001All right, everybody. It's 5:45. Welcome to the regular board meeting. Um, I'd like to call this meeting to order. Laura, would you start us with our roll call of attendance? Yes. Tracy Hennis, here. Nolan Jacket here. Heather Barry here. Tiffany Stapleton here. Kenneth Miller here. And I'd like to formally welcome our two newest board members, Kenneth Miller and Tiffany Stapleton. Welcome to your first meeting. Uh next, would everybody please rise for the pledge of allegiance. It's going to be led this evening by Jackson. Jackson, please make sure the microphone is on. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Is there a motion from a board member to adopt the agenda for
002this evening? So moved. Motion by Nolan Jacket. Is there a second? I'll second. Seconded by Heather Barry. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor of proceeding with the agenda as presented say I. I. I. Any oppose say nay. That motion carries. We're going to move forward with the agenda as presented this evening. Um, do we have anybody sign up to address the board tonight? Okay. So, we are going to skip over the public comment procedure. Next on our agenda are the recognitions. Starting with our April Rotary students of the month. Okay. Our first Rotary student of the month is Ava Laski. Ava, there she is. Ava has maintained high honors throughout high school and taken AP classes such as AP language and composition, AP psychology, AP US history. And through the past four years,
003she has really immersed herself in the music programs at HHS and has been a part of concert and symphonic band as the first chair flutist voices belto and concert choir and a member of the pit orchestra for the fall musical. Ava is also a member of the Milwaukee youth symphony orchestra. Her volunteer work and community service is also something that she has really prioritized as a member of H Club, student council, and national honor society. Ava is also an active member of St. Gabriel Parish where she served as a youth leader for middle school students. And so I'll let Ava tell you a little bit more about herself after she leaves here. So, my plans after high school are to attend Marquette University, and I am double majoring in journalism and corporate communications on the
004pre-law track. And I intend to go to Marquette Law School to study corporate law. My favorite memory at HUS is definitely going to the football games and being part of the student section. For the first three years of high school, I was in band, so I never got to be in the student section. So, not only was that my favorite memory of senior year, but also throughout the entirety of high school. My advice for incoming freshmen and honestly any high school member today is to really just appreciate the moment because everybody tells you that high school goes so fast and you don't realize it until it's pretty much over. So instead of always focusing on the future, just focus on the now and meet as many people as you can and join as many clubs
005and sports as you can and just appreciate the now. Thank you, Ava. Congrats. Congratulations. Our second Rotary student of the month is Emily Gardsky. There she is. Emily is ranked 10th in her class with a 4.1 GPA. She has taken many advanced courses, AP language and composition, AP biology, AP psychology, AP statistics and probability, AP chemistry along with the PTLW principles of biomed science, human body systems and medical intervention courses. Emily has taken further steps to prepare herself for the future in medicine by earning her CNA license and is currently working towards her EMT license. Outside of the classroom, she is part of the student athletic training group, as well as the cross country and track teams. Emily has devoted many hours to community service through age club and national honor society and participated in
006the pit orchestra of the school musical during her sophomore and junior years and also teaches religious education in small groups at St. Gabriel's and swim lessons at the Wisconsin Athletic Club. Okay. Um, I will also be attending Marquette University next year. Um, I'll be majoring in biomedical sciences on the prea track where I'll attend PA school at Marquette hopefully. Uh, my favorite memory at HHS is definitely being on the cross country team. I really like just being able to run with my friends. I've made some of my best friends there and all the team dinners and all the fun practices were really a highlight of my high school career. And for my advice for incoming freshmen, I'd say get involved with as much as you can. Uh like I made some of the best memories
007in all the sports and clubs that I've done. And my biggest regret is not joining cross country sooner because I did my sophomore year. And if I would have just put myself out there freshman year, I would have made even more memories. Thank you, Em. Congratulations. And Dr. Looks like we have a donation this evening. We do. We would like to thank Wymer's installation and repair services for their generous donation of a subscription to Canva multiple yard signs and state team supplies to HUS snowboarding team valued at over $370. So, thank you and incred incredibly generous and we thank Wymer's greatly. Thank you. [Applause] Next this evening on the agenda is our consent consent agenda. These are items that we can approve together as one. If there's anything that a board member would like to
008pull out for discussion or an individual vote, you're welcome to do that. Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda items? So moved. Is there a second? I'll second. Is there any discussion? Um, I don't want to pull this out, but I do want to just acknowledge that this is an exciting list of personnel recommendations this evening. I see new hires. I see hires from within. And I see the rehire of a teacher who was here previously. So, a pretty exciting selection of personnel recommendations this evening. Any further discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor of approving the consent agenda item signify by saying I. I. I. Any oppose? Say nay. That motion carries. Thank you. Next this evening, we have our reports starting with our student board representatives report. All right. Um, welcome
009to the new school board members. So tonight, um I'll really be introducing ourselves uh for you guys and then also just providing um an update on what we're up to, I guess, as a whole. Um so currently our main role is to just kind of provide student perspective for the school board, which you do every month. It could be about variety of topics like just athletics all the way up to like board policy that will be impacting students. Um and we also like run a lot of events for students. Like currently we're starting to work on freshman jump start again and stuff like that and we present a lot of that to the board, the success and the data behind it and everything like that. Um yeah, I mean that's basically it. We're mostly just
