Hudson Schools - March 30, 2026 - Board Work Session

001Right. >> It's just pooling. It'll be fine. So, there we go. >> Um I can't you can't take me anywhere. So, um so spring elections uh just a just a heads up. Spring elections are coming up on uh next Tuesday. Thanks, Molly. >> Um uh spring elections are next Tuesday. We have four people on the ballot. We did the ballot draw. Uh the ballot draw uh as the names will appear on the ballot will be Joe Rivera, Megan Rosowski, Maria Rudy, and John P. Dolan. Um absentee ballots are available by mail right now. I'm not sure when that that stops, but I think it's coming up. U but otherwise uh you can look at your local polling uh polling place for hours and opportunities there. uh the two candidates with the most votes uh will

002move on or will be the board members for the next three years. So or running for two spots. Any questions about the upcoming election? >> No questions. >> Okay, moving on to artificial intelligence report. >> All right, so we have uh a couple guest speakers to come in and talk with you guys. Excited. Uh we have uh Dr. Dr. Rich Hersonson who's coming to us from the University of Wisconsin Madison uh to talk uh he talked to our AI task force this morning with which is comprised of teachers uh staff members and kind of as we're working through what is artificial intelligence, how does it impact the schools and what are we going to be doing uh as we work through this and as we think about it as a school district we think about

003it as kind of two pathways. We have the pathway that is how do we make our jobs more efficient as employees and then we have the pathway of how does this impact our kids and as we deliver instruction and things along those lines. And so um you know I'm going to be turning over to Rich and Amanda but it was it's been a exciting day and he's going to kind of work through some stuff with you guys and I'm gonna turn it over to them. So you go ahead. >> Green means go. Huh? >> Green means go. >> All right. Hi folks. Uh, thanks for inviting me to come and talk with you today. My name, as Nick said, is Rich Halverson. I'm a professor at the University of Wisconsin Madison. I've been there for

004about 25 years. Before that, I was a high school teacher and a principal in Chicago. And uh, my research interests are in what how people use technologies for learning in and out of schools. So, I've been very interested in sort of this bo this boundary between how technology developments typically happen and thrive outside of schools and then schools deal with trying to figure out how to bring into the school or how to protect kids from the technologies, but that schools make a decision about technologies and how they're used um as the technologies develop. And uh um I think I'd like to start just by having um wait here I can control. Yeah, good. Uh just to get a sense a little bit about what you care about in this space. Would you just turn to

005a neighbor um probably just pairs up on on the board and ask each other what's your biggest question about using AI tools in your work in your world. Just talk with each other a little bit and then I'll check in with you and and see what what you have to say. Okay, folks, let's try to wrap up for a minute. Um, if if it's okay with you, I just like to ask you what are some of the things you talked about in in your group? I just really I just want to get a sense of what are your concerns and interests in in AI space? Would anybody like to volunteer to go first? Sure, we can go first. Um, Megan and I talked a lot about, you know, concerned about how it impacts learning and

006not replacing learning. Um, you need to kind of learn how to walk before you can run. You've got to learn how to read, how to critically think, how to write, and those are all skills that take time to develop and maintain. Um, mental health, that was something we talked about a lot, mental health for kids, so that it's not isolating them. the companies that developed social media are also the ones that are in play for developing AI. It's those same, you know, mag seven companies. So, how are we thinking about that? And do they really have the best interest of our kids of anybody? Even as adults, I don't think we know how to use it. >> Oh, accuracy. Like in research in the world that I work in, it's the you know, I've seen

007you've seen documentation and reports of people using AI to write write their research briefs or write their journal articles and then it isn't until somebody goes and facts checks that you find it made up resources or it made up the data that it analyzed. Um how do you how do you know what you asked it is true and how do you know how to go out and verify it? >> That's uh thank you for for sharing those. Um I think a lot of the concerns that you're raising have to do with the relation between AI and people and technology in people and the fear that we have is that the AI and the technology will take the place of people. People will opt out in mental health issues where kids and people lose their identities

008by playing with technologies. Um the learning thing is absolutely critical because um uh fortunately or unfortunately you can um get through a lot of the school as we've known it by giving the answers that the technology gives you. So now how do we pivot as educators to go back to a model of education that really is grounded in student interest and ownership and the AI tools aren't going to go away but we have to figure out how to give learners agency in this space and uh use the tools to advance their interests rather than to replace them. So yeah, excellent. Thank you. Thank you Kate and Bob. What concerns do you have? >> Go ahead. >> Okay. Um, I guess my biggest concern in relation to education and being on the board of education is

009how we work with kids to be career ready and what careers to choose because that's obviously going to be changing. And I'm not sure that I know the answer to that. And so it's all evolving. Uh, and you pointed out a few things too, Bob. just the like the effect on the economy in a short term, you know, the the not knowing what what's going to affect, what industries will be affected, what parts of, you know, teaching obviously um I'm close enough to retirement. I hope I can coast through without using too much of it, but but uh um you know, that's younger generations um just another tool. So excited about it, but certainly fearful of what it can do to job market the economy. Yeah, this this technology really is very much focused on

010workplace and learning and how people live their lives with information and it is it's changing the world right in front of us. I think the career ready idea is um the challenge for schools is to make sure that young people graduate with experience learning how to use these tools responsibly to advance their own learning so that they don't have to learn them from, you know, out in the world. Um, one of the great uh uh equity concerns that we have moving forward in our schools is that there's a whole group of kids who will just grow up being digital natives with AI tools. And then another group of kids who maybe their families aren't using them and they don't have the experience of using tools to sort of advance their learning interests. And if schools

011don't help that second group of kids, the divide that we have now is just going to get broader and broader. And I think especially that's going to pay off in career opportunities like that sort of vocational track is super important for us to think about how do these kind of tools fit into our the education for our children moving forward. Really nice. Thank you Nick and Molly. What what do you what did you share? >> You're gonna just love what I have to say. I know it. I have uh I went to a WASBY session on this at the latest convention which was very interesting. um talking about like legal and ethical boundaries and it was put on by three professors or three people from the WMadison and then somebody from Niola and I just

012went back and kind of looked at the different things. Um there's a lot of considerations and it it's not that the discussion is bad because these are good good discussion to have especially with kids because there's a price we have to pay. There's an ethical price and there is a ecological price. Um I had heard chatbt classes a glass of water. Um and we know what's happening in communities an hour away from us in Wisconsin. We do not have guardrails on for this. Um they and I I know some other board members feel the same way. I do. We're going to put this AI stuff in the hands of social media companies which have ruined um our so much of our um connection with people um when we're suing you know Facebook or Meta for

013all these different things or that not Meta but it was another one it was um AI for encouraging somebody to kill themselves. Um, I have a lot of concerns about those. And as far as economics, kids coming out of college, I think they're where's that guardrail to say that you're hiring someone who actually knows what they're talking about >> because they've been using AI all this time or you have a kid who's in a um degree degree program which is ending. So, I mean, I can speak from my own personal experience. My son has been almost graduated a year from an excellent school, great student, all the things. Can't find a job. You know, kids who are out two years can't find a job because jobs are being eliminated. We're in this second industrial revolution

014which is going to overturn everything that we know. We need to be very careful. And I for one, I'm not a lite. Um, but I feel like just ethically forcing it on is going to be a it's going to be a problem. I think parents aren't going to like it. Some will love it and some won't. And then you come into this halves and have nots. But what we're show I think we show know about computers and some of this uh stuff that we've been doing is you gain efficiencies and you get an ability to have greater output. which you decrease relationships and what we see in our world is a decrease in relationships with others has fractured our world. So I mean I I think we have to have guard rails. I don't think

015that kids should not be you know learning how to use it but be very careful what we're doing. I I mean I'm glad I'm old. I'll just put it that way. I'm glad I'm old because I can say no. I don't have to worry about this. I want less, not more. Yeah. >> So there's my speech. >> No, thank you, Molly. I appreciate that. >> Thank you. >> I I appreciate hearing that. I think that the the challenge with new technologies, especially revolutionary technologies like this, is that they don't have values. We have values. Usage has values. And the the incredibly important roles that schools need to play in this space is appropriate use. we have to take on the role of how can these tools be used responsibly. How what do they justify the

016commitment that we're making for uh for uh the economy and for our ecology, right? We like those are matters of public debate and they need to be matters of public debate and and the it's almost like the price of progress is discussion and we have to have those discussions. And the the the thing that I'm excited about is that everywhere you go, there's discussions about AI. Everybody has an opinion. I think probably more people have opinions and actually use it now. And so we we um the public discourse and the recognition of all the different factors that are involved is really a healthy sign. I think people are taking this really seriously both at the micro level for usage but also at the macro level for our society. I think too it's like the thing

017I don't like is that kids we don't we don't want human beings that don't understand their intrinsic value as a human being as a person you can come up with something that is the most incredible and unique thing one out of seven billion that a computer will never come up with um and I think that we're seating our authority so that those are my concerns that I mean a kid is going to come up with an project and and uh it's going to be way more cool than what AI comes up with. And the fact that AI uses, you know, trademark, licensed and steals, steals from artists and writers and all kinds of things. That's what it's based on is stealing. >> I think you'll be happy to know in some of the things that

018I'll talk about today that most of the folks who are doing research in this area are exactly where you are. The idea of that there's people using tools that can also act like people. and how do you keep people at the forefront of of this work? So hopefully when I share some of these these ideas, they'll resonate with you. >> Brian and Erin, what are you what are you thinking about? >> No, Nick has nothing. >> I shut him down. >> Did you want to say something? >> Molly speaks for Nick. >> Pleasure. >> He did. He say in all fairness that you can't take him anywhere. >> Okay. >> You know, I think what Molly said was very well articulated and um reflected some of our conversation. But I would I would just say

019for me personally, you know, the the whole idea of maintaining our humanity and I think that um examining how we use AI in our schools and how we expose our children to it. um thinking about humanity and the one in seven billion as you referenced is is an important piece of it. And then you know also um AI is a tool and and we're all going to need to live with it. So teaching our kids how how to use that tool to complement their skill building is also important. >> Um I was I was also at the WSBY session that Molly was talking about. It was very enlightening and and WASBY really didn't seem to be in favor of it overall. Um that was just my opinion and my take on it. They had some

020very nice um blurbs in there about um the need that kids just need to sit with things and they need to be able to deeply think about things and process without having a chat box next to them to help them through it. Um you know I think personally AI is way too accessible. Um, I appreciate the the the need and the desire to teach it. I also think at the same time we maybe don't need to teach it. Maybe that's something that parents seem to worry about at home and schools need to have people in them. That's why we have public schools and private schools. And so we have teachers that are teaching the information that they have learned and they've worked so hard to do that. Um, and and for kids to have a

021place where there's adults. Uh the other parts that came to mind um you know we we talk about the anxious generation book a whole lot and um they said it over over there about um about the anxiety and the mental health and kids kids already do not feel like they need to do the work. Bottom line, they just don't um that's not going to improve. Uh we also um just implemented a cell phone policy in our district um for the high school and middle school this last year. And so I'm curious um when we don't have phones in the classroom like how does um continuing to introduce AI technology um when we're trying to remove certain things like that um align with the purpose of having that policy and um you know just a fun

022fact that I read recently that Gen Z is doing a digital detox. So they are unplugging as a trend due to the anxiety and mental health and really my question becomes how do we support that? How do we support that? These kids are literally seeking out in-person communication and conversations because they don't want that to be replaced and they're realizing that the last couple of years these kids have really missed that because of things like this. So, I just I thought that was interesting and I'll leave it on this. Um, there happened to be 50 alpha schools in the United States. Um I just read and listened to a great article news broadcast on this and they are AI schools specifically where they use learning for two hours a day which is almost identical to

023what homeschoolers do and they do replace teachers in a lot of that but then they use the teachers later on to build um life skills and they they spend the rest of their day doing life skills and interacting with people and stuff and I think that's a neat um idea and they're calling it like a smart screen time thing but their motto is chat boxes are cheat boxes. >> So I just wanted to share that. >> Yeah, that's great. Thank you, Erin, for sharing that. I think one of the um one of the great uh uh sort of features of American public education is interested families and interested people set the policies and set the guidelines for how schools work. And I feel like the Walt Whittmann was a poet in the 1800s had this

024famous um line America contains multitudes. And one of the things we know in the United States is that people will find the kinds of opportunities for their own learning and for their children's education that align most closely with their values. I don't doubt that there will be in the very near future future schools that are largely run by AI working with teachers but then I also don't have any doubt that there will be schools that have are completely technology free and the the way that sort of the market forces behind public school are moving those options will be available to many people and so this kind of litmus test technology my sense of it is that as a as a professor in this space. Um, do you do you all know the the Dr. Seuss

025book Green Eggs and Ham? >> Oh, yeah. >> So, the AI to me is almost always a green eggs and ham u phenomena. Like I do not like green eggs and ham. I do not I do not like the environmental cost. I do not like the screen time. I do not like it. But then when you try it and you see that it helps you advance the things that you care about, then you sort of get a sense of a bigger picture of how AI fits in with lives that it does have adverse consequences. It always will because it's a very disruptive technology. But the question for us as educators is we can't go backwards. We have to figure out how to make the tools serve the values that we have. And that's an important

026task for public educators. And just by inviting me to your conversation, um I'm really happy to be able to talk with you about some of these ideas today. I want to share some research with you. Um share some examples with you about how AI is changing teaching and learning in front of us. And then you know you you will you will decide on your course about how to what stance to take on these tools and how much you're going to integrate them into your own your own work and your own life. Um I want to start off with oh yeah here's the my sort of like I think these things are just true just from my experience just watching how things are um proceeding in the world. generative AI. I think I got to cross

027out will. It is transforming how we think about teaching, learning, and schooling. The if I would stand up and is there a pointer? No, you can't see it anyway because I'm pointing it back at you. Um, it's really teaching learning because most of the experimentation with AI as an information tool is happening outside of schools. There are a lot of teachers who are using AI, some of it on their own time, some of it in schools, but teaching and learning are being transformed and schooling will soon follow. And like I said, because this is such a new tool, a new technology, it's not clear where it's going, but it is clear that change is happening. It's the most revolutionary knowledge tool ever built. I'll just let that sit. All the knowledge tools that we've thought

028of so far, textbooks, chalkboards, writing, this one talks back. All those other all the other technologies that we've ever had have been relatively static depending on us as agents. This one, if you say, "How can I improve my argument?" It will talk back to you. It's the first technology that we've had that's responsive and reflective. And that's a huge threat to how we think about education and how we think about learning because always schools and teachers and mentors have had that role of the reflective partner, the one who talks back. Now we have a nonhuman thing that talks back to us. It will democratize access to learning everywhere for everyone. This is the one that I think is the most disruptive because you can ask any AI tool chat or Gemini or Grock to outline

029a course of study for you and then chunk it up into pieces and then give you feedback every step along the way. Whether you want to learn to code in Python or you want to make better old-fashions or you want to order food for your for your summer uh you know holiday party. it will chunk up the tasks for you and give you um benchmarks for how you're doing and will also talk back to you about where to get the best br it it it allows it just embeds learning in our use of digital tools everywhere and I think schools has always been the places where we go to learn that's learn like schooling and learning kind of go together that way but this kind kind of tool increasingly is going to drive a wedge

030in the control of schools over learning. And then that puts us on the question of how are schools going to react to this and how are schools going to going to going to either double down on their historical role or are they going to try to embrace new ways of of of looking at these tools. This is a little bit about me. I wrote a book a couple years ago called Rethinking Education in the Age of Technology. I wrote it right before uh the right before COVID. So, it has nothing in it about generative AI. I think there's like one paragraph because this whole thing sort of dropped like a bomb on us. Um uh but we talk I think Molly were you talking about the second industrial revolution? We talk about that. That's the

031f the u the the basic metaphor in this book. from me >> with what? >> You stole it from me. >> Yeah, >> kidding. >> I got this in 2012. So, okay. >> I stole it from you. I'm sorry. >> But we talk a lot about the how information and industrial technologies kind of work together. And so that's a a dominant theme in this book. And the other one is that I work for a long time as a as a school leadership researcher. And so I talk a lot about how schools, how leaders develop schools that improve learning. And so I'm going to try to bring both of these perspectives together today and talking with you about some of the research and what we know about AI and learning. Um we'll just go through these

032kind of fast big changes in learning technologies. I realize when I put a timeline up this like this up, I've been around for a while because I remember I was a professor when all these things came out. But in 2000, I don't know if any of you remember, interactive whiteboards, learning management systems came out. Then all of these technologies were supposed to be revolutionary and some of them were better than others, right? So then you had onetoone laptops, um games and learning, video games and learning stuff, cognitive tutors, which are sort of the the maybe the uncles of AI systems, iPads, flipped classrooms, maker spaces. Um then there was a sort of a rush in the mid2010s, personalized learning, STEM and steam education, coding, learning analytics, and then we had the COVID crisis. And that

033was really the first time that I think educators realized how powerful learning technologies could be because I don't know if you remember this but right before COVID there were all kinds of discussions about whether Google classroom was robust enough and secure enough to carry teaching and learning and then all of a sudden it had to. And if we didn't have distributed learning technologies, our schools would have been nowhere because you had to have some way of reaching out to to families and parents who were in not in school but had to go to school. So I think this showed to educators around the world that the kinds of learning technologies that Google came up with could support teaching and learning not as well as in person, but they could keep it keep it running. But

034I think this is a red line and I think people will remember this red line. December 2022. It was the release of chat GPT3. It was the first commercially available generative AI tool. I just want you to keep that that date in mind. 2022 people started working with the stuff and talking about it in 2023. It's only 2026. This is a baby baby baby technology that grew way way way faster than any other technology before it. There's all these graphics that show like the the relative growth of Facebook or YouTube and all of the open AI the generative AI tools just just have taken over the world. So I think this this line is going to be either if you don't like this movement a disaster moment or if you do see the power of

035AI an opportunity moment. Do you know do you all know who Sam uh Sal Khan is? Khan Academy was a was probably the leading uh education resource on YouTube for years. Um Sal Khan was an engineer who wanted to give math uh tutoring to his nephews who lived in India and he looked online for resources couldn't find any. So he made a series of videos that he put on YouTube that broke down algebra and geometry so that young people could understand them. This gave rise to a whole empire of learning resources on YouTube. And when uh Sal Khan had an interview right before Chat GPT came out where he was really interested in this kind of old education finding this is this is this talks about the effectiveness of student groupings in schools. So the

036first one that says conventional, that's the typical classroom. It's a 1:30 ratio, right? Where there's one teacher, 30 students, you get what we all see as a bell curve, right? Just as many kids fail as succeed. Um, if you push the the strate the pedagogical strategy over a little bit, you get mastery learning, which is the idea that you like kids keep at it until they get it, right? and you give them the time that they need to to to get it. But the most effective is tutorial onetoone learning. And this is sort of universally recognized is about 90% of the tutored students attain the level of achievement reached only by the highest 20% of the conventional outcomes. But it's always been too expensive. It's just too it's especially for public schooling. It's too expensive

037to do onetoone tutoring. This is a luxury that some people can afford. What Sal Khan saw and what many other people saw is that the AI systems are not exactly the same as onetoone tutoring, but they're pretty close. They have infinite patience. They can answer any questions that you have. They're experts in all the different subject areas. They can speak in any language. They can do symbolic manipulation. They can create images. they're more versatile to than more tutors. They're not people though. So for many people sort of this push towards the onetoone model is a really effective way to think about how do you create schools that are more that are more effective. Um I like this guy. His name Ethan Malik. He's a he has a substack called one useful thing. He's a pretty

