03/23/26 HLSD Board Meeting

001[snorts] [clears throat] >> Okay. I just cuz I know the last couple haven't been. Yeah, I know. I adjusted. It it's absolutely worked in our favor as far as I'm concerned. So, as far as the schedule is concerned and the things that we've heard from parents, particularly about the middle school. Elementary doesn't really change, but the middle school um it really does impact us. Which is pretty tough. Yeah, which is really good. Okay. I I can't even pretend to read. All right. It is 5 Yep. 30. We will call the workshop to order and start with the Pledge of Allegiance. 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. All right. Public notice

002was given. Public notice was given. >> [clears throat] >> Thank you, sir. All right, we are into the food service presentation. Yvonne, take away. Hello, I am Yvonne McClain Bowser. I'm the food service director for the district. And um we are pleased to have the school board tonight >> [snorts] >> uh enjoy a meal with us. Um take you down to the tour of the kitchen. Can you grab anything you'd like to eat? We have quite a spread down there tonight. So, um we're just we're happy to be here. Just want to answer any questions that you have about the program. Um and just actually thank you for your service. Awesome. Thank you. But we Yep. We'll convene. Okay. Yes. Let's see if we can head down that direction. Do you want to join us?

003You can join us. Do we need to bring any materials with us? No, no. We're going to come back here with our food. Oh. And even the table and you sit over on the table like that. Thank you. Good. All right. Yeah, I wasn't sure if I should email you or call you or that. Okay. >> [clears throat] [clears throat] >> Oh. >> What happened? I just got fancy crumbs. Oh. Fancy crumbs. >> [snorts] >> Would you like something? I'm okay, thank you. What are the fancy people? Is that high enough? And is that is that Okay. Essentially, I was playing tennis for Yeah, it's fine. Okay. We'll see. You'd have to book it. They uh they go great to places that I don't know. So, I guess we have a site called New Slice.

004It's a website that's available online. Um it's a website that you can just go to. And it allows you to see not only our meals, not yours, but meals from a lot of different places in school. Uh it's just uh called New Slice.com. You go on to the website and you go to All right, good. the um menus and you just simply will type in Heartland or Heart Lake. I think it's under Heart. This is not my computer, so I'm not used to that. I know there's people watching, so. >> [snorts] [clears throat] >> So, Heartland website school district will show all three menus. Nice. Um I'll just go Heartland South here. Um shows all the allergens in every item that is on the menu. So, in your case, Morgan, you see the wheat Mhm.

005that lets you know that um there's wheat in those items. So >> have an independent ingredient list for each item? Yes, so if we go, there's the brown rice. Now, this is Asian brown rice. This is an actually a different recipe at Heartland South. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because we've had some different vegetables in ours, but um you can add this to your nutrition calculator just like that and then view it and it will tell you everything in that cheese item or all the nutritional value in that item. Does that do it as you build the meal? So, if you added, say, three different items, it would give you the total macronutrients right there? Or is it per food item? It's It's per item. >> Okay. Nothing wrong. I just was curious. Yeah, yeah. Okay. questions

006are though. Um what kid is using that? The parents, I think. Well, the parents are using it more so. So, it's it's it's really nice that's that's way because you know, you can check the allergens. Um you can check every day. Tells you what's on the menu. Oops. So, if we go to North Shore The food is very good, by the way. Yeah, it's very good. Oh, I'm glad you're enjoying it. I'm very much enjoying it. >> [laughter] >> Okay, good. Sometimes that we struggle with the kids sometimes, like today we do the salad at South and little You know about that? No, my kid takes a bag of salad home. He loves to do that. My first grader. We'll give him a little baggy and he'll take it home. So, I found that check

007the bag first. Put a little container of croutons. We do it in a little cup and a little cup of croutons. Okay. They have to have a cup of lettuce for it to qualify. Okay. And >> [laughter] >> And with the little croutons in there and we close the lid. >> [snorts] >> Well, today I discovered that the kids are coming up and taking the salad taking it back to their desk or their their place taking that little cup of croutons out of there, eating the croutons And stop. smashing the container salad not eating any of the salad. So Why? Why not? So, the So, the little croutons are in this container of salad. Yeah. I mean, croutons are the best part. Right. Well, they are. I agree. They are. That's why I tried to

008Yeah. I tried to I mean incentivize them. I tried to put a little bit of croutons in there and they wouldn't eat it. For it to qualify like you can't just get the croutons, you have to get the salad to get the croutons. >> Yep. They didn't like that. So, I think he was That's where he wasn't Yeah. So, I kind of have to take croutons away now. Oh. That's just the way it is. That's why we can't have nice things. I I know cuz they're not going to eat them. Croutons. So, you know, I I don't know if you have This is just a really nice feature to have. Um that has no allergens whatsoever. Yeah. We're using black beans. And I'm sure that it's super healthy. So, this is just it's a 24/7.

009You can go on to it anytime. It does have >> [snorts and clears throat] >> And there is a flyer about it in the in the pamphlet that I put together for you. Mhm. Also. So So, what is a meal then at at a school? Do you guys Are you familiar or do you really know anything about the school lunch program? Nothing? Well, the DPI standards. Okay. >> [clears throat] >> USDA standards. Yes. So Oh, that's my two cents. That's okay. They're so good. They look good. Um [snorts] So, the USDA meal pattern table So in our For a [snorts] meal to qualify as a meal it has to have these components offered >> [snorts] >> on a daily and weekly basis. So, you can see that um grains, for example, are 8 oz or

010a 1 oz a day, but it's 8 oz a week. So, we have to serve make sure that every meal we put together the meals on the website. Every meal has to have Each meal every week has to have add up to 8 g of grains. If it, you know, if I'm putting that into our menu system menu making system, NutriPro and it doesn't have enough grains we have to add a roll or we have to add something to make that. Now, do they have to take all that? This is what we have to offer. And we have to offer like beans have to be on the menu every week. Once a week, you have to have a bean or lentil on your menu. And everybody says, "Well, nobody The kids don't like the beans."

011But you have to have the beans. They have to have a variety of vegetables. They can't just have steamed corn every day. They need their leafy greens and they need their starchy vegetables and their red oranges and their dark greens and their other vegetables. So, this is all This is This is the pattern that we follow. all our meals. And How much do you take How much information do you take in terms of what people actually take versus what you have to buy, right? Like you just said like, "Well, kids don't like beans, but I've got to offer beans every week." But you don't You know you're going to serve 200 meals. Assuming you don't buy 200 meals worth of beans, kids aren't going to take like do you Is there some sort of feedback

012system you guys use to kind of figure that stuff out? So, it's a cycle menu. So, we're able to kind of see and follow like, you know Yeah, we want them to eat the beans. But if everybody Everybody got beans on the salad >> eat them. They don't eat them. They don't eat the healthy things. So Yeah, yeah. A lot of the kids they love beans, you know. There's a lot of kids that love them, but there's a lot of kids that won't even touch them. Right. So, it's it's really I think that how they're you know, in your at home and, you know, they're different choices that are [clears throat] offered. It's a Yeah, it's it's tricky, but there's we follow all these production sheets and records. So, because you cycle, that kind of

013gives you an indication of what they what the what you used last time through. to prepare [cough] >> [clears throat] >> Yes, mhm. But the back up fruit and vegetables is always the fruit vegetable bar. So, we have a hot vegetable every day that's offered. But there's also the fruit vegetable bar which has four or five different choices of fruits and four or five other choices of vegetables. [clears throat] Which is great and the kids do a great job. They love it. At North this year we taught them to We're teaching them to serve themselves. And they're so cute. They come up and they and I think it makes them eat better. They eat more of it because they have to serve themselves and they learn how to serve and it was great. >> [snorts]

014>> So we did we incorporated that instead of having it all in little packages for them. So these are the five food components for lunch that are offered and we offer every that have to be offered. These have to be offered. They only have to choose three of these components, however. But one of the components has to be a half a cup of fruit or vegetables. So it doesn't qualify as a meal unless it has fruits or vegetables on their tray. And if they don't have fruits or vegetables on their tray, we send them back to get fruits or vegetables or we put fruits or vegetables on their tray. We remind them gentle reminders. >> [snorts] >> So they always get the fruits and vegetables. And some of them that's all they want is fruits

015or vegetables. So it's you know, it's a good thing but I feel like North kiddos do a really great job with their fruits and vegetables. I I really do too. And I I I do think a lot of it is because they're they're serving themselves and I I think that's a great thing. I've seen them doing that. It's so cute. You know, they they struggle a little bit and there's some coordination required. But um How much How much ends up on the floor? You [laughter] may be surprised. Really? I think more at South than Really? Yeah, cuz they're not paying attention. Because they're because they're not as care careful. They're you know Try to do three things at once. Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. How much is your change? So that is basically that is the