010here as a reference for you guys and to help new students and everything like that. Um we're just going to be kind of recapping. We just had a day of service this week. So, I'm just going to recap a little bit about my day. I was at Freeze Lake um school and there we kind of just did like the wildlife area and kind of to this back area um where we mulched, we raaked a bunch of different areas. We turned stones over and we just cleaned up the area a bit. Then we ended with a nature walk and it was just really nice because you could just see how appreciative the teachers are and I know it meant a lot to them because otherwise they would be the ones doing it. So, it was really
011nice to just help with them. Um, I was at Miss Hall's house. Um, we got to do some yard work and we mulched her yard, pulled some weeds, raked a bunch of leaves up. Um it the good that we saw was the appreciation of Miss Hall because she can't do all of that a lot of yard work by herself and she was really appreciative to us when she got home at the end of the day and she showed her thanks and yeah it's just good seeing the smile on her face from that. Um I was at Camp Silverbrook. It's a Girl Scout camp in Westbend. And there we helped put tarps on the shade flies and we put wood chips under them as well. And then we also kind of trimmed some branches that were
012hanging into some of the hiking trails there to make that all clear. And then some of the good that I saw going on was just a lot of teamwork, people working together. Um, even people that like we didn't really know, we kind of got to know and got to talking with them. And if people were confused or needed help, other students were easily able to step in and help, which was a really good thing to see. Jessica and I went to Camp Minani in Ridgefield to help paint and prime the newly built horse stables. Um, and we so we had a lot of fun mainly. And for us, we thought that the good that we could see it was like everybody was helping out with each other. And for our first time doing this, uh,
013especially not just us, but the freshman body in general, everybody enjoyed it and thought that was amazing way to help our community. I don't think we'll have any questions today, but are there any? How about questions or comments? Sure, we'll take comments. I would say that um you guys are such a great part of every schoolboard meeting that we have. So, thank you. You started out tonight by saying we're just here. You're not just here. You're a really important part of our meetings. It's really great to hear the student perspective. You always bring forth some not only a glimpse into what's going on here in the high school itself, but also some constructive criticism and suggestions, too, that have helped with improvements made here. So, thank you all for your participation. Um, anything from any
014other board members? Well, before you step away, I also want to say thank you especially to Maddie and Sarah. I understand that next month the schedule might be kind of difficult to get here. So, um, in case we don't see you next month, thank you very much for for serving on your on this representative board of students. Thank you. I guess that's all for tonight. Thank you. Let's give them a round of applause. Uh, next is our referendum update. Good evening. Welcome to board members. Uh, my name is Matt Walford with Bray Architects. I've had the good fortune of working with the district over the last year or so uh in preparation for and now implementation of the referendum. Um, relatively brief update tonight. Um, we continue to make great progress on all of the
015planning and design work around the referendum. You will see in in a few agenda items ahead the CG Schmidt team with some really positive bid results for bid package one. So they'll give you a good reminder of what that scope is along with review the bids. But uh real good news there. Uh bid package 2 which is the pool itself that was released well released from our team to the CG Schmidt team this morning. So within the next 3 4 days at most that will be out on the market with contractors and subcontractors looking at that uh and returning bids to the CG Schmidt team for that. Um there is a rendering you can see maybe see a little bit here in front but just as a reminder the scope of that is really some
016of the unseen part which is probably one of the bigger cost pieces is placing the entire gutter system around the pool which has been identified as where the leak is occurring or was occurring excuse me in the pool. recovering the walls to address uh some concerns regarding structural deterioration, which our structural engineers determined are are important to address, but not as critical as some may have thought uh going into the referendum. Um and then a variety of cleanup pieces with painting the ceiling, new lighting, uh things of that nature. So, really a refresh of the pool environment with the main focus being addressing that major leak which had been occurring for years. And so, um, looking forward to getting, uh, bids back on that. There is an agenda item coming up later for an April
017special meeting. I think we're going to ask for a June special meeting. So, we can cover that, um, Tracy, now or later, whatever your preference is, right? You want to just tell the board about that a little bit, that's fine. Yeah. So, by the time we release the bids, the bids come in, the CG Schmidt team needs to meet with each of the biders to make sure they have the scope correct, what's called scoping the bids to make sure that they're accurate and they reflect everything. Um, we're going to likely be requesting a board meeting on June 11th or 12th, a Wednesday or Thursday, uh, of the week of June 9th, a special board meeting, likely a single agenda item, at least from our perspective, simply um, review and approval of bids for bid package
0182. Um, we don't want to wait a long time. The the the fabrication of the gutter is going to take Ethan 12 weeks. So, and they won't begin that actual manufacturing of that gutter until their contract is approved. I think as we can all imagine. Um so we don't want to hold that up. Um if the board is willing to jump in and give us one special meeting there to get that going that would be great. Don't envision it being a long meeting. So happy to accommodate your schedules on the 11th or 12th. And again we can talk about that more later. Otherwise we're continuing to refine scope. The next update we have will likely be in June and we're probably going to be focusing on the uh outdoor facilities. So the track and the
019synthetic turf project mainly. We've made good progress on those. um in terms of design, but we should have enough to update you on that in more detail by then. The rest of the scope that's continuing to develop is is Tracy Peterson from your team um and our team and the CG Schmidt team are are continuing to just do a lot of the detailed refinement. They've now walked all the roofs that are being replaced. They've looked at all the air handlers that are on the roofs to finalize the scope of that replacement. They've identified and probably not a handful, I'll say a handful of old pieces of equipment that were just abandoned in place on the roof in sections of the roof that we're replacing. Now is the time to get those out of there, right?