038uh interesting guy to follow for advances in AI. Um he did a study right after this is came out in 2024 right after uh the first generative AI systems and let me break this down for you a little bit. They did a study with 750 consultants at was it uh it was one of the big consulting firms it might have been Deoid and they they uh broke the consultants into two groups. um half used AI with no PD and then half used AI and got a little um got a little training on it and after a certain amount of time I think it was six months is that right I think it's six months this is the distribution of effectiveness that's that you saw between the two groups the AI powered group competed uh 12%

039more tasks uh they were quicker and they had higher quality results the Most interesting thing about this finding though is that through all the levels of through all levels participants showed improved performance the increased performance was greater for the bottom 50% than for the high achievers. This is really interesting if you're interested in raising the achievement for the kids who struggle the most because high achievers, this is sort of a thing, but high achievers tend to be good at the systems that they're navigating, right? They know how to get the resources, they know how to ask questions, and if AI is an option, they'll use that, too. But the kids who struggle the most, the ones who don't feel like they're part of the system, they're the ones who need the most help. And this

040study and studies like this are finding that the greatest effects are felt by the people who were the lowest achievers going in. Ethan Malik also has this finding. He says AI is weird and this weirdness doesn't ever go away. I think Megan you said before about maybe as Maria about thing making mistakes hallucinating. I don't think AI is ever going to get to be like a calculator. I think it's always going to be weird just the way people are weird. You know, sometimes you have a person that you think you can really trust and then you ask them a question one day and they just come out of left field because and inside of the brain of an AI system and inside the brain of people, there's this sort of we don't really understand how

041neurons work. We understand the the chemicals of neurons, but we don't understand how ideas are present in our brains. And we also don't understand how what how ideas are carried in AI systems. So these systems are never going to be fully reliable, which means that they're always going to require people to correct them, to make judgments about their output, to make sure that what we get is the answers that we need. these the this the what Malik says is that on some tasks AI is super powerful and others it fails completely and unless you use it a lot you won't know which is which is kind of the same thing for people right everybody's a little bit strange and but if you get to know somebody better then you find out about their stranges and

042they become a little bit more predictable that's kind of how AI AI tools are going to be used by by people in the world as well not as calculators Can I ask you a question? >> Um, so you said the the bottom 50% of achievers is are the group that goes up when they're using AI. And >> I guess I do wonder a little bit, is it going up because they're getting the answers or is it going up because they're actually gaining information and learning? >> This one this study was interesting because it it had a multi-dimensional um measure of success. They completed the tasks. They had higher quality results and the results were judged by the people who were the clients. It was a team activity and so they had to like make their

043reports as a team and show like this has a lot of human element in it. >> So it's not like I give you a test and you give me an answer. you know, this this it's why I really like this study because it was it showed like how the AI tools work together with people rather than independent of people. >> Very good. Thank you so much. Yeah. But I do think like in in our schools there's a whole group of kids who are disenfranchised and they feel and like we know this from from learning psychology that the the greatest factor that prevents young people from engaging in school is fear of embarrassment. It's self-esteem. If you don't know the language well, if you've been labeled as a as a special ed kid. If you've had

044behavioral questions. If you've had runins with the system, these factors prevent an open engagement with schooling often and the kind of tools that we see with AI that allow for sort of infinite experimentation with no shame can help bolster the confidence of young people so they'll give a better chance. They'll give the system a better chance. That's what I was uh wanted to comment on is the engagement part the the failure to launch kids you know that like I'm you know consider themselves you know to be not smart or whatever that the basic parameters they can throw in gets them started you know and that's where I'm very excited to hear that the lower half has actually helped um you know are the >> because that's those are the learners we're trying to hit you

045know so very interesting Um, Bria, >> do you mind if I ask a question? So, I kind of riffing out a little bit of what Kate was poking at on this study. I guess where I struggle, and bear with me for a second. >> So, we're drawing a a a conclusion from a study of consultants and these consultants are from top firms. I've heard this study talked about before um on a couple of other podcasts and they talk about it more in reference to how can we help um work more efficiently. And the conclusions that they were drawing from this study centered more on it's allowing consultants to work faster and produce more high quality work. and you're going to have kind of some erosion in that um that working group in terms of numbers

046of people needed because AI is going to make them instead of taking three months to build your slide deck for your for your for your client about their new business model, you're going to do it in 48 hours, right? The other piece of this where for me it's it's just that tug and pull. I I hear the thread that we're trying to pull out this is how can we leverage a tool to help some of our learners that are struggling the most which I absolutely love and think we need to continue to have those conversations in this instance the people that we're studying are high like consultants for deote or Boston consulting group like these are not low performing students it it takes a lot to get into that that into that area this is

047not an apples to apples comparison I think is where I'm going with that and as we think about this conversation the other guardrail that comes guard rail or concern that comes to mind is the technology is evolving like you pointed in your timeline to December 2022 we're already on what sonnet 5.6 six for Claude and chatgpt5, which they actually may have just pulled back. The versions that they're putting out, my point is, are evolving faster than anybody can study them, faster than anybody can wrap their heads around how to put guard rails on. Um, not only just in an educational space, but in a work space, in a data security space, um, in a national security space. This is there's a lot of pieces and prongs to this. I love I do love and appreciate

048this study. I think what I would offer is I think this this piece speaks a little bit more to efficiencies for me than it does to helping to bridge educational tone and I I would love to see more studies around how do we use this to bridge that gap because I think there's a lot of potential there. I think that your um u calling for more study and evidence has been heard by as an education researcher almost everybody who's funding education research there's an AI angle to it now in science education in literacy education in teacher preparation everybody wants to know the questions that you're that you're suggesting and because you know the the timeline of research is usually like three to five years before you get a good study out and and so we're

049sort of like grasping at different indicators to say is this something that's interesting while changing along with the world. So the your uh um call for more attention to this is is being heard and acted on by people all over the world to can we fill in some of these gaps, right? And make so we don't have to use these non-Appletoapple comparisons as you mentioned. Yeah. If I could make a comment too, when I did the WASBY um breakout session along with Erin, one of the things they did bring up, they had part of the of the four one of the four speakers, the 25% of the time was a woman who talked about how AI does poorly amongst children who are non-English speakers. And it reinforces um whatever you want to call it, whoever

050has created the AI, their beliefs are coming through in the AI. Do you know what I'm saying? So it reinforces things that maybe a kid who is in special ed doesn't mean anything to them or a kid who comes in and they're an English language learner, it's going to be more difficult for them. Um, I mean, and it's not to discount that it it's interesting and and and the thing like too when I think about like if you had a study, I can see where you have tons of data and it's going to take you a long time to aggregate it. You use AI to aggregate it. It tells you what are the dominant themes, right? Even then, that's useful, but sometimes the answer is not the dominant theme. So, that's a whole other thing

051in a workplace or even like I've been going through my house uh throwing away papers from college that I kept because I needed them apparently. >> And um >> I still have all mine too. >> I know. And it's really hard because I look at I think oh look what I did dot matrix printer you know uh typed out >> spindle on the side. >> Yes. I mean all of the olden days when I started. So we've come a long ways. Um, and I look and I think, dang, I was really smart and my teacher, you know, I love that. And I looked over the comments, unique perspective. I like that commentary. We're not going to get that. We need we need people to be like, I want the bizarre and the weird because that

052might be the answer. And I don't I have real concerns. Obviously, you know that. >> No, I I hear you. >> Not that I don't appreciate what you're saying, but it's like, okay, take this feedback back. >> Yeah. when you are you know thinking about things and you know go through that process of how does it impact and the weird factor weird is important. Thank you Molly for sharing that. I I want to um make one comment about the beginning of of your of your comments. I had not heard that those data about students who are language learners. What I had heard was that the AI detectors overidentify language learners because language learners in their if you're a language learner, it really helps to have a translation tool because it gets you in the game.

053You don't have to be quiet. You can have a voice. And the algorithms that were trained for the AI detectors were similar to the ones that were in plagiarism detectors. And because language learners use tools like Microsoft Word and and Google to translate their work, the AI detection um systems flagged language learners at a higher level which created a little bit of a stigma for language learners to use AI tools. Um but on the other side, the fact that you have a system that can speak to you in whatever language you come to it and can scaffold you towards the language that you need to learn on the fly when how many languages are spoken in your district? Yeah. More more than 10, >> right? And you don't have speakers of all those languages. and

054having a a tool that can talk to kids at their home language and scaffold them towards where they need to be instantly. It's worth looking at. It's worth looking at. I am going to talk a little bit more about the research and then get into some recommendations because I'm respecting your time. Um, this is a study that came out last year. It got a lot of press. Um, Maria, you probably heard this because this was a big study as well your brain on chat GPT. Um they had this idea of cognitive debt which is like how much uh how much do you offload your learning to the system which I think is kind of a cool idea that we're going to hear more about. The study finds that participants who begin their writing process without

055AI retained more. So if you started notes. You started off with an outline. You started off just talking through something. If the ideas started in your mind and then you used AI to develop the ideas, you kept more of the learning. In the other group, they asked students to just start writing with with the language model. And they said those students were less likely to prod they were more likely to produce superficial and repetitive writing. and they didn't know what they were writing about. And so it's turning out that AI detectors don't work very well. But the best way to do AI detection is to ask the kid, if a kid writes a story like a a history paper on the Revolutionary War, and you say, "So about those Hessins, tell me a little bit

056about the the wars in New Jersey." And they go like, "Ah, what's a hesshen?" Then like, "Okay, good. maybe more of you on the next paper and less of the of the tool, right? This thing about agency, about who owns the thinking is the problem moving forward. I had a I was uh telling Nick and Amanda earlier today that um I went to a conference. I I I talk a lot to superintendents and to school boards and schools around the state and one superintendent at the last conference stood up and said, "So, let me get this straight. AI is going to make the assignments. AI is going to take the assignments and AI is going to grade the assignments. So why are we not giving the diplomas to AI? And I think that that you

057hit it. That is the challenge because that can be done. But as educators, we cannot allow that to be done. That can't be the way we go. We have to preserve agency and we have to preserve ownership of thinking. The study suggests that education models might delay full AI integration until students have engaged in sufficient self-driven cognitive effort. First student then if you introduced AI next but don't start the brainstorming with AI because then the learning doesn't stick. The paper supports collaborating with AI. And this is sort of the theme that I'm going to talk about the whole time is that AI only works best when it's in a person system collaboration. Judgment has to be retained by the per people who are doing the learning and doing the teaching. This is a a person

058who I found recently. It's a website called artificialityinstitute.org. Helen Edwards. and she's talking several of you mentioned about the um mental health cognitive costs of being immersed in digital worlds and she and her colleagues think about this phenomena they call it drift and as soon as you hear it I think you could probably see it and feel it right you get involved in an AI system it's sort of like Netflix watching like if you get in a series and you just go on and on and on and you sort of like sink into your couch and it becomes a lot less you and a lot more Netflix and that's happening all over the place like people their their sort of attention and their self drifts into the media that they're consuming and in in their

059research they find two kinds of sort of uh agents in their work. One is they call them co-authors. They say people integrate AI across their cognitive processes, but they're choosing how and when to integrate AI. I do my thinking. I ask for help when I need it, and I use that help to advance my thinking. Versus outsourcers, people who use it but keep it outside of their creative process. In other words, they let the AI tools carry the boat for them. This is a huge problem in doing homework, right? where you can see kids who are co-authors and you can also see kids who are outsourcers who just let the tools carry the learning. This is where when they what the the authors of stay human say this is where we need to be as

060educators to push folks towards co-authoring to help people understand that the tools advance their interests but they don't replace them. And it's not inevitable that we become outsourcers because there are co-authors, right? So even though the the the the press the historical press is for people to become overwhelmed by the media, there are many people who retain their authorship and using tools like this. >> Can I ask a question? >> Yes. >> Um go ahead. So, I've seen press in recent days um talking about how kind of goes back to your timeline, but you don't have to go back to that page, but that bringing the one to one laptops into school, they're worried. There's research showing that that has maybe had a negative impact on learning, right? the so you know the research that

061talks about how like writing things by hand you know you have this physical process it's integrated into your minds and um you know our kids use laptops K through five but not as often and then they get their own laptops in middle school and high school and of course we're not having people write papers by hand anymore you know who wants to do that but it how does that factor I I just don't know if you have any viewpoints on that like the computer always in the classroom, not having the physical book in your hands. I I just worry that sometimes that there are old school ways that should still be around even as we use these new tools. Not to say we have to get rid of all of our online stuff, but like

062if I'm going to read a long paper I need to edit, I still print it out because I absorb the information better. And if I write things down, I I memorize the phone number. I write down. I don't memorize a phone number. I type into my phone. So just that physical component of learning. >> I have two thoughts to share with you, Megan. Thank you for those questions. The first one is that um as a person who's been in this field for a really long time, there are really no conclusive studies about the effects of technology on learning one way or the other. It really depends on how you're using it. Two two scenarios, right? One, I'm just going to throw kids in a room with some some um uh automated curriculum on on tablets

063and say, "Go ahead, learn." Well, that's a disaster. That's never going to work. The other hand is I got a teacher who really understands how interaction with digital media and production works. And that might be an AP history teacher who's asking kids to recreate historical events using AP or using AI tools. Like that's going to be a smashing success. >> Those are both using technology. And from from the category perspective, they're the same thing. But of course, they're very different because the key variable is quality of instruction, which is a very old-fashioned >> a very old-fashioned idea. right now. Uh Nick mentioned today that his um uh his kid is in Iowa State. Yep. And now in order to get beyond AIU uh testing things, they have analog like you have to write out the

064tests. I mean handwriting is cool because handwriting teaches your body to to embody your knowledge. It's not just up here. It flows through your arm, through your fingers. It's good to learn to write. And if you have to write to communicate, that means your writing has to be clear. If it turns out that that AI tools spark a rebirth of some of the old analog tools and the oldest pedagogies we have, high quality instruction, building relationships with young people, handwriting, that's a win for everybody. This is a really big space and it doesn't have to be either or. We can have AI advances and also go back to understanding calligraphy. Those can both happen at the same time. One doesn't have to come at the expense of the other. But for me, the most important

065thing in this space in school is high quality instruction. If you have teachers who know how to manage the tools and introduce students how to be agents in their own learning, this is what makes for a 21st century learner. Right? The tools alone don't do it and the teachers without the tools don't do it. You got to have them together. Amanda, we were going to do the notebook LM thing, but I think we should go past that just in the interest of time. Okay. And I'm just going to go to the the last part of my comments. Is that all right? All right. Biggest hurdle that we have is to use the tools. Like I said before, AI is weird. If you're not familiar with it, then you follow the New York Times and podcasts

066and it tells you what AI could be, you should the the the uh the tools are easy enough to use that you all should try. Just plan a dinner. Um plan your next trip to Hawaii. You know, you use it for the kind of things that you would ordinarily use it for and have make your own verdict. There's no training needed. They've taken coding completely out of computer literacy by using the most advanced code we have which is language our spoken language and not just the English language but any language you can switch to Russian or Arabic any language you can just immediately start to interact with the system and so wherever you are this these kinds of tools make it really easy to get where you want to go it's infinitely patient sometimes when

067you use an AI tool you'll find it goes down a blind alley and you think, "No, I don't want I don't want that hotel in Hawaii." Why do you keep on recommending that? All you have to do literally is hit reload and the thing starts fresh. You can't do that with people because they're your friends, right? And they don't like that when you say, "I'm not listening to you anymore. You're not making any sense." But these they don't have feelings AI systems. So, on we go. Everyone, everywhere, anyone, everyone will always have access to the best versions. There's many bad side effects about the social media companies controlling the AI space, but one of the good side effects is they are desperately competing against each other for having the best product. And so they put

068the best product in front of the most people as quickly as they can. So the latest versions of Claude, the latest Gemini, the latest Grock versions, the latest Copilot, you get them right when they come out. And so all the tools that you get to use are the very best cutting edge tools. And this is the thing that just always blows me my mind. The version you use today will be the most primitive version of AI that there is. These things will just keep on getting better and keep on getting more interesting. Um, this is a study that just came out this year by the Rand um uh um corporation. AI use in schools is quickly increasing, but guidance lag lags behind. That's why I really enjoy talking with you today. Um, over half the

069teachers and uh students at schools in a nationwide survey said that they used AI for schools. And you know that's not the number, right? You know that's not the I ask my friends at at UW like are you using AI in the research? No. Well, right cuz everybody's using the tools. It's just are you owning up to them. Are are is it are you making it obvious? But when they when they went to this one, they said 35% of district leaders reported they provide students with training on AI and 80% of students reported that teachers did not explicitly teach them how to use AI for their schoolwork. It's that 80% I'm really interested in because half of those kids are going to learn how to use it at home and half of those kids are

070not going to learn how to use it at all. And so the discrepancies that young people bring to the schools get reproduced by the schools if the schools don't take on the training task for the for you know as a public responsibility. I don't think I'm going to talk very much about this one but I think I'll talk about this one. This is a a a graphic that OpenAI helped me build the AI ready school spectrum. And and I have to admit I see this spectrum a lot in talking with educators around the state. Analog schools, I don't want to have anything to do with AI. The ways that we have been teaching are effective and no thank you. I don't want that at all. efficiency schools, which I think you brought up, Maria, before

071is how can we make how can we use AI to to make our work more efficient, do the grading better. Um, we keep the same assignments, we keep the same structure, but we use AI to to make it to optimize. The integrated AI school, I think, is is interesting. It uses AI to optimize outcomes and it integrates AI use into student work but largely keeps the structure of the school the same. And then the AI native school is when you co you let students co-design their learning with teachers with AI. So now like think of a I used to be a history teacher so all my examples are from history. Um, in most history classes there's a linear progress of lessons through American history, through world history. First you do this, then you do this,

072then you do this because there's only one teacher and many students, right? And so you have to keep it linear. But if you can branch out and you can allow students to pick their own path and follow the kind of story or characters that are of interest to them in every different episode, you can have a much richer and robust and more diverse set of perspectives in the classroom. But a single teacher can't do that. That's always been the problem with personalized learning. It's just it's too much of a burden on the teacher. But if AI tools can expand the range of choices that that students have and allow students to have some design in their work that can create for a much richer kind of learning space. So what do you do next? First

073one from my perspective openly encourage teachers and students to share their AI experimentation. That requires trust because if if students especially have to use AI and keep it on the download because they're afraid of getting caught, they're never going to be open about it. You have to have an environment where the teachers use it as much as the students and they're willing to talk with each other about what they're learning and what they're what they're um what they still need to learn. This one, I know this horse has left the barn. I know you all worked on this. I mean, honest to God, it's a supercomput. It's the most effective and powerful technology anybody's ever built. And our attitude as educators is instead of looking at this thing as a gift horse, we ban it

074and we tell kids you can't use it. And I know why because the social media thing just got so far out of control that kids can't pay attention in schools because they got this in their pocket. But we let that happen as educators. When when Nick and I were talking about this before in the early 2010s when social media tools just came out, I gave these same talks to people in schools and they're like, "We're not doing Facebook. We're not doing Instagram. We're not doing Snapchat. We're not doing any of that stuff. That's subversive and that's the kids' business." And so, as a result, those businesses took off with a youth market that was completely outside of the control and interest of of schools. And so, We're in this really sad place. Supercomputers, kids bring

075them every day. They're not allowed to use them. There's no evidence that bans on phones improve student life. There's just no evidence. There's a lot of evidence that it makes life uncomfortable for teachers. There's a lot of evidence for that. There's a lot of evidence that it disrupts schools, but for outcomes, why repeat the failure to address the rise of social media? We we did this as educators. We did not keep our eye on the ball when the last revolution in this world happened. Let's not try to do that again with AI. Don't invest in detector systems. They don't work. The best detector system is to ask a kid if they can repeat what they gave you as as the work. Show me. to show me your work in person. Give me an analog version

076of what you gave me digitally. That's the best detector systems. Develop clear policies for how students can use AI in their work. And then try to integrate AI tools in as many teaching and learning activities as you can. Make it make it literacy. Turn AI systems into microwaves in the sense that you don't know how a microwave work. I mean, I don't know how a microwave works. I shouldn't speak for you. But when I want popcorn, I hit the popcorn button and then I get popcorn because the AI the the technology behind the microwave is invisible to me. Right? AI systems are going to be like that very very shortly. And if we as educators understand how these things work and where they're going to go by the time they become ubiquitous, we're going to

077have really robust appropriate use models. But if we kick it down, kick the can down the road again, I'm afraid the same thing's going to happen with AI has happened with social media is it'll just be out of our control as educators and we won't have anything to do about it. Is generative AI as good as a teacher? No, it's not. It does have some advantages, but no, it's not as good as a tutor. It won't ever replace teachers because AI systems don't teach judgment or character. They don't value idiosyncrasy. They're they're they're designed for a common norm. They flatten. They don't highlight. It's always going to depend on good educators making decisions with kids and teaching people how to build judgment and character. But they are changing how we think about teaching and learning.

