes. (James) Thank you. Before we move to adjournment, I just want to have a consult with legal. Do you want me to have the motion read and then us just to vote it down or can I just pivot and say we don't need the second closed session? Okay, we do not need the second closed session. Even though we are noticed to go back into closed session, we're going to entertain a motion to adjourn for the evening. (Laura) So moved. (Jeanette) Second. (James) All in favor? - Aye. (James) Aye, we are adjourned, thank you.