020Remove that old piece of equipment that's not functional or you're not using and and put a clean roof over the top of it. So, a lot of that little detailed work that has to happen is happening. Um, and our team is beginning to implement the design and engineering for that. So on track from a schedule perspective, on track as you're going to see in a little bit from a budget perspective in the first package. So uh we're feeling really good as a team. Um I should one other piece I forgot to to note. Sorry, I can't believe I skipped the the tech edition project. Um we we finally landed on a really good floor plan with the teched teachers within the last week here. Um which is great. Now the walls don't move anymore. We
021get to detail that out with engineers and electrical systems and all the important parts and pieces that have to go into that. Um, and that team's been great. They gave us a lot of great feedback, critical feedback at times, which is good. We need that, uh, to make sure it's right for them, but know that their voice has been heard. Um, and we're looking forward to implementing that along with the remainder of the project in the weeks and months ahead. So, Tracy, turn it back to you and the board if you have any questions. Thank you, Matt. Um, any questions from board members? I guess not. Thank you very much for the updates. Great. Thank you. And just just a little plug, um before the board meetings, there is time out in front of where
022we hold our board meetings if anybody wants to come and ask some questions or talk about some of the referendum projects. You're welcome to attend that session and um get some individual answers if needed. Uh next on the agenda is our principal report from Miss Kelly Lamb. Well, first off, I want to welcome our two new board members. It's exciting to have you guys on board. So, thank you for your dedication to HOHS. For the principal report today, we're going to focus on life is good. Go Orioles. So, if you see in the upper left hand side, that is kind of our theme for the end of this year. and we're going to springboard it into next year. There's so much good that goes on at HHS and we just want to foster that into
023something positive and shine our students and our staff throughout the year. So, this is from the day of service. Our students were able to, as you know, the um board rep said they got to go out in the community and service various partners and different people and they created this life is good poster. So each group got to decorate it how they saw fit. What is life is good to them because it's a very personal thing and it was nice because all the kids kind of got into it. If you see that artwork lower left, they obviously had really good artist. I don't think I could draw that. Um but it was really neat to see their creative side come out and just something very fun before we go to the site. So, that is
024something that we're really excited about and we're actually going to instill this into our staff appreciation week as well. I know Stevie will talk more about the details of uh day of service next week, but I just kind of wanted to share some of the amazing pictures of what our kids are doing out there. Other than life is good with day of service, we are really excited that we finished our ACT testing, preacct testing forward and now we have AP AP testing from next Monday till the end of the school year, which is crazy. So, the last week will be the makeups up to May 22nd. So, our kids are really going to be cracking down studying all the way to graduation. So, we're really excited about that. Other fun things that we're looking forward
025to is this Friday is our scholarship breakfast where we highlight all the scholarships that our kids will be receiving that they worked very hard for. Right now we have I think Laura and Michael have been working very hard in making this happen. But Laura was it over $744,000 that our kids have so far received which is amazing. And that does not include all the scholarships. Due to our graduation date and AP testing, we did have to push up the date. So that's why not all the scholarships are in. So that total is not indicative of the at the end of the year total. And that springboards into graduation. We're super excited. Uh Marie Hopp has been working hard at making sure graduation is going to be perfect for all of our class of 2025 seniors.
026And on another note, our scheduling for next year is going well. We have been running some, we call it scheduling things through Skyward. I'm not sure the exact word to say, but right now we're trying to get our conflicts down so that our counselors can help solve all those conflicts and we can get the schedules to the kids within two weeks. So, we're really excited. Awesome. Any questions for Miss Lamb? Thank you for all the pictures. Yes, this is our last. And I would like to note if you see the upper right hand, our teachers actually brought their own markers to help the kids decorate. So that's why you can see I think they call chalk markers and that's why that orange is really poppy. Ah, cool. So it's really fun. Thank you. Our next
027report is our superintendent report um from Dr. Stacy Gain. Okay, so building off of Miss Lamb's Life is Good, just wanted to take a few minutes to reflect really on the heart of HUHS as we close out the school year and head into our staff appreciation week. While the past few months have presented um their share of uncertainty, the fundamental and truly enduring qualities of our HUS family have remained. And so, thank you to the incredible dedication of our staff, the unwavering support of our community and families. Uh, we've connect collectively navigated these times with resilience, really pres prioritizing the learning and well-being of our students. So, a huge thank you again to the staff who continue to really foster those meaningful relationships with students. That's been a focus this year and really connecting with
028our students both inside and outside of school. visible every day. Student events um in the hallway cheering on their activities, writing encouraging notes, and if you happen to see the three dozen staff who learn the dance to present to students uh during the assembly, pretty neat. Um, and then our staff, just a shout out, in terms of the unique learning opportunities that continue to model and inspire students, connecting them to those real world experiences. anything from the vision house recently with partnership with the Hartford Rotary and Ann and Contracting and local businesses to Skills USA which you'll hear about in a few minutes um going heading to that national competition as well as our industry visits the world food conference and so much more that students are able to extend far beyond the walls of
029this building and you've heard a little bit about day of service. I know Dr. Lew um and Miss Trap will talk a little bit more about that in May. Um also just wanted to point out would be remiss the ongoing successful athletics and activities continue to thrive under the direction of Mr. Helms, Miss Frings, our coaches, both paid and volunteer adviserss, um other staff, event workers, just so many people to be grateful for. And for those of you who don't know, we are currently leading the Northshore with the Northshore All Sports Cup, which is awesome. That's the most conference championships during a school year. So again, thank you to the community. U personally truly valued those opportunities with the remarkable organizations we have that have just been immensely generous with their time and resources. Um,
030as Matt noted, our referendum is on par on task with the execution and planning list logistically and fiscally. And that's a huge thank you to the foundation that was laid by that SEFAC team as well as our core planning team. And as Matt noted, we really had a lot of great input from our uh, teched teachers. Um, Miss Peterson leading the charge, Miss Lamb, Mr. Helms, Mr. Nelson, Miss Verhan, so many more have been really integral in making that process move forward in a successful manner. And then finally, just wanted to highlight our hiring process over the last few months. We've really attracted quality candidates and some of our recent hires are internal. So, a lot of people ask, "Wow, you have a lot of positions posted." And the great piece is that we've also