078And here's the thing I want to leave you with. What'll happen to schools that don't embrace AI? They'll be left behind by resourceful students and families. You are already seeing that, I'm sure, in your community. There's young people and families who are just running with this ball. And the thing that makes me so concerned is this thing, this equity gap between students plus AI versus students alone. I have a kid who's a sophomore in college. Um, she went to a school and she live I mean I study this stuff for a living. She knows how to use AI really well. She uses it as a writing partner. She uses it as a study guide. She interacts with her friends using AI. If she competes with kids who don't know how to use AI at all,

079it's not a competition. She's she's so far she could do so many more things than kids who come without a knowledge of the tools. And that's just going to be amplified as we move forward in this economy. the the pro and I'll say this again and I know I've said this a couple times. The challenge here is that when kids pick up learning how to use these tools at home and they got to compete against kids who don't have this exposure at home, it's a lopsided competition. Schools have to be the corrective just like they're the corrective in everything that we do for raising young people. Some kids learn math at home. Some kids learn science at home, but most kids learn it in school and learning how to use AI is just as important

080as learning math and learning science and learning to read. And it's going to get more important as we move forward. If schools stand to the side, this gap is only going to grow. So I guess as a researcher I really appreciate your responsibility in governing this school district and setting the course for the district. I tried u you know as as much as I could today with the time that I had to just give you some of the research and some of the enthusiasm around this work and I really appreciate your time. Thank you for for opening up your your meeting to me today. >> Mr. President, um thank you so much for coming. This is super interesting. I am a bit of a ly. Molly said she's not. I am up a little bit.

081But um I it's very clear from the way you did this presentation that you're I'm sure you were a fantastic history professor and you're or teacher and you're a great professor just the way you were open to our questions and our fears. Um, and I think kind of going to what you were talking about and what Molly said, one of my worries is, you know, AI is going to get to do the fun stuff, like make the art and the music. We've seen some of that and then like the humans still have to do the drudgery where in my mind it's like the computers are supposed to do the drudgery and the humans are supposed to get to do the fun stuff. Like I don't want to see it flip, right? Um, but I the

082AI makes me very nervous. I have little kids, but I also realize I need to like take my head out of the sand and understand it and not be afraid of it. So, um, this helps me learn more about it and not feel so scared. Um, still a little scared because I watched Terminator a lot as a kid. I say this all the time. Everyone laughs, but >> yeah, >> you know, Skynet was very scary. Um, and so there's always that little bit of that there. Um, but I really appreciate everything you're sharing and all the work and research you've been doing throughout your career. Thank you. >> Thank you, Megan. I I I want to share a story about young kids using these tools. Um, my wife is a is a professor at W

083also, and she does arts based education. She has this really cool program called Whoopin Soccer, which it's basically teaching young kids how to tell stories, how to write and tell stories. It's a school-based program. They have teaching artists come into school for six weeks and work with kids to tell stories and fantastic. Um, but they recently introduced an tool called the Whoopenbot, which is like a prompt engine for kids to ask them questions about their story development. And they'll say like, "Okay, here's my story. Here's my story. I got John Cena and he's fighting a dinosaur over a volcano." like second second grade boys, right? >> And then the whooping bout will say like is there are they just fighting alone? Is there an audience? Is there somebody else? Did he fight somebody before? Where

084is this volcano? What happens next? What happened before this? And it'll it'll give these sort of like little prompt questions that you can imagine this if you're a teacher in that room. there's no way you can give individualized prompts to 27 rambunctious second graders. And so the tool just sort of just pokes a little bit as to help the kids like understand narrative sequence, understand character development, and let them they do the story. It's their story, but just like prompts on the side. And the way they did this is they took a we were going to show a tool today um where schools can program their own AIS um they're they're fully available in the Google suite that you all use notebook LM and uh Gemini gems anyway you can tone down the amount of

085help that the AI system gives. So the AI system naturally just gives you an answer which is not what's required here. You just need like slight prompt to move ahead. And the more educators get a sense of like how do you use these tools that adapt to the kind of learning we want to produce rather than the kind of learning that the kids are designing themselves. Tremendous amounts of control and scope open up for educators. >> I want to thank Rich. I mean, it's been a it's been a great uh day. he's been here uh with different groups and it is one of those things where we don't want to be the group of people that in 1997 said don't bring the internet into schools and so it is a finding a balance how we

086don't want our kids lost in the technology but we also had to figure out how to embrace it and where this really struck a chord with me about a year year and a half ago when I first heard Rich speak was worrying about that gap because we know he used an analogy today I think with teachers uh the teacher group today is uh think about ACT prep. So, our most affluent kids have ACT prep access or always did have ACT prep access, right? Because their parents could afford they could afford the tutor, they could afford all these things. And as you continue to have more access to AI and different things like that, how does it start to level that playing field? And now it's not just the most affluent people have access to these

087things. It's everybody has access to these things. But it is it is a matter of trying to make sure how do we embrace and put those guard rails in in place. But it's it would be like saying saying we're not going to do anything with AI. It'd be like saying we're never going to cook with a microwave. It's it's coming. It's going to be here. It's already on your phones. It's already on your computers. It's it's every it was like in its infant state when you used to text and had predictive text. You're like, "Oh, did you mean this?" And you like, you know, "Darn it, autocorrect." No, that's not what I meant. Right. But now it's even more. It's even more. It's even more. And so I think, you know, it was it was

088an exciting day. It is kind of scary as we as we go through this. But um I you know, having kids at all different ages, I I can tell you right now, if you think kids aren't using this stuff, you you're not with the the current reality. I mean, they are. They are using it. Especially if they have a device. I mean, if they have any type of advice, and I say advice because I know sometimes people say, "I'm going to wait to give my kid a phone until they're in seventh or eighth grade, but I'll give them a tablet when they're four." And the only difference between that tablet and their phone is they can make phone calls. And they don't even make phone calls once they do get the phone. They do all

089the same stuff just on a smaller screen. And so the kids are using this stuff. And so we're trying to figure out how can we embrace it and how can we with our staff um you know, get on the front end of it. And we don't we don't want it to supplant teaching, but you know, I I think the ability to have that personalized tutor um and and it is that good on most things. You know, you can if if you haven't used it, ask it questions. You know, I was kidding around. I didn't understand how Bitcoin mining works. So, I went into chat GPT and said, "Explain to me how Bitcoin mining works like I'm eight years old." And then it breaks it down as if they're explaining to an eight-year-old. And I said,

090"Well, now talk to me like I'm a senior in high school." and it gets a little bit more complex and then I say talk to me like I'm a grad student in at MIT and yeah I couldn't really even follow it but but it will do these things and we have to figure out a way to live with this stuff and to embrace it because I really do worry the districts that don't embrace it will be left behind and as Rich said the families that can will because they they'll do it on their own because we've already seen that. That's how history has played out. People that have means and have resources will. So, >> Mr. President, um, are we going to be talking about this more just as a board before we start implementing

091anything like this so we can have more conversation? Is this something that the board is going to be asked to vote on to implement in the first place? Just >> I feel like there's a lot of information being thrown in based off of the way the conversation is kind of >> in better I don't mean this offensively, but feels like it's really being thrown at us. At least by me, it feels like it's really being pushed and I just would like to have more board conversation about this before we >> talk about how we would implement this and I mean is that where this was going tonight? >> Yeah. So, it's this is kind of like a you know a thought provoker. That's the whole reason that we're talking about tonight because the board is

092going to have to set some guard rails on things and that's over the course of the next you know four to six months and things like that as we kind of work through it. Um and we're going to have to with our staff they're going to try new things out. We need them to try things out because we have to also get a handle on where they need where they need help. Where do they where do they need guard rails? Where do they need some of these things? And so, um, yeah, I mean, so with our AI task force this morning with educators, part of it is how could you utilize some of this in your classroom? How could you use an AI tool to help with X, Y, or Z? What does that look

093like? We want them to try it out to see what it looks like so we can start to say to the board, you know, this is kind of what we're seeing. This is what we're getting. um uh so that you guys can get real feedback, real things, not just, you know, studies that may or may not apply. And so we can say this is how it's helped. And we would expect that moving forward, you're going to start to see people from the AI task force coming up and talking to the board about this is how it helps me within my work and this is, you know, how we'd like to see things. >> Nick, what grades are we working on that in? >> K12. >> All the way K through 12. >> Yep. And I'm

094assuming that the curriculum providing companies, >> there's a lot of AA built in. It's it's built a lot of it's built in to the curriculum and what we do. I mean, it's prompting. It's it's a variety of things. It's it's kind of it's built into just about everything and it's just becoming more and more prevalent. So, >> Mr. President, >> um, real quick, I just wanted to again say thank you. Um, you presented a lot of it was I I wish we would have gotten through every slide. some pretty cool studies that would be great and um I'd love to be able to come and take one of your classes and just learn a little bit. Um I I think it's good that we're having this conversation and setting what the framework could be and

095how we can do it. We can't um we can't wish it away. We can't close our eyes. We have to understand what the realities are and in service of helping our kids um be prepared and parents as well. And Amanda, I know you have a little event tomorrow night on technology and I'm looking forward to it. >> Yeah. So, tomorrow night, um, in cooperation with the mental health team, we're doing a how to keep your child safe online. And so, there's two different levels for children under 13. And then there's dinner and a resource fair. And then children over 13. And the reason that 13 demarcation line is there is because the federal privacy laws are very clear about what companies can and cannot collect, what information parents should and shouldn't know when um their

096child is under age 13. And so that's why we separated it, but I'm assuming they can still sign up. Tara, maybe >> we will take any and all. >> Yeah. >> Thank you very much. Next up on the agenda is Bonnie with the health insurance presentation >> right out there. I don't know. >> Right. >> No, no, we're good. >> We get used to sitting on Monday, you know. So um we have Brandon and Alicia from a lawyer group. They met with you believe January. Is that when you were here last octo just seems yeah >> um so over the last probably four months we've spent a lot of time with them. Um we did receive our initial renewal with health partners um which they're going to talk about which was um pretty high for

097us. So we started looking at alternatives um and our number one priority was to maintain the quality of our health insurance plan. So I think over um the last few months we've really drilled down to coming up with a nice proposal that gets us from a renewal that was in excess of 25% down to about 9%. Um it also provides really good coverage for our employee benefits. Um it will look different because we were trying to think outside of the box. Um, but some really exciting news. So, they're going to present that and then we'll answer questions. >> Green is >> green. Okay, there we go. I'm live now. Thank you for the time. Appreciate it. Again, Brandon and Alicia with the Group. Um, so today, um, like Bonnie said, we will go, um, talk

098through kind of what we're seeing for renewal projections, but, um, just kind of as a refresher of where we were last time, as you can see on the screen here. So, we do have a three-year strategic roadmap. Um, we've kind of been through the the 2025 initiative so far. Today, we really wanted to focus on really three different areas. Um, the first being partnership review in 2026, cost-saving strategies that we've been evaluating, and then lastly, the retirement uh or I should say the retiree plan uh eligibility. So before we move on to those, we're going to look at some plan performance and kind of where we're at uh year to date. So as you'll see from your screen here, this is the financial financial reporting for February of 2026. Um couple things I want to

099note here is we like to break out the retirees versus the active employees. Um we're also looking at a PEPM or a per employee per month um claims analysis that we're we're doing here. Um, we look at any rebates that the district might be getting back from your pharmacy and we're also looking at stop-loss reimbursements that would be back to the district as well. Um, one thing to note on the stop-loss reimbursements from this last month, we did have uh, unfortunately a pretty high month of claims. So, there was a rather large stop-loss reimbursement. That's why you have that there. But the stop-loss reimbursements from January went from about 800,000 to about 1.6 million in February. So it almost doubled uh within that one month, but that's why you have stop loss to help for

100those very high cost claims that come through. Um one other thing to note here is the loss ratio. So you will see you're running at 103.7%. So you are a bit over where you were projected for your claims for the 2025 2026 plan year. And we'll talk through that today as well. So talking through the loss ratio, the green line is going to uh indicate where your budget rates were for the 2025 2026 plan year. As you can see, every month besides January, you were running a bit over those budgeted rates with the highest month being this last month. Again, due to uh specifically a couple large claimments that came on to the plan. Um so you're not not running horribly. The year prior, I think we were at aboutundred 25 to 130% loss ratio.

101So you are running better than the year prior. Um but we still, you know, like Bonnie said, looking at some additional options to make sure that you're in the best place possible as a district. So looking at the retiree analysis, um we were tasked with looking at, you know, current employees versus the retirees and how that kind of stacked up. So since 2022, what we found um by doing this analysis is that the per member per month costs for retirees have been much higher. Um we actually in our analysis uh it was calling for a 40% increase to retiree rates which we feel is was a bit too drastic. So our recommendation is going to be 10% over the um the current employee rates for 2026. But again, really just wanted to evaluate, okay, does

102it make sense with some of these retirees based on their claims and and potential claims into the future to make maybe a bit of an adjustment on their premium rates uh compared to the active staff? >> And just one question. Yes. So those retirees would still have the same >> health care options as the current employees. They would just the premium would go up by 10% for them. It actually would the recommendation is to separate the rates from active employees. So now you have two classes of premiums and the recommendation is to differentiate those base premium total premium by 40%. Because the equivalent of the the claims uh performance is they're costing up 40% more than your regular active employees. So their premiums and their their portion will be 10% higher than what active employees

103pay what whatever you land on for that. Right? So if employees get a 10% increase, retirees would get 20 because they need to have a 10% difference between the two. Does that make sense? >> The plan design, all the access and everything would be the exact same deductibles, all that. >> Yeah. Y Mr. President. >> Yes. Just a quick question and this is my own just for my own knowledge maybe others could you so the retirey group it it's it's those employees are insured by the district in the gap between retirement and Medicare so 66 >> correct >> okay 65 >> in general about what age or how how long is that time period >> it's eight year at the at the most it can be eight years 57 65 and so um but some

104of our retirees don't start taking it until you know they don't retire till 58 59 60. >> So we did other analysis on top of just this right is to even evaluate is is it beneficial or is it harming the district's overall budget to have retirees on the plan at all. And what we found is that the amount of premium that they're paying into the plan still allows the plan to not it's not killing the plan to have them on there. So instead of uh like there are other public sector groups that are offering retiree plans that are sunsetting that program entirely because it is hitting their plan so drastically and that's not quite the case here um at this point with what we've found. So we think just differentiating that that premium just a

105little bit to kind of get that um you know the budget in a in a better spot when you look at just this class by itself. >> Yeah. And total members on that retiree are probably or I should say former employees roughly 45. It's not a huge population. Yeah. That are on the plan. Those retirees >> and at Group we have a a program called the transitions program that is very specifically intended to give retirees an opportunity to meet with an insurance agent to look at this plan and compare it to what's available in the marketplace. There's a lot of plans, programs, and subsidies that are available in the in the healthcare market that people can take advantage of. And there's a a lot of times there's a perception that the district plan is the

106only option or the best option. That's not always the case. It just depends on how you use care and things like that. So, um, that will be also available to them to just get counseling and things like that. >> And one, I'm Oh, sorry, Bonnie. I was just curious and my question is for you potentially of our retirees how many what percentage actually come and take this? I understand the number is 43 right now but of all of our retirees do we have a sense is that a quarter is that 50 >> so in 2000 I believe it was 2016 you restructured your retirement benefit so there was five groups and there's only two groups that were eligible for the benefit continuation. >> Okay. >> So one group we've exhausted those people all retired. And

107then group two still allows people to stay on our benefit. Groups three, four, and five um get money, but they don't stay on our they have the option to stay on our plan, but they get money into an HSA. >> Okay. >> So, those people typically don't stay on our plan because it is so expensive, but of that group two, that would be that 43. So, typically those people are rolling off our plan because they're not eligible anymore for that. >> Okay. Does that make sense? >> Yes. I I think I'm tracking how you're okay. You're dividing. >> So, they kind of sunseted the kind of the nicer benefit. >> Sure. Sure. >> Based on higher date and then the newer date, they just get money into an HSA and then they can use it

108to use any benefit they want. >> Okay. So, that group two is gradually becoming smaller. Correct. Great. Thank you. >> Oh, I was going to ask that, Claire. So, the the five groups it's based on higher date, >> correct? >> Okay. So, eventually the these groups will completely phase out. >> Well, Uh that's that's that's not totally accurate. So >> what happens is the the first two groups get a contribution to an HSA, health savings account, health retirement account, actually an HRA, health retirement account at an equivalent amount to our premium. Okay? And there was group one and group two and it was tied to the premium. Then groups three through five, it's a flat dollar amount. Okay? It goes into an H. Same way they can choose whether you're in group one, group two,

109or group three. they want to use it to stay on our health insurance or they can go buy other health insurance with it. And even groups three, four, and five could continue to be on our health insurance the way it's currently set up. It's just at whatever rate. And because they're getting a lesser amount, it's just not going to go as far. But it's so all of them are set up the same way. The step down has to do with the amount of money they get in retirement related to the benefit. Do you understand what I'm saying? So if all of a sudden even somebody in group one, they retire and they say, "I'm not staying on the district's health insurance," we still put the same equivalent amount of money into an HR form. And

110if let's say their spouse has a job somewhere else as health insurance, that money stays in their HA and they can use it for let's say Medicare Part B and when they're 65 to age 90. It just it stays with them. It's just money given to them. So like what uh what the alert group does is they will meet with our retirees and say hey you know your money that goes in this HA might last a little longer if instead of staying on the district's plan which is a very nice plan but it's expensive. You could go into the marketplace find a plan that meets your needs and the premiums less. They still get you know they've never told them they can't stay on our plan yet. Some districts have. So, some districts will say