016program. That is what we serve. What our menus have to contain every single day. Each meal has to contain every single day. >> [snorts] >> And what are the rules for breakfast? Rules for breakfast are items, [snorts] not components. >> Okay. So they have to choose one um grain item. Okay. Well, you know, a cereal or a you know, French toast stick type thing or a sandwich. Yep. Um and they have to choose um a fruit a fruit two fruits actually two fruit items with that. So it's three items. It's a little different. Yeah. They still get a choice cuz we put different fruits and different grain offerings. So they get a choice of which ones to choose. How has flipping the um food pyramid impacted you? >> Great question. So there's a pamphlet about

017that in your um booklet. So all about the food pyramid is in your booklet. Okay. So it hasn't affected us yet. However, I think it probably will because everything is regulated by the government. They tell us what to do. So this past year there was a change in sugar. So that comes down and then all of our items that we can purchase contain less sugar. >> [clears throat] >> Um it was Yoplait and uh um another item that we had that that only could have a percentage certain percentage of it. Of the natural sugar in it. So in the the new pyramid used to be 6 to 11 or I guess I want to kind of say still is. You know, on >> [snorts] >> in the current pyramid you're supposed to do as much

018grain as protein. So your grain is um uh nine What did I want to say here? Your grain used to be 6 to 11 portions or it was kind of still 6 [snorts] to 11 servings was actually what's on the old pyramid. It actually says that 6 to 11 portions. I mean that was called rice, bread, pasta and cereal. It wasn't really called whole grains. And that's the pyramid from 1992. That's what it used to be. >> [snorts] >> And it's just it's gone gone through different changes but now the pyramid for grains um is going to be two is two to four servings. So I'm quite certain that there's going to be a lot of adjustments in the way that we do meals. And it just it just toggles through the company and then

019it it toggles down and they you know they change the guidelines we change the the meal patterns. So is this year just grandfathered in per se until next year? >> Yeah, so this I believe that was published in January. I want to say in the middle of the school year maybe. I think the pyramid was published in January. The new pyramid. So has there been changes? I know we talked about you and I talked about the whole milk for the the milk on the pyramid. >> so they're saying that we we can only offer our milk has got to be fat free or 1% milk. Those are the only milks we're >> [snorts] >> allowed to offer. But now the new pyramid is saying fat milk they want milk with fat in it. Whole milk

020fat whole milk. Um that is part of the dietary guidelines. So we'll see how it filters down into the the school because I mean it very well may. Hm. I don't know if they'll require it. Um I don't know. I don't know if any of the kids drink whole milk. Or that are used to drinking whole milk. Really? Yeah, we were 2% We're 2%. Yeah. 2% is where I would be personally but cuz the milk does seem kind of watery. And >> [snorts] >> the fat in milk is a healthy fat. So that's I think where that all comes from. They you know, there's healthy fats and there's not all fats. So they want you to have that. Just like the fiber, you know, or I'm just concerned about fiber that um grains. You know,

021we serve healthy grains. We don't serve refined grains. We serve complex grains. We serve grains that you know, are the needed for energy and um you know, they they have all the the bran and the I mean Yeah, they're not all they're not ultra processed or Correct. Correct. Whole grains. And I know there's been some questions about grains from the school board in the past. So if you have any comments or questions about it, I been doing a lot of research on it. So um it you know, carbs get a bad rap. >> [snorts] >> They do get a bad rap but and they they really do provide a lot a lot a lot of I mean they're the they're the energy for these kids. And especially your your brain. Your brain function is is

022heavily dependent on carbs. >> [snorts] >> So it's important they get them. Like calories 300 calories a day should be carbs. So with the state statutes of what is served and there's the ingredients that go into it the where we where we get the ingredients. What say do we have where things come from or do we look local certain things or is this all kind of a big government >> Local produce is is a is a huge thing that we would love to do all the time. So we do have a lot of local produce. We do get um we uh divert. So this year we I diverted um $12,000 to DOD produce. So that's the Department of Defense but that's who does part of our commodity program. So you can choose how many thousands

023of dollars you want to divert to that and uh $12,000 is what we diverted last year. $12,000 is what I diverted this year. So that's we're we're doing great with that. And we have a local a local produce company. Um well, it's actually Illinois but but there's a lot of Wisconsin produce >> [snorts] >> you know, a lot of as much as we can we would like to do local produce. And we'd like to become more involved in in doing that. In the future in the near future. So obviously when do those things, there's different things that cost that go into it. But, have you looked at all of those things? What are the drive up costs? What are the I'm sorry. So, obviously, there's [clears throat] a cost of doing or changing the supply

024chain at any point in time. Have you looked at that? What are the costs like? >> so, Chartwells it has a very specific supply, you know, our suppliers are very specific. Our vendors are very specific. And we use [clears throat] those vendors >> [snorts] >> exclusively. >> [cough] >> We have contracts [clears throat] with those vendors. Uh there's I don't I mean, everything is is around the vendors. So, yeah, we we have there's rebates every month back to the district. Money that comes back because of our our core buying and our our huge buying that we do. So, Chartwells um Chartwells does And a lot a lot of these programs like Yvonne will have to put orders in months and months and months in advance. Um and indicate you know, what what we want as

025far as bulk purchasing. Uh especially the DOD program. Yeah, I I finished the DOD or the USDA food program. Um we had to have we had to have it by last week in February for next year. Yeah, two So, it's all ordered for next year. Wow. Now, it comes in every month starting in August. But, it's all ordered. >> Yeah, but there's a specific window that we can make our our bulk orders. Yeah, we we had $43,000 worth of commodities. And that's based on the sales that's based on your meal sales. Every every year, they they make you a give you a percentage of that back in commodities. Um That's based on the old pyramid, not the new pyramid. I would assume. If we did it in February. The commodities are going to be a

026lot of fruits and vegetables, a lot of Yes. >> [laughter] >> Yes, it is, actually. So, maybe it'll But, there's but there's ways to to get around that, too. Because each each commodity spot has several different items. So, if you changed from, say, one cheese to a different cheese, it would fall into the same slot. You use those dollars. So, we do everything we can to use all those dollars because, obviously, they're your dollars. So, we don't want anything We don't want to leave any money laying on the table. Yeah. I think that your answer was really a good question. Yeah. Yeah, and in the new pyramid, based on the old one, if you notice >> [clears throat] >> fruits and vegetables kind of hold the same spot. They're largely the same cuz they're kind

027of in the middle, you know. Yeah, the other So, so, another 30% I talked about the DOD fruits and vegetables. Those are fresh fruits and vegetables. So, the the USDA fruits and vegetables that I ordered are like the the um frozen fruits and vegetables. The blueberries and the strawberries that you had today. Um and then, you know, your frozen corn and cranberries, raisins, um canned peaches and canned pears and and all those things. Those are another section. So, that I I threw a lot of money at that, as well. Cuz that's really what what we want the kids to eat. I will I will just interject here since it's a great opportunity that you did do a little bit of hinting, so nice job at picking some things up. Um we are looking at, you

028know, we've been asked to to really take a deep look at our electives. We also have um really asked been asked to take a deep look at our wellness programming. And we are looking at a sustainability program in um the seventh and eighth grade elective program next year. Um our um new principal and um curriculum director and the Dave Brush are going to come over and kind of, you know, have some things to talk about. We're looking at um the possibility of entering into a those um those towers I think hydroponic towers. Um so, from 0 to 28 days, it's start to finish. And we would have some eighth graders begin that process as an elective. Um and they would produce enough vegetation and and all the leafy greens and the sprouts and all of

029that to be able to serve our entire district. Um and then, looking at the possibility of then creating a financial market [clears throat] with that that would um have our students holding a um farmer's market and um serving our community. So, we'll see what happens with that, but I'm super excited. So, thanks for giving us a little bit of a Yeah. No, it's good. I mean, you know, all the stars have to align, but we're pretty we're we are pretty Yeah. >> [laughter] >> I think that my other question kind of goes on that of how would you be able [snorts] to separate a portion like if we Okay, so, that's a leafy greens. But, if we wanted to say, oh, we wanted to I don't know, something on here. How would that change what

030does the the farmer or the program that you buy from, what standards do they have to meet? Like if we were to start a farm-to-table type thing. Well, there's a lot a lot a lot of districts doing that with those programs. So, they're that's taken into consideration. >> [clears throat] >> Whereas, you're right, we have it's pretty regimented the, you know, Right, you have to hit >> the items we have to use very very very specific items. Because they have to be part of our approved product list. Right. And this is a they're all they're all set set up for your health. But, fruits and vegetables are fresh fruits and vegetables are a little bit different. It's not as It's not as It's not set up the same. So, that that's a great question, but