031had a number of internal candidates that have moved position. and that's really a a testament to the talent that we have in this building as well as the work um in building capacity. So just in closing again the generosity and optimism of our students, staff and families has been phenomenal and is truly unparalleled. So we continue to maintain um that mindset and really are finishing out the year strong. The other item uh just wanted to touch on was the department of ed put out uh well first of all I'll stop there. Are there any questions? Or Tracy, did you want to add anything? I'll wait till my report. No. Okay, that's good. Um, just wanted to briefly mention the Department of Education put out illegal obligations undertaken in exchange for receiving federal financial assistance and
032a request for certification. So, essentially, the federal government has an initiative to pay attention to admission and recruitment practices and policies related to discrimination. had sent that out in April and really are asking districts if we're complying with title six as they're looking for compliance both at the state and the local level. So just of note uh the Wisconsin DPI is not certifying or refusing to certify. Um they made a statement uh within probably second week of April to indicate that. So there's approximately maybe a quarter of the states that are not certifying currently in the country. And I just want to note that we did certify there's a greater risk of not taking action on that certification. So districts that don't take action are subject to possible investigation, greater inquiry by the DOE or
033DOJ. Um and certainly a good amount of funding comes through and there's obviously a possible risk to that funding being cut. So um I would say probably around a million. I know Rob can give you the specifics, but um there's a good amount of money that comes through from that funding. So, just wanted to make note of that. I don't know if anyone has any questions around that. Um I'll just add that I know a great deal of thought and research and um discussion went into into that decision to certify and send off that letter. Um just want to make sure that you guys understand that there was a significant amount of time and energy and effort put into that. I know um Stacy talked to significantly more people than I did, but we both
034talked to a number of schoolboard members and school districts and organizations um around the state, especially from our area of the state um just to make sure that we were doing what was best for the district. Any questions or comments about items in Stacy's report? Heather, I just want to say thank you for doing that because that was a a high concern of considering budgets and everything that we would compromise not getting the funding that can help offset our expenditure. So, thank you for doing all the extra effort that had to be t taken. And if anybody read the letter, it in effect was just stating we don't have discriminatory processes here. That's all it was. It's very simple. It's not adding something additional to the district. It's just saying this this is how we
035do things here at Harvard Union High School. Any other comments or questions? All right, hearing none, we'll go forward in the agenda then. Um, up with the Is that all you had, Stacy? Yes. With the school board report. Um, first and foremost, again, welcome to Tiffany and Kenneth for joining our board. I have to say, um, watching this election unfold was really exciting for our district. Um, I want to make sure I also thank Adam Majaras and Jenny Gillan for running. It's not easy to run for a school board position. It's not easy to to hold one and do the work either. So, welcome. Glad you're here. But I just have to say um how amazing it is that we had so many people come out and vote in our district and that it was
036so tight between the four of them. I mean, the highest vote getter was 5,496 and the lowest was 5,132. That is really tight, especially for that many voters. Um I think we can all feel really good about who we have representing our community on the board. Um and just looking at those numbers, it's just truly amazing to see. So, so glad you both ran. So glad that all four of the candidates ran and looking forward to the time ahead with these with these board members. Uh, next for my report, um, I just want to echo what Stacy was saying. What I don't know if you can hear it or see it or sense it, but um, I I said last month was my favorite board meeting. I've been on this board for 15 years. I
037called Kelly and said that was my favorite meeting. This might be my favorite meeting now. I don't know. There's there is just a positive energy and teamwork and collaboration that's happening here. Um this team, the students, the staff, the teachers, everybody just keeps moving forward together. I'm seeing more collaboration and positivity and um just positive change happening here. And in all honesty, that positive change happens because we're all willing to have discussions about what needs to change, right? I think about the sheer amount of energy, effort, and hours that have gone into the past several months. I mean, really since earlier in January, obtaining and soliciting feedback from all of our stakeholders. I want you to know how valuable that is. Um, we we read and look at every single comment that we get. I
038mean, right now, we're combing through at least a thousand bits of information from from recent feedback that we've gotten. And we do want to make sure that we are looking at it with a thoughtful process and and do giving some some due thought to each and every comment that we get. And so just know that we are using that information and we are going to continue to use it as well as use it in thoughtful ways with more opportunities for collaboration and discussion moving forward. So there's a lot of good things happening here now and a lot of greater things on the horizon too to make sure that we are really truly a community that collaborates, plans and carries out together on all levels. So thank you for that from everybody and thank you to
039our our our past and present board members because this is truly um it's a busy time. I will say in 15 years on the board, I've never had to put in so many hours like I do recently, but it's so worthwhile. and thank you to other board members who have also been right alongside putting in that time. It's definitely worth the energy and effort. Um I also want to give it gosh a lot has happened in the past month since our last board meeting, right? I also just want to just quickly state um the the process we've been on. Our superintendent took a leave of absence starting the end of February. Um his resignation was effective April 7th. Dr. Stacy Ga has stepped in as our interim superintendent. Not only is she taking on superintendent
040um roles and responsibilities, but she's also still acting as our director of student services. So, there's a lot on her shoulders right now. I want to say thank you publicly to Dr. Stacy Gain as well as to everybody on our district leadership team, everybody on our staff. Um these things have a domino effect, right? And we all have to kind of help carry the load. And so, um, it's been amazing to see what's happening here at Harford Union High School. So, thank you to everybody for the effort, especially you, Stacy. Um, next month, board members, we are going to be having our reorganization meeting. And so, what that entails is that once a year we designate the different roles on the board, as well as some other things that we are required to do um
041by by statutes. And part of that also is setting our meeting dates for the year ahead. So, I'm sure you saw that in your packet. We'll be talking about that a little bit further when we get to that time in our in our agenda this evening for discussion. When it comes to those roles, um, we do have a policy for that. You can also look at how those are defined by the WSB, especially in that new board member handbook. Um, so please let me know if you have any questions or just kind of dig in into it on your own. We can't discuss before that board meeting what particular role we might want or we see somebody might be good at. We want to make sure we don't establish a walking quorum. So if you
042do in effect have a discussion, make sure it's just with one board member and that that board member cannot then carry that discussion forward to another board member. We don't want there to be any kind of um misinterpretation of how that that reorganization goes down. So there will be the various board roles. There will be the meeting dates. There'll be the designation of a delegate for the state convention. We usually do a delegate and a alternate just in case our delegate can't make it there. Um we talk about the different newspapers that we're using for media. There will be a few things on the list next month. So when you see that packet, if you have any questions, please reach out to me or to Stacy. Um teacher appreciation week is coming up next week.