111if you take the early retirement benefit, which is the the dollars towards the HRA, you can get it, but you can't stay on, you know, you can't stay on the plan. You have to go find your own insurance. So, we could have people the way it's structured right now, we get retirees on our plan indefinitely. We don't have anything that kicks them off. It's just they get they're getting less every every group gets less towards retirement as we phased out. And that was done in 201 I think 2013 or 14 right post act 10 I believe. Scott probably remembers the date when they did it but I it was before I it was before I got here and that's you know and they phased it out basically started with people that were you know 50

112and older and then it was 45 and then they worked their way down. So >> um any other questions so far? Um, one of the other, you know, tasks that Brandon had mentioned is specific to, um, costsaving solutions that where where are the areas of impact that we can really influence to reduce the cost because at the end of the day as a self-funded plan sponsor, the largest amount of out the-do expense is in claims. And so one of the things in the market that we found to be very successful is specifically around direct primary care. So just as a definition, direct primary care is typically seen as an employer fixed cost that's based on a per member per month fee um in exchange for free access or very lowcost access to care for employees

113for members. Um, and what that does overall is when you can get people the care that they need at the right time, you eliminate emergency visits, you lower patient inpatient stays. Um, we're seeing an increase in preventive compliance and improved chronic condition management. And all of those things combined result in a lower claim costs for the employer. Um, so there's some statistics here that that talk a little bit about like 40% fewer ER visits, um, which results in almost 50% reduction in ER claim costs. Um, and again, lower just hospital admissions, whether that's inpatient, outpatient, or specialty care. And so our book of business is seeing generally speaking about 20% lower claims when we can find a direct primary care partner that is focusing on these areas um in in balancing out that fixed cost

114to get access to um care. So because direct primary care kind of removes that friction at the front door of care when employees access primary care quickly um you know and they stop defaulting to things like ER for primary care. They're creating a very strong or stronger relationship with a provider, which then lends to all of those things like better chronic condition management, better adherence to medications and treatment therapies and those types of things. >> So, oh, sorry. So, I mean, just reading lower ER visits, hospital admissions, that also makes me think it's not just saving cost, but it's also improving health outcomes for employees at the same, you know, it's >> 100% >> because folks aren't ending up in the hospital as much and >> getting their their preventive care more frequently. They're getting

115early diagnosis or, you know, uh, diabetes is a great example. If you're adhering to the medications, taking them on time, getting your A1C's checked regularly, and under the care of a physician, you're avoiding complications down the road that are very, very costly. So, we did an evaluation of several direct primary care members and Brandon's going to kind of run through those results. >> Yeah. So, we really looked at four different options um narrowed down to three as you'll see on your screen here. So we met with all these primary care providers, Reform Medicine, Anovia, and Hudson physicians. The first two, Reform Medicine and Anovia are kind of like what Alicia said, a very common direct primary care model. Um, you're paying a PM PM cost per member per month fee. You're getting access to pretty

116much direct primary care. Um, you know, labs, vaccines, imaging, all those different things are passed through services. Um, Hudson Physicians, a little bit different, kind of more of a hybrid model because they already have the facilities set up down the road as you know. Um, they also include urgent care and some different pieces, uh, direct contracting that, um, are not necessarily there for reform medicine in Anovia. Um, so we really liked what they had to offer with Hudson Physicians. Um, just the fact that they are so close to the district. Um, they're right down the road, the access. Um, we have several people who their services right now who've talked about how quickly they can get in, whether that same day, next day appointments. Um, again, the the direct contracting, which we'll talk about in

117our uh next slides here, um, they create some significant savings uh to the district over time. >> Can I just ask, >> Refor Medicine and Anovia, I haven't heard of them. Are they their actual clinics in this area? >> Yeah, so Reform Medicine has a pretty decent presence here in Hudson. Um the the county across the street uses them as their clinic. They have a space uh uh at their um building. Um there's also a building in Baldwin. They just opened a clinic um some other places. So they've been in the business I think they 15 years or so. Novia has a stronger presence on the east side of the state and are trying to really develop some more market presence over here on this side. Also been around for a long time. and they

118have a location Monominee would be their closest. >> Yeah. Um we have sorry I was just going to say we have partnerships with different school districts or businesses with both of these Anovia and Reform. So they do a great job. Um it's just you're in a unique situation with us and physicians being so close and all the different providers that they already have established. Um they just it's it's a really unique opportunity. >> Did you have a question? Yeah. What does DME mean under pass through services for Hudson physicians? >> Durable medical medical equipment, >> like crutches or >> Yeah. >> I think one of the things to really uh also consider when you're evaluating direct primary care is the the way to get the most out of the dollars, the the deepest cost savings

119is very critically dependent on utilization. Right? So if you're paying a fixed cost that's per member per month and you only have about 20% of your population going, the ROI is just not going to be there. So utilization is really really critical. And when you think about these three options, you have utilization built into the Hudson physician model already because people are already going to Hudson. Whereas in reform and Anovia, you're starting at zero and asking people to change and adjust their care habits, right? where they're going and that was a huge part of the consideration. >> So, just looking at the services included with Hudson Physicians and this isn't is not a full list but some important pieces on here. So, um from your per member per month access fee that that the district

120would be paying that's including preventive wellness, acute care, urgent care, uh injury care. So all those would be included uh for free to employees and and their family members for seeking care. Um they also have uh the pass through cost which would include the lab services, vaccines, that durpole medical equipment like we talked about. Um there's also a pharmacy discount program that they would offer. Uh and then also occupational health services. Um beyond that they would also have the this is kind of the direct contracting that we talked about. Um they'd have a discount 20% market value for imaging. So, X-rays, ultrasounds, MRIs, CT, DEXA scans. Um, they'd also have that that contract with TCO or Twin Cities Orthopedics. Um, for office visit, surgeries, any type of physical therapy as well. And then MI for

121digestive health. So, uh, they'd have a colonoscopy package with that. And then you can see some of the lab services at the bottom that doesn't include everything in their their labs that they have for that pass through cost. So quite a bit of access that they would allow for folks um whether that's free, most of it would be free um to employees or or the members. Um and kind of like Alicia was saying, you know, the more that we can get folks to get in and be seen, the better health care outcomes that we would have overall and also just hopefully reducing that spend over time um with any chronic conditions and things like that that might be taking place. >> Couple things on the imaging. So a couple things on the imaging pieces. So,

122can you speak to the market value versus let's say hospital cost? Like, for example, one of the things that was brought up to to us was, you know, you you get an MRI at the hospital, you're talking, you know, three or $4,000 for an MRI. You get it done at market rate at a standalone facility, it's more like $800 or $900, but then they'd even give us 20% off of that. >> Yeah. So, you know, instead of paying $4,000 for an MRI on our plan, we'd be paying more like 650, you know, for some of this stuff. And so, when you start to look at that, those are those are huge dollar savings for us. So, we have to as part of the plan would be to incentivize people to go there. I mean, people

123still have access if they, you know, determine they want to get it done at the hospital, but it might be that there's now going to need to be a co-pay if they go somewhere other than that. Whereas if they get it done in Hudson physicians, our goal is going to be to try to drive as much to this because we're paying whether somebody uses it or not, we're paying per member per month a flat fee whether they use or not. So the other thing that was interesting about this part of why we're looking at this is it includes urgent care which I believe they have from 7 a.m. until 9 p.m. 7 days a week 365 days a year. So uh that's also included at per member per month cost. So there's no additional cost

124for us that the other piece that we talked to him about is the I don't they call it the Walmart 100 or whatever it is you know where there's the 100 drugs you can get for four bucks at Walmart or whatever it is wanting to include those in the appointment. So, for example, you go in, I think about my kids. They go in, they have an ear infection, it's 8:00 at night and all of a sudden they need a moxicylin. They hand you the script. Like, they hand you the drug and you leave with it in hand. You don't have to go to Walgreens. You don't have to go anywhere else. It's included. It doesn't cost you anything. You don't have to make another stop and it's all part of our stuff. Um, for like

125kind of the most common, you know, really low cost cost items. So trying to make it easier for our staff but also drive our cost drive our cost down on some of the stuff. And I think what did we say 65% of our members, so not just staff, you gota think of them as family members also currently have doctorred at Hudson physicians, >> right? >> So we're starting with a pretty high >> 65%. >> Next slide. Actually, they're um so if we look at your top uh facilities where folks are doctoring at, Hudson physician is number one in 2025 and they continue to be in 2026. So we would imagine that utilization would would continue and hopefully get more people to buy in and say, "Hey, I'm going to go here and get my physical

126for free or go get my kid checked for free, right?" Um, so we know that that will continue and and hopefully continue to drive the spend lower and lower. Um, the other thing is they are giving um a sign significant amount of money um off of that PMPM spend to help incentivize people to get in in that first year. um I think it was like $90,000 that they were going to contribute back to the district to get folks um to go in and and get their you know first checkup with some physicians if they haven't been there before. >> Mr. President, >> um I'm wondering if we offer any sort of teleaalth or like a search engine where they can go in and find out what a prescription where they could get it at the

127lowest cost. I know I use that a lot my own family. Is that something So under the health partners model that's your administrator right now you can go into a cost estimator tool to get some of that information currently um more uh it is I would say more accurate in the pharmacy space where you can say I need benoxicylin or leinipil or whatever it is and it will show you different price models for differenties and you can adjust where you're getting it. So in Hudson's model, they do have access to reduced pharmacy pricing. And so, you know, this this plan design and program that we're trying to put together will do it a little bit differently and give access to your members or employees, families for no cost at all. If you get your stuff

128build here, you will pay nothing. And the, you know, when we go to that other slide, the services included wellness, preventive care, injury, those things. That is zero dollars to employees. That's a huge, you know, we, you know, Bonnie said at the beginning, our focus here is reduce plan costs while maintaining a very high quality benefit. This is a great message to employees that they get free access to care. >> So, the pass through costs >> are the things that people are getting for free. They're paying nothing for themselves. the the per member per month is covering that. >> Go back a slide. >> So this this uh slide here um it's always interesting to think about like there's employee perspective and then there's the plan perspective and this slide is very plan perspective, right?

129So the services included the first two bullet points um that is part of what you as the district would pay per member per month. The next uh the next bullet is pass through cost. So you as a district would get a bill from Hudson that says um so and so came in for a lab and we ran a vaccine and they picked up a pharmacy prescription while they were here. You will get a bill for all three of those things, but you will pay nothing for the preventive wellness visit that they were there for. If that makes sense. >> And the employee So the >> employee is paying nothing for those pass through costs. >> Correct. So that's really the district. Um and then under the 20% discount that market value, so imaging, anything at

130Twin Cities Orthopedic, the Meni Digestive Health, that will run through the plan and you would get like your typical deductible and and all of the plan design that you have currently or where wherever we land. >> They did they did talk about off anything they can do in the office would be covered under a per member per month. >> Okay. So even some stuff that typically has been done in derm dermatology offices could be done in your provider office there's no cost to the district additional to that there's no cost to the employee. So if it's a procedure that can be done in the office they said that would be included. >> Yes that's that's correct. Yep. And I think this is again an area of direct primary care that isn't um as well known.

131So, if you if you experience a regular office visit, you're going in and maybe you're just going in for your annual physical, but you also have a few issues that you want to address. Um, you're going to get an itemized bill for anything else that you bring up. And in the direct career care model, because you as the district are paying an access fee, employees get access to that that provider, there's no limit to the questions and they're not getting an itemized bill for those things. Um, Nick, you mentioned a couple things that I just want to hit on in your And in your in your claims experience, you have a very very high claim category which is muscularkeeletal health. And so this Twin Cities orthopedic opportunity with direct contracts is going to be really

132beneficial. So muscularkeeletals, anything joint related. Um you just have a lot of claims, a lot of surgeries and those types of things. Um and then you also have a very very high amount of ER utilization which is costing the plan a lot. So that will adjust some of those care habits which we're looking forward to. >> Can you talk about because one of the things we talked about was the packaging. So like if you get a knee replacement, they would contract for a fixed amount and then that includes everything. So it would be like your pre, your surgery, your post, your OT or your PT and there's just one fee. Well, that was maybe you can just elaborate on that. >> We have a lot of >> once we get to the the health plan

133model because there's a little bit of a difference between that and some of the other things. But what happens in a direct contract is uh whoever you're contracting with, whatever provider, they're offering you a package deal for a lot of things like a surgery. So, if you have a knee replacement, your preop, your surgery, your posttop, it's all covered together. Um, and so some of those package deals can be really helpful because it avoids like the every visit you go in and every follow-up you go in. It's not just like a bill and a bill and a bill and you're not getting one from anesthesia, one from the hospital, one from the surgeon. Um, it's just one bill combined. Yeah. >> Kate, you have a question. >> Yeah, I do. Um, I I want to

134go back to because I think it's important the tellahalth and then you said the ER utilization is pretty high. So, I'm just curious if we are using telealth. You have access to tellahalth on your current plan with health partners. They actually offer uh virtual well doctor on demand and teddoc and the utilization is so so uh definitely opportunity to improve that. >> Um >> that's where I wonder if people know about it or how it I I use it all the time and I think it's amazing. So I think if people knew how it worked and it might help. I don't know. microphone. >> Sorry. Curious about the pharmacy. Um >> all pharmaceuticals. Uh are there >> uh so here here's what we know. So okay, this >> um this proposal is the first of

135their kind offering to an employer of this size. And so one of the things that they're looking at is how do they help provide access to full pharmacy list at a reduced cost. Um and that is something that we're going to be evaluating and just requires more in-depth evaluation once we partner with Hudson physicians to say here are the drugs that we need. Um, we do know that there are a great opportunity to save significantly on some of your higher cost drugs like GOP1s as an example. >> Um, some really good potential for savings there. And so, we're really looking forward to digging into that list in even more. So, even this cost analysis with the 20% proposed savings and all of that doesn't even include some of the pharmacy potential we know is there.

136That is just even more potential for savings. >> Yeah, I think it would. Oh, sorry. Follow up. I think it would be really good as we consider continue to talk about this is differentiating between how pharmacy currently works under and what that means under health partners versus what this means structurally, functionally, not only for individuals, but also for the district as a whole and any benefits and risks when we're talking about pharmacy. Um, because that can that can swing pretty quickly. >> Yeah. >> Interested in the cost differences. Some plans like a GOP1, if you're type two diabetic, it covers a higher percentage versus non. So that we would want to have information on that, too. >> So when we looked at this, just, you know, to be upfront, people would still have access to

137Walgreens. They would still have access to, you know, the otheries, right? Um it just be, you know, when we talked to Hudson physicians, they they wouldn't be a pharmacy. They're not a pharmacy. They're a dispensary. and they can dispense drugs that they write scripts for. They can't you couldn't go to health or you couldn't go to Hudson Physicians with the script that you got from a doctor in Stillwater. So it's it's they can and so you have to understand so there's there's different ways to do it. There's subst and basically what they've said to us is they get wholesale cost on their drugs and that's what we would pay the wholesale cost not the resale cost. I mean we were looking at just their list. I mean, the GOP ones is almost 70% difference, >>

138you know, what their wholesale cost is compared to what we're paying currently right now. I mean, there's so many different drugs that are like that. And so, um, just so everybody understand, we you would still have opportunities to get, you know, hey, it's I'm in XYZ, I have a prescription, I can still get it at Walgreens, still get it at, you know, any of these other places. It's just if you happen to get, let's say, an ongoing drug, you know, that they're prescribing, you can get it through them. You know, they're not going to stock everything like a pharmacy is going to stock it. That's the part we have to go through. They can't stock every drug, right, like a pharmacy would stock, >> but there will be certain ones that we're going to kind

139of talk through in order to drive our cost way down. So, it only kind of really has upside because we still have to pay for those drugs regardless. But if we can shift more people to getting it through Hudson Physicians, our costs go down because we currently cover those drugs. >> Yep. Understand? I think it's understand what that differentiation is for Hudson physicians because they currently don't have a pharmacy >> they can dispense and so then the question becomes do they have a pharmacist on t on on staff now to oversee and because that's normally what would happen would what does that process looks like? What are the say guard rails that are being put in place when we think about this model? I think it feels overall it's really intriguing and I love the

140cost-saving opportunities but just really understanding how we're shifting some of how this works so that the district has a really clear understanding and employees do as well. Um because it is it's it's an unusual model that is >> very unusual. Yeah, agreed. I think um uh one thing I will say is we still have a lot of content to get through which I think will provide a little bit more light into what we're hoping to do from a total plan framework outside of what you're used to right now and and to Bonnie's some of Bonnie's comments too. I think some of that will come to light. So what other questions can we go through for direct primary care and then we'll move into some of that health plan framework? Mr. Um I'm just kind of

141curious as we're talking about prescription drugs and we're talking about covering through the dispensary um are we talking about generic? We talking about non-generic? I mean is this does it primarily cover all I mean because there's a huge swing difference? So there it's any of them. So could a patient decide that they don't want a generic and they go for the name brand there? Is that something that's >> it would be it'd be no it'd be no different and we can set up our plan. So they there can still be cost, you know, so it's just where you're going. So it's it's not saying that if you go to Hudson Physicians for your drugs, you have zero copay. It's just it's just another pharmacy. We're just we might just say that, okay, if you go

142to Walgreens, you're always going to have a minimum of a $25 copay, but for this tier of drugs, you might have a zero copay, and for this tier of drugs, you have a $50 copay, and things like that. So it's it's it's not that we would say you can choose whatever you want. It's the same type of program that we have now. It's just um another option. >> So, they would they would pay the difference if it was a a name brand versus the generic? I'm I'm a little confused. >> So, I think >> example um eye drops. That's a perfect It's a good example. You know, you could pay for the generic eye drop for um let's say shingles, ocular shingles, um and it's 15 bucks or you pay for the brand and the

143brand is it's well over $250 for the I mean for the same fix. That's what I'm kind of >> just trying to give you an example. I'm not, you know, trying to hone in on that. But >> good question. So, I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna gently say we won't have all the answers today. And the reason why Hudson physician is trying to their hope is to gain your business based on the medical services and direct primary care. And then on top of that, they will start to evaluate your formulary, which is the list of medications that are covered on your plan and what is being used on the plan. And then they're going to go through their manufacturer to evaluate what is the wholesale cost and can they get it cheaper than your pharmacy benefit

144manager. and get it through the plan. So, it will be a very customized um analysis that is being done regularly. And so, we won't have a full list with Hudson because they're going to be evaluating costs throughout the the year of the plan. Yeah. Questions, other DPC questions? Otherwise, we can jump over to the next slide. So, one more. Yeah. Well, two more. Okay. So, we talked about direct primary care. That is one very, in our opinion, a very critical component of developing a a new health plan program. Um, another evaluation that we were tasked to do was to consider what partners you're using now and vetting them for the best in class and figuring out what other things are available to you relative to cost savings and and improved employee experience. So, when you're

145self-funded, there's a decision that you need to make about who's managing your health plan. And there's two really distinct administrators of a self-funded plan. The first one is an administrative services only or an ASO and that's what Health Partners is. They're an ASO. So typically an ASO model is fully insured. Um and they also offer an option to employers to administer a self-funded plan using their fully insured model. So you use typically their stop-loss carrier, their pharmacy benefit manager, and all of their case management or services and their network. um cost for a an ASO administrator, you pay a per employee per month fee for that administration. It is usually pretty close to a TPA model. Sometimes they'll offset some of those costs if they can retain the rebates, those types of things. In a