031it is it is different with the fresh produce is a little different. Now, our vendors fresh produce vendors have to have safety standards and and things like that. But, if we were growing it here, you know, we'd be we'd be overseeing it in Minnesota. And if we could just snap our fingers and make it happen tomorrow or how long does it take to implement it into the system if we could just snap our fingers? In a perfect world. I think what we are what we're looking at is obviously next month we're going to bring the our team forward and they'll be kind of, you know, kind of producing that to you and have and having the conversation. Um because it's part of the bigger program. And again, it goes back to that, what is what

032do we look like kindergarten through eighth grade? Again, what's that end product? What does that student look like that's graduating in eighth grade and what skills do they have? And it really comes down to those durable skills. And so, when we start to talk about um what our what our students are getting from Heartland Lakeside. Ooh, I think there's a lot that that we can do with this program. Um do I think we're going to be bam there now? I know that's not Yeah, yeah, but I think, you know, we've got the space. We know exactly where we would put it. It's already got It's already plumbed. It's already got water. It's got all of the pieces. Obviously, we're going to be looking for some help with some grants and some some work that way,

033but And we're going to partner with Chartwells. We'd like love to partner partner with Chartwells and Cuz a lot of our a lot of our school districts currently already have the same program. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, so So, we'll be we'll see how that goes. You know, right now it's in its stages because we've got to make sure that we have funding and that we know exactly what we're going to do with that. But, um I think it's a really neat way. I think a lot of our high schoolers um in the area do a lot of this programming. I think there's there aren't as many middle schools and I think it I'd like us to be on the front edge of that if we can be. That's cool. Yeah, it would be really cool.

034Other questions? Um So, when you're planning the meals, is this all you by hand or do you have a program? There's a program. >> Okay. And it's called [laughter] Webtrition. So, our Webtrition program um it's a great it's a menu database software program. And there's just thousands and thousands and thousands of recipes that we choose from. Um and it's it's powered by chefs and dietitians. So, it's built by, you know, the people that do this. They they know their stuff um to make sure we serve compliant nutritious meals. It's a It's really a great program. Webtrition You know, I've worked for a lot of contract companies and and I mean, I and this isn't a sales pitch or anything. Um this is [clears throat] doing the Webtrition program and the things that we do for

035the school um is how I've always dreamed it would be and it was supposed to be like a lot of the other contractors that I worked for in the past. And they just never could quite get there. So, for me, this is kind of like a dream to be able to actually do the nutritional and be able to pull all this off um and share it with with the customers. So, it's it's a big deal to me. Yeah. Webtrition is a huge part of my job. I was hoping you were going to say there was some electronic help with that cuz Yeah, but like I said, if uh if it doesn't have enough grains on that menu that I put together. I got to add a bun. It's you know, I mean that's very specific

036what I'm saying. If I don't have a bean on my menu that week I got to put it there's got to be a bean. I will add to just to kind of echo and piggyback on what she's saying and then also kind of try to help you know, kind of close this out as we get ready for our board meeting is Ivana has done an incredible job of taking the initiative for wellness. She has put together some really great programs and exciting incentive things for kids from the Apple Crunch to a variety of others around the world tour and and all of those things and so just thank you for really just kind of grabbing on to that and bringing that forward. think the kids get excited and I think they they they really do

037enjoy those moments. So I appreciate that. It will also say that it's not just Ivana. Her she means it when she says her corporate headquarters her group they they come out they've been here, you know, and a lot of times that doesn't happen. They have their one person that's in charge and you don't see the other people, right? [clears throat] But we met with them and and they came back again a second time and because they're they they are impacted by what they see in schools and and really want to be evaluated to a good job and so I I just think that that you deserve that just a little extra nice job pat on the back. >> And I'll take it even one step further. Ivana doesn't like to take a lot of credit.

038But she will give her team like her her boots on the ground team the credit all day every day. They they're the ones, you know, without them. >> [laughter] >> They are they're a great team. And quite frankly, I would be lost without her. So she's going to work for another five years. She already guaranteed it for me. >> [laughter] >> And how long have you been with the district? Like three? December of 20 [clears throat] Yeah. She was new when I got here. Yeah. But like I said, I've been in the industry since since I was I'm not going to date myself. 48 years I guess I did date myself but >> [laughter] >> I've been contract food service management for 48 years. I cannot believe that. It's great. [snorts] I absolutely can't believe

039that. Thank you, Ivana. Thank you so much. I'm going to just I'm just going to put her in this way, okay? I can help. Does anyone have any last questions for her? Yeah. I'll make a motion to adjourn the workshop and then we'll take a five minute Motion to adjourn the workshop at 6:27. Second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Workshop is closed. I feel like I got broccoli in my teeth. She can sit back there. She got a tray back there. I'll go back there. She got a cart there. One of those things. >> [laughter] >> I got some whole grain low sugar grits. Oh. That's so delicious. Hey guys. Hey. Hey for Chris. Chris, nice to meet you. Hey Morgan. [clears throat] Morgan, nice to meet you. Nice to meet you.

040How you doing? I'm Patrick. Hey Patrick. Hey for nice to meet you, too. Did you guys do the tasting? We did. Is that what it was? >> Yes. Tasting and what was it? It was very good. Presentation from our our food service manager. Got to watch Chris. He might go back for the steamer. Orange Morgan, your your eyes got so big when you saw that. >> [laughter] >> Great. >> If it wasn't bolted down I think you could have seen him try to push it. How cool would it be to have a big steamer you just pop it in. I mean it would be cool. Be awesome. It's my biggest problem for not eating vegetables is because you can't make them all on Sunday and then eat them for a week. After about two days

041they're not so good. And I have to cook all at once or What doesn't happen? It doesn't happen. So I have to make bulk food for the week. So is this like a like a all vegetable steamer? Yeah. It's [clears throat] a big commercial. Honestly, I didn't know what it was until you said something. I was like, what is that? I was very impressed. I got to ask you for a minute here to sit with you. I have to reconnect the computer. Took a break while we were investigating. Is that what you needed? Yes. Can you evaluate the food service every month? I know. >> I'll I'll let her know that's a request. >> This this would make for a very enjoyable board meeting. >> [laughter] >> It's fantastic. I mean at least May can

042we get some more gluten free that? Yeah, yeah, yeah, right. >> [laughter] >> The broccoli was super good. It was. It was. The strawberries were super cold though. I was so mad. I'm like, oh I wanted more but they're so cold. They were I know. Freshy. What? Freshy in this Maybe that's why my tongue doesn't tingle cuz it was so cold. My tongue doesn't Cuz normally my tongue tingles after eating a strawberry. Some like pecans and stuff because of those. Whatever. Can you hear me? Yeah. Fine. >> [clears throat] >> Morgan, black or blue? Uh black would be great, thank you. Just Is this a sample? Yeah. What? It's a little dish. Oh, perfect. You know, wouldn't have cared. When it comes to the time I want to make this here. All right. We are

043now moving into the regular board meeting session. So we will call the meeting to order at 6:33 p.m. >> [clears throat] >> All right, and we can [snorts] this Oh, just one second. I >> [snorts] >> can log in. [clears throat] There we go. All right. We good? All right. Let's start with the Pledge of Allegiance. 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. >> [clears throat] [snorts] >> Okay, proof of giving public notice. Uh notice was given. Perfect. We do not have any virtual participation this evening so we will move on to public comment. We do have two people this evening. Uh just as a note for those of you who

044may not have spoken [snorts] before uh there's there are governance rules for public comment. Uh I'll just read it to you. I appreciate you being here. We provide time for public comment. These meetings [snorts] are held in public to conduct official school business, not as a forum for back and forth. So we can't answer you back and [snorts] forth with questions. Uh please make sure to address the board as a whole and not to call out individual board members. Should the work that we are doing is what we should be talking about. Uh Please be respectful with everything. Any disruptive behavior, vulgar language, or unrelated topics will not be permitted. Please avoid discussing confidential personnel or student matters. There are other appropriate channels for that as well. >> [snorts] >> And I think that's it.