043Um Kelly Lamb has I know the team has been working on it. I know Kelly Lamb has a great list of of events and things happening here at the district. Um, Kelly, I'm just going to ask if you could email that out to the board members so that we can see what you know and yes, and maybe put an asterk by those ones that we talked about where board members might be able to to jump in and help out a little bit. So, that would be fabulous. Thank you. Awesome. I love Canva. And then, um, Laura and Marie, if we do have board members who want to come in, should we make sure that they're contacting you to let you know? Okay. We just want to make sure that we have it posted just in
044case we end up with three board members there and it looks like a quorum even though we're really not going to be there discussing board business. It's really about fun and supporting our teachers, right? Uh the last thing I just want to mention is that um as board members, it's good to get our information from a variety of sources. Uh the Wisconsin Institute of Law and Liberty does have their second annual school board members summit. I believe it's happening next week Friday. So take a look into that if that's something you do want to attend. you are welcome to register and pay for it yourself and then bring it back to a board meeting for approval for um reimbursement. That is something that we have in our policies for the district as well. And that's
045all I have tonight for our school board report. Are there any questions or comments for me at this time? Looks like we're good. We'll continue rolling forward. Up next are items for discussion and possible action. Starting with our referendum bid package number one. And I'll let the team come forward for this. Board members, I'm sure you saw there's information in your packets as well. check. Okay. All right. We got the microphone on now. Thank you. I'm Ethan Sipple, a project manager working with the project team here. So, wanted to uh first just kind of introduce uh what process we went through. So, this is the first bid package um that got sent out. So, we received drawings back on uh March 7th. Um, prior to that, we had compiled a list um with the core
046team um people administration of of contractors and Tracy Peterson of people that have done work in the district, done quality work, and have been good partners over the years. So, we had a a very thorough uh lengthy uh list of biders that that the project got sent out to. Um, and then there was a a public plan room um that uh biders were allowed to access um to get the plans if they were interested um in bidding. Um Ethan uh and our team uh made phone calls to everyone on the list to try and gain some interest um and really get as many bids as we possibly could. They held a site walkth through on um March 26th where any bidder that wanted to had an opportunity to come look at the building, look at
047where the parking lot was going to go um and and get familiar with it so they could put together um a more comprehensive bid. Um and then we have bids due um on April 1st, so earlier this month. Um, at that point, uh, Ethan and the team, um, did a a very thorough, um, dig into all of the bids, um, set up scoping meetings, uh, that Matt mentioned, uh, where we met with, um, some of the contractors, um, that looked like they had more competitive numbers, made sure that they have all the scope that was included in the drawings, um, included in their bids, and to make sure everything was apples to apples, that they they had the right quantities, um, and and scope figured in their numbers. Um so after that we met with
048the core team again um presented all the bids and the core team put together a recommendation um that's reflected um in the information um you have in front of you. So Ethan's going to go a little bit deeper um into the scope and kind of what you can expect to see um on future bid packages. Right. Like uh Ryan said, first bid package had a essentially three large components. I think will this work? Perfect. All right. We'll go through some of the plans that we're uh looking at for this first bid package. Summary of the bids. Uh look at how that compares to our budget and then open for any questions. Um this first package had one of the biggest pieces uh was the parking lot going out west of the west of the tennis
049courts. Um this parking lot is to be put in this summer. everything except for the finished course because of future bid packages. We don't want to have to repair something we put in brand new. So, this is going to be available for students to park in uh in fall, but it's not going to be the finished course. At the very end, we'll come in to do the the final striping, the final um uh asphalt course as well as it also gets the the bio retention basin growing uh well ahead of time as well. Second piece, the interior work has a couple components. Um, bathroom renovations in in Magenta, five locations. Um, bringing those up to ADA compliance, bringing those up to efficient fixtures and and just redoing those to be a better a better use
050of those spaces while maintaining that functionality. And then electrical is really the second uh large piece to this bid package being LED lighting throughout the school at all the highlighted areas. um as well as having a safety and security upgrade uh piece incorporated into that um all within that same same electrical bid package. Um there are also electrical pieces within the the prior two uh segments that I mentioned. So how did the results come in? Um they came in quite favorably. Um for example, I've never had 11 people bid on one package like we did for plumbing. And we had excellent coverage throughout several of the um MEP packages and earthwork packages as well. Um I think this is partially indicative of the the market we're in. A lot of things uh companies are looking
051for uh work as well as um kind of how bite-size this package was for contractors as well. Um five restrooms over the course of three month months is very doable. It's a very I won't say it's simple but it's very straightforward type of project for any contractor of any size to really take care of. So um how things came together uh totaling we had uh some range on the right side there looking at how many um bidters some of them were very tight some of them had a large spread but when it came down to answering those scope questions and those quantities um in the in the uh lower end of of where proposals came in it was really it was pretty tight throughout comparing Bringing all this back to our uh referendum assumptions and
052budgeting, um things came in quite favorably. Um overall, we found some additional savings in an option to have owner held contracts and came up with approximately $350,000 when comparing those to our referendum budget numbers. Any specific questions or comments? I just want to comment and say thank you for um working with the team and hearing me when I was saying what can we do to kind of make this more user friendly for those of us who don't live in this world every day. So I really appreciate your patience with me and helping this to be um as understandable for our community as possible. Now I've I've had the benefit of being in on a lot of these core planning team meetings, so I've kind of heard the process along the way. other board members have