146TPA or thirdparty administrator, the only thing a TPA does is manage self-funded plans. They don't engage in cost savings vendors or partners within their framework. They allow you to vet those and evaluate what you want to do to plug in uh the pharmacy benefit manager, the network, the stop-loss carrier. U they're very flexible and agnostic in terms of solutions within the plan framework. um there uh the the cost for a TPA varies widely across TPA which gives us more flexibility to negotiate for for the best plan option you have. So the next two slides are evaluating two options for the district to kind of consider. Um, one is using your current plan model and changes that we can make within the current framework of your plan. And the other one is an TPA that is

147unbundling basically your entire plan and creating a framework of of a plan that is very different than what you would typically see deploying a lot of different solutions. That gives us really a greater cost savings with it exchanged to some employee disruption. meaning they need to learn new uh who's on my member ID and who do I call for pharmacy questions and those types of things. Um the other solution is using health partners. Again, there's less disruption but not as deep savings as we've found to be true in the unbundled example. So let's dig into this. There's a lot on this slide and so I'm going to try really hard to to start high level and then we can dig into some details. So this first is an unbundled program. We call it the the

148Thrive Collaborative. It is basically a a communityowned health plan that really is designed to provide an alternative to the current care system that's driving an increased cost um to decrease overall health uh costs if that makes sense. So we're we're deploying different strategies and models to kind of get you to the best cost savings. So this unbundled approach is really vetting vendor solutions, targeting plan savings um and better employee outcomes. This works really well within the framework of the direct primary care because we layer that into your plan framework. Some of the bigger items that I would point you to is the third party administrator. uh their name is Prairie States. Um so the employee really impact is just learning a new um provider in terms of like who's on your member card, member services,

149those types of things. Um the pharmacy solution would be Third Generx. Their model is very very focused on identifying programs in the market that either wave entirely the cost of pharmacy for specialty drugs or reduce costs. They do that through patient assistance programs, manufacturing coupons, and those types of things. Uh we added in here that excuse me, pharmacy program with Hudson Physicians. Again, no cost prescription with Hudson's uh uh program using their their wholesale cost um including GOP ones that we know of for right now. Um your stop loss would be with Berkeley and that's really no impact to employees. They don't really see that. That's kind of something that happens behind the scenes. Another really big area of impact that we've identified some pretty significant savings is your network. So currently in your framework

150with health partners, they have their own network and that is the network that you have access to. Um but what we've found is in in an unbundled model, a network works very different. So currently in your in your current plan, a network is just literally a list of providers you can either go to or not go to. They're either in network or they're out of network. And in this model, you're really um leaning on several networks that are negotiating the price with providers. Um and that's what all networks do. So they not only just give you a list, but in order for a provider to be on that list, the network says, "We'll let you be in the list, but here's the pricing that we want you to agree to." So we found networks that

151are giving you really deep, deep discounts. And to Bonnie's point of view, also bundled contracts within the framework of that network that say we want to bundle knee replacements. We don't want to itemize all these things differently and and pull those out. So you have Alliance and First Health are the two main networks. Alliance has really really strong discounts in Western Wisconsin and Wisconsin in general. First Health is a more national based network that has really good pricing as it compares to the Health Partners network. And then you have EHCW, which is specifically a direct contract uh organization. That's all they do is just go to providers and identify areas of direct contract opportunity. So, uh, the EHCW has contracts for things like knee replacements, hip replacements, um, arthoscopy, um, baby delivery, a lot of

152those impatient stays. So, lots of opportunity there. >> So, when it says 93% network match, you know, a lot of people, if you're getting something done, if you're getting heart surgery, you're going to a hospital in Minnesota for a lot for that a lot of times. So a lot of the main hospitals in the metro area or specialists, those would stay within the network that we already have. >> Correct. Yeah. So your this network with all of these layers is going to be more similar to your open access network that you have with partners right now where it's you're not carving out Mayo. you're keeping Mayo in children's regions all those the seven% so that that 93% network match is saying based on all the providers that are covered what is the match to current

153the seven that are not covered a lot of times I would say out of the 7% probably 6% are like smaller like uh physical therapists or chiropractors that's can happen a lot um the rest of them were outofstate hospitals where somebody went on a trip at an emergency situation or whatever um and had something done that was out of state. One of those hospitals actually was merged in the middle of this whole entire analysis and actually was in network because they merged with another hospital. So um a really good strong network match which we thought was really really important. >> Can I ask another question on this? So the primary care I'm sorry primary care direct primary care is that the proper >> that's Hudson physicians but say my doctor today is at Hudson Hospital

154as a primary care clinic as well right is Hudson Hospital. >> Yep. >> Can I still are they in network too? >> Yes. >> Okay. So, >> so all your main carriers in this area, Health Partners, Regents, Children's, uh, Western Wisconsin Health, Mayo, all of those are going to be in the network. Hudson Physicians obviously too. >> So, if you don't go to Hudson Physicians, most likely you can still keep your doctor, your primary care. >> Good question. >> We would just try to incentivize people to use Hudson Physicians because we're paying for the direct care model. So, it might be that you go to Hudson Physicians, you have zero cost. If you go somewhere else, you're subject to your deductible and co-pays. >> Yep. but still covered. >> In the next row under network,

155you'll see plan design. So that's really where we're making some recommendations to make some adjustments so that we're one steering care to Hudson physicians and also, you know, allowing some difference in cost to steer care to the highest value provider. So the first thing we would do in this model is we would adjust anyone that goes to Hudson Physicians in your direct primary care at zero dollars. You kind of talked about that already. Uh the next thing we would do is adjust your deductible to 1,000 single 2000 family. And then one other thing is we would increase that co-ay for ER visits. Again encouraging people to use and seek care at urgent care uh or outside of of ER. Um couple other things I would just mention. uh msk muscularkeeletal that was a really big

156area of cost and so uh implementing a program that's second surgical opinion so anytime there's a muscularkeeletal surgery that's recommended by a provider they would have to go to a second opinion through an organization called MD direct we've done this with several uh clients and have seen some really really great savings and they did an analysis and identified Um, it's not necessarily issues around where people are getting their surgeries. It's more that there's just a lot of surgeries happening and they feel like a lot of times they can adjust the care treatment plan and in fact their proposal says 70% of the time they have physicians that change their treatment plan based on the advice that they provide. So this would be a mandatory adjustment to the plan that just says if you need surgery,

157we just need you to get a second opinion with MD direct. It is very easy. It's all virtual. They get all the the records and just have a virtual meeting. The member doesn't have to take any recommendation. They're just asked to have the visit. Um most people are there saying, you know, actually you don't need surgery. Maybe just an injection could help. They're thrilled with that information. Um no one wants to go under if they don't have to. Um, so that's most of this plan model. Um, again, focusing on direct primary care, direct contracts, network discounts, um, are really, really great opportunities. Any questions? The overall cost impact to this plan is about an increased to the plan budget by about nine and a half%. Um, if you when our actuaries did the analysis on

158the health plan budget, if you did nothing and just kept everything status quo, you'd be at about a 25% recommended increase just based on the amount of care people are seeking, the amount of high cost claims you have on your plan, and just medical trend in the market in general. Just the cost to get care is increasing. So, with all of those combined, 25% was the recommendation. Let's jump to the next one. So this is the health partners option. Um so health partners does have a lot of different solutions that you can deploy within their own framework. One of them is specific to the pharmacy with a organization they work with called paid health. They also um evaluate things like patient assistance manufacturer coupons those types of things. Not quite as robust as we've seen

159Third Generx do. Third Generx also adds international sourcing of medications. So getting the same FDA approved medication from Canada can be a huge cost savings to your plan. Um paid health doesn't do that one um uh that we know of at this time. Um you can still implement and layer in that pharmacy program and direct primary care with Hudson physician within the the health partners model. Um we would still deploy the same plan design. So direct primary care would be zero dollars. increasing that deductible, adjust the co-ay for ER visits, um leveraging direct primary care with Hudson physicians and then uh gaining access to that wholesale pricing uh discount pricing with TCO and MNG. Um the second surgical opinion would work a little bit differently in that health partners can't doesn't have the uh ability

160to make that mandatory. So it would just be optional. So it just be an optional um you know if you need surgery we always encourage a second opinion. The district is paying on your behalf an opportunity to have a second opinion virtually. Not quite as uh deep of cost savings in that area because a lot of people just take the advice of their trusted provider which is understandable. And then the last item under the disease management is there's a lot of different programs within the health partners framework that will help bas uh do um added care management through or chronic disease uh pregnancy and cancer. And so those are a couple of other things that we would implement if you chose to stay with your talent what that is for our district as far as

161total cost. >> Sure. Oh, I didn't do I did 20. So, the 9% would be 1.3 million increase and the 26 would be 3.9. Sorry, I didn't do 23. >> Um, were you okay? I wasn't sure if you're still going, Bonnie. Sorry. I didn't want to interrupt. >> Um, so Hudson physicians, it sounds like this is a new kind of thing that they've done in general, which is exciting. Um, what happens if at the end of the the plan year they say this didn't work out? I mean, have they offered any a contract of years or how would that work? >> Two two things. One is they are asking for a three-year agreement, but they also said that they would allow you to get out of the contract as long as you give them a

16290-day notice. Um, you know, their their response to that is we don't want to hold you hostage. We want this to be a great community partnership. Um, don't want to, you know, lock any anything. They also offered some performance guarantees which I think is really really helpful. And those performance guarantees are really specifically about care utilization um increased screenings for preventive care and those types of things to really, you know, give them some skin in the game too to say we're here to do better and make an impact on your population and we'll put some of our fees at risk if we don't meet some of those performance guarantees, which is great. and Bob. So, the 23% would be 3.4 million. >> I didn't mean to put you on the spot. >> No, that's right.

163She was ready. >> Yeah. One of the other things um we talked about was that we really wanted to talk about employee experience. Like just because we're saving money, we don't want to be like, "Oh, here's our bargain basement." So, we really asked all of the providers that came in as what metrics do you use for quality? So we want them to go to the lowest cost but highest quality physicians. I don't know if you want to elaborate on that a little bit because you talked a lot about that with us. >> Um you mean just for direct primary care or just uh the plan? >> The plan. >> Yeah. So the so if you go back one slide. So um you know I think in the the health partners model there's not a lot

164as much to compare because this is what employees are familiar with. They're comfortable. No one loves change. So, this one is going to be a little bit more disruptive in terms of change, right? Um, but I think what we're finding is when there is a really good relationship with a direct primary care provider and it's there's no cost barrier, that is a really big adjustment to the the entire plan and can be a very very great experience for employees. Um and so you know to Bonnie's point in this unbundled program we really tried to be um specific on some of the disruption that employee may feel. So an example of that is in the pharmacy model with their Generex there will be a requirement for members who are on specialty medications to engage with their

165Generex differently than they would with health partners. And what I mean by that is in Health Partners model, you have a prescription, you go to the pharmacy and it either falls into a copay one, two, or three, or it's just a specialty drug and it's filled and you call it a day. Um, within the framework of the pharmacy benefit manager with health partners, they're evaluating if there's a bio similar available and those types of things. They'll make some adjustments, but for the most part, they just feel the drug is written. In the third gener model, this um pharmacy benefit manager is really adjusting uh and and looking out into the the market for programs and a lot of those programs u again like I said will eliminate the cost entirely through manufacturer programs or patient

166assistance programs but they require paperwork to submit to the manufacturer and so employees will have to engage with that process take calls from their gener will help them. They're very helpful. They're very friendly. Um, but they will have to engage and sometimes that can disrupt some employees the wrong way. But this is really going to be maybe 10 to 15% of your total population on a specialty drug. So, for the most part, they're going to see the same experience they do. They go to the pharmacy, they get a generic drug, it's the generic pricing, they go on their merry way. Um, I'm just reading through the employee disruption of things to think about. We talked about the employee experience for second opinions. This is usually really wellreceived and they get great feedback because employees are

167being provided alternate methods to get care and you know when someone says you don't need surgery, they're usually pretty happy about that which is great. I think uh under Prairie States, the the administrator for the plan, they have a very targeted program um with their they call it the five-star program, which is a concierge unit that really helps drive people to that high value provider. So, Nick kind of alluded to the market currently has this huge disparity in cost uh around u MRIs and colonoscopies and knee replacements and hip replacements. I just recently saw some data that there's a knee replacement on a in a population for 25,000 and within the same year at another facility 49,000. Can't tell me that those knee replacements were that different that they would be double the price. How

168do people find that? And uh Kate, you had asked that question earlier is where do I go to find that? And Prairie States does a phenomenal job of helping members really gain access to a little bit more transparent and um but also high quality, right? So they're evaluating things like re-entry, infection rates, bedside manner, employee experience to really give people a better option and opportunity to not just reduce their own out-of- pocket expense, but have a good experience. The other thing about Prairie States, we had a webinar or a meeting with them last week and we will have a dedicated person for our plan. So when people call the 1-800 number, it's a Midwest company. I believe it's in Michigan. Is it showing again? >> Yep. >> Okay. And they call and we would have

169a dedicated person. So they're not going to a phone bank. They're going to somebody >> that's dedicated. >> Very small care team. Um which is great. >> Yeah. >> You guys aren't voting on this tonight. We just want to give you the information and why we're making some of the changes we're making. We're trying to be proactive in everything that we're doing. And we think we have some opportunities here to both uh protect the district financially but also maintain the same level of benefits that our staff are used to. And so this has been an ongoing project that we've been working on for about seven months, six, seven months. This is kind of the culmination of it. You know, I think their next slide talks a little bit about the timeline, but essentially we'll probably

170be asking for board approval coming up here in the first part of April. Um when I say first part I mean the meeting coming up in April so that uh we can be ready to go for our open enrollment period which is in May of this of this coming year >> and we'll be running this past our TAC committee coming up. >> Yeah. Well, I mean we'll be sharing it with them. Yes. >> One question. Um would this still have the two different tiers that we implemented last year? >> No. So under um in uh That's a great question. I'm glad you brought that up. Sorry. Uh, we asked Health Partners to give us an analysis of how did the strategy that you implemented last year impact you financially. We weren't really able to get

171some quality data from health partners to say um, some of that isn't isn't necessarily a lack of ability. It's more um, if you have people that are merging to one network versus the other and there's a high cost claim that throws the numbers off a little bit. Um, we also know that there was a couple of people who enrolled in the achieve network but still went out of network to Mayo to get care because they needed that. And so that threw off the data a little bit too. So I don't know that that strategy really did a lot. And so if you stayed with Health Partners, we may re-evaluate that strategy. In the unbundled TPA program, there is no carving out of any um provider. That's that network match. We matched it to the open

172access network. So then would the which of the two costs would see the increases off of it? The lower cost. >> Both of them would. So this would be a 10% increase off the open access cost. So it will be a jump for people that were unachieved. >> Okay. >> Here, >> but they did get the one year's worth of savings. >> Okay. >> Whereas everybody that stayed on open access didn't have the savings at all. It's just we we just we don't have an ability to to keep it on the >> to keep that okay >> to keep that to keep the achieve going. It's just not financially it's just not making sense for us. >> Okay. >> So there will be if you're on the open access plan currently the cost increase premium

173is not going to be as high as the increase would be if you're currently on the achieve plan going up. But you also if you were on the cheap plan haven't been paying the higher premium for the past year either. So it all comes out kind of in the wash. >> Okay. And then thank you to Bonnie, Nick, and you guys for all the work that you're doing. Um, >> all of this is very confusing for folks who don't work in healthcare. So, thanks for the No, you thanks for asking answering the many questions because I'm like, what is this acronym and what does this even mean? So, I appreciate all the answers. >> Good. Good. >> Thank you very much for coming. >> All right. Appreciate everybody. a lot of information. Um, next up,

174Mr. Mo with the uh with the athletic code code of conduct. Good night. All right, we'll keep it running for you guys to try and keep things efficient, but certainly appreciate you having us in. I've got two main focuses here and what is linked is the draft of the code of conduct, which we've been working quite a bit on. Uh, but up front I kind of just want to map out what what I want to talk through, what I want to share. And certainly, as always, open dialogue, questions, want to make sure this group has questions answered. Um, and if whatever we can't answer tonight, something we want to look into, more than willing to do that as well. Um, one thing I do want to preface is, you know, I strive, and I know

175Mr. Ballard's the same way, you know, to put our district in the best possible position at all times, knowing things aren't perfect, uh, when there is an opportunity to improve, absolutely going to dig in and do that. Um, I hope you hear a lot of that tonight. Um, some things are related to, you know, hazing incident we had in the fall. Some things are related to natural growth that I try to, you know, maintain and implement on an annual basis. So, I'm going to use the front end of the opportunity to kind of bring you along with a few initiatives that really aren't associated with that that I think are are good for awareness. Um, and some of those do, you know, support some of the change. And then certainly we'll end with, you know,

176the code of conduct um more at a review level, more at a high level. Um, you've had an opportunity to look it over. Uh, so I wanted to spend and utilize your time more for dialogue versus me, you know, talking at you in that aspect. So, um, I'll I'll start with the department initiatives. Three really that I'm I'm very excited about. The first one, um, stemmed from I've done work and many of you have probably heard of the group AMP, athletes making progress. We're going to do a little bit of a rebrand. Um, and the rebrand is SALT, uh, student athlete leadership team. I saw it at the national conference. Um, but even before that, last year, the WIA created a student athlete leadership team at the state level. We actually had one of our

177Hudson High School students apply to be in it. Unfortunately, very competitive. I don't remember how many are are selected, but I think it was somewhere around 16 total kids in the state balanced across regions. So, as you can imagine, um that's a tough one to get on to, but one one area and opportunity I thought would be helpful is just aligning with that brand. It's a nationally recognized brand. Um not not only at the state level, um but at the NFHS, which is our national federation. um but then also looks good on resumes and trying to you know provide opportunities for kids to get involved in student leadership is a huge passion of mine. Um and I know when you look at success across in the classroom out of the classroom a lot of it

178involves student voice and when we can foster that I think we're going to do a lot of great things together. Um the purpose of this group specifically is just advocation representation from the goal being every single team and genders and balanced what that looks like how many kids per team I've got four initial students that I'm working with to establish those our first interest meeting is actually this Friday during advisory a lot of excitement a lot of questions about it so we'll see where that goes um I know a few of the kind of initial exciting ideas that have come from open dialogue of you know my experiences at the national conference or the state level but also their ideas coming forward just collaborative participation from every program the students are very excited about um

179you can sort of get pockets of kids that are really you know engaged and want to share things but you're only hearing from that one group and I think developing that wider net of culture will be really good studentled captains and leadership handbook is something that will be incredible um they're going to do a lot of the work certainly with me as a resource, our coaches as a resource driven a little bit where needed by policy and procedure. Um but then wrapped up by student representatives involved in our coaches circle. So our coaches circle is what I'll transition to next. We've had our head coaches involved in a seasonal meeting. We spend about two hours together. It it was initiated by coach Bleggan and Coach Cowell's of a need for networking and professional development with

180our coaches and even more so now those two teach math. So in between passing periods next to each other in proximity talk math talk coaching have the ability to bounce that idea off. We have now over half of our coaches don't teach. Those coaches don't get the same support or the network unless you intentionally do it. So incredible initiative that those two, you know, brought forward and we've had amazing dialogue. Um, but we're going to give the first 30 minutes or so of that to our salt team and they're going to have a group of students that are going to be present and be able to establish agenda items. Um, but coaches are also going to be able to ask things student focused where a lot of our conversation is without the students actually sitting