045And then we'll try to keep the time to 3 minutes, but there's only two. So, please try to just be respectful of that time because we do have a board meeting to follow after. All right. First on the list, >> [clears throat] >> Christopher Evans. All right. Do I speak here or You can. This is informal, it's fine. You don't have to stand >> [clears throat] >> All right. Well, that makes it easy. Um hello. My name is Christopher Evans. My friends call me Kayfer. I'm a candidate for the HLSD school board seat up for election here on April 7th, and I wanted to briefly introduce myself. I've been a Heartland community member since 2018, and I have three kids in school here in HLSD. 4K, first grade, and third grade. I've never run for

046any office before. Respect to all of you. I'm a dad. I'm involved in this community, and I started asking questions about our schools. And I just kept going. So, here I am to give you a little bit of an idea about me as a school board member. My focus would be simple. Kids have to be safe first. That's non-negotiable. Right behind that, they have to be healthy. Because if we're sending them to school and something in that building is working against their mind or their body, that's a problem worth asking questions about. Are our lunch menus keeping up with the improved nutrition recommendations? Very glad to hear what's going on tonight before this meeting. Are we treating recess as a reward or as the biological need we all know it is? Is our tech education

047evolving with the technology? Driving curiosity while reinforcing, not working against, the boundary parent boundaries parents set at home. And after health, it's all the facilities and operations and people that make it all possible. We've made big strides in improving our bussing, meeting state requirements. I'm excited to see us eliminating the mid-route swap this upcoming school year that our 4Kers are still navigating today. Or can't we make it more accessible? Are we getting a good deal from our vendor, Dousman Transport? These are questions worth asking. All of this has to live inside a balanced budget. That's reality, as you all very well know. Your budget is your priorities, and mine again are straightforward. Safety, health, and the operations that make it all possible. We get those right, then we can teach. So, hope that gives you

048a little insight about me. And I'd be honored to earn your vote on the 7th. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Um Justin? Okay. Um so, I'm a proud resident of Well, I also have one child in this district, and I have one starting next year and another one the year after that. Uh so, my issue or reason I'm here tonight is about the bussing. Uh this has been pretty popular topic in the news and all that stuff. Um So, um I understand that by law you have to provide bussing for kids that live in certain areas of the district. Um The contract with Dousman obviously is a set number that has based on a certain number of buses and stops. That [snorts] doesn't change. Um and if there is room on a bus for

049other people, uh you guys are charging families to take up an empty seat. Um I reached out to Dousman, and they what I said to me, they don't care if there's five kids on a bus or 50 kids on a bus. The price is the price. So, my question is, where is this revenue going? Um I know it's not going back to the bus company. Why is the district trying to profit from these families? Um neighboring schools don't charge for this. Um I would In my opinion, I would think that this would be encouraged to fill empty seats. Um it would help out a lot of families in this community. Plus, very much alleviate the parent pickup line. Um But, so the amount that I mean, I I had to pay for my oldest um

050years ago, it was a lot less. Uh and then it went even lower, and now it's going an astronomical amount of money. So, that's why I'm here tonight. These crazy high numbers now are discouraging families from using this. So, you guys already have to pay a certain dollar amount, but now you're pushing people away that won't fill a seat to try to for for I I'm trying to understand the reasoning for it. I understand how you got your 850 my number like by number of kids, but it doesn't seem to help anybody out in this district by charging such an astronomical amount. Um I um Sorry. So, like I said, half empty buses doesn't help anybody. Um Certain certain subdivisions, I in my opinion, could be free. You know, it would be the free subdivisions

051would like certain places would probably fill up a lot faster. So, maybe you could do like a lottery or something like that thing to to first come, first serve to facilitate this. Um the next thing I wanted to ask was Well, one [clears throat] of the board members was not able to discuss this, and I don't know the full legal reasons for that, but I know I know I know she recon um represents a large number of the community. And with her not being able to talk about that, it seems kind of counterintuitive to this the rest of the board members don't have any skin in the game. Um why not charge $10,000 a person if you That's what you're really trying to do is profit off of these things. And the people that are

052voting on this don't have, you know, they don't have any real repercussions to charging and that's even more money. So, those are just my only comments and I did reach out to one of you guys about this, and I haven't um Actually, I reached out to more than two. And she couldn't really say too much about it because of her hands being tied, but another one of you and and then we got a response back. So, it's all I have to Thank you very much for your comment. Okay. We will move on to committee reports and lead off with PPC. We met on Thursday. And we talked about the personnel, which will be on [snorts] the consent agenda. The only opening right now we have is for a special aid. So, you can see that

053listed there. Um we did jumping down a little bit, talk about a maintenance man maintenance manager position as well that has been discussed in previous meetings. That one is also in that consent area. Um The parts that we did talk about, so the Neola from last month is now in the right place to vote for consent. So, you can see that consent piece. Um and there was also a 3.51 update on uh the tech uh portion of it. And it's the one you see that's on a hold. So, there's another one to the right that is on hold. Can you, Tina, uh explain that the law that's [snorts] coming down and what we're trying to uh navigate at this current time before I move that? >> Yep, absolutely. So, 25.1 uh WCAG or 2.1 WCAG

0542.1 is an ADA compliance piece for policies um for all things public education, particularly. That's our focus. Um from websites to um any documents or newsletters, everything that goes home. The current readers that are out there right now for our seeing um disabled people are um not reading the graphics and whatnot on websites and newsletters. And so, there's a big um law out there now that we have to go through and change all of those. Um any school district 50,000 or more, um they have to be compliant within the next month. We don't have We have another year, but I will tell you that Chris Dillon, our IT director, Brian um Rabbit, our IT specialist, and um Gretchen um have been for oh for weeks watching videos, webinars, and it's a very daunting task. Every

055one form, it's going to take 20 minutes. Like our calendar that's in a grid form right now can't be in a grid form anymore. Our newsletters that have the graphics and the pictures and the designs cannot be that anymore because the readers don't read those designs and graphics. So, um something that we're keeping our eye on, but that policy is based all on that work. And if we don't have that, it's not going to hurt us because it's not in effect for us for another year. So, I think what we what we thought about at that level was, let's take our time with this. Let's do our research. Let's try to figure out what happens with bigger schools because maybe they work out some of the glitches and can pass it down to some of

056the smaller school districts on how to fix that. So, um more to come on that, but that's why it's on hold. Yeah, I'd say yeah, they're still working towards solutions and looking at different things. Chris Dillon uh and his team has been through at least last We talked on Thursday with six or seven sale pitches and webinars that all together trying to figure out what needs to be done, what this is going to look like moving forward. And if we do this in the district right now, it would take all of our all of our district labor to do that and we would have to take it off of this other stuff we're working on. So, we really want to see where where these other larger are going to either succeed or fail and hopefully

057learn from those and not make those same mistakes or get better at what we need to do with it and see where it kind of goes from there. So, uh It was It was new. I didn't give up the idea. I had to go back and research it as well. Once I looked a little more into it, uh yeah, it's most of what we send out would not apply. It would all have to change. Has it ever been readable by readers or is this like a finally catching up type of thing? >> So, I will tell you probably 5 to 7 years ago when I was in my previous location, we went through this. Okay. Um it was not nearly as intense as this is. This is an absolute rewrite of everything. And I don't

058know if it's a code I don't know the reasoning. I'm not in those webinars, so I'm not going to pretend to know to the to the degree that Chris and his team um all know of it. I just know that it's it there's a big concern of how much time and how serious this really is going to affect our district and all districts um because that communication piece and all of all of that is going to change dramatically. So, we're just waiting. We're going to We're going to take that wait-and-see approach. Yeah. Well, and it's going to help a lot of people though, too, that can't access it right now, I assume. Yeah. Yeah. Those people are Yeah. That's cool. Uh so, that was one of the issues on the whole section there of the

059lease. And then the final portion of it was the calendar, which is in that consent area. And as much as we have information about the calendar, there's pretty much solidified information that we can change on that. Good. >> Yep. All right. Thank you very much. We'll move on to finance committee. Okay, we had a pretty short and light finance meeting once again this month. Uh We went over purchasing and kind of the financial statements and nothing was out of line in spending. Um we've got some money in which we talked about in this section. Um we spent a little bit of time talking about some upcoming proposals regarding paving, um managed service for our printing and things of that nature that they're they're they're I'll say the financial impact. Um dishwasher quotes, things of that

060nature. That was it. It was a 13-minute meeting. Well, efficient. Efficient. It was a record. So. All right. Thank you, sir. So, then that brings us into the consent agenda. Some of the items were presented previously by both committees. >> [snorts] >> Does anyone have any items that need to be pulled out? On the donations section, there is nothing that I'm seeing in my >> [snorts] >> agenda. I don't know if anyone else sees anything. >> about that. That I think it was on there and then we realized we had already approved the donations last month. So, that was one Okay, we talked about. So, that's that's the the correction. Can you please pull out F and G? F and G, correct? Okay. So, F and G will be handled separately and secondly after the

061remaining items. Does anyone have any other items to pull out? If not, looking for a motion to approve consent agenda items A, B, C, D, E, and H. So moved. Second. Are there any discussions on those items? >> [snorts] >> Hearing none, all those in favor say I. I. I. All those opposed. Thank you very much. The motion carries. All right. First up, maintenance manager position. Uh we can go into discussion. Um can you just explain what you guys discussed at meetings? I don't remember this coming up before. Sure, this is uh this is a great part of the position. What seems to be the all two roles and he was going to be splitting those looking to split those roles at all the work that's going on currently. Uh so, if you want to

