Hudson Schools - October 13, 2025 - School Board Meeting

001Order the Hudson School District board meeting. If you'd stand for the pledge of the flag. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Okay, we will start tonight with recognitions and I'll send it over to Shannon. Okay, I think the plan is for administration and schoolboard members to go down to the front row. And as they're making their way to the front row, I'll just introduce Ryan Decroy and some of our cast members. Um, they're here to give us a sneak peek of the high school musical Susicle. >> Good evening. My name is Ryan Delicra and I have the pleasure of directing this fall's musical Susicle. It is based on the

002works of Dr. Seuss. The story consists of the cat in a hat leading Horton the elephant who finds a dust speck on a clover. So basically the through story is Horton here's a who all set to this awesome fun crazy music. It's all our favorite Dr. Seuss characters shoved into a two-hour show. I have some of my fellow lovely castmates. Get out here kids who are going to do a couple songs. Um, back on the piano is our lovely Carrie Eisler, who's one of our music directors, and then Jamie Pavicki's up in the booth. So, they have helped me prep an amazing show. Hi, boys and girls. So, I have to run and do my real job, so I'm going to let them introduce themselves. Oh, hold on. Dates. The show dates are November 14th

003through the 23rd. We're going to have what's called Seuss Day on November 15th. It's a big old party for your kids to come in, meet the cast, do photos, have a little story time, build a craft. All of that information is available on the website, which is hudsonraders.org. Rephrase that. www.hudsonraers.org. Um, okay, now they can talk. My name is Bennett. I'm a senior and I play [Applause] Uh, I'll be starting off today and I will be singing How Lucky You Are, which is a solo that I have in the musical. When the news is all bad, when you're sour and blue, when you start to get mad, you should do what I do. Tell yourself how lucky you are. [Music] When your life's going wrong, when the fates are unkind, when you're limping along and

004get kicked from behind. Oh, tell yourself how lucky you are. [Music] Why decry a cloudy sky, an empty purse, a crazy universe? My philosophy is simply things could be worse. So be happy you're here. Think of life as a thrill. And if worse comes to worse, as we all know, it will. Thank your lucky star. You've gotten this far. We're here in this beautiful theater and you're in the first row. How lucky to be in the theater. More lucky than you know. You could have the luck of our hero whose luck has been running low for certain. Curtain. [Music] How lucky you are. How lucky, how lucky, how lucky you are. [Applause] [Music] This next one is notice me, Horton. >> This is a part uh of the show where Horton has lost the who's

005on their clover in a patch of 100 clovers. And so he's trying to look for them. And at the same time, >> Gertrude is desperately begging for Horton to finally see her. It's taken all my courage to approach you, not to mention all my stamina to follow you across the hills and deserts. But I feel as if I'm ready to confess to you the feelings that I've hidden with great diligence and labor. behind the facade of your odd little next door neighbor. My eyes are too small. I have very large feet. And I'm not very proud of my pitiful tweet. But I've now got a tail that is something to see. Oh, notice me. Feather by feather. This is your next door neighbor calling. Notice me Horton Horton. Together, we could be great. Oh, notice

006me, Horton. Put down the clover. This is your next door neighbor calling. There's a new leaf. Your neighbors turned over. Over and over, clover by clover. I was just a only [Music] you showed up and showed me something more. Now I become someone who has to believe in and to be there for. >> I will not give up hope. I was hooked from the start when I noticed your kind and your powerful heart. So notice me, Horton. >> Oh, the world would be something new. >> Notice me, Horton. >> If they noticed a thing or two. >> Notice me, Horton. >> The way I notice you. [Music] This next one is titled Amazing Maisie and it is sung by Gertrude's role model and she's kind of bragging about how great she is and it's awesome.

007[Music] Poor little Gertrude. A sorry sight. I'm going to take you under my wing and baby you'll be all right. I was once a plain little bird like you, kid. One pathetic feather was all I grew. I had nothing show offish. What's a plain bird to do? And there's certainly nothing showoffish on you. >> Thank you, Maisie. >> Then I made a plan for my self-improvement. [Music] No more crumbs. I vowed I would have the cake. Yes. I went to the doctor. >> Dr. D by the lake. >> Ow. and he told me what sort of a pill I should take. Now I'm amazing Maisy as feathered as feathered can be now. Amazing Maisy. It was all for sale. Amazing Maisy. The birds are all whistling at me now. Amazing. Amazing. >> Baby, that's my

008tail. >> High or low. >> G, it's fabulous. >> Watch her go. >> G, I'm envious to and fro. Maisy's fabulous hair. >> I wish I had one like it. >> Left and right. >> Best I've ever seen. >> Day or night. >> Kids, you're turning green. >> What a sight. Maisy's fabulous tail. >> Get those pills. >> Get the pills. And you can have friends. Your horse is certain to see. And you can be amazing. Almost as amazing as me. [Music] Thank you so much for watching. That was excellent. I'll open it up if any board members want to comment on it. >> Mr. President. >> Yes, Molly. >> I am always just astounded that we are we have these kids that are so talented in our school district and we're over a month

009away from opening night and they already have that much down. They are so good. I could never do that. So congratulations kiddos. I'm really looking forward to seeing it. [Applause] >> Megan, >> I just also wanted to thank the staff who work with our our young uh high schoolers, our kids all the way through to develop that uh love of theater, the arts, music. I mean, it's an incredible program. our district has and I love that we get to showcase their talent and I cannot wait to see it and that there's going to be costumes and pictures with the children. I I'm putting it on my calendar as soon as this meeting's over. >> Mr. President, >> yes, Ryan, >> I feel obliged to point out that um I'm an alumni of Swing Choir at

010Hudson High School 1996 through 1998. And um I have to say we we could not touch that. That was just absolutely incredible. This the as Megan said, the program here is just it it's like professional. I don't they they're amazing. >> Mr. President, I'd like to make a motion that maybe he joins the cast next time. >> I'll second that motion. Can we third it? >> Thank you. Thank you everyone. Uh moving on to uh citizens request to speak on non-aggenda items. We only have one that's not uh school related uh closure related. So um that's Julie Baker. >> Hi, my name is Julie Baker. I'm a parent that lived here or lives here in Hudson. I am coming to the school board as well as all the parents that are gathered here to talk

011about a subject that no parent wants to stand in front of you and talk about. Uh my child was um sexually abused by a Hudson, Wisconsin coach. This is his mugsh shot. He was the freshman coach for Hudson High School. There have also been many other students and children that have been affected by people that have access to our children here in Hudson. Um, not only just recently, I'm sure those parents are not wanting to speak up at this time. They are probably going through a tumultuous amount of emotions and not even knowing how to process what they're going through. It has been eight years for me. This perpetrator once again, look at his face. He will be out fall of 2027. He has kids in the district and a wife that supports him. I

012want you to remember his face. Do not let your children around this person. I'm asking the school board, what are they doing to ensure our children's safety? What type of training are you giving to the teachers, the students, and any other member from the community at large that comes in and is interactive with our children. I ask that you take a tough stand. Enough is enough for our children. Enough is enough. I ask that you look at rule number 860, especially um subsection, let me get this for you. B, um, part A where it allows registered sex sex offenders to come into the schools with one notification to the superintendent as long as they have children in the school. This will be an issue for this school district fall 2027. Thank you for your time.

013Thank you, parents. Okay, starting with reports, uh, we have high school advisory update with Tara. >> That would be me >> or Shannon. >> Yeah. So, as my folks, uh, make their way up. Um, I recently had the opportunity to hear about the wonderful things that are happening at high school advisory and I thought that it would be worth uh the board and the public hearing about those cool things too. So, we have Mike Ballard and Andrea Sasonson here to tell us about that. >> I'm oversee our advisory program here at the high school. >> We'll start again. Okay. Um, I'm Andrea Sorenson. So, I oversee our advisory program here at the high school. Our big goal is for students to be connected to a trusted adult. So, hopefully from their freshman year through their

014senior year, so they get to follow um with that teacher for the four years. Um we have several pictures say when I asked staff to share, they were super excited. Um also, thank you to community members. I think at the high school level, parents don't know how to really help out. We don't have like a PTA. Um so, here's a fun Friday. Um Kim Binky wanted to shout out the Ager family. They often provide a free breakfast for our kids on Fridays. Part of just that bonded getting together and just keeping that relationship going and a trusted adult here. So that is our big goal. Um on the next slide we have just a little bit more of what our purpose or our vision is is just that all students have a consistent person for

015them to go to to help with scheduling their trusted adults and then we have that advisory time built into our schedule. Um it's every day for a half an hour and then we also use that as a support time for students too if they need to meet with um Mr. De LaCroy for the musical, if they need to check in for clubs and activities, or if they just need some retach in science or math. Um, but just again making sure that kids have that home base and a consistent place for them while they're here at the high school. Um, some other cool things that our advisory teachers do on the left, um, Miss Binbower, they had just kind of a mix it up bowl. They all brought in different candy and had a good sugar

016rush. I have door four in the morning and every Friday, too. There's a lot of nice snacks and foods. So, thank you to everybody who contributes. Um, and then Miss Holm, her advisory, you can see on the right, they do a yearly blanket project where they make items and then they work with our social worker and then they donate those to different groups in the community. So, it's also a giving back um and when there's different activities that we can just help out to bridge that with our school. Um, a schedule is on the next slide just for parents if they're hearing at home. On Mondays, it's that check-in with that teacher. They could either do academic checks um if they see a student just needs an extra connection. There's some lessons like today there

017was about our blood drive that's coming up. So just information for students who they can connect with different videos and then Tuesday, Wednesdays and Thursdays we have what's called raider time. Um you often hear vakava or bakava as we call it but kids get signed up and then they can go get that if they missed a test if they have a test coming up and they want to study. Those clubs and activities meet on Wednesdays. And then Friday is just a big funfest. And if you have a high school kid, you will probably get a request for candy for the trick-or- treat parties coming up in a couple weeks, too, because high schoolers still like to trickor treat. So um and then the last slide, just a few more pictures um of just things too

018to help with school community. On the left, this is Miss Hens's class, and they have their pet parade, but they each brought in like a pet, so they get to know different classmates as well. So, not only that teacher that they have, but just their peers. And then on the right, just um decorating the school, Raider Pride. We have different themes, different contests throughout the year, too, with their advisories. Just a lot of team building and relationship building for the high schoolers. That's what we have. Any questions or wonderings? >> Molly, sorry. I just I want to say I'm so glad that there seems to be a schedule. there seems to be, you know, substance and goals and things that we were working towards in community because I think it could kind of fallen to

019the wayside before you were here, Mr. Ballard. Um, and I think that having that home base and those kids that they're with is so important and that trusted adult as well. So, I appreciate this all the effort you guys have put into this. >> Thank you, >> Kate. Um, I too think that it it's amazing to think that our kids could have a trusted adult that they could go to if needed for any number of things. My question is how do we quantify how that's working for each student? Do they do a survey or um >> because I I have heard mixed reviews sometimes. So I >> Yeah. >> just want it to be the best it can be. >> Yeah. Yeah. So I can speak to that a little bit. So, we set our

020goals at our high school a couple years ago uh based on the level of of connectedness that the students were feeling at our school, right? So, about two years ago, um we asked we we picked eight select questions from a survey and we came up with an average score. We said, you know what, next year we're going to increase that by at least uh 20%. We wanted to get it. We wanted to see significant gain. And so, um Mrs. Senson does a wonderful job of leading the advisory and working with um different levels. So our adviserss are by grade level, right? And so on Mondays, for example, we will have different lessons based on whether the the adviserss are working with freshman, sophomores, juniors, or seniors. And they she became much more purposeful with the

021connectedness part of of advisory with the goal that every student here has at least one adult that they feel like they can connect with. And so last year uh when we when we uh looked at the exact same questions, those same survey questions, we we far exceeded our goal in terms of our students feeling connected to the school. So that was the only what I would call objective data to suggest that kids are feeling more what we would refer to as a collective raider as at at our high school. Um then at least we're trending in that right direction, right? And it's it's work like this that we try to we try to instill. It is though to to be fair, Kate, it's it does take a little bit for the kids to kind of

022own it, right? So Monday or Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, there's a lot of choice involved. You can choose to stay in your advisory and kind of just hang out and talk with friends or play games. Um or you can choose to go participate in a club or or um advisory meeting or you can choose to go see a teacher. um that that you might need some support with. So there is a lot of student choice there and sometimes if they don't take advantage of that routinely um advisory can kind of be a little bit more boring if you will for those kids. >> Yeah. >> I say too we do the survey in the fall and then the spring so then we get the comparison too of how much it's grown so that we've done that

023the last two years. >> Yeah. >> Anyone else? Okay. Thank you. >> Next up is the enrollment update with Andrea. >> Okay. So, we've done this a lot over the last several months. And what you'll see with the October 2026 update and turns elementary is that we've uh only varied a couple kiddos from September update. Um we continue to update the information in terms of the over and underclass size guidelines. And you can see we have two um that are a little above our class size guidelines but a lot of green that's um below. But again we're at 1935 and I believe in September we were 1936 or 7. So consistent with that um high school middle school a little bit more variation. Um just a few more kids uh between the 929 date and

024then October 10th date. Um down or up at the middle school by one and down a couple at the high school. So, not anything significant, but just a continuing update. >> Any questions? Nick, you want to >> Yeah, I think um I had some questions from board members. They asked kind of how our enrollment has been doing and how does it compare to other districts in the area. So, I did some checking uh just to kind of see where we are. Uh, and we we did talk about the fact that Hudson was we're down 147 students this year. Um, which is, you know, roughly um about 2.87% of our student uh population. Um, but I I checked around to see is this kind of an anomaly for us or where we're at. Uh, Somerset uh