181in the room. Uh, so that'll be incredibly valuable. Um, I think with the, you know, coaches circle as well, it's a great opportunity for us to continue to grow as we do for our educators. You know, we have PD days. We have these structured times. We have the proximity. These coaches aren't doing things much different, right? They're they're in a different format in a different classroom, but the expectations that that they are using that sport or that activity to teach. Um, but if we're not supporting that, putting in them them in some of them in that position, I think we're missing an opportunity. So, it's going to continue to grow. It's already been great. I'm really excited about where that's where that's at. The last initiative, um, we've had an annual meeting focused on freshmen

182and their parents. Some of you have been in that meeting. Um, I overall it's been very successful. It's been an opportunity to be an onboarding kind of launch pad into here's the high school experience. Many are coming from club, youth sports, middle school sports. Some are none no sports, no no participation requirements heading in. All of that together, there's a lot to pick up and it goes pretty quick, especially if you're a fall athlete. At high school, we have fall sports starting in the first week of August. Many times in middle school, it doesn't start until maybe a few days before school. So, there's a lot of information. Um, and that actually is what's led us to a change where we did seasonal one for fall, winter, and spring. We're going to do one all

183together on April 20th. Um, and that's going to be, I think, incredible from the sense of everybody in one room and not, you know, as you go. We've got multiport athletes. Our spring meetings fairly small compared to our fall meeting. Uh, but this will be everybody who's a prospective student athlete at Hudson High School this April as current eighth graders in the same room here in the same information. Um, also another opportunity for our salt leaders to have a a student voice opportunity. They have three or four slides from year to year in those seasonal meetings to provide that student perspective and then they actually take the students out for the last 10 minutes and do a Q&A session. trying to get middle schoolers to ask questions can be a little bit challenging, but um

184once you crack the ice, that's been incredibly positive, too. Um from a family perspective, it's a no-brainer from getting them the information in April. If you have a a child in high school athletics, the landscape of high school athletics, while we're trying to maintain the educational focus and segmented participation in your seasons and not taking over lives, there are things that happen in the summer that kids and and adults and families want to be a part of. We don't want that to be a surprise. We don't want to be a mystery. We want them to be aware. And then we don't want them to be this rush of I didn't know I needed a sports physical by this time and we're having a meeting a week before. That can be stressful for parents that maybe

185haven't done that before that some others, you know, whether you have a a student that's previously participated or you're just used to it um from sports participation that already have that. Um so I think that proactive information will only improve that which has been a great positive opportunity. Any questions on initiatives or that initial report? >> Mr. President, >> yes. >> Um, I know I've talked about this a couple times, but there's a huge correlation with mental health and physical fitness, and I'd love to see maybe these salt leaders are going to be too busy, but I'd love to see some sort of initiative to invite kids in that are not necessarily an athlete. They're not in it. maybe they're not in football or soccer or whatever it might be to have a welcoming spot

186to learn >> because I think a lot of times those kids are really um anxious to I I know when I started going to the gym I was anxious like it's kind of intimidating. So, I'd love to see something like that. And I'd also love to see just an education on on that correlation because I think a lot of students don't understand that taking a walk in the sun or a run or whatever it may be really can contribute to good mental health. >> Absolutely. >> I just want to echo a little bit of what Kate said. When I was in marching band, the second half of our block schedule was weightlifting, but it was all marching band kids. So, it was like I never felt more comfortable in a gym than with my fellow

187marching band folks. And um I I love this this salt leadership. It's it's awesome speaking to the eighth graders. So, it's like near peer soon to soon to be peer raising those students up like I don't know. I think there's a lot of awesome opportunities. We've seen our student athletes and their leadership when they come in here. So, I I like the sound of all these changes. Um, and excited to see where it's going to go. >> Well, I don't like the acronym because I remember in I think it was 79 or 80 when uh President Carter signed SAL 2, but uh uh strategic arms limitations, you know, talks back in the day. A little bit more serious back in the day. I do. Yes, Mr. President. >> Okay, that wasn't the point. That wasn't

188the point. >> No memory. >> All right. Um, we're going to we're going to rebrand for you. >> Um, but uh I know I know uh we we see the student athletes come in here and it is wonderful. And um but it's not just this district, it's all districts with uh hazing and bullying of of underassmen or things like that. So, I know you know there's a lot of initiatives and a lot of talk. Is there any way that we can kind of, you know, get feedback from that with, you know, surveys of of student athletes, uh, you know, just, uh, see something, say something, report something to see that there's there's been a change, you know, that there's for the better. >> Yeah. >> And I'm not expecting, you know, immediate answer. I'm just

189saying it would be nice if we could >> quantify, you know, the the the response of what we're doing. Is it is it successful? How do we track it? >> Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. >> Mr. President, >> yes. >> Um, agree with everything that has been said. I I like the idea that the students and the coaches are talking and sharing. Um, I would echo on or build on Bob's statement around getting some feedback on hazing. I think it's how do we engage parents, too. I think there's just this lack of it. It it it what we might perceive when we were growing up as hazing into what it is perceived as now or what's acceptable now. And when I read the definitions in here, I think that needs to be a you do a beautiful

190job in in your presentations. Um, so I know you'll walk parents through that. I think good open dialogue is always helpful and I love the idea of one meeting in the spring. Fully endorse that. That's a great way to go. Um, yeah, a lot of good things. And I think Kate's statement, I really appreciated that around welcoming all students into sports. We I think that's an area of growth uh for our district. Um, just candidly of how do we make sure that if a kid wants to play a sport, by golly, they get to play for their school >> because this is their school and they have a spot on that team and they can show up. And I think it's something I consistently hear from parents of if you're not in the right spheres

191or you haven't started early enough, you don't get a shot in high school and then the kids are deflated. >> And it's a tough it's a tough thing to crack and you can't do it alone. And this is absolutely not on any individual. It's as a community. How do we do this? >> Um from these are our kids and they are interested in playing. let's embrace them and show them everybody can have a spot. >> Yeah. And some of the some of the sports, you know, have limitations, right? So, that's where the club level comes in, I'm assuming. And uh and we've once again, we've done a great job and you've you spoke often on participation levels, you know, love to hear that. So, >> yeah, >> love to keep hearing that. >> Yeah. And

192I just want to speak to that part, Marie. I mean, it's a it's a passion of mine. I appreciate the collaborative support and the, you know, the ideas from the board about how do we open that up and make that warm and welcoming. It is intimidating if you've not played a sport or not been in a weight room and you show up to that first day of triyouts and you're standing next to a student that's done year round whatever and they have the resources to do that. You've got all these things melding into one. what we spent a ton of time about uh or with a lot in the coaches and honestly an area of growth that I think can be utilized more in this April meeting with parents is where do we fit right

193we're we're not trying to replace club sports we're not asking for you know all the things that come with that with its year- round commitments and all kinds of money and you know the commitment or you're kicked out of the program you know like >> that's not where high school and school-based athletics fits. So, I think just defining that, continuing to speak that common language is what we spend with coaches just so our kids and parents hear that because as soon as one goes this way and that maybe is the model, people might gravitate towards that and then you lose the collective momentum that we spent so much time trying to build. >> President, >> I have a just a quick question about the hazing policy. Um, you have no student, coach, advisor, volunteer, or

194district employee shall plan, direct, encourage, assist, or engage in any hasting activity. I'm wondering if any sort of like if you have knowledge of is how does that fit into reporting as employees any employees or volunteer? I would think an adult being a mand mandatory reporter. >> Just make note I I think there's knowledge in there, but I agree with you being aware of something and not one, yes, mandatory reporting for a staff member, but anybody. Um, and that goes back to that, you know, reporting and open dialogue. If I kind of I could transition right into, you know, the quote, that's my next topic is, you know, we've chunked into kind of two main categories. There was a huge opportunity for education in in this document and, you know, to be transparent, there wasn't

195depth as you look across all these school districts of things that tie together. It was kind of piecing together this one, this one, this one, as you would do for comparables. Um, it's heavy in the NCAA level um and a little bit more sparse at the high school level. So, I think, you know, we've actually had conversations at the the conference level about, you know, what does this look like and those those things and we help each other and trying to pull together. Does anybody have something in their code of conduct that speaks to this? So, good conversations there. back to us. The education piece for athletes, parents, staff, general community on what it is, what to look for. It is different in 2026 than even 2006. Um the some of the things that were

196maybe tabbed okay or glossed over or just a part of how things used to go um just aren't okay. and understanding the definition is the first step. The next step that we've focused on in in the education section is communication and establishing probably our biggest hurdle of I don't want to snitch or I don't want to be the one that created this big mess, right? Um and in the code of conduct, unfortunately, it's public. You don't necessarily know if a student got in trouble during the school day, got called on to the office, even if they got suspended unless you're close. But you do know when somebody's standing on the sideline, you do know when somebody's in a spot where they typically aren't. That's uncomfortable. Um, so back to the communication piece, understanding that we

197want people to say something and say something early. Hey, this feels a little bit off. Um, we've had great conversations with coaches about, you know, this is an example I can pull to from past experience and go, if that would have gone that direction 20 years ago, we'd be in this situation. Um, and it would have been a big problem, but it didn't, right? Somebody said something. Um, having that foresight about where could this go if we don't provide guardrails or we don't provide education or we don't provide structure of sometimes consequences. Um, those are things that I'm hopeful that we avoid on the front end by that communication piece. And where does that happen? It happens at our seasonal meeting in April. I already did it in our in our meetings leading up to

198this point. Not as well as I'd like to. So, I'm excited to continue to build on that part and have our incoming freshman and parents understand on the front of what it is up front. And then from there, every coach read a statement. First day of practice, first day of triyouts. Was it more transactional than I typically appreciate or like to do? Yes. Right. So, we can build on that a little bit more, but there's another touch point from a trusted adult, you hope, but certainly one that can capture attention of everybody in a smaller setting to say these are things that don't happen here. Um, and these are definitions and this is what it looks like and if it happens, here's what to do. >> Um, >> and I'll speak for the board. The

199expectation is that will be coaches by in just one of along with parents and students. So, >> absolutely. Yeah. And that's the next part of the coaches council. We we had an agenda with a few other items, hazing being one of them. And hazing took an hour and 50 minutes of two hours. And I will tell you, it wasn't me sitting there and pointing all the things that we were doing. It was a collective group going, we don't want another coach to be in that position. What can we do to together come up with something that's sustainable, supportive, and structured so it's all of us together speaking the same language? Because you don't want one message in the fall from one program to a different message in the winter to a different message in the

200spring. We all want to speak that same language. U so absolutely our coaches um and we've got one coming up. I think our next one's April 15th. Um continuing that conversation. I've been bringing them along on code of conduct modifications and education ideas and how to present this information, but then leaning on them. How do I tie all of that together and then filter it into the programs in a way that makes sense that feels natural and feels like we're all surrounded together and not me talking over here and then they never hear about it again. That's where we're going to lose the momentum in sustainability. I really appreciate the way you're thinking about it so holistically and kind of going back to what Molly was saying about the knowledge. You know, I wonder if

201I don't know if it belongs in the handbook, but it's, you know, telling parents and students how do you report if there was hazing? because people may not want to reach directly out to the coach or can they can students email you and know that it'll be anonymous and it'll be investigated or should parents reach you like should they do it for speak up speak out and would that work? I think giving students and parents ideas of how they can report those things and still feel safe. um cuz you get worried kids will get worried reporting it that they'll be the snitch or parents that that could negatively impact their kids. So just some guidance would be great. I think >> we spent some area or some focus in that area in the communication side

202and I think the modification Nick brought up really good points in in terms of the the flow of the way you want it to happen is ideal, right? You want your your athlete, your coach or your staff member to have a conversation and kind of build that skill. It's a tough skill to build, but if that's a barrier for something to be shared that needs to be addressed, that's a problem, right? So, identifying that, yes, we do want to promote the the progression of communication, but you can promote that after you're getting information and getting it to the correct channels, right? Because if somebody were to share a hazing incident or bullying or whatever, um, that's not going to be handled between the athlete and the coach. you know that that's going to involve many

203more people initially. So if you kind of just break down that barrier of hey any trusted adult lean on communicate with them and then that trusted adult we want to make sure we get it to the correct channel from there because we don't want everybody looping to the top because they want to get the answer from the school board or the superintendent or me. We want to get it to the correct channel but I think using that as however it's received will get it there and kind of establishing that culture. That's a really good point. Um, yeah, the last part of the education piece. Um, I was fortunate enough to attend the the national conference this year. There was a hazing um segment. Typically not on my my radar for for something to attend. Um,

204but absolutely did um it was incredibly beneficial. I would tell you it's maybe one of the worst ones to walk into and hear the information and the stories, but it's necessary, you know, and that's when I enter into I'm all in on diving into uncomfortable situations to to improve on, you know, that's that's just one example that provided a network of a few presentations, but also a few people and examples that I was able to lean on. Sure, they're from different states. Uh, but we're all here trying to accomplish a lot of the same mission, too. Um last part of the the education kind of face forward is you know unified statements, definitions and defined levels. Um in the past our code was structured strongly on um academics attendance, alcohol, tobacco and other drugs and

205conduct and becoming it. It's worked for a while. Um we've had consistent success with it. Um, it's not something that I wanted to completely blow up, but there was plenty of opportunity for the education that I spent time talking about, but transitioning into identifying these levels um into one, two, and three from just having a lot of it strictly in the percentage based on alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs. There's plenty of other things that can happen that need to be addressed and identified and supported. Um, I found a lot of examples that were major, minor, one, two, three. Um, diff different organizational, you know, approaches I felt best for Hudson High School and levels one, two, and three. What that allows us to do as a team is break it down a little bit more

206progressively and understanding that it's not a one-sizefits-all. It's not a here's Aaron Mullen making this decision from the top and and you know arbitrarily making penalties up out of thin air. That's not how it has worked. But that structure can be conducive to getting caught in a moment where something's not applied correctly because maybe there could be a little bit more structure that supports a definition and ultimately gives you a starting spot which is ultimately what the code provides. So, a few things with hazing were really important to me. The education part, as I've talked about at length, but just an explicit zero tolerance hazing policy in clear definitions and examples. And where that gets us in this is direct connection to student safety and legal implications associated with it. So we have a level

207two in terms of non-legal and then we have a level three which includes any illegal activity. Um again as a starting point which the hazing definition back in that education uh portion. Wisconsin has a state statute. It it directly defines how that would be applied if that were to be applied. you know, we have SRO's um in our buildings and certainly resources from that standpoint if it needs to go that direction. If it's non-legal, it doesn't mean that we can't address it and address it strongly to get that behavior corrected and redirected. Um so we have those two levels to work off of where before it just said hazing um in conduct and becoming and that's that didn't support what we needed in that moment. from the um application side of it. I touched on

208it a little bit. Um those are always starting points. They're also minimums. It's situational. Um the the code of conduct for those who haven't heard a code of conduct presentation is a is a structure system to support students. We we know students make mistakes. Um it it's a part of education. So this should be no different. it just ends up having a little bit more of a public facing approach to the education and consequence and we typically see as I reference the classroom. So as we see that and we receive that we put that into that category and we have talking points and we progress from there but we're then able to progress around common language. U so I think that puts us in a stronger structure for fairness and sustainability as we work through

209it. uh that doesn't make the code of conduct easy and open and shut case. Um you know as I mentioned that that is rare. Uh people do not like having participation taken away and nor do I. Um but it is a necessary um aspect of of participation. It's a privilege to be in these programs and we want to hold that line and that high accountability that I know you all expect and that we want to ultimately employ as well. So that that is the the kind of review points high focus education revamp structure to provide more sustainability and support. But what questions do you have? >> I guess we have no questions. >> Okay. But uh Maria, you reach for the microphone. >> I was just going to say thank you for the presentation and

210particularly the focus on hazing. I think that's something we've all been wanting to more of and the responsiveness um and the focus on trying to first level set so everybody has the same information. It's super important. >> Absolutely. >> Thank you for having >> I'd just like to add a couple of things if I may. Um one is um Erin Erin's done an amazing job um with it um trying to figure out I'm just like seeking answers from things that we could learn from. Um second is I really appreciate all of your support. It it was a tough time. Um and we have spent tens of hours uh talking and working through it and meeting with Nick and meeting with um >> Tara and and hey, how does this how does this it's it's 8:30.

211Um how does this you know how does this work best for Hudson? Right. And um so just really appreciate your support um as we kind of like Erin said we we learned a lot. I mean there some things that in there that weren't as clear as we would have liked um and weren't as defined. And so appreciate you pulling holding with us and and and just counting on us coming back. The last thing is um the other thing that we didn't really talk about is we're we we want to make it schoolwide. Um so we're going to we're going to try to have at least two advisory lessons next year where we share that specific definition and some of the things that we can do in the event that we see it because we know

212it doesn't just happen in athletics. It might happen in the band, the marching band. It might happen in a club sport activity. It might happen in a in an activity where that's studentled. Um, we don't know yet. And and so why won't it's just such a good message that why wouldn't we get it out to all of our kids a couple times a year so that they continue to get that reinforced from different areas. So, um, but yeah, Aaron did just a super nice job with with everything. Really appreciate the support from everyone in the room. That's a really good point, Mike, about uh it's just all students in our schools >> and and not just specifically sports and you know, of course, you know, we want to be able to defend and support, you

213know, our staff as much as uh as much as possible. So, >> thank you very much. >> Uh we're going to take a five minute recess and then come back. We'll move shuffle it around. We'll have uh the elementary Holton Elementary School offer will be when we come back in five minutes. >> Thanks, guys. an elementary school offer. >> Um, yes. So, uh, this is something that's kind of been in the works for quite a while. Uh, you have an offer, you reviewed it, I believe, was it a week ago or something like that, um, from an entity. So, I'll talk about that offer. But then also, uh, the board received an offer, what are you about 3:30 today? Uh, a second offer for Holton. I emailed that to you guys. Uh, sorry you didn't

214have more time, but that's basically when Brian and I got it. Um, so the original offer uh that we've been working through uh has to do with an entity, a church entity. Uh, I think Tim, I don't know if you have it up on the screen yet. Which one? the uh original offer. >> Okay. Um but uh it is for $2.65 million for the 10-year deed restriction. Um also has to do with the well and septic items that we talked about. Um the second offer that came in at 3:30 today uh was for $1 million. Um it was uh from an individual from the town of St. Joe, um wanting to look at utilizing the facility for daycare purposes. Um you have access to both of them. We've obviously spent a lot more time with

215the original offer that's at 2.65. Um I guess I would open it up for any discussion, but essentially Brian's here. Uh he can talk through and answer any questions you have. um let me know. But uh right now the administration's recommendation if you were to look at the two offers would be to go with the higher of the two offers um to get the most money you can get on behalf of taxpayers. However, we thought it was important to provide you with the other offer uh because it was just given to us as well. So would open up or entertain any questions or if you have questions of Brian as well. Nick. Oh, >> Brian first. >> Nick, I just to kick off some discussion, do you mind talking, you know, we we've talked to

216a fair amount um in close session, but could you talk a little bit about what exactly a deed restriction is for those watching? >> Yeah, absolutely. So, um, so the, uh, offer, and we've talked about this in open session before, deed restrictions. Essentially, you're putting a restriction on the property for a certain period of time that it could not be used for certain types of activities. And so, the deed restriction that's on the last page, I believe, or second to last page of this uh, from the River Valley uh, Fellowship of Ministries, uh, would be agreeing to a 10-year deed restriction for K12. Um, so they are wanting to buy the property. uh for church services and turn it into uh turn it into a church. Um and essentially they've agreed to the fact that