062I think that was basically the portion of it is Yeah, um so after sitting with well, it kind of stemmed where it really all started was after meetings our meetings with Findorff and seeing the scope of the work um that our facilities are going to require over the next we'll just say 10 to 15 years. Um we started talking briefly about what would a main maintenance manager position look like, how might that benefit the district? Uh well, the benefits are are a few things. First First of all, um when we took that kitchen tour and we talked about the uh systems that some of our school districts utilize [clears throat] to monitor um not not just coolers, not just freezers, but all different types of boiler systems, all sorts of mechanicals. Um Greg's at a

063point right now where he just has zero uh bandwidth or free time left to try to bite off projects like that. Additionally, uh we're very heavily reliant on our general contractors, which come at a pretty high price tag. Um so, anytime we we we call out for uh a service call or or or a maintenance call, um those are coming in much higher than if we had an internal maintenance manager that could adequately address some of those issues. Now, don't get me wrong, some of the bigger ticket items are still going to be that, but he this person, he or she would be the main point of contact to monitor um the work of contractors while they're here, ensure the scope is exactly what we think it is, and that the pricing reflects the scope

064of work. Um it's really just trying to more adequately staff our building and grounds team based on the size of the district and the number of buildings we have. That's really the nature of it. So, would this be a split of Greg or Greg and someone that reports to This How does that split happen? This This person would be a direct report to Greg. Okay. Uh so, Greg would still be the director of building and grounds and he would see all oversee all custodial, all maintenance, and all facilities. Uh but then he can continue on working on some of those bigger ticket items like continuing to push forward our new capital improvement plan, um making sure that we have adequate training at each of the buildings and our we're fully staffed. Um some of those

065things that are more at the director level where right now he's spending a lot of his time uh and he'll he'll never complain about it, but um doing a lot of the hands-on work where uh as a director, he should really be overseeing and doing some of the broader larger-scale planning of those projects. And this would be a full-time >> It would be a full-time position, yep. And district a district employee spread across all three buildings. I'll say when we did the strategic planning, we all had with groups of two of us who met with different departments and me Tiffany Holloway met with Greg during that and this this definitely came up in that and it didn't formally make its way into our strategic plan under one of those pillars, but it was certainly a

066need we identified too. I guess my question on this, I mean, is what are we approving? We're just approving to go out and find to work for this or what exactly are we >> We would be approving the position so that we could go ahead to create the position and then and then go and post for it. Yeah. >> the salary range? Or do I'm sorry, do we even talk about that? Can Can we talk about this cuz it's not tied to a specific person? Yeah. Yeah. Um yeah, the the regular the median that that I that Greg and I did some research and we called around to some other districts is right around that 70 to 75,000 mark. Um you're you're really if you start paying what we If you start paying less than

067that, you get what you pay for. Um and really, Greg just wants to be able to have somebody in there that has the the know-how, the mechanical aptitudes, whether they come out of industry or they come from a different district or another public service area, but someone who has experience with um at least generally generally experience in HVAC, electrical, the large-scale boiler systems we have here. Um just having that that frame of reference to kind of not just be able to do one thing, but oversee it all. So, would they be more in the buildings as opposed to grounds? Yes, absolutely. Now, as part of the job description, they would be cross-trained in the custodial pieces and um a lot of what Greg does. Like not so much the director stuff, but a lot of

068what he oversees now would kind of cascade down to this individual. Um but they would they would be in Now, again, we're going to make sure that they are able to if we have a need, they can go out and salt, they can plow, they can do all those things on demand as needed. Uh but their primary responsibility would be in the buildings. Okay. That's I just Or the building envelope. Some some some part of the building. Does anybody have any other questions on that? I thought we'd already dealt with it. Do we just do a motion to approve it? If there's no other discussion and there's an interest to approve it, then we would need a motion to approve that. Before you do that, I just one more question. Sorry to interrupt it. Um

069how does this fit into our current budget? Well, as I plan for next year's budget. So, this would Okay. >> This would be approved and we would be posting for a July 1 start. >> There you go. Okay. >> Um so, it would be part of next next year's fiscal budget um and I've already started preliminary plans um and it would fit within the scope of what we're working with. Perfect. I knew it would, but just wanted to ask the questions. Ask questions, absolutely. It's always weird with that July like >> Yeah. We're not starting tomorrow. It's >> No, this this would all be um next year's budget. Okay, cool. Thank you. I would motion to approve the maintenance manager position as discussed. I don't think It works. Second. Thanks. All right, so we have

070a motion on the table to approve the maintenance manager manager position. Is there any further discussion or question? In that case, all those in favor say I. I. I. All those opposed. Motion carries. Thank you. Great. Thank you as well. Yes, he I'm sure he would love someone tomorrow. Yes. All right, next we'll move on to the item G, the school calendar. Um >> [clears throat] >> so, my questions were I see we have a lot of half days this year. Well, not a lot, just four because we're not used to having half days. Um how does that affect the bussing pricing when we do half days and other schools don't? Yep, so there is a cost with those. Um you'll let me just have a look at it like reasons why we have half

071days. Um One I know is the homecoming for Arrowhead. That one makes sense. I get that. It we fumbled through that first that year. >> Yeah, that was terrible. >> Right. And then two look like conferences. >> Conferences. Two of them are conferences. >> And then the last >> And the last day of school is a half day. So, everybody um everybody's out on that last day of school. I'm looking at everybody else's schedules. >> Yep. Um for all of our feeder schools. Um we all are we all determined we would go a half day on that last day. >> okay. So, that one won't really affect us like No. And we we you know, I I learned when I came here that we have that homecoming parade and it really does impact our North

072families. Um so, we we just determined that we're going to just call that a half day going forward. Um and then the other two are conferences, which we learned also this year we need those half days. Um we tried to cut it short this year and it wasn't enough time for our teachers to particularly here at the middle school. It really impacted us. So, um they you know, we just added those two half days for those two days. Do we need the half day for instructional time or can we just make them two full days off? We like to do PD. Oh, okay. Okay. >> Right. So, we like to make sure that we can have time to meet with staff or go through some trainings or various sundry things. We always want to make

073sure that they have their time in the clock cuz we we have to keep them at a contracted level. >> Yeah, I'm sorry. I was meaning like the students are off that Thursday and Friday instead of doing the half day. >> Yeah, we're pretty tight. We're tight with that. We will we'll find out more. You'll hear a little bit more about that minute that minute thing in the superintendent's report, but it comes right down to start and stop times and how many days, right? And so, and we also don't know yet if kindergarten through sixth grade if that law is going to pass about the 30 minutes for recess, which then also impacts the whole picture. So, we're just trying to we'll talk about that in just right. It'll It'll all make sense. But yes,

074we do need to have those those students those half days. Okay. And how much Do we know how much it is a half day that it's going to extra cost? Based on >> Cuz I don't think other districts had the half days as I was looking at their Based on the fact that it's kind of a new >> contract, I don't have specific numbers yet. Um they just handed out that deal um just recently, so I I'd have to go and run some numbers to get that. Okay. I'd be curious if you could >> Yep, I can do that. North Lake does have a half day um with us on that day. Uh so, the school makes >> but don't aren't we running both of our back to backs? Mhm. So, that wouldn't really impact

075because cuz we're doing the same you know, because we're running our middle school buses with our elementary you know, side by side. So, it wouldn't be we're not utilizing anybody else's bus. Oh, I See, and that I don't know how that works. >> tiered system So, like there's two there's three three tiers. Um so, we're using basically one line, two tiers. So, we're not really we're not really paying for our own bus because we're going to use both of those tiers. Okay. >> So, the [clears throat] price won't really change. I can still run the numbers for you, but it should it should have nominal if any impact. I wouldn't see any based on how we're how the the structure is set up. And I didn't think I saw any that we had school that

076others had >> very hard. >> just one in January, the 25th. But it seemed like a lot of schools had we had the 18th and the 25th. Or we had the 18th. A lot of schools had the 18th and the 25th. >> Yeah, we did switch one of those from our preliminary calendar. I remember that discussion. One of them I know we needed. I figured we needed it, but I I'm just curious because now that would push us to being one of the only ones having school that day. Yeah. But again, We need it. I get it. >> But but again in the in the way that the new model's set up, Okay. >> we won't be using it's not like they're running a bus just because that it's just us. It's always going to

077be just us in those two time slots for that bus. Okay. I also think it has to do with the end of the quarter and we needed the day. I I mean I assumed that the day was needed. >> I think Sarah indicated that it was a a day we needed for something like that when we had that discussion. And then my only other thing is there's some dates that have 26s and 27s on them that don't line up. So, we might want to just look at that when before we publish it. Like October 23rd, 27 up on the legend. So, it's 27 instead of 26. All right, we'll go through it. Yeah. Just Yep. Not anything we have to >> let's make sure it's it's ironed out before we I think that's the only