025is down 14 students uh out of their, you know, which is roughly about uh 1% of their population. New Richmond is down 32 students this year, uh, which is down about almost 1%. River Falls is down 61 students this year, which is about 1 and 3/4%. Uh, St. Corey Central is down uh, 24 students this year, which is down about uh, 1 and a4%. Uh, Baldwin Woodville is down about 21 students this year, which is again about 1 and a4% uh, for them. Ellsworth is down 47 students this year, which is about almost 3% of their student population. Prescott is down 37 students this year, which is about three and a quarter% of their population. Chipa Falls, uh, just another Big River Conference School, is down 110 students, which is about 2.4% of their student

026population. Monomin is down about 40 students, uh, which is about, uh, which is about one one and a quarter of their population. And um you know I don't I don't have confirmed with Oaklair but I think the last time I talked to them they were down somewhere around 100 uh which would be right around probably 1% of their of their population. So uh the declining enrollment is real. It's not um unique to Hudson. Uh kind of what you're starting to see in the uh class sizes and things like that. Uh, as I talked to other superintendents in the area, they're experiencing similar things that we're starting to experience, which is the decline in enrollment pieces. Even in areas that are showing tremendous uh housing growth, uh, New Richmond, Somerset, places like that are still seeing

027that decline in in student enrollment. So, just wanted to bring that up because I think some people had asked me about it at one point and so I thought uh I would try to see what I could find um in talking with the the other area superintendent. So, Any questions? >> Dr. Wullette, I I just want to thank you for uh crunching those numbers uh and getting us the percentages this morning because I know it was a busy day. So, um I I really think that it helps gives us a context about what's happening here demographically in our area in terms of K12 enrollments. Um, and it's not that I want other districts to be in the declining enrollment club with us. Um, but at the same times, it it does really help us understand

028that this is a larger issue and it's not a Hudson issue. >> I would agree with Megan um since, you know, we've had the recent uh St. economic development uh study, housing study and and there were some concerns that the data wasn't up to date or wasn't uh uh relevant for that reason. Um it is this is real-time data from from our neighboring districts and some of them obviously in St. Croy. So uh I just think it's it is important to note that. Any other questions? What is the source of the No, we're we're not answering questions brought out from the crowd. That's not how this works. Um, if no, there are no other questions. Uh, we'll move on to topics for discussion and possible action and uh the approval of September 8th regular meeting

029minutes and September 29th special meeting minutes. Somebody wants to >> Mr. President, I make a motion to approve the um September 8th regular meeting minutes and September 29th special meeting minutes. >> Do I have a second? >> Second from Brian. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> All those opposed say nay. >> Hearing none. That passes. >> We need the consent agenda motion. >> The consent. >> Mr. President. >> Yes. Following up on that, I would like to make a motion uh to approve the consent items and that the chief financial off chief financial and operations officer be authorized to pay bills in the amount of 1 million86,464.99. >> We have a second. >> Okay. All All those in favor say I. I. All those post say nay. Hearing none. That passes. Okay.

030So, moving on to uh the the high school course proposal and that is Shannon. Yes. So, if you remember two weeks ago, we had um two staff members from the high school came to talk about um two new course proposals that they would like approved. And just as a reminder, the first one was unified physical education where general education students um would collaborate with their special special education peers to promote teamwork, mutual respect and social in inclusion. The second one was video production and Hudson Raider programming network 2. And um those would include units that um that further students experience in video editing and broadcasting like advanced video production techniques and lighting and video editing techniques and production leadership. >> Thank you. There any questions? Okay, I have a motion, >> Mr. President. >> Yes.

031>> Uh, I'd like to make a motion to approve the uh early college Oh, I'm sorry. I'm in the wrong spot here. To approve the high school proposal for the unified physical education, video production, and HRPN News 2. >> Second for Megan. All those in favor say I. I. >> All those opposed say nay. Hearing none. That passes and moves forward. Okay. Now we have uh moments that matter. The rager raider way proposal from Andrea. >> Yes. And so I'm excited to talk about this tonight. As you guys know um we've done the cheers for peers program for the past five or so years recognizing our staff where um colleagues rep uh nominate each other for this award and then it's recognized and celebrated by the board and um it's been a great program. However,

032we feel like there needs to be a little pivot this year. And so, what we really were going for is a deeper level of storytelling um about all the amazing things that are going on in our district. And so, we're our proposal tonight is moments that matter the greater way. Really, we want to um have uh more quarterly, uh stories, um develop stories about staff members, um that really tell powerful stories that we can share with the school board at the meeting. Um and it really uh can be submitted by any but anybody in the school community whether it's staff, students, parents, guardians, volunteers, visitors uh identifying staff who have made a difference in some way. So, we're going to have lots of different ways to submit uh those stories. And then after that, we

033are our plan is to bring it back um and do some interviews of staff of their supervisors um so we can build upon the story that was initially shared and then have a more robust story um developed through that process that we can bring to you guys. Then also link it back to our new strategic plan um and some of the goals um of supporting our staff and and the well-being of both students and staff. That's a big part of the new strategic plan. And then beyond that, the recognition ripple. I love this part where it's really the idea of where does it go from here, right? Like how does this matter? How does this relate back to all of us? And again, um just celebrating all the amazing things that our staff does in

034a little different way. So that's the proposal that I'm bringing to the board tonight. >> Erin, >> I love it. Good job. >> Thank you. >> Any other comments? I'm sure I'm sure you miss cheers for peers going forward. That was >> I Yes, I know you guys really enjoy when I talk really really fast and celebrate the staff, but I kind of I want to take a little bit more time and um dive into some of those stories and share some of the fun things and amazing connections that our staff make with our kids. >> Kate, >> I am really excited to hear the first one because I know I know there's so many amazing stories in every facet of our schools and we don't always get to hear about it. So, I think

035it'll be really exciting to learn about those stories. >> Okay. Marie, >> Mr. President, um, Andre, I just wanted to say I loved this proposal so much. I actually brought it up at work and, uh, because we were talking about how to do more connectedness at work. Um, we all work virtually and it just translated so beautifully. So, I loved your your idea works in many settings and I think we'll have some ripple effects. Thank you. >> I'm excited to bring it forward. Aaron, >> I can't hear Maria. >> I'm sorry. What? When you talk, can you make sure your mouth's closer to the mic? We can't hear you over here. I don't know if it's the sound system. Oh, okay. Sorry. I want to make sure you're heard. >> Okay. Thanks a lot, Andrea.

036Appreciate that. Um, moving on to the >> We need a motion, Mr. President. >> Oh, yes. >> Okay. We all love it. That's for sure. So I would I would love to make a motion to approve the moments that matter the rightaway proposal. >> Megan is recognized and >> second for Molly. All those in favor say I. >> I. All those opposed say nay. >> Congratulations. Moves forward. Okay. So now we're moving on to long-term facility planning and possible school closure discussion. And we have 41 um citizens requesting to speak. So, we are holding it to uh two minutes. It's going to be a while. We may have to take a break and somewhere in here, but we are certainly want willing to to hear public comment. And I will read the statement. Um public

037comment is for input only. It is not a question and answer session time for debate or a dialogue session. Members of the school board will not respond directly to public comments that are made at this meeting. No specific action will be taken at this meeting in response to to comments that are made or issues that are raised during the public comment period. If the board determines that action is appropriate, the action will occur at a future board meeting. A district representative may follow up with you after the meeting. The board chair will recognize one speaker at a time. Only those speakers who are recognized will be permitted to speak. Individuals who interfere with or interrupt speakers, the board, or the proceedings may be directed to leave. Personal attacks on any individual, including any other speaker,

038during the public comment session, are unacceptable as our obscenities or profanity, persistence in making such remarks will end the individual's opportunity to address the board and may result in the individual being directed to leave. I would like to remind everyone, I know this is emotional, um, but we please keep, uh, you know, Yeah. Uh applause are just keep keep the applause down. Keep the any you know jers down. Uh this is we want to be respectful to everyone. So starting off oops starting off uh Kathy Roberts. There's a timer on the front screen right there that will start with two minutes and it will count down to zero, I believe. >> Bob, can we maybe let the next two people know who are going to speak so they're ready? >> Can we maybe let the

039next two people know that are going to speak so they can be ready? >> Uh, next up after Kathy will be Jason I won't even try the last name and uh Jeannie Castro. Okay. >> Okay. So, my name is Kathy Roberts. I've lived in this district for 59 years. I was not born and raised here, but uh I have four kids. They all went through the Hudson school system. I taught at North Hudson when it was a little school and I also taught at Willow River. And I will say that I am here on behalf of Willow River. It is an emotional event for me to be at that school and see it still working. Well, I did write some things out. I'm leaving some money things out, but I will be back to talk

040to you again about some issues that I think are really important that the public needs to know about. But after Willow River Elementary School took over the middle school and before that the high school, this community supported a $7 million referendum to update the building. I was there when they were bringing in the cement in wheelbarls to make the turazzo floors. So, I have been there since the ground up and not 1919 obviously, but I am very engaged in that school. We were told by the engineers that this building was built better than any of the new buildings that were in construction. That space has become a gathering for school, the neighborhood, and the community. It is a fabulous space and a fabulous staff. And now I'm going to skip some of the parts, but

041they're important. Anyway, in the last referendum which just passed, the board gave some additional funding. I know it was for building but is also hoping to delay some support for public education in the legislature. So to make school closings and increasing transportation obviously is going to happen when you start moving a lot of kids around. It's going to increase. This is not the decision that the solution now. We need to support and elect people that support public education both on the board of education and our state and county representatives. So, please hold off on an important vote this time. Thank you. >> Thank you, Kathy. >> Jason is next. Good evening board members. My name is Jason Reman Schneider and I'm a proud Holton mom. Standing with me is Ellie, a willow mom. Tonight we

042stand together as a hol as Holton. I'm sorry. Tonight we stand together not as Holton or Willow parents but as Hudson parents united for this school and for the future of our children. A few weeks ago I sent the board a proposal to create a community revenue and partnership committee which the which with the community's input we've named it the Raiders Impact and Innovation Committee. The goal is simple. give the community a seat at the table to bring forward creative, proven solutions to generate new revenue. Districts across Wisconsin and the country are already doing this through naming rights, sponsorships, solar partnerships, and more. Hudson has not tried this yet, but we can. Ellie reached out after seeing my letter online with excellent resources and ideas. She represents one of many parents who want to stand

043up. The truth is Holton and Willow families are working together, pulling creativity and show and showing the community can work together on this solution. I am also standing here to say that I am willing to help pioneer this committee. I have the motivation, the expertise and and a strong background in sales and business development. I know how to build partnerships, raise funds, and deliver results. And I am ready to do that for for Hudson. This is not about delaying the inevitable. It's about doing due diligence. Before closing the schools, let's first exhaust every option to strengthen the revenue. >> Thank you. [Applause] [Music] Uh, Jeannie Castro is next and the next two are Emily Olms and Debbie Olms. So, Jeanie. >> Hi, my name is Jeannie Castro and I'm a mom of a family of

044four kids that attended Willow River Elementary School and every day we walk to school with our dog Schmidy. Um, I've also been a volunteer at that school since my daughter was in kindergarten. I remember standing in front of the class with sweat dripping down my back teaching art adventure. Uh, I also volunteered um for my son's class and he's the fourth one of the four kids. He just graduated um a year ago in May. And here's his graduating class from Willow. Um uh I remember uh when I volunteered in August class, Elanor, one of his classmates, uh we did an art project and she volunteered to clean up. She had a new dress on and by the time she had finished the the project, she looked fine, but she volunteered to clean up. And um

045she said after she cleaned up and her dress looked like it was tie-dyed, uh I think that was the wrong choice. And I think that this is the wrong choice. I understand we have a lot of decisions to make and the budget is not good, but our community at um Willow River and in Hudson with these small community schools is so golden and it's something that cannot be replaced. By closing either one of these schools, it really just destroys community. I was at Willow this morning and um the teachers there can't even um uh Lisa Plackner was my son Paco's second grade teacher and now he is 28. She's still teaching there and she can't we have such a strong community and family of teachers and friends built around this school and community that um

046as a parent I I can't let go and the teachers really have a hard time uh too hard to even come tonight. So I plea with the other parents that stand strong about this school that we do exhaust other other options before closing any schools. >> Thank you, Jeanie. Emily Alms. >> Emily. Hi, my name is Emily Alms. I am a senior at Hudson High School this year. I am here today to talk about my personal experience and tell this board and my community the impact Holton School had on me and my education. As I have become older, I have realized the many benefits of going to Holton. An example of what I appreciate about going to Holton is the opportunity we had to be hands-on with our learning, like our garden club. I look

047back and I am so grateful I got to try so many leadership opportunities which I may not have had if there were like six or seven sections in my grade like at larger schools. I have further developed leadership skills by being a Hudson varsity cheerleader for four years. I began this confidence I believe I began this confidence with my leadership I learned at Holton. Another thing I have noticed and appreciated about Holton community is the amount of Holton alumni that continue to come back and support this school and our community. As I will be graduating this year, I hope you take into consideration the effect of clo closing a school will have to kids, family, alumni, and the community as a whole. I would like to see the opportunities continue for the kids in my