217we would be putting a deed restriction listing. Brian, you probably speak to it better than I can with the county. Um basically saying that for a period of 10 years, uh you you couldn't run a K an accredited K12 K through 12 institution out of that building. >> Correct. It would be recorded against the title work. Um, pretty common. I know Brian, you I haven't really sold buildings before. You've sold buildings in the area. You can talk to how common, not common type of language. >> It's very common. We even do it on the leasing side of things. So, if we lease to a Starbucks, they'll want language in their lease prohibiting any other coffee sales within, you know, a certain distance or within our our control. Um, we've done this with banks, we've done

218it with gas stations, we've we've done it with other schools. It's it's very common. >> That answer your question, Brian? >> Okay. >> It does. >> Okay. >> Um, I know this is new to people watching because like Brian said, we've been talking in close session about this, but I'm gonna ask you, Bob, because you did each tour. So, we had several groups come that requested a tour and maybe speak to what the church had mentioned as to what they wanted to do for the community, what their thought process was. >> Certainly, um I was not at the first tour that the church group came through, but I was at the second time they came through. I met the pastor, Molly was with me and along with Dustin and um and the real estate agent

219and um we met their pastor, their assistant pastor pastor um they are looking at the space uh to build a sanctuary next to the gym. They're very excited to have uh that many rooms that an actual gym, an actual cafeteria. Um it's it fits checks a lot of boxes what they want to do their congregation. They were also very very open to uh working in the community. I think Brian had mentioned that uh 30 35% of their congregation lives in in the state of Wisconsin or western Wisconsin. >> Correct. The balance are from Minnesota. >> Yep. And uh they would be coming from the Stillwater area to to the Holton area and uh you know asked you know where are the connections you know the town of St. Joe people they should be reaching out

220to. Uh as far as you know you know using the space for community uh functions they were very open to that. Um I asked them about um if they were interested or if they had a history of running daycarees and they they had some history. They they were not really thinking at that at this point about a daycare but um I can envision if there's there's other you entities interested in that building or having a daycare in that area could certainly uh reach out to. I would be very surprised if if the if the church group wouldn't rent space out for that. I I don't know. It's just something that they could >> I would agree. Yeah, they're going to end up with a little more square footage than they need and and they definitely

221want to be a a member of the community and part of that. Yeah, it was uh it it seemed like uh you know, we talked about in close session, you know, that is it a fit for the community? You know, we reached out to Town of St. Joe um about their use for it. Um you know, like we've said, they were not interested at this point. Uh I I I just got a really good feeling. I think Aaron had commented uh that uh it's a it's a good use of the space for the community. If if anybody else wants to talk about that, please please add. But uh trying to think of what I'm forgetting. Um but uh I think the the really the thought is that this is be an asset to their community

222and uh that was you know one of one of our one of our hopes. So >> Mr. President, I just want to say as a resident of St. show. I think it's a I mean, we know that schools are hearts of communities, but we also know churches are as well. Um, and I I think this is a great a great use of the space and another place that will, you know, ground community in St. Joe. I have a question on the deed restriction, though. Can I ask it now? Okay. It says it restricts um accredited education, but private schools don't have to be accredited unless they're participating in the school choice program, right? Is that true, Nick? I'm just wondering why it says accredited because I don't think private schools have to be accredited in

223>> I I can answer that. Okay. I think that there's the attorneys for both your district and them as a group will work out the final languages, >> but I think their concern that they had expressed to me is we are an education facility. We're a religious education. So, I think we're trying to come up with some language that clearly prevents K through 12, but also allows them to be, you know, an educator in the lane that they that they operate in. >> Yeah. like not restricting Bible study or Bible camps or Yeah. I just want to make sure it's not like you can start a K12 school as long as it's not accredited if that's making sense. >> Right. Right. So, I think the final language of the the deed restriction needs to be

224worked out between the the two attorneys and then ultimately recorded against the deed. >> But that's a broad stroke, if you will. And that's my understanding of >> I would state that they they don't have a history of running schools and um from their head pastor they had no interest in in going down that road. Uh they did also for the community is the question came up about um the playground and use of the space u and they were very open to yes it's part of the community. They certainly wouldn't have a problem with people in the neighborhood using it as as space. >> Right. >> Mr. President, >> thanks. Um I was with you on the day that the second time they looked at it and I just wanted to say that I mean

225I was just really kind of repeating everything that Nomega said and um you have said Bob, but I was impressed with their commitment to St. Joe and that community and that that would be their community too. And I appreciate what you said, Megan. The schools are the harder community, but churches are too. Um, I felt that, um, it was a little rough start there, but they were lovely people. Um, I felt like they had, uh, very empathetic, understanding, kind people. I think it will be a um, this is about as good as it can get for the future of of the Holden Elementary building. So, thank you, Brian, for everything you've done. >> Absolutely. And I would also say I think the timing is uh is perfect. You know, it allows you to wrap up

226your school year and and gives you the time that you need to move out, but um they're they're ready to go. I mean, it's great. >> Um I wonder because people are this is all new to them, if you could walk through um how we went through this process, what you I think we got or what this offer is if that's acceptable from other properties that you've listed. >> Sure. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. Um my gut told me that this was going to be a a relatively quick transaction just because I'd had a number of preliminary inquiries. This particular group um is very timesensitive in that they've sold their facility to Washington County for uh the expansion of Highway 36. So they're being displaced. Um you know, not really anything they had planned for.

227So um it was an accelerated timeline from their point of view and and I think maybe pushed pushed the process faster than it might normally occur, but again, the stars just seem to line up and it seems to be a good fit for the district, for them as buyers and for the community. So it's um it's not been without its challenges, but it's felt like the right opportunity for everyone and and I believe the price is a very fair price uh for both sides and uh I just can't emphasize enough the timing you know it it's fast which is good you know and time is typically not your friend in transactions so I like that this one is moving quickly for everyone >> and there's no contingencies on this like there were with the UYU

228>> uh property I mean I know that, you know, they're going to check the well and the septic, the normal things anyone would do with buying a place, but with UU, there were contingencies. >> It's not open-ended. It's definitely time sensitive. >> Okay. >> Right. >> Um, just a a couple things. I'm not sure if we talked through it, but the the closing date and date we would vacate the premise and some of the I see on the screen right now >> closing date is June 15th. I believe the bell is uh donate donated withheld from this transaction. Um you have until the 30th and you'll work together to kind of coexist after the end of the school year uh as they're transitioning in and you're transitioning out. >> So we have until June 30th.

229the school district has until June 30th. >> Correct. >> Y Okay. >> And I I really do see it being just an open-ended discussion that if there's material that you've decided you would rather not uh lo relocate or isn't beneficial to you, you'll offer them the opportunity. If if they'd like to keep it, it can stay. So, there'll be an ongoing, you know, working relationship going forward if if you decide to accept the offer. >> Great. And just to be clear, because we were talking over each other, but the bell is being um donated to the town of St. Joseph. >> You're donating the bell. Yes. That was withheld from the transaction. >> And then Mr. President, could I ask another question about the other offer we have? Is that or do we want to

230go there right now? >> Oh, yeah. >> Okay. Um I'm just curious the you know, the other offer is significantly lower. Um it's from an individual in St. Joe. I'm curious, did that, did that buyer look at the property? I don't know that they've toured the property. I have not toured them through the property. I literally received uh an inquiry from their representative um their legal counsel. Uh Sunday at about 11. I don't think we actually connected on the phone until 7:30 or 8:00 last night. Um I shared what I could share. um and encourage them that if they were going to come forward that, you know, timing wise, uh we needed to see something in writing as soon as possible. We received that ultimately today around 3:330. Shot it right over to Nick. Um

231you know, they had they were kind of had their feelers out in in the conversation of, you know, where was the board coming from on price? You know, what type of uh interest have we had? So, I I definitely was as encouraging as I could be to come forward as strong as possible with their offer. Um, but I I think given what that particular buyer wants to do with the facility, there's probably some limitations on what they can pay and and what makes good economic sense. So, I never see an offer as an insult. It's always, you know, encouraging when somebody takes the time and energy to draft something and sign it. Um, so it's it's always good to have a secondary offer, but um it's kind of an apples and oranges comparison, frankly. >>

232And we we had our listed price out there, so they were aware of what we were asking for um and uh for full um people watching. Um there were two other other entities that did tour the property as well. Uh neither came forward with with an offer. >> And I guess the Last thing I would point out is that um you know the current zoning of the property versus what zoning changes buyers may have to go through. So there were other inquiries into the property, but knowing what that entitlement process and improvement process would be with the township, I think the church is going to be the the easiest frankly um for a transition from a school to an alternative use. So, uh I think it's it adds value to the offer as well. >>

233Okay. If there are no other questions, we can I would entertain someone wants to make a motion. >> Mr. President >> Molly, >> I move that we accept the office offer presented tonight um from River Valley Church um as presented in the document >> uh with the note about the just the concern about the accreditation statement. Maybe you said that'll be worked out in the process. >> Yeah, I mean we are signing a document so I think um you know maybe I make a phone call just to clarify or or we have a phone call and if we need to manually make a change that you're authorized to do that. But um I I think we should do that. We should maybe just have a quick conversation tomorrow to make sure we're all on the

234same page and if we need to manually change accredited to something additional just to make sure we're all on the same page. I think we are all on the same page, but you're signing a legal document. So I want to make sure. >> Well, and you know, Megan's point was very valid. you know the definition of accredited that means in the school community. So >> um very good. So I have the second. >> Mr. President, do we with that do we need to kind of amend the motion to make sure that we we authorize you to >> kind of discuss the accreditation language or >> your motion? >> Okay. I move that we accept this offer presented by Brian tonight from River Valley Church with the caveat that we need to um follow through on

235the accredited education piece >> and authorize your board >> and authorize Thank you. board president to >> make that change. >> Thank you. >> Do we have a second? >> Second from Kate. Are there any other questions? If not, all those in favor say I. >> I. >> All those opposed say nay. Motion passes. Thank you, Brian. You >> looks ready to come. So, we will we will now move to the building temperature controls replacement update. And don't forget Nick's cold office with the loud ceiling VA >> or how warm we are tonight. Hi, Bonnie sitting over there. >> So, we have been working on our long range facility plan and um probably for the last year we've been working on troubleshooting um River Crest and Hudson Prairie Elementary and basically the temperature controls in

236those buildings are at end of life. Um I would say the computers don't really support um the operations you have. we're just having a lot of difficulties and Dustin can kind of elaborate those. >> Yeah, just from a tech um side of things um kind of working with it and our cyber security initiatives uh and safety um we're we're completely at end of life at Rivercrest. So, this is a necessary proposal we're we're laying out there and Prairie is very close uh in the same realm in terms of its its safety and security. um other issues in just driving uh temperature to the uh preferred district levels and and and really we want to be able to drive equitable spaces similar to North and and Rock in these elementaryaries as we're uh moving forward. >>

237And then in addition to the replacement of those two systems, um we're due for an automate for the update of the software at the Hudson High School. So the nice thing about this um proposal would be all those systems would be on the same um automated logic. so that we would have all three of the buildings on one system that just won't be able to control. >> Yeah. So, the the high school part of the referendum work previously was to um introduce automated logic as a new building automation system as well as bring on board the older parts of the high school um that were modified. So, uh this transition would would would be similar in terms of the old spaces at the high school. would be bringing those on to the same building automation

238and as Bonnie mentioned the ability to be able to drive it um from anywhere in the district and part of her upgrade note is uh cloud-based control so that the uh the maintenance technicians and and head custodians in those buildings can also drive those um from anywhere in the district with the same level of security that we have everywhere with our uh single sign on capabilities. So, for for those people wondering, well, the high school's only eight years old. How can that already need a software upgrade? Um, you're saying that some of the old parts of the building were still using the and it wasn't automated. And I will point out that if if it if it was correct as reported that we doubled the size of the high school, but the heating cost were

239about the same. And so, should we expect to see better efficiencies? Yeah, >> better efficiencies. Correct. I won't be able to speak to the exact dollar amount, but um and and just to correct you a little bit, the high school automated logic took um the entire high school at the time of the referendum work, it just upgraded the older portions and then um as the newer system came online during that project, it was just automated logic from the start. So, >> and with the recent renovation of Prairie is already on the automated logic, >> it is not. So, >> it's on an old Ian uh building automation. It has it has new new heating and cooling systems. It's just the control. >> Prairie. No, Prairie only got the um new boil system with the referendum

240referendum. >> Yep. It's still on it old chiller. >> Okay. Megan, >> so does this mean so right now you have this type of automated logic in North Hudson the middle school and >> no or >> uh this particular um web-based software is is solely at the high school. >> Okay. >> Um we're kind of scattered and different throughout the high school. So the kind of the big driver of this project is okay, let's get these um on similar systems instead of having different systems at each high school and different login and different processes. >> And Bonnie, this is it notes in the memo, but just save it for the public. This was this is budgeted for in our maintenance plan. This >> Yep. So, it's in our long range maintenance plan and it actually

241came in about $75,000 less than what we had budgeted for this line item. >> I'm sorry. What was the number you said? >> What? We had 925. >> Yeah. Yes. Yeah. So, it came under which was nice. >> So, it came in at 842. >> Correct. >> Kate, >> um, this isn't my area of expertise certainly. Uh, but I am curious, maybe we've worked with automated logic before or I'm missing something, but did we get any other bids for this work? >> I can speak a little to this. I think just kind of what I brought up before, this is trying to standardize um what worked and has been cost effective and as Bob noted um you know kept our heating cost similar at that 425,000 square feet of high school um going with that

242because it's standardizing what's throughout the district. So if we went with somebody else, it'd be introducing new software. >> Very good. Thank you so much. >> M is it proprietary? Does it have future upgrades that >> we can we can look for or >> Yeah, being being web- based and and open source, not >> open source. >> Not open source in terms of security, but um yeah, there's it continually gets better upgrades, security updates. >> Mr. President, >> um what do we have at North Hudson Middle School and EP Rock? >> So, North Hudson and EP Rock um are on the same Schneider Electric based um program and then it's uh a little different here. It's Ule that's provided the automation. >> So it's a different automation system at those schools versus >> Yeah. So

243through the referendum work um Prairie, I'm sorry, Rock and North got one set of software, middle got another, and then this would um the proposal for this one would match the high school. >> Okay. for Rivercrest and >> Prairie. Yes. >> It's just not questioning but curious why we're they're all different. >> It's really a cost decision is what we did >> through the referendum through the >> referendum bidding process and what worked. Okay. And the thing is with the high school at the time we went with automated logic to try to switch the the high school to what we're doing currently at you know at Prairie or sorry at the middle school or at um North EP would just be astronomical because of the size of the building. So it's easier to bring if

244we're going to bring other buildings online it's easier to bring them online to what we're already doing at the high school versus moving the high school to something different. Erin, >> did you have something? Oh, okay. Okay. >> And and you guys won't make a mot I mean you guys won't you won't approve this tonight. It'll be at the at the regular meeting coming up. It's just giving you some background. So at the 13th meeting you'll do an approval. >> So >> okay. >> Thank you so much. >> Thank you Dustin. Thank you very much. >> Thanks. >> Okay. Moving on to uh Bonnie's uh monthly budget update. I did >> I did review um the the variance report and actually it's pretty much similar to um last month's um lower sub costs continue. So

245we're still about $90,000 under budget for sub costs. Um the environmental and cleaning services is higher. Most of that is tied to snow removal. But those were kind of the three that stood out on that report. um also um included the health insurance update for you of which they already went over which we're running at 104%. Um, so we'll continue to s give those to you monthly. And then, um, I don't know if Dave when he was here, um, we did add this to the website. So, the definitions and how to read the, um, the monthly report is now on the website. That's any questions for moving on with a real quick Yeah, you bet. Real quick. Um, so just a couple things I want to touch on. Um, you know, as we're working through

246our enrollment plans, uh, we did just do our we do what's called our capture rate. Uh, we do it in January based on our second Friday count in January because then we have all the homeschool numbers in, private school numbers, and everything. Uh, everything else. You know, there's both good and and bad news with it. Um, you know, the the good news is our capture rate is actually up. We're running about 87.1% uh up from about 85% uh last year. Our average over the last I think 13 years uh is average about 87.87%. So you know when people want to know is our enrollment going down because kids are going to other places. No, it's just there just fewer kids that live in our in our boundaries because we track everything from home school to

247our our private schools and everything else. Uh so just wanted to make sure I put that out there. And then the other piece is um right now our uh we're as we're working through our class sizes and working through our projections and things like that, we're in the process of um um trying to trying to figure out, you know, how big the classes are and also looking at boundary exceptions are going to be coming up and open enrollment, things like that. Uh one of the things that's a little challenging for us right now is our kindergarten numbers are very low uh compared to what we anticipate we anticipated based on birth rates. Um right now confirmed kindergarteners were right around 225 um kindergarteners. So we will go up from that number. There's no doubt in

248my mind we'll go up from that number. Uh but you know we were anticipating close to 291 based on birth rates and things like that. Um, I think, you know, we probably settle in somewhere between 240 and 250, 260. We probably won't hit the 291 because that would be an increase of almost 70 students over the next uh three three and a half months. That would be something that we've never seen. Um, but we will we will pick up some additional students. Um but it, you know, it caused us to have even need even fewer sections uh at the elementary than what we were originally uh thinking we were going to need across the board. Um we would, you know, we're looking at our our 4K numbers because we just had kindergarten and 4K uh

249registration roundup and our 4K numbers are trending about where they were this current year. They're within a few students. So, um, but you know, just so you know, right now we had about 306 kids currently this year in 4K and right now that's generating about 225 kindergarteners. And part of the reason is we had a huge portion this last year in 4K that were open and rolled in of which the vast, you know, lot the vast majority of those open rolled in 4Ks don't stay. They just happen to be a lot of them just happen to be going to daycare in our district. And so they take advantage of the uh district, you know, community partner 4K situation. They were always planning on going to their home district uh for kindergarten as we as we

250work through it. But we'll continue to monitor it probably starting uh coming up here probably in April, we'll start giving you uh that spreadsheet. You know, every every meeting says here's where our average class here's where our class size are projecting to be. Um we're right right about where we thought we would be. uh secretaries and principles are doing uh physical counts and making sure we're we're feeling pretty confident in our numbers. Uh so we're going from projections to actual knowing who these who these students are in the actual seats. So just an update on enrollment and where we're at with everybody. >> Mr. President, >> yes. >> Um Nick, is there any information that's currently out on the sections that are going to be at each school? I'm just I'm curious. I know I

251received an email this week that was um just made some statements in it and they were asking questions and I don't have anything. So I'm just wondering is there somewhere that people are already getting information? >> Uh no I I mean we haven't we're just this is just starting to come in and get verified. Um >> that's what I thought. I just wanted to make sure >> we did, you know, we did meet with uh an additional staff member um looking at our numbers to have to do some additional layoffs from what we originally told the board we were going to have to do just because the numbers aren't supporting the original count for the number of students or number of sections we would need. Um and so met with that staff member last week

252and so we'll be talking about that um more extensively later this evening. But um no, we haven't done any type of hey, we have this many sections at this point or that many sections this point. Our first probably official report will come out at the April 13th meeting. >> Okay. >> Where you guys will start to see it at every meeting that way all the way up till September. We kind of give you guys that every meeting. So >> perfect. And the class sizes so far are looking within the guides that we >> Yeah. So that they would be >> Yep. There's the only the only one that's kind of trending above it. Well, it's where we thought it's that fifth grade class at Prairie, which was originally on the boundaries. Uh, but that's the