053not and so they might have some more questions even about some of these slides. If you want them to kind of clarify anything for you, feel free to bring it up. I don't have any detailed going through each of the offerings and the bids and the proposals and everything, but what as a a board member that worked, you know, we got the referendum passed and now we're showing the community how the dollars are going to be spent. This is exactly what from what two meetings ago or something that I had hoped to see um as far as the budget and this last slide because now um it's kind of showing the community, okay, we did this, we did our homework, it's coming in at this and now there's still a savings or the positive side
054of possibly allocating that elsewhere should something else be more higher down the road. So, excellent. this is this is like what's it right in front of me is what I'd hoped for. So, thank you. And we're more than willing to if there's um you know an opportunity um to sit down and kind of review our process in a little more in depth. It's it's a little hard to do in two minutes in a in a board update, but we're more than happy to do that. We've discussed that with the core team. Um, you know, a big um item of discussion um was just the um local engagement on this too and using contractors and people that um that live and work in this community. Um so that was a big discussion um once the bids
055were uh presented um to try and keep as much of that money in this area as possible. And something to keep in mind for board members is the the core team that that they keep referring to as our core planning team that currently meets two Mondays a month. Correct. 2:30 to 4:30. You can attend in person or virtually. And um we are discussing it. It might be a good time, Laura and Marie, to maybe put out that schedule so we can make sure we've got at least one board member there for each of those core planning team meetings. And so if you have a Monday where you have an opportunity where you could be available for a meeting from 2:30 to 4:30 or even if you had to join it in progress, um it'd be
056nice to have have more board members listening in. We do want to make sure that it's not a quorum though. So that's why we have a schedule. We just really want one or two board members in on it. Is that correct, Lauren? Is there anything else I should add? Okay. Thank you. Any other comments or questions from board members? I will say this too, kind of going off of what Ryan said, there were some biders who in our talks and some of them are uh in the list on the slides who were like, I'm excited. My foreman's here. He's like ready to go. They were very excited about uh going forward with this project. Awesome. Great to hear. Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you. Any further discussion from board members? All right. So, we heard about
057referendum bid package one. We have the numbers in front of us. Um, and just to kind of recap, Rob, how many bid packages are we looking at? Is it five? Yeah, I think we have five total. Okay. So, five for the for the course of the entire referendum. And and a couple of them like Matt talked about. The next one is the pool. We have one that is specifically a generator. Um, so one item that has a very long lead time. Um, and the turf is one. And then the the last one will be in uh August or September will be the rest of the stuff. So once we get that last bid package back this fall, we'll know exactly where are where where we are with our budget in total and know to Heather's
058point, are we over in some other bid areas that we were going to maybe use some of those savings um that we've seen in the first bid pack uh to help take care of those other projects or hopefully we're you know the goal and the hope is that the other ones come in under budget under budget as well, but that's yet to be seen. That would be awesome. And so also to keep in mind board members, we're looking at five bid packages. So we might potentially need to get together for a special meeting at a maximum four times. Um it's important that we are paying attention on the process while they're discussing this and that we ask questions in the process because we don't want to hold anything up. There's a lot of lead time
059on some of these pieces or contracts that need to be set well in advance. And so it's important that we're we're making sure we're asking all those questions um right away because time is of the essence. So this evening um the recommended action is that we approve bid package one as presented by CG Schmidt and Bray Architects. And so I would like to make that motion. I will second that. So we have a motion by myself, Tracy Hennis, second by Nolan Jacket. Is there any further discussion? Hearing none, we're going to put it to a vote and we'll start we're going to do a roll call vote. Is there anything that requires an additional cost of the district we vote on individually for the record? So I'm going to start with Nolan. I I Tiffany
060I I I thank you. That passes unanimously. Uh next item on the agenda is the April special board meeting dates regarding bid package two. And even though this says April, we're discussing it in April, but this is for June dates. Correct. Okay. Correct. Yeah. This is what Matt made reference to earlier. I think that should read um a special meeting in June. Um and we're targeting the week of the 9th. And again, this is um for that pool gutter component that has a 12week lead time. Um in order to you maintain um completion of the pool. Uh right now at the end of October, um we'd like to meet and get approval uh to release a pool gutter um and the rest of the pool. um that week of June 9th. Thank you, Ryan. Um
061any questions or comments from board members? Did board members all get a chance to check their schedule to see um which of those dates they may be available? June 11th, 12th, 13th, or 17th. Is there a certain time a day that you're looking for us to hold this? Uh we'll be flexible. Whatever works with the board. If if I'm recalling correctly, I think our board members need probably a 4:30 start time as the earliest. Well, I guess we could just we could just probably that at the earliest. Okay. So, looking at those dates, we have a Wednesday, a Thursday, a Friday, and a Tuesday. Um right now, gentlemen, it looks like any one of those dates would be okay. Yeah, I think we were trying to target maybe the 11th or 12th. Okay. of June