048neighborhood. Um, Holton Elementary is more than just numbers to me and so many more. >> Thank you. Next up is Next up is Debbie Alms and the next two people are uh Jan Gavin and Danielle Samson. >> Hi, my name is Debbie Alms and my children went to Holton. You just heard from my youngest. She's a senior now. A school board's place is to provide government not for governance and oversight, ensuring schools reflect community value and meet the educational needs of the students. I commend the Hudson school board on a job so well done over recent decades. We have a room full of people here that are asking you to not close our schools. This is the result of an excellent job that you've done. Thank you. we could be in a very different position

049and I'm thankful that we're not that people aren't supporting the schools and it's not that we don't understand the very real challenge of declining enrollment and state funding. However, we encourage urge you to consider the long-term consequences of this action on both our children and our community. Holton is leading in the district, county, and state with educational success. Clearly, we've met the needs of the students and it also has low operating costs according to the data that's on the district website. But unfortunately, the goal of reflecting community values, I'm seeing a big divide in our community. We have Holton versus Willow, the community versus the school board. And that doesn't refle reflect the community that we want or that we've built up to this point. The history and traditions of the Hudson Community Schools such

050as the Holton Bazaar bring alumni back year after year because they're proud to have been part of this history. I ask that you take a step back instead of ripping off the band-aid and re-evaluate the data that's been potentially incorrect. There's so much out there it's hard to keep track of, but work with our community to carefully explore other options besides the four on the table. ones that could help us keep our schools open and solve the budget concerns. With all the creative ideas that are being brought up from the community, we ask for time and the opportunity to collaborate on alternatives because once the doors close, the impact in our community could be irreversible, moving us to a greater divide instead of the close-knit communities that we have and clearly want to maintain. Thank

051you. >> Thank you. [Applause] Dear school board, tonight if the decision you make is to close elementary schools, you will be permanently changing the way we educate our youngest learners. And although the focus has been primarily on finances, what's been missing, in my opinion, in this discussion is what is best for our youngest learners. Tonight, I'm here for them. I care very much that our schools are set up for their success. Neighborhood schools foster a sense of community and belonging that centralized schools cannot equal. In neighborhood schools, kids are able to attend a school where they live. Teachers, students, and parents are better able to build relationships with each other that foster learning for all the students in the building. Schools closer to home allow parents to easily become involved in their child's education. Studies

052have shown that in this type of school, learners achieve higher scores in reading and math. All of us have a duty to prioritize this type of learning experience for our beginning learners so they thrive. I've heard this board say that kids are resilient and will adapt if schools close. But what's not said is that we adults set up the situations for them. They have no choice but to adapt to what adults decide. Resilient does not mean unaffected. If two schools close, students from Holton and Willow will be asked to adapt. Adapt to longer bus rides, bringing them fatigue from a longer school day and less time with family. Adapt to leaving their neighborhoods to attend school. It will become harder for them to meet friends from their neighborhoods. Closing schools or redrawing boundaries breaks apart

053friendships, disrupts academics, and removes community supports. That is not what is best for kids. >> Thank you. [Music] The ne the next two up will be Kelly Ter Smith and Cody Clifton. Go ahead. As an alumni of Holton and a graduate of Hudson High School, I am one of the caring and contributing community members this district has dedicated to develop. First, I'm also in support of a community committee to find ways to keep our schools open. Give us this chance. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Next, there are known errors in your staffing projected staffing scenarios document. Friday morning, I emailed the superintendent about the incorrect capacity listed for option one. He said it would be fixed, and as of this morning, it was. Thank you for that correction. Friday afternoon, I

054emailed the board about the first error, encouraged them to doublech checkck all the numbers, and informed them of a second incorrect capacity number I had found. As of 6:00 p.m. tonight, that one still has not been addressed. This document has been circulating since July, and those errors went unnoticed until now. These figures make up 93% of Willow and 97% of Holton's projected cost savings. These aren't small mistakes. They go to the heart of the cost savings story driving this decision. I have four questions tonight. First, if these errors were missed, what else in this data might be wrong? Second, can each of the board members explain how the FTE calculations were done, how they translate into dollars saved, and why positions fluctuate among the options? Third, how accurate can these numbers be? We've been told

055a boundary study won't happen until after the vote is made. Fourth, can each of you say that you understand and have verified all of these numbers? If the public is finding errors before you did, it's only right that the board commit to review and verify every number before voting. Casting a vote without confirming the accuracy of this data is a breach of your responsibility. Each board member must be able to say confidently that you've personally reviewed and verified this data. You owe it to yourselves, the community you represent, our amazing staff, the amazing staff of our district, and our students. >> Thank you. Good evening. My name is Kelly Toer Smith and this is Juniper. She's a first grader over at Holton Elementary. Over the last several months, the community has spoken out in support

056of our elementary schools. We have asked and pleaded that the board pump the brakes on this decision that will damage our schools and our students abilities to learn and excel. It has come to light that some of the reports have inaccurate information that's been provided to the board and the community. It is imperative that all of the reports be 100% accurate and distri distributed with enough time that the board and the community to check their accuracy. This has not been done. I am humbly asking that the board vote at the minimum to keep Holton open. Ideally, to make a motion to keep both schools open, to work with the community to fund our schools that are vital to our families, our neighborhoods, and most importantly, our children. If you cannot find it in your conscience

057to keep Holton open, I ask that the vote be tabled for two years to allow the community to work with the board to find alternative means to fund this budget deficit. Thank you. >> Thank you. Next is Cody Clifton. The next two after Cody will be Andy Remy Schneder and Kristen Kesler. Cody. Hi, my name is Cody Clipton. Uh I am a Holton parent and I also have four kids at the middle school. Um, I want to just say something that I think gets glossed over a lot and that it's that you as the board and all of our schools are here to provide a service to the community. I hear all sorts of things about balancing the budget and cramming kids into 98% packed schools. That doesn't sound like a service. That sounds like

058a disservice. I don't appreciate it. I lost my wife to a drunk driver three years ago. And the services that Holton Elementary provided to me, my family, my kids were paramount in us getting through that. We're still working on it. If you guys just keep looking at numbers, you're missing the entire point. Look at all the people in this room. This is on a Monday night. It's inconvenient for anybody to be here. It's on a night when other things are happening, conferences are happening. All of these people felt it important enough to show up. It's egregious that you guys are talking about taking away services that are only going to make more terrible things happen in our community. Once you stop educating children, more things like drunk drivers out on the road, that's just a

059result. So, I definitely urge you to think about this in not a logical manner because that's what you guys seem to have been doing and it's getting you to the wrong places. Thank you. >> Hello, I'm Andy Reman Schneider. Um, I just wanted to read a few emails to you guys. uh that I've received from some of the owners of the local building companies locally. We've talked a lot about building numbers, new construction numbers. These are directly from the owners of the companies. Uh one of them is from a representative. So, um I have one here from Jen Holland. She's the owner and chief operating officer of Avant Homes. Um she just said, uh and I just asked about their new construction current in process and projected in the next one year. So, Jen says,

060"We currently have 18 lots and homes under construction in the Hudson and Holton St. Joseph area. We anticipate at least 15 to 20 additional homes in the area next year as well. We're trying to buy up as much land as we can as soon as it goes on the market and especially in the Hudson area. We receive a lot of calls from clients that want to live in the Hudson school district specifically. The majority of these clients are moving here from Minnesota. a lot of families looking to leave the city and move to the country, but they still want to be close by. Um, the next one is from Nick Hackworthy, president and CEO of Creative Homes. Uh, so he says that Caner Crossing, that's up by uh the current Heritage Greens, they have 20

061homes going in there. Windmill Hollow, that's off Tower Road, they have projected 174 homes across various housing types. Kenny Farmstead off of Badlands Road is going to have 70 plus homes. And then he also said Dr. Horton has a large parcel of property under contract next to the elementary school off of County Road F, which is Rivercrest. So, um, that's from Nick. And then also one of his project managers, Chris Wilcox, actually VP of operations. He confirmed the St. Corey Crossings neighborhood right in Holton off of 35 has 34 lots. 10 of them are available now in the first phase. Four of them have lot holds already. One models going in and one lot is already sold. Um and then lastly, I do have um Derek Bradard, sales rep for Hartman Homes. They have six

062under construction in Hudson and six more into the design phase for next year. New construction is coming. People are moving here. Your report shows past from 2022 before. This is as best as we can do to look in the future. builders are buying land and building. >> Thank you, Andy. After after uh Kristen, it'll be Teresa Johnson and Martha Dendorf. >> Good evening. Budget and enrollment projections led to the board's decision in August to close one elementary school. I caution the board that closing two schools will not be better overall for the district. Closing a second school may save up to $1.3 million a year, but the costs that offset this savings are not negligible. There is a loss of 200,000 from currently open enrolled students who leave the district. You estimated an estimate of

063an increase in busing costs of 140 to $280,000 a year. This reduces savings to under a million a year. It would only take 40 students leaving the district to reduce this to under $500,000 of savings per year. We've talked about class sizes moving toward the top of district guidelines. Hundreds of students from all elementary schools being moved when boundaries are withdrawn. Redrawn. The loss of thriving community school for the St. Joseph area. A board member recently said, "Putting these together leaves me unsure whether the savings is worth the permanent cost of closure." Tonight, you have the ability to shape the future of Hudson schools. You can be responsible, meet the budget, and protect the future of the Hudson schools by voting to close one at a time. There are benefits to this option. We will

064meet the budget for now. the community can see you are listening to us and you maintain our support for the schools and future referendums. We were and will be essential to getting future referendums passed. It allows the board and community to see the impact of a school closure on the budget, on students, on staff, on enrollment. It pre prevents an expedited disenrollment in the district. It appeases families by allowing them to keep their current school through an indist open enrollment. It allows us to see what we get for the yuyu property. It allows us to monitor the demographic and growth in the UYU property and the town of St. Joseph. It will allow the community to process and be ready to close a second school in the next two to three years if needed based

065on evidence. If there is evidence, we will support you in the decision and the process will be smoother. You were elected to be on this board at this time and you have the opportunity to shape the future of the Hudson schools. I encourage you to listen to the community that elected you to be our voice voice and our vote. We are asking you to take a reasonable approach and close one school at a time. >> Thank you, Kristen. >> Teresa Johnson. >> My name is Teresa Johnson. I am the chair for the town of St. Joseph. You received a letter. You received a letter from us and you also received an email from me personally regarding this situation and I would say you received more than one letter. But I thank you for this opportunity.

066I thank you for the opportunity to be able to speak to you tonight. We and the board understand that Holton is the best school. It is the best school. It has the highest scores. It it it's just a number one school and it has had steady enrollment. Why does it have steady enrollment? Because the town of St. Joseph has over 2,200 acres in the town in this school district. People move there to be in this school district and be in that school. I just talked to a family not too long ago that was has has bought a $200,000 lot and they have two children in elementary school and one on the way. So, it isn't that we are not selling to children. And if you take that 2200 acres, even at three acre minimums, you're

067still looking at about 700 homes, you take 200 of those homes with two kids, that's 400 kids. Where are you going to put them? Holton is the place that you can put them because it has the room to expand. I also want you to be aware that um our homes will lose value if we lose that school. That school makes our homes more valuable. Therefore, you get more taxes on that value of that home. We're the reason we're getting families. And the big reason is because of that school. Um, we just built a new town hall, so I know how difficult these decisions are and this process is, but it took us 15 years to get there. And we felt strongly that we listened to everyone that had anything to say about it because it

068was their tax dollars. And when we built it, we did it with the least amount of impact on the residents. I understand those challenges. I ask you that you explore every single possibility before you close these schools and especially before you close Holton with its long-standing history and its contribution to our community. Thank you. Thank you. after Martha, it will be Ashley Curts and Colin MNA. Hi, I'm Martha Dindorf and I am a parent of three Willow River students. I'm here tonight with a number of concerns, all pointing me to ask you one main question. Are you confident that closing schools is the right choice at this time? First, what is the long-term plan? Closing Willow and Holton will not on its own solve the budget problem. If schools are closed, I worry there will

069be a great distrust of the board and it will be very difficult to pass referendums in the future. Second, many questions remain unanswered as to how the remaining schools will operate. For example, will there be enough gym or cafeteria space or how will cuts to things like speech and reading specialists work when we have the same number of students qualifying for these services? I understand that it's not feasible to create a detailed plan for each of the options, but there are so few details here. A business would never make a decision this significant without understanding the operational impacts, and neither should we. That said, schools are not businesses. Children are not numbers, and we must consider more than just the spreadsheets. Right now, we have six great elementary schools, each with its own each with

070its own unique culture. If we close schools, shuffle teachers and students around, we will not lose just two amazing schools, we will also radically change the remaining four schools. Before I'm out of time, I must take a moment to talk about Willow. There's a feeling you get almost as soon as you walk in the door of Willow. Like you have been welcomed into a family that is accepting and vibrant. The principal, staff, and teachers are amazing individually, but together they are truly something special. It is a school rich with traditions, family and neighborhood involvement, and a culture of inclusivity. The building is an important part of Hudson's history, and that adds to the student experience. Closing Willow would be a loss felt by many. To wrap up, closing schools should be the last option considered.