078one. I do appreciate the week-long Thanksgiving and the two Christmas. I'm sure everyone >> We we tried hard >> about that. It came with rave reviews, so we tried to really hard. And as Tina will tell you, we tried very hard to mirror Arrowhead because we understand that Yep. >> a lot of families rely on older sibling to be at home and if the older siblings in school and the little ones are off, that causes confusion [clears throat] and some headaches, so I will also say that we paid really close attention this year coming off of that Thanksgiving break as well as that holiday break just to see how kids responded. Um I was a little worried that it might be too long, but what we kind of discovered and we talked about this in

079PPC a little bit was the kids were ready to come back and learn. Um they were like, "Okay, I had my fun with family and now I'm here and I'm ready to learn." And so, it really And so were so were our teachers. >> [clears throat] >> So, I I would say that was a it was a win-win for sure. That's awesome. Any other questions on the calendar? All right, we're looking for a motion to approve the '26-'27 school year calendar. So moved. Can I say that? Yes, you can. Second. Any discussion? If not, all those in favor say I. I. I. I. All those opposed. The '26-'27 school year calendar is approved as presented. All right. On to new business. Do we have any new business today? Anything else? Moving on to the superintendent

080report. Yes. Um some really great work being done from our student services area um as well as our social worker and counselors. Um I'm excited to um share with you that we have adventured into a free program on mental health for students and for adults. Um that is a grant-funded um organization. Lisa kind of introduced it. We did work with Swallow. Um Jill Dr. Reese at Swallow reached out and said, "Hey, I've got this program. It's a grant-funded program." What they do is they look for student service opportunities, mental health opportunities for a student that might be in crisis and or who we're trying to prevent from being in crisis. So, um it's it's fully it's fully free. It is um different than any other program I have experienced in the time that I've been

081in in education and there is there are many programs out there for mental health, but this one seems promising. So, there's more to come with that, but I'm just really proud of that great work that that our staff are doing to find those resources for our students. Additionally, we also have discovered through some meetings and interactions with our students that not all of our students have the opportunity to have their six-month cleaning or annual cleaning or at all. So, we are bringing in a service to run dental appointments or dental cleanings at each of our schools North, South, and North Shore Middle School for a nominal fee. Students who might need aid or families who might need aid, but still would like their child to have their teeth cleaned. Please reach out to district office

082and we will be getting something in place very soon. We will be working with some local dentists and I think the program is something smiles program. So, kind of working with Mr. Gross on that. So, smile yeah, something to that effect. Do they take insurance or is it just out of pocket? It's just out of pocket. It is nominal. I assume it yeah. Yeah. So, that's really More to come on that. Very excited about that, right? And that kind of goes along with the eye glasses that that have been, you know, taken care of for some of our students as well who couldn't see and couldn't couldn't figure it out. So, we got them an eye exam and they have glasses now. So, it's some of those pieces that we want to make sure that

083we're taking care of our our students so that they can be their best version of themselves when they're here. One other thing that you're going to hear about here and hopefully next month we talk a lot about the amount of time students spend on screens. So, we are kind of just doing doing an experiment. I think they're they're not just at school, but at home is just constant constantly on that screen and they will tell you the research tells you and shows you today that the number one drug that is is affecting people it's not it's not hard drugs it's not alcohol it is screens. And so, we're doing something particularly at North or at South, excuse me, I'm super excited about and they will be able to share more as more is to come,

084but their team put together a low no tech month and that's April coming back from spring break. They will be really working with students to set goals about the amount of time they're spending on a screen and then actually working with them to reduce those screen times like I want to reduce my screen time by 10%. So, [snorts] the first week they'll be monitoring how much they're on their screen and they'll be at home and I'm sure parents will be invited to join their their little friends at home and in tracking their their screen time and that's everything from the computer to the TV to all all of that and and on their phone and so I'm really excited to see what that program looks like and and hoping that we can get our students

085to a healthier place. I will say we do talk about this on a pretty regular basis at our leadership meetings and we work really hard not to have our students on screen >> [cough] >> to the point that we are not while we could be one to one at North, we don't spend time like like we once did on those one to one iPads and Chromebooks. We work really hard not to spend that kind of time. >> [clears throat] >> As they get older, they spend more time, but I think they're just trying to figure out just just how much time are we spending and what can we do about it. So, pretty excited more to come on that one. You all received an email. I'm happy to report that the consortium of all of

086the feeder districts and Arrowhead finally met this last Thursday and came to the agreement that we have in starts and stops in bussing. So, it's a lot of work. It was a lot of a lot of time. I mean, we've been talking about transportation for two and a half years and I'll just recap for you again once, you know, this this inequity with the pay to ride and who's doing it and who's not. We completely dumped the program, started back fresh. We discovered that the contracts did not match, so they would never sunset. So, there was no way out of the contract. I know that's been a question for people. I I also know that it's a question, well, why don't you just go get a new bus? Well, we tried to. We went out

087to bid and we looked at to go and get a new bus, but we couldn't do that like because we're locked into this rate. So, legal said you would have to pay a separation agreement which they likely wouldn't let us out because we have great buying power with 11 or 12 buses in our district. And so, that was a a dollar amount and then a new busing company. So, that became the conversation of, well, we need to get out of this contract and how are we going to do it. And so then we started working through it. You will if you see or read any of the dialogue coming from Mr. Farner at Arrowhead High School, you'll see that through this whole process it was discovered that Arrowhead is actually the fiscal agent. So, they

088kind of are that bigger broader umbrella of the whole consortium. So, it does take time. They they wanted to make changes. We wanted to make changes. I've been saying from day one that that mess out there is scary and we we we lost lost a community member over it. Like not in our community, but in the area. It near and dear to our hearts to to try to get away from that program and happy to say that we are officially going to be done with that program, right? I mean, that's a that's a big move. In addition to this then that that was that was my big ask and then reducing 10 10 from 20. So, Arrowhead had 20 buses and then we've got all the other feeders and the parochial schools, right? So, we

089have to bus all of these people and try to figure it out in three tiers. Arrowhead is so large because they have to bus everybody. So, that second route nobody could share buses with them only the third route. So, Merton does. Well, Arrowhead wanted to reduce. They don't have ridership. They're high schoolers. Most of them are driving. It makes sense. But by reducing theirs and and changing their time while the trickle down was ginormous. And what everybody's pretty well established in what they do here in this area and it took a lot of back and forth and and some upset. There just some upset came from it. We we we ended up in a good spot. Hartland Lakeside ended up in a good spot. As a as a byproduct of getting rid of the shuttles,

090North Shore Middle School will start a half an hour early. So, I don't have the definitive times, but they will begin at 8:00-ish o'clock in the morning and be done at 8:30-ish. 3:30? Excuse me. 3:30. Thank you. 3:30. And it's a short day. Many many conversations have come to me over the past and I can verify it through some other areas that [clears throat] it's just too hard for our middle schoolers who are very active very active. Yay, love that, right? Be be involved. Get involved, but to get out at 4:00. When I first came here, we were getting out until 4:10, 4:15 and then it changed to 4:05 and now we're at 3:59 4:00 so we're like inching to the other side of 4:00. Next year, they will be they will absolutely be out

091the door by by 3:30. And so then what happens there is we share our buses with North and South. North and South then will ride together and they will be picked up and then dropped off. We're we're still trying to figure out are we going to drop at North first and then drop at South or South first then North, but they will be together on their on their routes. Routes have been have to be completely redone because they're not bussing the same, right? So, before we would pick up kindergarten through eighth grade, now we're just picking up sixth through eighth grade and kindergarten through fifth grade. So, there's a lot more to come as we begin those paths and start to have those conversations with Dousman and take a look at the routes, but I

092I know that there's winners and losers in everything all the time, right? In any decision that's ever made, but based on the the feedback and the input that I have received since I've been here, a big piece obviously number one was that shuttle. We accomplished that. Number two was that middle school start stop time was really really tough. Our elementary kiddos are going to have just about the same exact schedule. We are going to stagger start our North and South time because I also have heard that it's really really hard nearly impossible to go from North and get my child to South to start school on time and then vice versa, right? So, we're working with that for those those people concerned about the vehicle trafficking. We're already working with Hartland PD and trying to

093come up with solutions on traffic flow and what that ends up looking like. We were doing that anyway. So, more to come once once we know more. There's just still too much to to not know about where we're at. So, when we talk about that calendar piece, if we start at 8:05 and we get out at 8:25, you have to know that that's 10 minutes off of the day schedule. Well, we only have a certain we have a certain number that we have to meet. Well, if we want to lengthen our recess or we want to lengthen our lunch time, which are all things that are on the table to be considered for next year, then we have have take into account our start stop times. So, the other piece of that, too, is knowing

094that we share our buses with So, so essentially, what happens is we flip-flopped with the parochial schools. So, the parochial schools went to the third tier and Northshore went to the second tier. So, Northshore Middle School, um as soon as they're done dropping Northshore [clears throat] kiddos, then they'll go pick up the South North and South kiddos. And then, same thing, drop >> Yeah, and that's what I meant when I cuz we're using the same buses. Thank you. for Yeah. So, it's 6 and 5. This one, I have a question, and I'm not sure we'll be able to answer this, but since each school has a different distance from your house, your kids are going on the exact same bus for second and third grade, but they're going to two different buildings. You qualify for

095free busing for South, but you're going to then have to pay $850 for that North kid that's sitting on the same bus, same staff. Not adding that. So, that's okay with everyone? That's That was the decision Yeah, so that's what Right, I'm moving forward with the direction. >> No, I know, but I I just um curious if that because that changed, if we can then reopen discussion and re >> [laughter] >> That's a board thing. I I mean, I I feel very strongly that I was given direction on And I'm not debating that. I'm just saying with new information, can we re re-discuss or reopen the topic? We can't tonight because it's not on the agenda. Yeah, I know that. So. And how does one get something on the agenda? Who's in charge of that?