253only one as of right now. Um, >> and that's only like a one-year thing. >> Yeah, it's it's actually two of the four classes would be right at the guideline and two of the four classes would be one student over. >> So, um, and right now the where we're trending, we'd have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine of the, uh, grades. So, when you think about the fact that there's 24 grades total, six in each of the buildings, right? Nine of the 24 are actually going to be under class size guidelines because um that's it's just where our enrollment counts are right now. Now, some of that will change as we start adding in more open enrolled ins uh as we make those decisions and things like that. So, um but right

254now we're trending in a really good spot. >> Cool. >> Good spot and a bad spot. I mean, it's good in a way that we're within guidelines, bad in a way that we're not getting more kids. So, >> questions. If not, moving on to disposition of elementary and >> sorry. Um, next up is discussion of disposition of Willow River Elementary. Uh, similar to the preliminary discussion we had when we decided to list Holton. So, >> yeah. So, uh, a month ago you guys decided to table this and told me to bring it back to you in a month. So, now it's a month. Um, and so, uh, typically what would happen here is you're not making you're not making a decision tonight to list any buildings. You're not making a decision to sell any buildings

255other than the decision you made with Holton. That's it. I'm just saying as it relates to Will the River. What I'm saying is I just need some type of direction. Do you want me, similar to what you did, you wanted me to do with Holton, go get a listing agreement. You know, I can contact Brian, say, "Put together a listing agreement so the board can review it." Uh, you guys can go through and decide, you know, if that's how you want to list it. Uh, and then take action in in the April meetings. Um, I just I just need to know what we what you what direction you'd like to give me so I know I can get you guys what you're asking for. Mr. President, >> um just my personal thought, I would like

256to see um us pause just a little bit on this building, the second one. Just kind of let things shake out a little bit and um not list it until after the school year closes. >> Any other comments, >> Mr. President? Um >> Megan, >> I see where you're coming from, Erin, but I think what we heard from Brian a month ago, which seems even longer ago. Who can I can't keep track of time anymore. Um, you know, he was saying given how complex of a building Willow is that this may take more time from what he said to find the right buyer. Um, and I think, you know, there were definitely some boas on uh that tour at Holton that happened during um school age care hours, but now we have different rules in

257place, non-disclosure agreements folks are signing when they tour the schools. Um, I I would hate for us to wait to list it and lose the opportunity to have a buyer that is good for our community and something that costs our, you know, we have a building that's costing our school district and our taxpayers more money and we lose the opportunity to have a good sale. It it, you know, anyone who's looking at it, it would be evenings and weekends, nobody's there. We know school age care is going to happen in the summer. Um, but this might this might take a while because Willow is a, you know, a different kind of building. It there's not as much space. Um, but that's just where I'm thinking about it. >> One of the things I was thinking

258uh is because of the the you know opportunities or or limitations of the space depending on the size of the building, the age of the building. Um, but uh we had talked about with Brian about, you know, list it for a price like we did with Holton or uh put out for proposals like we did for UU and I think we're pretty unanimous about not doing proposals. Um I I would agree. I mean, I know we're from what Brian is saying, that type of building, how it how it is going to be used in the end probably is going to take a long a longer time with uh permits and, you know, the legal part of of it and the type of developer that might be interested in that building. And um I believe it

259would take long. I I would hate for the for the taxpayers to lose an opportunity. I know Nick has spoken a couple times about, you know, we don't know what's going on in the economy. I actually I actually feel like we're like Brian said that the the timing on on Holton was very good. You know, I mean, um our you know, UYU looks potentially, you know, being able to move off our books here at some point and uh I think it would be I think it would be worth it to at least list it. Maria, >> um I would tend to agree um with Megan and and Bob. Um I think Renick remind us you did reach out to the city and the county and neither expressed interest in Willow. >> Yes, I reached out

260to the county, got an email back from the county. I did reach out to the community development director at the city and got got a response. I had a follow-up email to clarify because I think there was some miscommunication out there. Uh there were some folks from the city saying that we they never reached out and they did. Um and so I wanted to make sure that um we got some feedback that way. Uh, and you know the email that I had gotten um, let me just pull it up here because I don't I want to make sure I'm not misrepresenting anything. >> Sure. Sure. >> Um, I just I had originally said following up on our conversation from a month ago about Willow River Elementary School. During the previous conversation, I inquired whether the

261city had any interest in the property at that time. You indicated that you were not aware of any interest by the city of in Will River Elementary and noted that you felt comfortable providing that information. Uh and the response I got back was yes, I recall that is how I recall the conversation. I am still not aware of any any interest in the city's acquisition of the property. >> Okay. >> So, um I just wanted to make sure that was out there because there were some people that kind of said, "Well, no, no, he didn't call or he didn't he didn't check on it." So, I did. Um it's and again you're not you're not deciding tonight whether you're going to list it or anything like that. I just as you know there has to

262be some background work even when you get to that point of deciding list and that's why I would need direction. I don't want all of a sudden go off and put together you know work with Brian to put together a listing agreement and pricing and all that stuff if you say no we're not doing anything like that with the building. I just I just need some level of direction so you guys then have options moving forward. I think in that vein, knowing one, it gives you um some direction on how to proceed and it doesn't bind us to anything and it's an ability for us to continue to have an exploration of with more information about what it might look like to list it, what a recommended listing might be. And I think when we

263have these conversations again, if there's other people that are interested, they know and they can come forward and >> so I would be supportive of that. >> I'll I'll clarify. I didn't mean I didn't mean vote to list it today. I meant go through the same process as Holton like you say. Um so Brian >> Yeah. Thanks, Mr. President. Um I'm you know Erin, I understand where you're coming from and I you know Willow I think is a different situation than Holton. It's It's a more complex building. I think we'll take a different kind of buyer. Waiting another month to get the conversation started is probably okay. We might not miss anything. On the other hand, you know, we're not going to meet again for two more weeks here at which point we'll have something

264to consider about starting to list it. So, it we're getting towards the end of the school year. I guess you know kind of thing I I think probably a lot of you like myself and people have reached out to you about like why can't we do something you know to make Willow a community building and nothing this school board does precludes the community from starting that process starting those conversations that's going to take a serious effort though it takes funders it takes organization and it something I've been reflecting on Nick just brought it up you know talking to the county and the city And part of me kind of regrets asking Nick to do that because that's not really it's not the role of the school district to facilitate community development in a building that

265we can't afford to keep in our portfolio, you know. So it I I beg people to please I would love it if there was some community organization to do something with that building. It's a great location. It will take some money, but there's some energy out there, but it will take some organization. And so, I mean, I guess at the end of the day, I think Nick, it's I'm I'm also fine starting the conversation with Brian, but um I just wanted to kind of clarify. I've been doing a lot of thinking on this. I think there needs to be clarity in in the community that it's really not the role of the school district to we've got enough on our hands. Look at our agenda tonight. Right. >> Mr. President, >> Molly had the light

266first. >> Oh, wow. Buzzer. We need buzzers. Um, I just completely agree with what you're saying. I mean, I would love that would be the in my mind the best use. You know, you'd want it to be used as a community building, whatever that was. But it takes money. People have to get their ducks in a row. And um, uh, you know, I've gone to a couple, you know, breakout sessions for WASBY where they do talk about some of these things that happen when schools have done those things, but it's extremely unusual. Um, it's very difficult and um I certainly think that we would be cheerleaders for that, but maybe not the engine that made it go. And then I wanted to address what Erin said, too. I have felt all along like we should

267put a pin in the school year. That's kind of kind of how I've been going. I but I do feel like, you know, that even if my heart feels like that, I think the logical uh looking at economics, a possible inflation, I wouldn't even think that there would be a um um interest rate hike that might come. You know, this is going to cost a lot more maybe if we wait. So I kind of think we need to move forward based on the way things are looking. So and also with what Megan said, you know, weekends, evenings or showings and that's how it has to be in NDA. Maria. >> Um I think the only thing I would add because I love specific examples. Uh there was a group over in Stillwater that recently purchased

268um an elementary school and it was an independent group that started a community. They wanted for the sole purpose to start a community center in the St. Croy Valley on that side. Um it took them several years to put together their roadmap, their plan, their funding structure, their vision, their board. um there's a roadmap there from other organizations. They have successfully done it. Um and would love to champion that. I think also to Brian's point, I think it's a Brian Brian is a point well made. It's not that's not our role to facilitate that. We financially cannot hold on to these buildings. And my concern with holding the conversation of waiting to get the information for listing, we then run the timeline of us now having a building longer that we know already needs work

269that we have to continue to pay for and maintain and it's not being used and unused buildings dilapitate very quickly. Um, and it makes it harder. So, I would hate to have that building just sit empty for any longer than it needed to in that neighborhood. Um, and yeah, >> if the partnership you're talking about is in Lake Elmo, >> it is in Lake Elmo. I'm blanking on the name of the nonprofit group that got it started. >> And that was a district office and a school. >> It was a district office and a school in Lake Elmo and I think that just it was up for sale for at least two years before and they they themselves got together at least I want to say two or three years ago and put their board

270together and then they it took them a good two years to I think capital um to raise the money to purchase that building and and they were looking for a while to see where this community center could land on their side of the river. >> I think uh if if Willow was if the Holton building was sitting on the Willow lot with classrooms and a nice gym and a cafeteria >> I think this would be a very different conversation >> very much. >> Instead of a five level building with Yeah. >> Yeah. So, um, so I guess I'd, uh, do we have to >> just just ask just ask Brian to move forward like you did with Holton with a perspective of >> and then the board you'll take official action before you do anything

271else like you won't I mean you're not you're not saying yep we're agreeing to sell it. You're not saying that hey you're just >> get us more information related to this and that would be a listing would be the next set of information you'd give. >> Mr. President. >> Yes. >> Um Nick, could you just walk through and I appreciate what you said, Brian. I'm not I I I get getting collecting all the information and I'm understanding it's not listing it. Um but could you just for anybody else listening um talk about the summer programming that's already scheduled for Willow? Um talk about the building occupancy plan during that time. Um, and then talk, please talk about the plan for moving out all the materials and where they're going to be located, how much time

272you think that that's going to take. >> Yep. So, you know, Willow is going to be the the site of our school age care, summer school age care programming all summer all the way up until uh usually about a week before school starts. Is that August 14th? Um, so we will have kids in that building all summer long. uh it won't be until after that point uh that we'll be looking at, you know, uh moving the stuff out. Now, there will be stuff that's moving out of that building as teachers are moving their stuff where we're moving teachers classrooms and things like that into their new spaces into the buildings that are staying open. But that building, uh the plan for that building is that we will have kids in there will be utilizing it.

273Uh kids will have access to everything in school age care like they normally would all summer long. Um, so if it was to be listed, you know, we would uh show it during off off hours and when we don't have kids in the building. Now, I don't want to say there could never be kids because I mean they could be renting there could be a basketball association rents the gym at night. Um, you know, and we're taking a group through at 6:30 at night and they're renting the gym. That's not the same thing as taking a group through in the middle of the day and stuff like that. So, um, so you know, our first priority would be obviously we have to move you have to get HOL moved out because we have to be

274out of that by the end of June. Then there's going to be a little bit of a lull, not much, but then we have to get the other buildings ready and then we really wouldn't be seriously looking at closing most of Willow out until after the school year starts. So, um, so I mean even even with the sale of the property or putting it for sale, it's it's not as though it's going to turn around quite as quickly as Holton. I think the other thing, at least from talking to Brian about it, is uh because it's in the city and depending on who buys it and what they want to do with it, the due diligence period will probably be quite a bit longer. Um planning and zoning could end up being quite a bit

275longer. And so it may take them, you know, six months for what is going to take at Holton too, you know, and so um so that's kind of some of the some of the thought process on some of and that's that's from the time we get an offer, not necessarily, you know, six months from the time you list it, it's going to close. Um we were pretty fortunate. Remember, part of what ex uh expedited the Holton decision wasn't necessarily, oh, hey, we had to get this building on the market right away. It was we had an unsolicited offer. They said, we want to buy it. We were willing to give you this much. That kind of forced us to have to start to look at that even probably before we would would normally do it,

276but it's awfully hard to pass up an offer that's a really strong offer for us. So, >> thanks for outlining that plan. >> Yep. Um, one thing I I would like to if I think we can discuss it with this because it's technically the Willow property. Are we looking for um from Brian for that block that Willow sits on that property because we have the cinder lot as well. So, should we ask for him to give us numbers on that too? I uh have we re I mean I think we've reached out to the city on that one too, right? >> Yes. I've I've talked to uh Rich about it. You have prior. >> Yeah. I I I can have him look at it both ways as if they're kind of separate entities or they're

277a kind of a package deal and uh he can kind of give you the pros and cons of those things. Um he would he would know more about that uh than >> I I think he said at one point, you know, depending it could be needed for parking, you know, like we don't know. Depends on the buyer, right? >> Yeah. Well, I don't even know if he said what it was zoned at as right now. Um well, it's probably zoned to school, right? Cinderlot's not the most exciting >> word. We might want to call it something else in the in the listing. It probably isn't called that. Um >> I'm not I'm not old enough to know the reason why it was called the Cinderot. She knows. >> Oh, can you tell us, Tracy? >>

278Oh, it's >> Oh, here we go. >> No, I I found the correct reason. I told you a reason about the cinders being placed there from um from the furnaces and stuff. So it was when this the district decided to purchase that piece of property, it was for a playground and they needed to resurface the playground. So they resurfaced it with cinders. >> Um and they did that for about five years and decided that there were too many injuries related to the cinders. >> Shocking kids were eating cinders, I take it. >> What year was the cinders the surface? Do you know? >> I think it was in the 30s. I'd have to go back. I don't remember off the top of my head when that all changed. >> And and the only reason I

279bring it up is should it be should it be looked at being marketed as along with it or separate? It could be it could be residential. It could be single family houses put there. It could be >> I think we just asked his opinion. >> Okay. >> Um Nick, one more question. >> You bet. >> Um when you corresponded with the city and the county, um I'm just curious um them giving you an email answer. Doesn't that have to I mean when somebody proposes or even asks that question doesn't that need to be put on their agenda for them to discuss as a board? Um, well, it just it just depends on, you know, there there are people that will ask me questions about the district and not every question that comes to me comes

280to a board agenda and if they feel comfortable saying that's not in our plans and we're not doing it. They how they decide to do their things and how who they give authority to, that's their entity and their thing. You know, the con the conversation that I got from the county, I sent similar email and I got back from the county. Thank you for thinking of us at this time. time I can see no additional uh use or no uses for an additional site. We've accomplished most of our site improvements from our current space need analysis. >> Okay. >> So, I mean all I I mean I'm not going to sit there and probably email each individual board member. I'm going to email our contacts and if they feel comfortable speaking on behalf of their

281entity. That's that's their thing. >> Oh, that I I just want to see if that was done. And I think too, Erin, like if it is listed, it doesn't preclude the city or county from deciding, oh, actually, we want to make it on, you know, like they're not bound by whatever email they sent at a certain time. >> Okay, if no other questions, moving on to staffing updates with Shannon and Tara, >> I can start us off. Um, so as you know, on February 25th, we did communicate our certified staffing placements. Then since then, we've been doing a lot of things. We got room numbers communicated to staff members in their in their buildings and letters have been sent out as far as packing and instructions and what to do, labels that are colorcoded. >>

282They go out tomorrow. >> Oh, they go out tomorrow. Okay. Um, and then we've the the principles have opened up their buildings one day last week and then one day this week for staff members to go out and see their new space. And um, also we've been working on support staff staffing and we went out and had meetings with all of support staff at every building last week just to kind of communicate where we were in the process and um, what the timelines were and then we opened it up for questions. And so we are ahead of the ahead of schedule for support staff just like we were for for certified staff and we're looking to communicate those placements April 10th and then all layoff conversations will have been had before then. >> And then

283just a couple quick updates kind of more on the transition in general. Um we are going to have student bus tours on April 22nd where students will vis be visiting their buildings May 18th. Then we'll open that up in the evenings for families to visit. And then we did, I know a big question and a lot in the special education world is, you know, are case loads going to be terminated in teachers. We did meet on the early release with all special ed teachers and principles in this room and got a very solid first draft of all of the students, all of the case managers and they even started working on class placements for that. So that's a huge start. Um, and so that was a successful Friday afternoon. >> Thank you so much for

284all the work you have put in. And I always love to hear about color coding. So, >> very organized. >> All right. If no other questions. Oh, um, one thing was talked about is with teachers boxing up things and packing the rooms as they do every year, right? Or depending, you know. So, um just uh um be aware of at Willow and Holton as far as you know keeping those boxes out of the hallways or whatever. So, we do this all the time, but it's specific for this year. Um okay, if no other questions, uh going on to uh the food service pricing with Bonnie. >> Sure. So, this is an annual item. Um, typically you approve um, next year's food prices this month or in April. Um, we're recommending a 5-cent increase. Um, it

285it kind of varies between 5 to 10% or 5 to 10 cent based on the USDA economic research. We're going to error on 5 cent. We do still have a fund balance in our um, food service and they really encourage you to utilize that instead of increasing rates. Um, so our recommendation would be um that last column and then I believe on the second page is kind of a historical look back of what prices have been and then we'd ask for approval at the board meeting. >> At the next board meeting or this meeting? >> It'd be at the board meeting coming up in April 13th. >> Okay. Uh, in the spirit of Rob Brown, how is our participation rate? Okay, >> I'll bring that to the next meeting. >> Very good. Any questions? Kate,

286>> I I have something to say not related to food service. There's other questions. >> Not on the agenda. >> I know. >> Okay, good. >> I just wanted to say that it is National Social Work Month in March. >> And I just wanted to give a shout out to our amazing school social workers who work tirelessly um and do such an amazing job with our kids. Excellent. >> The end. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Now, who wants to read the close session? >> We do like every other. >> I don't think you can. >> You can't read all. >> Got to read them all. >> No, I mean like she does one, I do one. >> You can read them however you want. >> All right, I'll do it. >> Oh, go ahead. >>

287Oh, okay. Go ahead. Oh, go ahead. >> The board will convene in close session pursuant to Wisconsin statute 19.851E 851E to deliberate or negotiate the purchase of public properties, the investigating of public funds, or conducting other specified public business whenever competitive or bargaining reasons require close session regarding the unsolicited inquiry on the remaining parcel of the UU property and pursuant to Wisconsin statute 19.851c and 851c to discuss and take action if appropriate regarding the employment and performance evaluation data of public employees over which the governmental body has jurisdiction or exercises responsibility consideration of certified staff employment at or andor preliminary notice of contract non-renewal and or layoff pursuant to Wisconsin statute 19.851c A51C to discuss and take action if appropriate regarding the employment and performance evaluation of public employees over which the governmental body has

288jurisdiction or exercise exercises responsibility consideration of certified staff employment and or final notice of contract non-renewal and or layoff and finally pursuant pursu pursuant to Wisconsin statute 19.851E 851E to consider competitive bargain bargaining with the certified union for the 2026 2027 school year. Please excuse my uh misprononunciations of some words. >> Do I have a second? >> Second from Kate. That's got to be a record. Uh let's do a roll call. Dah. >> Hi. >> Garza. Hi. >> Gerlock. Hi. >> How? Hi. >> Rosowski. Hi. >> Rudy. Hi. >> Bowman. I. We are now in close session.