071If you have any doubts, I urge you to put on the brakes, explore every possible solution to this budget problem while we still have the finances to do so. That way if and if and when you must close schools, you can do so with the trust of the community. >> Thank you. [Applause] >> Good evening. My name is Ashley Kurt. I am a mom of five young children. My oldest, Joanie, here is at Holton Elementary. We toured many schools and thought we would pursue private school, but joyfully landed on Holton Elementary. We have loved every moment. Holton has kept us in Hudson. It feels safe, secure, and like home. If Holton closes, we are one of 40 families that I am personally aware of considering leaving the district to go private or to homeschool. While

072I understand tough decisions, I am off-put by this process. some of the outdated data points and lack of uh intent in trying to explore creative solutions and long-term planning. I run an organization that is used to making tough decisions, but it always feels better knowing we tried. I offered to help and others have offered to help. We hope that you accept it. If you close H Hotton, it will be a huge loss. Our teachers, staff, and community deserve better. If this is the forethought going into closing schools, I truly worry about the thought of safety protocols in place to keep our children safe at these maxed out capacity school environments. Your plans will include larger class sizes and less oversight. The district will lose a safe and secure school in Holton. I also would like

073to um provide an example that I thought of back here. Much like you, I face tough decisions. I run a dog rescue organization where we often have to consider youth in Asia for behavioral or medical needs. I was thinking it through and I was like, you know, Koko's heart takes great pride in knowing we have tried what we can before making those decisions. And I would like to counter this decision with that. I would like you to try what you can to take advantage of these incredible offers to support our school in doing our very best before making the tough decision to close. It would feel a lot better to all of us if there was more intentional thought into these creative uh solutions. Thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you. After Colin, it'll be

074Claire Karent and Annie Goldberg. You should all have the document that I'm about to read. The administration projects a 3.7 million in savings for closing two schools, but unused for P but unused or padded budget lines offer alternative savings. These cuts and adjustments would exceed the 3.7 million target without layoffs, additional tax increases, or classroom cuts. There's a $20,000 budget line item that literally says blank. This overlook line, this overlook shows that the budget wasn't clearly read. There's another line item for new vehicles and equipment of $815,000 with $0 spent. Freeze this category. Free up $776,000 allocated for new vehicles. Hudson doesn't need new vehicles. New computers, $293,000 budgeted, $0 spent. Previous years, 90% of this budget was spent to date. Free up and reprogram this $293,000. Hiring bonuses, $110,000 budgeted, zero dollars spent. Reprogram

075these idle funds. Number five and six are are line items I'd like you to investigate. Purchase services. $18.3 million budgeted for nonitemized unexplained personal services. This category has over 29 million unspent, and I would love for you to investigate the $18 million that is unidentified for personal services. Lastly, there's an $ 8.656 million that was transferred out of special education. It doesn't show where that money was transferred to. Wisconsin statute 6590 requires budgets to be itemized all appropriation changes. I'm sure there's an innocent place where this went. It just doesn't show it in the budget. Lastly, it is public knowledge that Dr. Nick has applied and interviewed for multiple jobs during his time as Hudson superintendent. What can infer that he does not want this job? If you are going to make >> we're not

076going to we're not going to allow personal attacks of district employees attack. This is public information. If you are going to make heavy decisions based on closing schools, I believe that it should be made under different leadership. You should make decisions that leaders can live with and do not run away from. There are enough inconsistencies in this budget and the leadership that this board should pass a motion tonight to keep both schools open and search for more reasonable budget means of covering future. Okay. All right. We are going to take a 10-minute recess. So, if this if this type of behavior continues, we will not allow personal attacks against district employees or board members. We need to keep it professional. [Applause] I'm going to ask one more comment from you and you're going to be

077asked to leave. Okay. >> Okay. If everyone could please join uh take their seats, please. And I'd just like to say that uh we will not tolerate yelling out from the crowd. We want to keep things professional and respectful. You guys have been great as far as trying to stay to the two minutes. We appreciate that. But uh if this continues, we will have to cut off public comment period. So please be respectful. And I believe you were coming. Uh was it Colin? >> No. player. Sorry. Sorry. >> I'm from Holton Elementary in fifth grade. I love Holton. It's a really nice school and I think you guys should keep it open. First, my dad was the first ever fifth grade class to ever go there. And if you close Holton, I might be the

078last. This is your remember this is your legacy. Thank you. >> Thank you [Applause] Annie. >> Hi. Thanks for letting us all talk tonight. Um so I'm just going to off the bat I really hope that tonight you just choose to close at just one elementary school. And part of the reason for that is I really think the discussion tonight should center around, this may be controversial, ending our 4K partnerships with private institutions. Um, I understand that when 4K was first mandated by the state, we didn't have space in our elementary schools. Um, we've been told time and time again that we have space and lots of it. Um, I think if we just close one elementary school or none, you know, if you're feeling really generous, um, then we would we could take all

079of our 4K and put them into the remaining elementary schools. Um, this does a few things. Um, for those of you who don't know, uh, state funded 4K is offered at Trinity, St. Pats, Bethl Highlands, the Giggle Factory, and two of our public elementary schools right now. Um, and they're wonderful institutions, and they could still offer 4K, just not state funded 4K. Um, part of the reason is transition's easier. I have talked to district staff, both former and current, and that transition from 4K to kindergarten is much smoother, uh, if that student attended 4K at the school they're going to be attending. The capture rate, we talk about it a lot. It stayed steady, which is fantastic. But we are losing students, even if a few, to Trinity and St. Pats every year because students

080go to 4K at Trinity and St. Paths. It would be an easy capture to take these students instead of going to Trinity, they go to EP, love EP just like they love Trinity. Now they're going to kindergarten at EP, first, second, on and on. Transportation. We would no longer need to transport kids to Bethl Highlands, Giggle Factory, um, Trinity St. Pats. Also, there's been talk about centralized 4K site. I'm just going to tell you right now, our voters are not going to want to hear about new construction. If you're going to close two schools tonight, we that wouldn't need to happen. That would no longer need to be in the discussion. Thank you. Next up is Next up is Sarah Marark, followed by Eleanor Alexander and Bryce Buckles. Hello, my name is Sarah Maroch and

081I'm a Holton mom. I want to start out by saying that Willow and Holton parents are do not feel poorly or bearish about the other elementary schools in the district. We are simply here to speak up for our kids and the community as a whole. Several of you ran for the board on a platform to save the schools. Under that notion, you were elected to join as critical and creative problem solvers to help find alternatives to closing our community schools instead of blindly following pre-existing pathways to solutions. It feels like there's been a lack of follow-through on the principles for which you ran. A board member mentioned in a recent Star Observer article that we are all neighbors and we still have to be neighbors after this vote, even if the outcome isn't what we

082hope for. And you could not be more correct. We are neighbors and neighbors are individuals who work together. Instead, we're in a position where we're pitted against one another. Holton versus Willow. Currently, it feels like the board is working with the administration in a vacuum. We should be working together as neighbors with our elected officials to reach a solution that is more representative of this community. All of you are elected to make decisions that represent the voice and the values of the people in the community and the community clearly does not want to close schools. Once this decision is made, it is irreversible. If you close the schools, you cannot go back. It is permanent and it is a decision that impacts our entire community, many of whom don't have the slightest clue of how

083it will impact them. You've lost the trust of this community, but tonight you have an opportunity to rebuild that trust. I implore you to be the individuals that we voted for. treat us as your neighbors and make a decision that tonight that will rebuild our trust, rebuild the trust and partner with us to find a solution that better aligns with our values. Thank you. >> Thank you, [Applause] >> Elanor Alexander. Thank you. I understand that we're facing a double-edged sword tonight. We have low enrollment and shrinking budgets. I don't like it, but from the enrollment perspective, I can understand the rationale for a single closure. At least as enrollment stands today, doesn't mean that I don't think it could change based on new housing, interest rates, housing cycles, or a bunch of other factors. And

084we should hedge our bets against those things just in case. But as it stands now, enrollment is back to what it was in to sorry 2001, back when we had five schools, not six. So even if I don't like that, I understand that. Then there's budget. It's scary to stare stare down a shortfall in a few years. So I understand that there's an urg urgency felt to cut costs, but we can't exclusively focus on the immediate savings that we may get from these closures. We need to look forward and at least try to anticipate potential fallout. Birth rates in our county are low. So, our only hope for stabilizing or growing enrollment is attracting transplants from outside the district. I want to do a quick audience poll. Raise your hand if you or moved your

085family here from outside the district. Okay. If we close one school, the headlines in the cities in western Wisconsin will be things like Hudson schools makes a difficult decision, closes one school but saves another. It'll be bittersweet, sad yet responsible. If we close two schools, I'm afraid the headlines will be much more damaging. They'll say, "Hudson schools are in a budget and enrollment crisis. They're in decline. It's so bad that they had to close a third of their elementary schools." For the next 5 to 10 years, every family who considers moving to Hudson, like all the hands you saw out there, will see these headset lines, hear that news, and think twice about moving here, or they won't even consider it at all. At the last meeting, I think it was Megan who talked about

086um about being scared of a death spiral. I feel that fear that closing two schools, especially at the same time, is more likely to put us into that death spiral than to save us from it. Um, even if it saves us a little bit more money today, um, is the fallout in 5 to 10 years going to be worth it, or will we look back and say that this is what sunk us? Especially with Willow or Holton potentially being eyed by private schools, but that's a whole another issue. Closing one school is heartbreaking, but I can see the prudence in it. But closing two seems like a very risky overcorrection. Thank you. >> Thank you. Good evening board members. Thanks for the opportunity to speak with you tonight. My name is Bryce Buckles. I'm a

087proud Holton dad. I'm here to speak on behalf of myself, my friend John Dolan, who could not be here tonight. Hundreds of community members who care about our school. Like so many others, my wife and I built our home and started our family in St. Joseph largely because of the reputation of Holton Elementary. We wanted our children to have an amazing experience in a small school when they didn't feel lost in the shuffle. Being a kid is harder now than it's ever been. Holton has made this easy. It's been way more than advertised. It's not that we don't feel other elementary schools couldn't provide a great experience, but this is our school. It's our community. The challenges facing the district are large. But I wanted to say I also support the idea of establishing a

088community committee to find solutions to keeping our neighborhood schools open and imminized closures. Today, Friends of Hudson Schools has more than 900 members, including some of the board members. Almost 400 of them uh 40% have joined since the decision to close schools was announced in August. During the same time, we've had more than 22,000 people view our social media platform to learn about the financial issues facing our schools. That's equivalent to most people in our entire community. I'm sharing this to let you know we are here and ready to support. You don't have to rush into making this decision alone without broad community trust and support. The budget model shared show a so surplus through the next school year. You can take more time to gather more data, give community involvement a chance, and make

089the best decision in one year's time. There are thousands and thousands of people that have learned about the issue. Hundreds of them want to help and find a solution. Give us all a chance to be a part of that. We want to work with you and find creative ways to protect a crown jewel of our community, our neighborhood schools. All you need to do is give us a chance. We are here and ready. Thank you. [Applause] [Music] >> Hi, my name is Mila. I'm a second grader at Holton Elementary. My school means a lot to me and my sister. I love my teachers, my friends, and learning new things every day. Please don't close our school. It feels safe and happy there. If you don't if you close our school, I won't be able to

090see my friends every day, and that makes me sad. We do a all school skating garden club. Think of us kids, please. Thanks for listening. >> Thank you. >> I think my wife was next. She had to go get our other kids. So she'll be passing. Please no no calling out from the audience. Next is Megan Megan Tracy followed by Justine Lundren and Charles Dolan. My name is Megan Tracy. I'm a Holton mom and Hudson alum. I want to start by acknowledging how difficult the decision before you is. And it is one that we know you don't take lightly. These are complex choices that affect students, families, and the future of our community. But we want you guys to know that you do not have to do this alone. Our community wants to be a

091part of the solution. And I'm not just try just talking about a vote on the back of a ballot. We are ready to bring forward ideas, partnerships, and resources that may not have been explored yet. For example, Hudson is home to Uline, a privatelyowned company worth billions located right here in this city. A lot of the people here have connections to Uline. We also have a rich history of community support. North Hudson Elementary exists today because residents came together 70 years ago to start the North Hudson Pepperfest and they funded the school. That same spirit of creativity and collaboration still exists in Hudson. Let's tap into that. I strongly support Jayce's proposal to form a community committee and allow a one-year timeline to find sustainable funding and solutions to keep at least one of our

092neighborhood schools open. The nearby New Richmond community did just that. By forming an engaged community, they put passed a $100 million referendum in only one year. If they can do it, so can we. I'm also speaking on behalf of families who moved to Hudson because of our strong, highquality neighborhood schools. I left a beautiful community in Minnesota to come here and send my kids to elementary school here. Closing two schools could jeopardize one of our community's defining strengths, especially when there's so much that is unknown with the current plan. We respectfully ask, please don't rush this decision. Allow the community to work alongside you to explore every possible path to preserve our neighborhood schools. hundreds of parents and residents are ready to contribute ideas, time, and resources. And if we are in the same um

093boat a year from now, then we can at least say that we did everything we possibly could to keep these schools open for our children. Thank you, [Applause] >> Justine Lungren. Hi there. Just us again. You might remember us from last time when we came up here to speak. It's Justine, Landon, Nick, and I have two beautiful girls in third and fourth grade at Holton. Um, closing our elementary school is not a long-term solution to our district's problems. We are surrounded today by parents and a community that are more than willing to work for our beloved elementary schools in finding long-term solutions to our district's challenges. Why are you not embracing that? We're so fortunate to have a community that cares so deeply. I'm pleading with you to keep Holton open, which has me both