096The superintendent and the board president determine what's on the agenda. >> Okay. And so, when someone asks for it Yeah, I did see it said district administrator. Didn't say anything about board president, so that's why I'm curious. Let me check. Um I have the policy. Uh and then and one of the statements in here says that individual board members may include items on the agenda upon the concurrence of the board president. Cool. So, I'm just asking because I've asked quite a few times for things to be put on the agenda, and you have not done that. So, what more do I have to do to get things on the agenda? Well, in this case, again, it's been noted that you're interested, and that's probably where we have to leave it for tonight. If you want

097to have a discussion about it, you can, but can't talk about >> I'm I'm not asking about that. I'm just other things I have brought up during meetings have not made it to the agenda when I have specifically asked for them to be added to the agenda. Sure. Meeting agenda items have to pertain to the entire board, and just because one person wants it doesn't mean that it makes it into the board. It's not a full governance issue for the board. It's more of a personal interest. We could look at under new business, bringing it up under new business for the following month, and see if there's additional board member interest at that point. Okay. And then, that would help elevate it to a pertinent board topic following month, or maybe the following month. Okay.

098Perfect. Thank you. Sure. And that's the end of my report. Thank you. That's very good news. Thank you. Good job. Thank you. I I can concur that I have personally seen the amount of stress and effort and like legit heart and soul and tears that she has put into this, like Well, I don't I don't think this happened without her bringing it to our attention, because I don't know if he was aware of these contracts being not lined up, but apparently, her and I didn't know they were in charge of it. I mean, there was all sorts of stuff, and it was a mess that we couldn't get fixed without your efforts. So, thank you. Thanks, Tina. Did the other feeder schools sign the So, it everybody signed it, so it's done it's The last

099one is being signed tonight. Oh, awesome. Cool, cuz I know that that was a Yeah. So, thank you for your hard work on all of that. I appreciate it. That's it. All right. Uh next, we have the director of business services report. So, for um for February, we did have um pretty pretty status quo financial activity. Um what we did see some cash receipts that came in. Property taxes were were received, um which is uh of great help. As I've said a number of times, we are a a debt-free district. Uh we don't carry any debt. We don't short-term borrow. Um we're we are able to operate even with the sporadic cash flows that come in from the state and federal government. Um so, it's very nice to get those those funds replenished, um and

100it was needed. Um we ended the month with about 73,000 in our operating checking. Operating savings was boosted up to about 8.3 million. Um capital improvement continues to earn some solid interest, uh right around seven or 1.77 million is where we [snorts] stand with our our fund 46 capital improvement savings. Uh and then, the North student activity fund ended the month at about $11,000. Um we saw, like I said, very very standard spending uh for this time of the year. Um when you look at salary and benefits, which are the the main drivers of any school's budget, uh we're right on course. Um we have had some, as you guys know, some maintenance issues as well as some special education costs that have come up. Um but to this point, they've been largely mitigated. Um

101we've been able to restructure some things, be able to find some savings elsewhere. Um we are still on track for a very very healthy fund 46 contribution into that capital improvement savings. Um Knock on wood, um but again, if we ended the year right now, um I would project a a contribution somewhere right around 275 to 300,000. Um not quite the 350-ish that we projected, uh but absorbing over $100,000 in in additional costs that we didn't uh that we really couldn't identify, as many of those being uh student-related service needs, um we're in a really really solid uh spot financially. And I will just interject here, and even though that's right, that's expense There's a lot to that. I will tell you it was absolutely what was right for those children. Yeah. And the and

102the the work that we did. And and I'm I I I am appreciative of the ability to um have done done that work for those students and those families. And and as Tina will probably tell you, I'm I'll ask the why why why until the cows come home. Um but when it when there is a student need, we will spend money. Um and there was student need. Um we had some situations where we just we were not the best facility for what that child needed. Um and in those situations, you um it's not really even a tough call. It's just figuring out how do you you know, how do you navigate it financially? Um because the students' needs are really going to trump any dollar signs or what's on a piece of paper. Um that's

103just my teacher voice coming out, but um we're we're in a really really solid spot. Um as you guys saw, and then I'll kind of segue Do you guys have questions about any of the financial I just wanted to point out that by taking that money for the special education, it wasn't taking away from any other special programming, just so people know. That funding did not take away from any other student in this district. So. >> No, and we will always prioritize um non-educational programming. We will never strip away I mean, that would be the very very last resort. Like, we would have to be struggling to make payroll before we started stripping away programming. I mean, that's really how At least, that's what I feel about things. Well, it was And it's also you

104finding those ways, and you looking You dove into what, 1,100 accounts, did you say? 1,180. Yeah, who's [laughter] counting, you know? I I found one that was >> right? The fact that you took that time to look into those to save the money is a huge thing, and I really appreciate that you took that time, and I know that that actually probably helped as well for you to learn everything, too, was so Every district has a different chart of accounts. Um So, [clears throat] yeah, you get pretty familiar when you go through every one line by line. So, I'll just say that, but Anybody else? Any questions financially related before I jump into some of the capital improvement stuff? I only had one on the interest that we're earning. How much has that level dropped

105over the last [clears throat and snorts] You know, I guess I'm not even I don't even care what it's dropped. I guess it's more of what's it at today. >> [clears throat] >> Any idea? >> I'd have to look. I'm sure it's under four. I'm guessing it's under four now. Yeah, I 3.4 is what comes to mind. I think it's what it went to after the um the Fed held steady this last one, but the the time before they [clears throat] met, I think it was dropped to 3.4. Okay. But I'll check. I can log in here during the meeting. That'd be good. I was just curious how much of that higher yield account we were still getting over standard. Yeah, I mean, Cuz we still have access We have full access to the funds,

106so it's it's not bad to have No, absolutely. There's a premium there, as well as earning potential. Full full access. That brings us to the capital improvement side of things. And and Chris at your your request last time didn't go unnoticed. I was going to put something together, but I don't really have a crystal ball right now. So I'm just going to give you generality right now when some of this stuff might occur. Largely dependent on when we can secure vendors. We've got a lot of projects that are about to commence or or in the early stages of of seeking bids. As you guys well know, we have three paving projects that are going to be going on this year. One at each of the school buildings. We currently have three bids in expecting two

107more. And those will be all due April 6th. At that point in time Greg and I will meet. We'll do some evaluation. I will tell you right now the conflict or war in Iran is not helping our cause on that front. Unless you know or don't know, paving projects use a lot of petroleum products. We've had a couple that came in and said we can't even guarantee pricing. And I said, well, send send me something you can guarantee because I can't take something to the board unless it's rock solid. So they're going back to the drawing board and and putting some things together for us and trying to predict what that might look like. So there's a lot in flux when it goes to those paving projects. But we do it does look like we're

108going to have five quotes to to review. It looks like all five of them are bidding all three jobs. And more than one of them has in their bid they will give discounts if we for how however many jobs they get selected for. We have one you know like 2% discount if you do two jobs, 4% discount if if you if we can win all three bids. So there might be some savings we can we can satisfy that way. Again, those are due April 6th. And then Greg and I will meet and hopefully have something back for you guys in short order to kind of look at first through finance committee and then the full board. In addition to paving projects, Chris Dillon and I just got done with our managed print services RFP. So

109all of our we've got six two in each building the big multi multi device that they copy scanner facts the big ones that large heavy high output. We currently have three of those. We have our incumbent as as well as two additional. Some interesting things have come in. And I have to ask some additional questions because one of them seems like it might be too good to be true. So I want to ask some some more just fact finding questions, but possibility for some cost savings going forward in that front as well. We are addition additionally I'm in the middle of shopping a property and casualty insurance. I was very surprised that it hadn't been shopped since 2017. So very well could be that we're getting a great deal. Maybe not, I don't know. We