062if that works or if there's conflicts. So, here's another question I have for you. Our next board meeting is May 12th. Um, so we could potentially approve it May 12th. Is there is there a reason why you'd like to see that date done tonight versus May 12th? So, for the bid pack 2, we got issued the drawings today. So, that's really our first step of sending it out to bid and we won't have those bids back until May 15th right now. So that'd be after that May board meeting. In terms of establishing the June meeting date though, would it make sense to push off that establishment until our board meeting in May, May 12th? I don't think there would be a problem with that. I think she's just saying wait till the next meeting and
063coordinate all the calendars. Oh yeah, absolutely. No, that's fine. Yeah. And I mean then too, you guys might have a general idea of like, yeah, we'll be definitely ready to roll the week of the 11th or let's aim for the 17th is kind of my thought as well. Yep. Well, that works for us. Okay. So, I'd like to make a motion that we discuss this at our meeting on May 12th and that way we can solidify the date and time. So, would that be to uh table it? Yes, I'll motion to table it until the May 12th meeting. Thank you, Nolan. I will second that. All right. So, we have a first and a motion and a second to table it. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor say I. I. I. We're tableabling
064that till next month. Thank you. Uh the next item for discussion is the agreement with von BCON and Roper as an additional HHS legal adviser. And we're really just looking to maximize the efficiency and the effectiveness of services. And so thinking about really just the proactive risk management can prevent a lot of issues from escalating in the first place. Um, this particular law firm has it's a comprehensive firm that has a number of areas that it covers and to that end looking for an additional option. I'll add that I did um meet with two representatives from from this law firm with Stacy in the last week or two um and I've been very impressed by their work and their discussion with us. So, I I feel good about engaging with them as legal adviserss to
065the district. Any comments or questions from board members? I'll make the uh motion to approve an agreement with Von Bzen and Rober as an additional HHS legal adviser. Is there a second? A second. We have a motion by Nolan Jacket, a second by Heather Barry. Any further discussion? All right, we're going to put this to a vote. Again, this is a potential cost to the district as we engage with their services. And so, we're going to do a roll call vote. We often alter where we start, so I'm going to start this one off. I Tiffany I I I I And that motion carries unanimously. Thank you. Uh the next item up for discussion is the professional development during the 2025 2026 school year. Thank you. So, an audit was completed in February by First
066Educational Resources, which is the company we'd like to contract for the 2526 school year. Through that audit, they identified strengths and areas of growth in our professional learning community community implementation this year. Um, those PLC's have been critical for fostering that teacher collaboration that leads to improved student achievement. To continue the progress and the work that we've done, um we would like to extend our partnership with First Educational Resources into the 2526 school year, largely funded by title 2 dollars. Um I do believe that this investment will continue to maintain instructional excellence and and lead to increased student learning. I would like to just reiterate to the board um it it is also listed in the agenda item details that most if not all of the services um are planned to be funded through title
0672 dollars. Um and I know that is um sort of vague which can maybe bring up some questions. It's written that way um simply because the um allocation amount that we received during the 2324 school year was right around $23,000 whereas the allocation amount we received for this school year was right around $30 and we don't yet have our allocation amount for the next school year. Um so it can it can be anywhere between there. Um, additionally, I did submit another grant to DPI this evening that we could also use funds from that grant that we enter into with some other Hartford area schools that could cover potential any um additional costs that wouldn't be covered by title two. Wonderful. Thank you, Stevie. Um, any comments or questions for Stevie at this point? I guess
068the question I have, Stevie, is I know I've seen um several teachers here in the district really excited about the projects as projects and learning that they get to do together, especially when they can carry that forward with students that cross categorical type of of learning experiences. Um is that something that this time can be used for? Yes. So our our hope and our goal is that next year our professional learning communities are interdisciplinary because we know that's a desire of our teachers and just continuing to be responsive to requests that they have. Um that we're able to structure PLC's so that it is focused on um sound instructional practices and they do get the input from other departments rather than just their own. Awesome. Thank you. Um any comments or questions from other board
069members? All right. Hearing none, we h let's see this item for discussion. We're looking for a motion to approve the proposed contracted services with first educational resources that will provide continued professional development for staff during the 2025 2026 school year. So moved. Is there a second? I'll second. We have a motion by Nolan Jacket, second by Heather Barry. Any further discussion? Hearing none, we're going to put this to a vote. We have a motion in a second for the professional development during the 2025 26 school year. We'll start with you, Tiffany. I I I I I. That motion carries. Uh, next item for discussion is Skills USA National Competition Field Trip. So, we have a handful of students that have qualified for the Skills USA National Championship in Atlanta and so super excited for that
070group of students to be heading on out to compete. Wonderful. Any questions from board members? Is there a motion? I'll make the motion to approve the Skills USA national competition field trip. Is there a second? Second. We have a motion by Nolan Jacket, second by Kenneth Miller. Any further discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Any oppose say nay. That motion carries. Thank you. Uh, next item up for discussion is the board workshop on May 22nd. I'm just going to scroll down to it here. So, this is something that we had put on the calendar last year when we did our reorganization. Um, this is kind of a tricky evening to have a board workshop because is is it is a night before graduation. So, it's also the last day