094disturbed and disappointed that you're supposed to be representing us. So, here's my brave kindergartener. >> He's up here for the second time with me speaking because we're teaching him that his voice matters. I'm asking you to be our voice. Be his voice. and find some courage to vote no to closing our school. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Save. >> You got 30 seconds. Uh, I'll add this is a a this decision is going to have a significant impact on the whole Hudson district and it's a pretty big deal and I feel like there's a lot of people out there that don't know that they're going to be affected by this and if they did that this auditorium would be overflowing if they actually know the effects that would happen with any closures of the

095schools. That being said, when I think of significant impacts, I think about experiences. Um, and what experience does anybody have experience closing a school, let alone two schools? And if you do, how did that come out? And then secondly, if you don't have experience closing a school, how do you know the decision that you're making is the right one? >> Thank you. [Applause] Charles Charles Dolan followed by Anne Foss and Carrie Trace. >> Good evening. My name is Charles Dolan. You might recognize me from my time as the weatherman at Holton Elementary. I'm now a seventh I'm now a seventh grader at the middle school and I'm here because I wanted to ask you to keep Holton open. I want I went to Holton from 1st to fifth grade and I loved everything about my

096time there. the Gaga pit, hawk talk, kite day, prairie fire theater, being able to be there with my brother and sister. Now my younger sister and brother both go there and we get to share stories and memories and tell and they tell me what's still going on at the school. I really want my youngest sister, Rory, to go there next year, too. There's so many things I love about Holton, and I don't want her to miss any of them. If it's closed, we'll never be able to share stories about the same school. I really like the idea I've heard from other people who have spoken tonight about giving parents a chance to raise money and find a way to keep the school open. Sounds like a great idea to me and I'm willing and I'm

097ready and willing to help out. Just please give me the chance to do that. >> Thank you. [Applause] Anne Foss. [Applause] >> Hello, my name is Anne Foss. I'm the parent of three children that have attended or are currently attending Holton Elementary. I really support the idea of delaying this decision for one year. Let parents help out. We saw parents rally together with from both Willow River and Holton the last year to get the last referendum passed. They were dedicated to um educating the community and what the referendum meant and how it was different from previous referendums and why it mattered. We have proven our ability to partner with the board to get important issues passed. I'm also here speaking to represent at least 65 other families. The parents partnered together to conduct our own

098survey of the community members. We have chosen to stay in the community after we grew up here to raise our own families here primarily because of the highquality neighborhood schools. We all felt that we received a high-quality education and it set us up for success to be able to bring our families back and have our kids attend those schools as well. Having schools close to where we live with our neighbors that aren't huge schools where our children get lost in the shuffle are really important things for us. I know when my kids go to Holton that the teachers learn who they are, what their ticks are, and what makes them learn best way possible. Um, we'll miss that if we have increased class sizes and massive schools. Uh, at conferences, my son's teacher told us

099that he already knew Oscar well because he was just across the hall a year before. Is that going to be replicated with huge schools when all of our kids are in one place? We want the ability for our kids to walk to schools and be a part of the community where we know that our kids won't get lost in that crowd. The option of closing both schools isn't ready for a vote. There's too many questions remaining. Don't rush this decision. In my job, I always look at is it a two-way door or a one-way door. If it's two-way door, can make the decision fast and quick. One-way door, we pause, we look at the data, and we do additional research. I'm simply asking the board to look at it that way. Thank you. Next up

100is Carrie Rice, followed by Evelyn O and Addison Felro. >> Uh good evening. My name is Carrie Rice. Um I believe in public schools. Uh strongly believe in public schools. In fact, um I helped to campaign for the last two resolutions among a group of retired friends of mine, which is not always an easy thing to do to ask somebody who does not have kids in the school system. I'm kind of representing a demographic that we haven't heard from yet tonight, don't have kids in the school system, and to convince them to part with their retirement dollars to fund this school. And they did. They did. They believe strongly in public schools. Um, I think it's remarkable what this what this district has done with the resources you have and I'm pleased to see so

101many people here engaged tonight because I'm hoping you continue to pay attention to the funding challenges that we have as a state. It I've been paying attention for the last 20 years and I don't like it. I don't like um the way things have gone squeezing the public funding from the state to the local repeated referendums. We are not alone in this challenge. Um I encourage everybody here to continue to stay engaged. Um you guys have been dealt a bad hand. You know, if you're going to use a gambling thing, you're all here. You ran for the board for different reasons uh for things that you want to change, but you're attempting to show people a picture of what you're dealing with. And yes, finances are part of it. It has to be a big

102part of it. Um, my ask of the people here is to continue to be engaged and pay attention to how public schools are funded and the kind of resources they have to provide versus private schools and the way that that vouchers and other things are used as a tool to continue to squeeze us. Um, I will continue to campaign for strong public schools in my community among people that are retired that don't have kids in school that, you know, don't have their sleeve in the ringer from the resources that are provided. Um, I think you're doing a great job. Um, I can't predict what you're going to do, but keep kids at the middle. Keep kids at the center of the decision. Thank you. >> Thank you. [Music] Hello, my name is Evie and I'm

103a fourth grader at Holton. I want you to keep Holton open because Holton is one of the smallest schools and I like that they have so many fun traditions including the all school skate garden club and many more. I would like to keep Holton open because it's a because it's my school and I love it very much. I would like for me, my sister Audrey, who's in second grade, and my brother Elliot, who's going to be through tomorrow, to get through Holton. Thank you. >> My name is Kaylee. I am EB's mom. I just want to thank you all for taking everything into consideration, all the factors that go into making this really critical and irreversible decision. I just we love Holton so much. My husband and I moved to St. Joseph in 2014. It

104wasn't until 2021 when Holton had their kindergarten meetup that we started to establish really meaningful relationships with our neighbors, people on our street who are now some of our closest friends. That wouldn't have happened without Holton. We're so unbel unbelievably grateful. We recognize the challenges, but that in this case, logic and compassion have to be balanced. I beg you. Please partner with us and allow our kids to continue to flourish and grow in our neighborhood schools. Thank you. >> Thank you. Next up is Addison, followed by Keslin Kaylee Kaylee Adams and and Simone Lern. Oh, okay. Thank you. Um, I'm Addison Filatro and Willow River has taught me so much as a parent and a fellow educator. They have shared professional development ideas which have helped children all over the metro. Personally, without them, I'm

105not sure where my children would be socially. I know they would be okay, but we have worked in tandem so well because they truly care about the coaching model, reteing expectations, communication with parents, and working with each kid where they're at. It is a place where everyone and anyone can belong and what has kept us in the district for years instead of moving to be closer to my job. I have three asks of the district aside from please don't close the schools. Um, one, please hire a special ed coach with the extra savings of closing a school. have a looser boundary exception, especially for children with IEPs, and look into the legality of an over a special ed oversight committee. Historically, Willow used to be the center for kids who had autism, and the district

106discontinued it because they felt children were being quote ripped out of their neighborhood school. Ironically, the neighborhood school that housed most of the kids on the spectrum is now up for closure. Willow has been so special because both the general education and special education teachers are highly trained in supporting students with special needs because the district ASD consultant works there and it shows. Not only is there inclusivity and acceptance amongst the staff, but the school actively works on autism acceptance with the student body. The staff builds confidence, helps regulate children's behavior, and most of all, they include them. My heart breaks for what is likely going to happen when Willow closes. I know we have great teachers across the district, but without the very at the very least a special education coach to help train

107staff for how to work with our highest needs students, we are setting staff and students up for failure. There is no plan that has been communicated. And it is even more worrisome now that the Department of Education closed the Office of Special Education. Now, there is no federal oversight. There is significantly less funding for special education because there's no one to give out the money. If we must close Willow, which I actively do not want to see happen, I'm kindly asking for the district to use some of the savings to hire a special I know my time's up to special education coach. If you haven't been in a classroom, a disregulated child can be incredibly disruptive to everyone's learning, including your own. >> Thank you, Addison. >> Thank you. >> Next, next up is Simone

108Lerno, followed by Scott Ellingsson and Hannah Jung. Hi there. I'm Simone Laterno and I'm a proud Willow parent. Um, as a business owner, I have a business downtown Hudson. That was part of my thing. I uh I feel that we have not explored all of our options to raise money to keep these schools open. I urge you to reverse this decision to close any schools today and instead give your community more time to help figure out a better solution to our financial problem. Enrollment will increase and with small margins you have left us with if you close both schools. There will be barely enough room for growth. I feel closing any schools today will be the death of our district. I feel it will have repercussions for years and years to come. I moved him

109from Nevada 9 years ago in search of small neighborhood schools. No one wants large class sizes and it'll be virtually impossible to keep them small with the margins you will leave us with. I urge you to stand up and think for yourselves and not vote with the majority of the other board members, but please give us more time to explore other options. Willow is the heart and soul of our downtown community. You cannot replace this school and what it has to offer. These teachers give their heart and soul to our kids every day while doing it if their jobs are while while they're wondering if their jobs are going to get ripped away tomorrow. And this has been going on for years and years. These poor teachers have been wondering if their jobs are going

110to go. I can't imagine trying to sit and concentrate and give your all to these children, which they do, while just constantly wondering that. I'm asking you to please table these discussions for another year so we can please find a better solution to our financial problem we are in. Also, on a side note, I just want to say, you know, we're in a time where we don't want our kids in front of screens all day. And one of the pleasures I have is to walk my kids to school every single morning and I hold their cute little hands every day. And you know, just a couple weeks ago, my oldest, who is seven years old, told me, and she knows nothing about this because we have, unlike some other people here, have protected her because

111we don't want her to have unnecessary anxiety. But I will say she looks at me and she just says, "Mom, I love our walks to school." And that is one of the reasons we bought downtown because we love that we can walk to our school. And I will say, we will lift leave this district and go to a private school if we have to. If we cannot walk to our school anymore, you are going to lose parents. [Applause] >> Hannah. Okay, Scott, you'll follow Hannah. >> Hi, it's actually Hana. Um, I'm Hana Jung, anxious mom of two kids at Willow River Elementary, a second and a fifth grader. Bonus mom of two kids that went to EP Rock along with being a small business owner in downtown Hudson. We purchased our home in downtown Hudson

11212 years ago. My oldest son is 10 years old, so he wasn't born when we bought our house. However, with having two bonus kids, we found out that our home was in the Willow River elementary boundary. Because of the split households, my stepkids continued to go to EP Rock. When they were older, they wanted to to bike to school from our house, and we didn't let them because we thought it was too far. My older son will be in middle school next year. my my youngest if my youngest son had to go to EP Rock for the rest of his el elementary, it would not be the end of the world. I was fairly familiar with EP Rock when my stepkids and my stepkids enjoyed going there. That's the thing though, not knowing where my

113youngest son will be next year if it's not Willow is upsetting as a parent. We're not planning on moving yet. We have to be prepared to possibly move our child next school year. There's no guarantee that it will be EP Rock if Willow closes because the district doesn't have the boundaries or redistricting in place. And it doesn't sound like they would until next spring of 2026. And open enrollment isn't guaranteed either. Other than having the luxury of enrolling our child into one of the private elementary schools next year, we're stuck not knowing. Aside from urging the board not to close two elementary schools, my big my biggest ask is that when you dec when you do make a decision this e evening that you give us a full ye school a full school year to

114prepare with that with there being enough of a surplus in the budget. Please consider having the closure take effect starting in the spring. >> Thank you. >> Or in 20 2728 school year. Thank you for your time. >> After Scott, there'll be Annne Platson and Amy Walsh. I am the longest serving teacher in the Hudson School District and a lower river parent. I want to thank you board for your time, all your time, your transparency and this very difficult process. The Hudson Education Association advocates keeping all your schools open and at least one of the Holton or Willow. 2030 is key to all of us. In 2030, we will likely have to do another operational referendum to keep our district running well. Between now and then, if we close one school, we will reduce expenses

115by $1.7 to$2 million per year in an $80 million budget. That reduction can be put into our fund balance and designated to offset later expenses. We can close one school, become efficient in our space use, have room for a robust 4K program in multiple schools, and have room to grow if needed. Deferred maintenance and capital improvements according to the W report suggest over five million is needed for Holton and over 18 million is needed for Willow. These capital improvements can be prioritized over multiple years and paid for by a combination of using the annual maintenance capital improvement budget and the undesated fund balance currently at $30 million. You need to decide where you want the footprint to remain. the northwest area of the district or downtown or both. In any event, in any event, new

116boundaries will continue the tradition of our strong neighborhood schools until 2030 and beyond. We can keep Willow or Holton open for the next 5 years, and attract and retain quality staff, grow our 4K presence, keep our strong programs, and keep our class-size guidelines. Holton Energy helped pass our recent referendum and Willow was part of your strongest pro-referendum voting precincts. We can't do without both to pass that inevitable 2030 referendum. Please make the tough and prudent choice by keeping at least one of these amazing neighborhood schools open. We can do this. Thank you so much. Thank you, Scott. Latson, >> thank you for the time to uh address the board. I I can't say much that hasn't been said said already, but one of the the key elements I've I've started attending the meetings because keeping

117Willow open was really important to me. I've had three boys go through the the the district uh like or the the this school. I I love the idea that I can stand on my my corner and watch with a actual kitchen coffee cup and and watch them go to school. That's a luxury that that can't be bought. It really can't. And that that's the more emotional side. But since I've started to come to these these meetings, every time that I'm seeing the the first one I went to was at the middle school with the legal size paper with a lot of questions, more questions than answers. and where the data was was put to inspire discussion. There were holes then and we were we were encouraged to write on the back of this paper and