110work with a an insurance consultant that kind of reviews our policies and make sure that everything we're needing is there. There's nothing extra. And they help us in that process of going out to bid. Really two main players in in our market. So we're going to be getting bids from both R&R as well as one other. So I'll give you more updates when I have more information on that. Dishwasher. As you guys well saw when we went to the kitchen, we've got the need for a new commercial dishwasher. I wish I had better news, but it looks like it's going to be more expensive than we anticipated. I had guessed or I I shouldn't say guessed. We had predicted somewhere around 50 based on what we had replaced at the other two buildings. This one's

111slightly larger. Looks like it's probably in the neighborhood of 60 to 65. I how a commercial dishwasher costs that much, but we'll have six bids. So it's not as if we're not >> [snorts] >> searching and looking for any option that's out there. We even discussed having our own team do the install. However, you start to look at warranty and by having a qualified licensed installer you can ensure that that warranty is fully intact and there's no issue there. So looks like that's the route we're probably going to go. But when we have all the bids, we've got three so far, three more coming in. So that's 65 with installation? That's with installation. And to be quite quite honest, it's about a 50/50 split between cost and install. So but we're going to continue to

112look at what options are out there and and evaluate those six when they come in and make sure we're we're doing the best thing for the district. When is that one? We didn't go to RFP. It's just it's kind of a unique situation. There's two basic vendors or basic companies. Greg could could speak more on this, but they each [snorts] can go out and there's there's only certain qualified install companies for the for the two types that will fit in there. So we're getting three from each company. And those three are they're going to bid it out based on the three different contractors that can do the install for each. Largely the equipment is apples to apples because it has to fit. If we start retro trying to change the infrastructure in there, prices just

113start to skyrocket. So we have to kind of fit with what's in that that setup. The the rough timing on that though is that a summer project? Is it a fall project? Well, it's it's it's it it would have to be a summer because we can't have it down during the school year. So to just give you a rough idea, copier RFP that would that changeover would happen early August to mid-August. Paving projects I'm I'm I'm going to push really really hard to have have those done this fiscal year. It whether that can happen or not based on the timing of summer school and some other moving parts, that remains to be seen, but that is my goal. Dishwashers again summer. So when school is out we're going to we're we're trying to get everything

114lined up so that as soon as the schools out and we're done using those that facility we can get going on that. The last piece of the puzzle that I'm working with from a facility standpoint standpoint is the library carpet at South. Greg's already done over went over there, got the measurements figured out. We've got a circulation desk that has to get pulled out. So that's going to take some time because it is it's it's it's permanently in there, but there's carpet underneath it. So they must have put it in after the carpet went in. So they're going to get that out, lay the carpet, and that'll also be contingent upon when school's out. So do we need a new desk then in there? He thinks he could he thinks he could reuse that. I

115mean, if anybody can reuse it Greg can. He's He He was in the commercial cabinet space 25 or 30 years before he got into the school system of work. So No, he'll he'll he'll get it out. He's He's very very talented. But that's that's that's basically it on the Yeah. Yeah, we said that's so much stuff. It's really exciting though, right? When you think about it because we've done such a great job trying [clears throat] to figure out the budget and getting the plan not only planned for a capital improvement contribution, but we've and just as this district has done in a very fiscally forward thinking way is we've used operational part of our operational budget every single year to tackle some projects because we know that if you put these things off, the price

116tag only goes up. And there's a cost to do nothing. Obviously, there's some things that we're going to have to go to that capital improvement fund for when we need to start looking at the HVAC items and some of the electrical items that are going to come up. But that's why we've tried to tackle some of these I'll I'll call them smaller projects. They're not that small, but but it's it's what has allowed us to be able to to continue to keep this district looking the way it is. And Fendoer looks at a lot of buildings and they came in with for our facility study and they straight up said it's one of the better set of buildings we've seen as far as how it's been taken care of and the regular maintenance and upkeep

117that have been done. So Greg's team and Greg get a a lot of kudos. Go ahead. So they came in and they did their study. Like we look at all this stuff and we're planning out these next steps. When is that plan going to be presented and what that looks like? Well, that that's a big piece of why Greg needs a maintenance manager. Greg and I have kept saying, yeah, we're We're to get to that. We're going to get to that. We're going to get to that. And I'll be honest, we haven't gotten into it yet. We've started putting the pieces. We have a rough framework of what we each think, kind of after looking through Findorff's extensive plan. Um I'd like to give you a next month timeline, but that's probably not accurate. Um

118I'm hoping we can have something to put together for you guys for for this summer. >> [clears throat] >> Realistically. Okay. Maureen, did you have a question? >> my question. >> Okay. Yeah. I mean, I could share with what we have, but it's not a finished draft. So, I think it's just better to hold off till we have it vetted. I wonder if there's room for um a workshop for the board to kind of go through and and, you know, prioritize for yourselves what you think based on what Findorff put together. We've got a lot of great minds and people that are in industry, and and maybe that would be something that would help us kind of know what that direction might look like. That might be That might be a better way for us

119to go about that. I don't know what your thoughts are. Pardon? >> I'd love to do that. We would love your help. I I agree. I've already allocated funds to get the hands-on Yeah, I Let's set Let's set a um a workshop in May. Yeah. April's really full right now. >> [laughter] >> A lot coming to the board. Um if if we can find that that time slot, would that do a do a workshop prior to that May meeting? True. Fair? Sure. All right. Let's do that. Yep. Let's do that. I like that idea. That's all I got for Thank you. facilities and Tomazin. All right. Thank you. All right. Number 11, board president report. I don't have anything at this point. Maureen, this would be a time if you wanted to bring up some

120items for discussion. Um I will email you. Okay. All right. Anyone else have any future items? Do you have know when you were having the next theater assembly? By chance? I do not. I've not heard of the next one yet. Uh Chris, can I add something here? Sure. I know one question that a lot of families are wondering about is the um the spring uh excuse me, the summer school program. Maureen is working tirelessly to get that together. That girl works so hard, let me just tell you. Um but she's part of the transportation thing, and she's doing the summer school program. So, just so you know, we're going to try to get it out in the next day or two. Um but most of the time it's right around that spring break time, and

121I know we've had some people requesting, "Don't put it out right before spring break. I want to go to spring break." It's going to get put out, right? Like whenever you whenever it goes out, just be watching for that um so that you can ensure that you get your kiddo signed up. I do think there's a new thing this year. We talked a little bit about it last time. One of the things that we didn't realize um when we were going through the interviews for um the daycares that that one thing we're missing is that summer um 4K 4K and 5K um afternoon daycare. So, we don't They don't have anything they can do. The village only takes kids at six six years old and older. And so, our 4K and kindergartner our parents, what

122are they doing with their children? Well, they're taking them to different daycares. So, we'd like to keep them here. And so, we're looking at trying to offer an opportunity for our families to be able to keep their kids here in our district and in our programming. So, more to come on that. You can watch directly from the academy. >> Yeah, Lakeside is working on putting something together, and I think something will be coming shortly. Shortly. Okay. Thank you for letting me get that out. I'm assuming the summer school program announcement and that information's ready will go out by email blast. Correct. Yep. Yep. It'll be email and social media. Thank you. Mhm. Okay. Moving on. Future meetings. Finance Committee Thursday, April 9th at 8:30 a.m. Correct? Correct. Yes. PPC, we have Friday, April 10th at

1239:00 a.m. Correct? Correct. And the next school board meeting at 6:30 [snorts] p.m. Can we do Are we >> 5:30. I thought we were changing them to 5:30. I thought this was the last last one was the last one where I think everybody couldn't come earlier. Yeah. Is everybody in agreement to move that up? For 5:30. I can do 4:30. Well, calm down. >> [laughter] >> So, 5:30 because of the workshop or just the board meeting? Just the board meeting. Okay. Is this the Is this because of contracts? No, it's just we just we talked about why are we starting at 6:30. If people If people can be here at 5:30. I'm going to get it out more timely than that. Especially And these guys have to stick around to do it. I mean, they're

124So, I guess convenience for these guys, too. Totally that. 5:30. All right. So, then Monday, April 20th, 5:30. All right. Uh we did have on the posted agenda the executive session. I don't have anything. Did you have anything? Cuz if not, then we won't need to do that this evening. >> [snorts] >> All right. So, in that case, I'd be looking for a motion to adjourn at 7:40 p.m. So moved. Second. Is there any discussion on adjournment? If not, all those in favor say I. I. I. All those opposed? Meeting is adjourned. Thank you. Awesome. Thanks. I'm just sticking to the end, Justin. Yeah. Thanks for staying. I watched everyone of them. You're a trooper, man. I watched every one of them, too. Thank you very much.