071of school. The last day of school and the day of graduation are going to be incredibly busy for our staff. Um, so my recommendation would be that we set a different board workshop date, possibly discussing that next month at our regular meeting on May 12th. Yeah, that works. I don't know. Do we even have any major topics for like the next month? No, I think you know, one of our first board workshops will probably be about um board development. You see at the top of our our board agenda, our core commitments, our board norms, um our values, our mission, that kind of thing. that was written quite a few years ago and I'm the only board member left from that time and so I'd like to see this group probably work on something like that
072together. So that's one thing that I have on my mind if board members have anything else that they feel would be um good for a board workshop as well as our leaders here at the district. I know we're always kind of tossing out things that would be good topics for board workshops. I'm sure we'll have some some good things on the agenda for the next board workshop. I just don't think May 22nd is the right evening to be holding it. So, I'd like to make a motion that we cancel the board workshop scheduled for May 22nd. I'll second that. Any discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Any oppose say nay. And that motion carries. Uh, and the next item up for discussion is the 2025 2026 schoolboard meeting and workshop proposed
073schedule. This is a first look. Um, I know a lot of thought went into this. Stacy, do you want to talk about that a little bit? Yes. So, one of the obviously the pieces that we looked at was just the timing and thinking about the third week works really well for example for the high school team from a budgetary standpoint. Um, both of those pieces. We also though looked at the other area schools and when their board meetings were to ensure that they didn't conflict um other boards such as the library board and really found ourselves at that third week of each month looking at the Wednesday. Thank you Stacy. Um any questions from board members or anything that you would like to comment on right now looking at those potential dates? Yes. So, was
074that the reason that we changed from Wednesdays to Mondays was a conflict with a different board? Honestly, I've been on this board for so long, but I can't remember having it a different night of the week other than Mondays. Yeah, I I kind of enjoy the Mondays, so I'll just throw it out there that I I don't mind uh doing it on these nights. So, I will say if you think about it, we've had some really long board meetings in recent months. It's yeah, it's hard to start off your week with a really long night like that. So that's when somebody mentioned Wednesdays, I I thought that might be kind of refreshing. At least I get half the weekend before we get totally tired like that on a long long night. The other challenge, Nolan,
075is that we have that third week on a Monday, I believe, is Holy Hill. Um, and then we looked at Monday, for example, we couldn't have it in the fourth week due to conflicts in terms of the timing with the high school team. The first and second weeks are really tough from a budgetary standpoint. So that's how we landed on that third week. And there are already area school meetings that would be the Monday and the Tuesday of that third week. I appreciate the fact that you're having this conversation with our other um local superintendent as well and getting getting sure that um we're knowing what their schedules are for board meetings as well. Any other comments or questions by board members? I guess as you're looking at these dates, if anything does come to
076mind that you want to question or throw out there before the next meeting, um, please feel free to to contact me or Stacy. So, that's just a first look. So, there's really no recommended action on that at this point. And we'll go forward in the agenda. Um, up next on the agenda is our future schoolboard related dates. Um, so you'll see some dates there that we have coming up. our next month's regular meeting, May 12th. Schoolboard workshop is now cancelled. Graduation ceremony is Friday, May 23rd at 7 PM. That is the most fun day or evening for schoolboard members. And so, every schoolboard member is is obviously encouraged to attend if you can make it work in your schedule. And you get to be on the stage um with district leaders and help hand out
077diplomas. It's a very rewarding event. It makes some of the other stuff that we have to deal with not so bad. So, if you can or cannot attend the graduation, please make sure you let Laura and Marie um know as soon as possible so that they can plan for that. Um we also have a regular schoolboard meeting on Monday, June 23rd at this point. So, we always schedule the meetings out for the fiscal year, which ends June 30th. And so, we don't currently have those that next July date set. We'll get that taken care of at our next meeting on May 12th. If board members have any possible future agenda items that they would like to consider to putting on board meeting agendas, you're always welcome to bring them up at a school board meeting.
078You can also email them to to me or Stacy as well. Is there any possible future agenda item that a board member would like to discuss right now or just throw out there as an idea? All right, hearing none, we'll continue going forward. Um, up next in our meeting is a close session. I'll I'll go ahead and make the motion that we go to close session um to approve the close session meeting minutes from April 8th of 2025. Also, this is contemplated close session pursuant to Wisconsin statutes 19.851c 851C considering employment promotion compensation or performance evaluation data of any public employee over which a governmental body has jurisdiction or exercises responsibility 19.851C specifically superintendent position superintendent search administrator compensation and supervisor director classification um also this is close session contemplated pursuant to Wisconsin statute 19.851E
079851E to deliberate or negotiate the purchase of public properties, the investment of district funds, or the conduct of other board business whenever competitive or bargaining reasons require close session. Specifically, negotiations with the Harford Education Association. Um I is so that's my motion. Is there a second? I will second that. So we have a motion and a second. I would like to add you just heard all the topics that we're discussing in close session. I forgot to add in my my board president reports. this would be an appropriate place to say. You can tell that part of this close session is to discuss um how we're going to fill the superintendent position now permanently rolling forward. And so our goal is to to get that in place by the beginning of our next f fiscal year,
080which is July 1. So we have a motion and a second to go to close session. We usually do a roll call vote to go to close session. Is that correct, Laura and Marie? Yes. Thank you. So we'll do our roll call starting with Heather. I I I I I And we are going to close session. Thank you. Yes.