118offer it to the board if you had a a a question. Those weren't answered. There were holes with the the information the the information that had been gathered to make these decisions was from a 2018 survey. We we asked where that could be looked at in its entirety and that was not necessarily provided. Each time I'm coming to these different meetings, we're getting a little bit more or different information. And what I would challenge all of us to do is gather all the information and all the accurate information. We shouldn't have to ask several times and discover for ourselves that there were inaccuracies in the data. That is absolutely totally unacceptable in my book. It's like saying, "I'm going to go buy a car for a certain budget and you don't get that car without

119knowing what those details are." This is a school. This is a school closure. It's much more serious than that. >> Thank you. Hello, my name is Amy Walsh. I'm a parent of two girls at Holton Elementary. When private equity takes over a company, their main strategy is to cut staff and close facilities. It is true that those moves cut costs and save money quickly, but companies acquired by private equity are 10 times more likely to go bankrupt than those that have not been. This is because they are so focused on cutting costs that they have stopped focusing on why someone would want to buy from their store, go to their hospital, buy their newspaper, or in our case, go to our school in the first place. Families don't want to attend assembly line schools that

120are maximally efficient. We want to attend schools that are effective, where the staff give a hoot about our kids, where staff are treated well enough that they have the energy to give a hoot about our kids. We want to attend schools where when times are tough or money is tight, we solve problems creatively and consider all possible options before cutting teachers and closing schools. We in the community don't know what options for cutting costs the school board has already considered. As a two small examples, why do we pay money for fertilizers and pesticides on our grass, which is both costly and environmentally destructive? Why does each child need a Chromebook? What cuts from the middle school or high school budget have already been considered to address the budget shortfall? What, if anything, has been tried

121to increase revenue, attract new students, or increase enrollment? What input has been sought from the teachers? These are all things that should have been explored thoroughly and shared publicly before deciding to close any schools. But if the best we can do is mitigate the damage, then we should close one school rather than both. Then shift our focus from cuts to how we make our school somewhere that everyone wants to be. Thank >> Thank you. Next we have Wendy. We have Wendy Hansen followed by Joe Donahghue and Heather Ericson. Hello, my name's Wendy Hansen. Um, I've had conversations with uh several of you written in verbal recently. I've also been watching um watching your meetings, including the working sessions. I noticed that uh a lot of folks on the board uh have a lot of praise

122for Nick. They say he's hardworking. Um that he wants what's best for students. I don't know Nick personally, so I don't I don't know. Um, I'm happy that you all seem to get along really well. What I do know is that under Nick's tenure, the school district has been hemorrhaging both money and students. Uh, I've been told that that's happening everywhere. The data that I found on River Falls and New Richmond school districts tells a little bit of a different story. My data is from the Chipoa Valley Times. uh it shows uh and I don't have this year because it just wasn't available but it shows both school districts um with an increase in students from 20078 until now there are a couple of anomalies one of them is during COVID um for the last

123year that this data was available which was last year uh River Falls lost.3% of its students Hudson lost 3% it's a tenfold difference. So, I do believe that the board has worked very hard and has struggled with this decision. I will remind you it's probably the biggest decision you'll make as board members. Um, it is a very long-term solution. We'll never get our neighborhood schools yet. I will also say that unless I'm mistaken, I don't know that um members of the board are necessarily experts in all of the areas that we need expertise in. I don't know that we have anyone who's an expert in finance or demography. >> Thank you. >> I would suggest that we hire an independent consultant to take a look at all of the numbers. >> Thank you very much.

124>> and help us to find a solution. >> We have to keep this to two minutes. That was agreed upon. I'm sorry. Thank you. Joe. Uh, hi. My name is Joe Donahghue. I'm a father of a fourth grader and a first grader at Holton. Um, we are not actually in the Holton School District. Uh we open enroll from the Somerset School District even though our house is about three miles from the Holton School. Um when we moved here 9 years ago next month, we did so in part because uh our then 10-month-old daughter um we wanted to give her a better educational experience than she probably would have received had we stayed where we lived before. That was a major part of why we moved. Uh when we moved, we did know we weren't in

125Somerset, but our plan was always to open enroll into Holton because of its reputation, because it is such a good school. Um and pretty much everybody we talked to about that through that whole process, always pretty much encouraged us said that is the best school and do what you can to get in there. And we were very fortunate to be able to. Um, I know we had neighbors that open enrolled into Holton as well and were very disappointed when they were not able to get into Holton because of numbers and the age of their kids and everything like that. Um, even after uh our kids have been in there, it has always amazed me every time someone asks them where they go to school and they say, "Holden, invariably the response is that is such

126a great school. You're so lucky or something like that." And the reputation goes beyond our school district. um for my job. I was in South Minneapolis a couple weeks ago talking with a lady and she asked where I was from and I told her and her response was, "Oh, that's where they're closing schools. Is that one of your kids' schools?" And when I said yes and I said she they go to Holton, she asked why are they closing schools? Isn't that one of the best schools in the state? And she's right. I mean, it's I I'm sure you guys have seen it. Um, niche.com has it as the best school uh within 250 miles of >> I'm sorry. >> is the best elementary school within 250 miles. >> Thank you. >> After Heather, we have

127Lisa Wolf and Mary Beth Matea. >> Hello, my name is Heather Ericson Glazinski and I have two children in Holton Elementary. I also open enrolled both of my children this year from out of district specifically for Holton's amazing reputation and for being one of the top performing schools in the state of Wisconsin. My children weren't making progress at their old school. They were even falling behind in areas and they hated going to school each and every day. I had hopes that after months at their new school that they would possibly adjust, feel like they belong, and be able to meet grade level standards. After just one month, one month, not only do they feel like they belong, they are learning and making amazing progress meeting those standards. And they absolutely love going to school each

128and every day with the most amazing teachers. I'm so grateful to both Miss Ambrose and Mr. Rock for being not only highquality humans, but even higher quality teachers. A personal testimony to Holton is my kindergartenner knew almost zero sounds to letters when he came in. He now has gained 10 sounds after just one month. I can't wait to see what he does the rest of the year. He could only recognize 12 uppercase letters when he entered and he now recognizes 23 out of 26. Again, after just one month, he is meeting all the standards set for him. That is a testimony to Holton, the learning environment Holton creates and my son's teacher and Holton's curriculum. My daughter is also making equally as amazing progress. If you were thinking of the children in these schools, you

129would not be considered closing them. If you were thinking of the future of these children, again, you would not be considering closing their schools. This decision was rushed and you do not have answers to many important questions that are critical to our children, their education, and their futures. Please put these children first and do not close Holton Elementary. When you vote, please think of my children, all of their amazing progress they've made, as well as everyone else's children, and don't take their amazing school away from them. Thank you. >> Thank you, >> Lisa. Lisa Wolf, >> Shannon, would you mind just passing us out to the board? Hi guys, and everybody there knows me. I'm Lisa Wolf. I'm a mother of three at Holton. And I just want to say thank you for letting us

130all speak. I hope you are listening. I want everyone to take a moment and just think about why you joined this board. I hope that it's because you're passionate about education and passionate about our children. That's why I'm here. It's my birthday today and I've been sitting in this auditorium for like the last three hours. So, all I would like to say is I've done the math. I've crunched the numbers. I emailed the entire board weeks ago with my averages and my analysis, my proposal for a five school model. No one has been able to refute my numbers. Not one. I've met with Nick personally. He could not refute my numbers. He could also not tell me how he originated his. I asked him for the mathematical backings of them and he refused to provide

131any sort of evidence. So, real quickly too, I do have a strong background in math. I've taken graduate level courses in statistics and epidemiology. So, I can see numbers and I see that option two and closing two schools does not make sense. Pause. It doesn't make sense. It doesn't add up. Okay, I can see an argument for closing one school, but certainly not two. If you want to get things done tonight and if you're sick of things, you want to rip the bandit off, fine. Close one school, redistrict, balance your budget, but we've been waiting for I've been waiting for weeks to hear about these numbers and haven't heard back. Nobody can show me their work and this just leads to suspicion. People don't trust the board right now. There's a lot of mistrust out

132there. I spoke with the chief of staff at Sodor Public Schools. She's been there for 17 years. She gave me one piece of advice because I don't know if everyone's familiar with what happened in Stillwater, but there is now a new superintendent and a new board because of their rushed decision. And when they rushed it, it took them six months. We've been trying to do this in two months. So, please pause, take time, check your math, please. Thank you. [Applause] Following Mary Beth, we'll have Robert Commtock and Sarah Susie Cororm. Um, thank you board members for your service. I really appreciate it. It's really important. And I'm from an unrepresented so far. I mean, I'm a retiree. My kids went to St. Pats and I'm a substitute teacher in the school district. And I will

133tell you that I helped pay for the updates of Willow and and Holton. And I resent the idea that suddenly a few years later, few to me, um, seems like we're going to shut those schools, which are community ed centers. And all the studies say neighborhood schools, small schools are healthier for students and the community. Keeps down crime, keeps down everything. And I find it ironic, you're spending advisory time at the high school trying to make big schools little schools, trying to give them services that they get naturally in their neighborhood schools. So it seems ironic that you're spending all that money to replicate what you already have and they're bettermade schools, the older schools are. They burn slower if you ever have a fire. They're more stable and they've been updated in many ways.

134And so the psych studies support keeping the schools. You have all this community people who want to help. And they always say, don't make a decision, a long-term decision with emergency on your mind. And that's what I'm hearing, a faux emergency. Yes, we have problems that we have to deal with, but when you make a long-term decision with emergency fast pressure, you make bad decisions. That's what we always teach students. So, I ask you please to consider all of what's been offered here and not make a fast decision. Put off the decision a year like they're saying. Explore everything. Don't shut these great schools. And also there's been turnover in Willow and cuz it's retirees who will leave this room. >> Thank you Susie Cororum or no I'm sorry Robert Commtock followed by Susie Corum

135and Scott Schneder. >> Thanks for allowing us to speak here tonight. It's much appreciated. Uh feels a little bit like deja vu or being in the principal's office. Uh few years ago I was up here speaking and uh I moved from another state to raise my kids here in Hudson. Uh I chose Willow River Elementary School when it was a 9.0. Um I lived in downtown Hudson, moved to downtown Hudson just to be inside the boundaries there. Uh my son last year was given the boundary exception to stay at Willow River since we bought a home um outside in the River Crest District. with all the murmuring and the whispers that were going on last year and after feeling like I was weaponized uh by this whole thing the last time when we passed the

136referendum for you and we did our due diligence as a community to save our schools and now here we are just a few years later. So I was so disappointed in that I was just like I'm not just going to not going to let my boy go through this. I'm going to move him out to Riverest. So now we're out at Rivercrest and I can tell you Riverest doesn't want another 120 people. We don't want another 120 kids out of Rivercrest. It's just the way it is. So this displacing of kids from one place to another place, I'm so shocked that every single parent in Hudson isn't down here who's got elementary school kids because every single school is going to be affected. So I feel I I feel a little a bit a little

137bit like you're being disingenuous up there. There's some some body language, some hesitation. We're we're your neighbors. We're going to pass you everywhere. We're going to see you in Quick Trip. We're all friends in community. We have to get past the perceived stress of what our leaders tell us is important. We have to open our eyes and look around us and realize that things are bigger. The quality of the product you put out is exceptional right now. No need to change it for a few million bucks. We can make that money up with a referendum that we truly want to pass. Thank you for your time. >> Hi, I'm Susie Corum. I am a graduate of Hudson schools. I have four children, adult children that attended Willow River and went through the Hudson schools. I

138now have um as of this moment, four grandchildren that will be part of the Hudson schools and uh more on the way. Regarding the numbers of students in Hudson and declining enrollment, it is my understanding that there has not been an up-to-date in any up-to-date information regarding the potential numbers of students that will be entering the school district based on actual time data, real-time data. Without this real-time data, you cannot possibly make informed decisions on long-term needs. Based on the many young families I personally know because of the ages of my children and many of whom are within this school district, many have not left Hudson, they have stayed here that have had children in the past three years and have more on the way along with the numerous young families that have moved into

139my downtown Hudson neighborhood in the past few years. There are many more than you may realize that are headed into this district. When I count the kids on my street alone that were not there just a few years ago and are not yet in the school system, there are at least 10. I just look out my front door, I can see 10 kids that are not in the school district yet. On numerous occasions, I've heard that Hudson is not affordable and young young families cannot afford to move into downtown Hudson. I want to provide some current statistical data for you to for you so that you are understanding the Willow River elementary boundaries which include all of downtown Hudson and then heading east to include all of the Willow Ridge neighborhoods, Parkview estates and the

140many developments heading out county road amuten roads. These areas hold the greatest volume of affordable homes in all of Hudson. The median home sale price in all of the Hudson school district, and this is for 2025. As of right now, all homes in Hudson, it's $468,000 median sale price. The median home sale price specifically in the Willow River Elementary District is $449,000, well under the district average. The point of this is that the area that makes up Willow River Elementary will continue to pro provide the most affordable option to young families from within Hudson or move up from an apartment or a town home or those entering Hudson. There is a 28 home development underway within the above stated area. There is also a 107 unit apartment building that will be in downtown Hudson potentially.

141There are other apartment buildings scheduled to be built throughout the district including Carmichael Road. These buildings will draw young families to Hudson. >> Thank you. >> Good evening. Thank you for the opportunity. Uh Scott Snder. I think there's one other member in the audience that's lived in the district longer than me. My classmate Tim Tuma. I lived in the district since 1962. Uh product of EP Rock. Graduated from Hudson High School in 1976. Between my family and my in-laws. There's six generations that are in this school district. Many of the board members know I'm one of the biggest champions of this school district. I encourage you um to keep community um grade schools intact. Um after uh my uh teaching career at St. Pat St. Pats, I spent 38 years in the publicly traded utility

142industry. I recently retired and I got a chance to kind of go back to my roots and see what's happening in the district from a utility standpoint, where the infrastructure is being built, who it's being built for, and the residential districts. It was eye opening to me as I travel throughout St. Craig County looking at what's planned, what's being constructed, and what's going to be constructed. um if they build affordable housing, the district will see increases in attendance, whether it's 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 years, whatever it is. Appreciate all you're doing. I've seen many referendums. I've voted for every single one since I was a senior in high school in 1976 and could vote and I know the challenges you're up against. Um I'm a member of the Hudson Education Foundation, the Hudson High

143School Hall of Fame for 30 years. I love the school district. It's the crown jewel of this community, this district, this school system. Encourage you to maintain those two elementary schools. I student taught at Holton. I student taught at Fourth Street, at Rock, at the middle school. Um, please make that decision very deliberately and look at the data, what's coming from a utility standpoint. My eyes were wide open to it as we did the planning and the uh all the work that needs to extend infrastructure to what's coming. Thank you for your time. Appreciate it. >> Okay, that concludes uh public comments and uh we'll move on to our discussion. And uh before we entertain any any motions, I would like to open it up for board uh to share their thoughts. And uh and

144Brian's reaching for the microphone, so I will say Brian. >> Thank you, Mr. President. Um I um I I think uh most people here know um my my history in this community. My family moved here in 1977 um to Holton, Wisconsin, which if you're a Holton resident, that still makes you new to the community. Um we got to get to 50 years. Um my brother actually went to Holton Elementary School when it was still a one room schoolhouse. He was there for um the uh when the they took the they literally took the bell down and our neighbor built the bell tower that the bell is there today. Um and it you know that's just a evidence of of of the community that we have. Um there's there's people in this room that I went

145to elementary school with. There's people in this room that babysat me I've known my entire life. So, I just kind of am I'm giving this speech right now because um I want you guys to know that I'm hearing you. I'm also experiencing what you're saying and I'm living what you're saying. My kids go to Holton Elementary School. I also have a a 4ker who goes to Willow River. Um I'm invested in this. I'm reading the data. I trust the data. I'm questioning the data. Um, so I'm just going to talk a little bit about where I am on on the the three options in front of us that the board has narrowed down to. Um, first going to talk about Willow. Um, I've had a little bit of experience with Willow River. Um, it's a

146it's an excellent school. One thing that I really love about it is it's clearly a school that really accepts kids in our community. Maybe those kids that are a little bit outside the norm, they really have a home at Willow. That's evident. Um, unfortunately, I don't think that we can keep Willow. It's got a lot of maintenance. Um, I know we say it's well well built, but the maintenance on that building is nearly $20 million. I don't know how we can afford that without major reallocation from the rest of our budget. It's also got higher operational costs and a challenging layout. And even if we spent that money, it would still have those issues. So that unfortunately that's where I am on Willow. Um Holton I have a lot of history with so I'll spend

147a little bit more time on it. I've thought long and hard about Holton. Um, our numbers say that Holton will save about 1.3 million um after if if we assume that that uh Willow closes. Um, you know, I think it's I think it's likely that we'll probably have to bust kids some more. We'll have some higher busing costs. We may lose some kids to open enrollment. Um, so so say conservatively it's a $1 million savings. take a couple hundred,000 off of that. So, that's what we can say. A million dollars per year. Um, another couple things about Holton, folks have brought it up here today. Academic achievement about Holton. Um, I know that I live it. It's an incredible school. We all know that. Um, I think it there's two things, two reasons for that.

148One is kind of it's the teachers and it's not just great teachers. It's a culture of excellence at that school. When a when a when a new teacher comes into that school, they're they're brought into the group. Expectations are set high and they support each other. That's evidence evident at that school. I experienced it as a student and I experience it as a parent. I also think that parents play a key role in that school. You see it every day there. I'm part of it. All of you are part of it. You know what I'm talking about. I also think we need to acknowledge that there's a relative level of affluence at Holton. That's one of the reasons Holton achieves well. Another piece of Holton is that um there's a lower utilization of special ed

149at Holton. I don't know why that is, but that may be part of its achievement as well. It's something we have to factor. But at the end of the day, you know, the academic achievement, we're losing that culture of excellence at that school and we have to acknowledge that and can we replace it at other schools. Next piece I want to touch on the capital and infrastructure needs at the building. Um, we've talked a little bit about it. It needs roughly 5 to 6 million just for maintenance and safety. I also think that the school needs some improvements. So, it's it's it's better suited to serve the kids that live there, especially those specialed kids. that adds some extra cost. And then finally, equity with the district. Um, it's true that Holton's enrollment is relatively

150stable. My two daughters that have been there, they've gone through, my daughter who left fifth grade last year, she went through with about 32 kids in her class. 32 is too big for one section. It's uh it's also um really small for for two sections. that that's not not all that fair to other schools in the district. And and the the real point there is that it's hard to run that school efficiently. I know we don't want to talk about numbers, but we have a budget deficit, a growing budget deficit, and our enrollment is declining. We have to find a way to run efficiently to maintain excellence in this district. Um, other other grade sections at that school right now that are similar are are this year's third grade, this year's kindergarten, this year's first

151grade, and this year's fourth grade. Sim similar um collections of students where two would be really big and or two sections is really small and one is really big. So, um, one of the, uh, the commenters quoted me earlier where I said, "Putting these together, it leaves me unsure whether it's worth closing Holton." Um, but that that's where I start to think about our risk moving forward. Um, I'm very very very concerned about the future of this school district and our ability to deliver an excellent education. Um, we've got challenges at the state budget. I don't think that bo either party is looking out for Hudson school district. The GOP favors vouchers. The the Democrats, should they gain power? I don't think they're looking to send money to propertyrich Hudson. We've also got the federal

152government. Um they're changing their relationship with the states. They're they're pulling back financially. That's going to put a strain even more on state government. Um and that all of this is before any downturn in the economy. So after saying all this, um I I'm also supportive of closing Holton. It breaks my heart. It's me personally. It's my life. Um, but I think to have excellence in this district, we have to run more efficiently. >> Thank you, Mr. President. >> Thank you, >> Mr. President. >> Yes, Megan. >> Um, I just want to piggyback a little bit on what Brian said. And Tim, I don't know if it's possible to put on the screen um the budget projections that show um what the the different uh budget scenarios look like under the the different um options.

153So there's uh Bonnie recently put together updated uh budget projections based on the third Friday final counts of student enrollment and um she also put together three opt three three models that show with the various school closing scenarios. So, um, you know, I I hear what people are saying and I have tried to respond to every single email I got in the last three weeks and not just if you emailed me today, all I could s write was thank you because I had to go to work. Um, but I tried to respond with a substantive response of what I'm thinking about. I I don't want I I am listening. I have offered to have coffee with people. I've met with people. I've talked on the phone with people. Um I have a child in kindergarten

154at Holton and I have a child in fifth grade at Willow. So um there I there is a culture of excellence at Holton. I will also tell you there is a culture of excellence at every single one of our schools. I don't um uh I I don't want it to feel to other families, to other students, to other teachers that I'm sitting here and thinking the teachers at Holton do a better job than they do at North Hudson or Riverest or EP Rocker. That that's not the case, right? Um they're all wonderful schools, but you can't run schools without money. And so, um, I understand we're thinking about the money, but I'm thinking about the money because I'm thinking about the children. And we have seen what happens with school districts that don't make the

155hard decisions operate in deficit or operate in a mode where they're doing short-term borrowing to pay the bills. We need $20 million about in our uh fund balance to be able to pay our bills without doing short-term borrow short-term borrowing because people get paid every two weeks. We have utility bills every month, but we don't get money from the state every two weeks. We get it in chunks. So, we need to have money there. It's sort of that that thing you hear about like it's really expensive to be poor, right? because you need to go get like an auto loan, the autotitle loan to be we don't it it gets dangerous when your district is not in a good financial position. So, I don't know what's up on the screen, Tim. Um but I I

156found these to be very helpful. Um the first shows option two if we closed both Holton Well, I'll walk through it. If you look at the surplus deficit line, you can see with the updated projection model, we will have a surplus if all six schools stay open of 49 about $50,000 yet next year. Then we're immediately moving into deficits and they increase pretty dramatically yeartoyear. You're talking about 1.6 1.5.6 million increase in deficits per year. That's real money, right? Like it's it's not dribbs and drabs. I also want us to remember how we got here as a state. 15 years ago, the state of Wisconsin decoupled our per pupil revenue cap from inflation. School districts have been advocating consistently at the state capital for more K12 funding for the past 15 years. Our schools have

157already been operating for a long time and this is at a time of economic growth under financial constraints. I know our teachers feel it. I know that the board feels it when we look and say how much of a of a pay increase can we afford for our teachers? What can we do um to keep health benefits affordable when last year's healthc care spending was $2 million higher than we expected? Right? Like these are these are real things that hit our teachers and staff in their in their pocketbook when we increase their premiums at an amount that could be more than their pay increase. So if we were to close Willow and Holton, we'd still have a $500,000 budget deficit by 2930. So that might look like, oh, we've got time. We can figure this

158out. This conversation started more than four years ago. Three years ago, I was sitting in the audience where I got a letter with 40ome families from Holton to sign it to say, "Please don't close our schools." And the board promised if we can get that $8 million reoccurring indefinitely operational referendum passed, we won't talk about closing schools for three more years. It didn't pass. Here we are three years later. Right? So, this has been a conversation for a long I know it feels fast and rush to some people. I get it. But it has been under consideration for a long time. I want to make clear that this budget model includes the $5 million nonrecurring operational referendum. So if we didn't have that money, which thank God we do, we'd be looking at a $5.5

159million deficit in 2930. Why is it important to think about what that deficit would be in 2930? Because we have one more year of that $5 million and the 3031 academic year and then it's gone. So we're talking about big sums of money that all of a sudden we'll be facing if we don't make decisions. Now, if you scrolled to the next page, you can see what it would look like if we close only Willow. We'll already be running a budget deficit by 2728 of almost a million dollars. By 2930, it's up to 4.2 million. To be clear, Bonnie, I believe this includes the maintenance of the buildings, too, or is it just the Actually, on the option three, it's the bottom one. >> Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry, I'm getting confused. All these spreadsheets

160uh after I looked at spreadsheets all day at work. So, if you look at the bottom, it'd be half a million dollars by 28.29 if we only close Willow and almost 2 million by 2930. On the third page, you can see that if we only close Holton, it's nearly a million dollar shortfall by 2829 up to 2.5 million by 2930. I after you know, Brian gave a little background on what's happening with the federal government. We know there's Medicaid cuts coming. We know there's a lot of things that are going to be affecting the state budget. The biggest expenses in the Wisconsin state budget are healthcare and K12 education. And last time there was a great recession and push came to shove, school funding was cut. We have never caught up. We have never caught

161up from that decoupling. I don't think we can count on Madison to come through for us, especially when the federal government is no longer partnering with states in the same way to cover projects. Another thing, I know I'm talking for a long time. I'm sorry, but um there were a couple questions asked about what are we going to do to cut things at the middle school and at the high school. And um I remember for a long time thinking, man, nobody talks about middle school. No school districts talk about middle school. I don't know about you all, but that was a really hard time in my life. Everything's changing. You feel really awkward, and that's also where you lose kids if kids aren't interested in school anymore. So, I'm very concerned about the idea of

162keeping grade schools open that are at 65% capacity while we cut programming or clubs or other options at the middle school and high school level. Um, you know how they kind of, you know, that saying big kids have big kid problems, right? We know we have a mental health health crisis in this country. having clubs, having options for kids in middle school and high school. Everyone with grade school kids here, um, your kids are going to go to middle school and high school someday. And if when they get there, they're not going to have the programming and opportunities that they currently have now. They don't have the welding academy. They don't have the AP courses. They don't have the ability to get automotive certificates or CNA. You're going to think, "Man, I wish my kid

163had these opportunities to prepare for career or college like kids used to." I don't see how we can get out of this budget deficit without making very difficult decisions. People keep talking about large class sizes. The class sizes are not going to be larger. Yes, the schools will be more full, but we would be going back to the same number of sections per school in the four remaining schools that there were in 20134, 2014, 15. These are not mega schools with a thousand kids. I think that um I bet if I had a side conversation with every elementary principal in this room right now that they would say they know the the names of all the kids in their schools that the teachers at North Hudson and Riverest and EP Rock and I'm forgetting somebody

164right now and I feel bad Hudson Prairie. Those teachers know their kids too. They work with their kids. they care about their kids and it doesn't mean we're going to lose the teachers at Willow and Holton that the staff and the teachers there are gone. I know this is very difficult but I'm not just thinking about the numbers because at the end of the day if we don't have money we can't educate our kids. And I as Brian said I feel this deeply. I have kids in these schools. This is not theoretical to my family. It's also my job here on the board to not just think about what I want for my kids, but also to think about what we need for every single child in this district. And with demographics being what they

165are and birth rates being low, extremely low in both Minnesota and Wisconsin, I for the foreseeable future, there is going to be lower enrollment. I'm hoping we stabilize soon instead of continuing to fall. Now, I'll stop because that went on really long. Sorry, >> Mr. President. Maria. >> Okay. >> Oh yeah, it's a tough one. Um I thank you to everybody who has emailed um these last few weeks. I have read them all, have talked with many folks um on the phone, met with coffee um and I appreciate all your time and thoughtful responses. you can feel the connections to each of your schools and I want to acknowledge that and the importance of the schools. Um I feel like I'm reverberating here. The importance of the schools for your kids and your families. Um

166one of the things that I keep coming back to and and I want to give credit to to Brian. this is something he surfaced a while ago was our budget represents our values and and it is such an important statement and it has stuck with me as I think about this and for me the core values that I keep coming back to as I think of our entire district and all of the families and all of the kids and the community members who come in and pay for our schools without a connection a direct connection The core values for me continue to be I want to make make sure we can maintain modest class sizes. I want to make sure we can continue to recruit and retain high quality teachers. I want to make sure

167we can continue to have the robust curriculum elementary through high school. I want to make sure that we can continue to offer the arts, music, athletics. Today we saw the preview of the musical susicle. That is not possible without arts education and music education starting in elementary. It just simply flat out is not. Our children benefited from it. I have seen my own children benefit from the ability of having orchestra and band in elementary. And now fast forward to high school to be able to go to honors orchestra at Oaklair and and learn from college teachers who have been there for 40 years. That is an amazing thing. And many school districts are not able to offer this and we are. And this remains a core value for me. I look very closely at the

168budget and I have so appreciated the work that Bonnie and the other administrators have put in this our educators, the people who come into our buildings every day from the teachers and the paraprofessionals to the building level administrators to the folks sitting up here at this table. This is a calling. This is a prof and they have answered that professional calling and they bring a lot of grace and poise every day to the work that they do and to that I say thank you. Our children benefit from the work you do every day. The budget issues we have are very real. The statement Brian has said about the federal government changing the structure, the funding relationship with states, it is real. On Friday, one of the speakers spoke to this. The Department of Education's special

169education group was fired. There is nobody there to make sure the funding flows. There is nobody there to make sure when a special education issue arises, a report that it is followed up on. And those are real concerns. Our budget, our budget, we have been very fortunate is about a million dollars in federal funding in any given year. And that has not historically impacted us significantly if there were issues at the federal level with federal funding. it will now that becomes very real dollars very quickly when we are talking about these budget deficits and I'm concerned about that m Megan spoke to things that have happened in our own state legislature going back to the decoupling of inflation we can look to just this most recent past few years Governor Evers passed a $325 per

170pupil increase for the next 400 years. And that was probably the first, you know, real dollars that we thought we would have. The catch with that is it's not state money that's coming to us. It's at the local level. It's on us to determine if we're going to utilize and ask the local taxpayers for an additional $325 per student. That's another $1.6 6 million if we don't do that. And we have to consider that every year. Do we do that or don't we? That's another budget hit. We talk about the population in our community and in our county. I've said this before. Several of us have gone to the St. Craig County Economic Development Corps. They did a housing study. They did an amazing presentation and road show throughout our county. The reason they did

171this is because businesses in our county are saying we can't hire enough people. There aren't enough people. Our workers cannot live here. The people that the plumbers that we need, the police officers that we need, the teachers that we need, the average home sale price is around $400,000. And that's for a resale. That is not an insignificant amount of money for any given average earner. I like Megan adore data. There's two data points that are really striking to me when we think about the housing conversation and it resonates here in St. Cray County. In 1991, the median age for a firsttime home buyer was 28 years old. Today, it's 38. In 1981, the median age for any home buyer was 38. Today, it's 58. That's significant. When we look at the homes that are selling

172and the people that are moving in, we have a growing population to be sure, and that needs to be acknowledged. But it's in our 55 plus crowd. It is not a growing population in 0 to4. There is no indicator. There is no flash that I can point to that says our enrollment is going to change that says we will have a dramatic influx of families with kiddos. Will we have families continue to move in? Yes, I do believe that. Will we have families that bring kids here? Yep, I do believe that it is not enough to close the enrollment gap. And our budget is built on a per pupil dollar amount. It is about the number of kids that we enroll. This updated numbers that Bonnie presented, we built a budget that we were all

173looking at that assumed 50 fewer students based on trends and we were 147 fewer, nearly threefold higher. That's what 10und one point 1 1.3 million 1.4 million less in our budget this year alone. That's significant and that carries forward. The other factors when I think about this budget that it's been built off of, it assumes an average 3% cost of living increase for our teachers. It assumes that health care costs remain capped at a 5% increase. And I am doubtful of that. Health care costs are are rising for every employer and they are harder to maintain. It assumes that we our enrollment doesn't continue to decline over the next few years. And if it does, that's $13,000 less that we have per student. This is hard. I look at this and for me where I

174stand today is I do not see how we can move forward and keep both schools open. And it breaks my heart to say that because I have had a lot of conversations with all of you and with close friends in both schools. But I c I I I cannot look at this and say for our district as a whole for what we need to do to maintain our core values, keeping both schools open is just not an option in my mind. >> Mr. President, >> thank you. My goodness. Um, this is clearly we can tell this is really hard. This is really difficult. It's hard for us too. This is not something that I bargain for and coming on the school board. I love public education. My mom was a teacher. My dad did his

175student teaching at Willow River when it was a high school. I'm old. Um, my uncle was a superintendent of schools. My cousin was a superintendent, retired. I have another cousin who's a special ed teacher. Um, my brother got a pre I an early childhood education degree. I did a master's of art in teaching. Um, this is not what I want to do. This is super super sad. Um, don't think that we're not crying with you. Um, I don't know how many of you were here in the school district in 2022. We had a community meeting in November where um we proposed that we would talk about closing schools and the superintendent Dr. uh answer school answered questions, excuse me, for a couple hours. And I really felt like at the end we kind of had

176this kumbaya moment where it was like, okay, we get it. We've got a housing problem. We've got an enrollment problem. We've got, you know, from the wool report, architect report, we have a deferred maintenance issue that some things that we're going to have to address a large amount of money because previous school boards, not to cast shade, but they basically build budgets where they didn't um put a lot of money into maintenance and that was their choice and this is whatever. Um, so we said, you know what? Let's let's see what happens. Let's give it three years. And we're at that three years here in a month. Um, I'm very disappointed that we didn't see enrollment come up. Um, I've only been on the board since 2021, and this has been on uh talking something

177we've been talking about for a long time, just so you know. Um, if we had had your energy back in 22, maybe we could have done things to change some of the housing opportunities or something. I don't know. Um, we did the 23 two uh double referendum with the $8 million operational to keep all six schools open. It failed. And we also thought, okay, let's let's try and tackle some of these maintenance issues. Excuse me. >> No. You know what? I'm giving the history, Colin, and you and I have talked about this, okay? I And I I don't want to make people wrong because I don't feel that's like a community building situation. We have to think about our community that we have to work together. So, it's not fair for you to to talk

178back. you've had your opportunity. Okay. Um, it didn't pass. You know what? Why previous referendums passed? Because we had groups that fired up and did it just like you guys did in the spring. Wouldn't have passed without you. If it hadn't passed, you know where we'd be at? We'd be closing two schools and we'd be freezing pay and we would be having larger class sizes, fewer um specials. It is that bad. I did not vote as a board member to put this non-recurring referendum on the ballot. I voted for it at the ballot box as a band-aid. Um, I don't think you can build budgets on sometime money. You have to have an expectation of kind of where you're going to be at. And as we can see, we have another fiscal cliff. It's not

179fair. This is my opinion. I respect my board members, fellow board members who are on the board with me who voted for it, but that isn't fair to do to the next board. Um, and as one speaker said, we have just bad luck right now. We have bad choices. We have worse and worseer. You know, it's terrible. I agree completely with Brian and what's been said that we have a lot of risks going forward. A lot of risks. Um, last year I think our usage for healthcare was 169%. For every dollar that we put in, we spent $169. That's the risk that we take and we've saved a lot of money by being self-insured. But that was a risk. I don't see that going down. um you know that there has been a proposal for

180100% tariffs on imported pharmaceuticals which is on pause right now. Eventually maybe we'll have some things produced here but that's not going to happen tomorrow. We see this uh enrollment declines which are far worse than any expectation. I completely agree with Megan. What if what if the state of Wisconsin decides that they can't commitments to funding public schools right now the way they are because so much of the budget is Medicaid and we will not be getting that money from the federal government. So what if they decide they're going to shore up some of these things? So Medicaid, you know, would cover, you know, my steps sister's daughter who has Down syndrome. So she doesn't get health care, the state will probably provide health care. They will provide programming for her and she deserves to

181have that. Um, what about nursing homes? When you run out of your money for nursing homes, it's Medicaid paying for stuff. So, I have no I have no guarant I've said this before. The state of Wisconsin is not coming to save us. They are not coming to save us. So, we're going to have to do what we have to do. Um I am part of the TAC committee, which is the teacher advisory committee. It's about 30 people. It's teachers of every different school representative representative all different grades, all specialties, elementary, middle school, high school. Um a principal is on there, all the upper level administration and two board members and I'm one of the board members and Bob Bowman is one of the board members. um they have been actively involved in trying to figure

182out budget cuts as the boots on the ground who understand the impact that budget cuts have. So say we don't we get rid of secondary interventions. So we don't have somebody who handles that. So oh well they fail they drop out. That cost to our community is tremendous. um gifted and talented nurses in the buildings, um cleaning. We could we could stop doing some of those things. And even if we did do it, the amount of money that it saves is not enough. And some of the things are a liability. Some of the things you just can't do because we have to do certain things. Um so they have been actively involved in this. We also had the community in January of 25 came and worked on the same items. Um, it's just a tough

183tough math problem. Um, I don't know what else to say except for, you know, we love our school district, too. My kids went to North Hudson. We considered Holton because we knew it was so great. But, you know, we wanted our kids to have neighbors that they knew and they could go to school with their friends and be in the same community. I get it. Um, and looking back, both of my kids were in special ed. They would have not done well at Holton. Not at all. Um, they went to um, North Hudson and the group of students that they were with. My kids were the stereotypical super smart but ADHD wild child. Mr. Schmidt can probably attest to that. Um, their class was an amazingly high achieving class. When they graduated, the saludiatoran and

184the validictorian were both from North Hudson. There are smart kids at all these schools. I guess that's all I have to say. Thank you, Molly. >> Aaron or Kate? >> Well, it's hard to say a lot more about the budget. I think that's been made pretty clear. Uh the last time that there was an auditorium this full was I think I was a first year board member and it was about COVID and the decisions that I had to make were I mean I I 100% believed in my decision and so it was easier. Today I can tell you I've gone back and forth in my head a million times. I've listened to every opinion that you could come up with on every side of the aisle. Um, I've met with people and walked away thinking,

185"Oh, I have my decision." And then the next day I have a different decision. So, it's been very hard to say the least. Um, my heart is racing. It's not easy for us to make these choices either. Um, I've heard a lot of we're not listening to our community. And I guess the only way I could really boil it down for myself is to look at the referendums. And in the last two and a half years, we've had three referendums. Two of them failed, one passed by six votes. And in that referendum, we had a recount that to me is kind of encompasses all of the voices in our district. Um it seems to me that they've decided they don't want to put their tax dollars in this bucket right now. And I have to

186respect that. I I do know that there's people out there struggling. There's people that can't pay their bills. There's people on a fixed income that are retired. So, I I respect their votes, but um it's kind of put in perspective where we're sitting as a board so I guess mine is shorter, but that is that's where I'm at. Erin, [Music] >> thank you all of you for being here tonight. I know this is getting long. Um, I want to speak to you guys for a second and then speak to the board because I think one of the hardest things as a board member that I have really struggled with myself is that we have such small amount of time to be with each other up here and get perspectives. even when one of us might

187think differently than the others, but we all respect each other up here. Um, and I just want to say I really appreciate that. Um, and I wrote mine out because this is just too important to forget something here, so bear with me here. Um, over the past several weeks, I have met with and heard from so many families, teachers, neighbors who care about their schools. And I want to start by saying thank you. Thank you for sharing your perspectives, your ideas, and your concerns. We do hear you. Uh this decision, as many have said, it's going to reshape our district and our communities. And I certainly do not take that lightly. Closing even one school has a lasting impact on our children's daily lives, on our teachers, their workload, and on the connections that make

188our neighborhoods thrive. I understand and I recognize the data that's been presented both from our administration and from the community. And I also realize that making at least one closure may be the responsible step towards stabilizing how we use taxpaying dollars. I am not denying that we've been discussing closures for years. That is eminent and I understand that reality. But how we make this decision and when we make that decision, it really matters deeply. Um, and this is here's what I keep coming back to. Our community has asked us that we move forward thoughtfully. The clear message that I have heard is to close one school, pause, re-evaluate before making any additional closures. That is a very reasonable and responsible request and I believe one that we should be honoring as board members. I know

189small class sizes allowed teachers to reach kids more effectively and help them thrive. Closing both schools at once risks increasing class sizes, losing families to open enrollment, which has been mentioned, and creating long-term challenges. And I'm just not sure that's the direction that we should be going. We've also seen in the past that the projections don't always really match reality. Um, we were told that numbers would boom years ago and they didn't. We were told that boundary changes would balance things out. They didn't. We should not be making permanent long-term decisions based on temporary or in this case uncertain or possibly even inaccurate data. before school closing, we need to take the time to explore other options and not just having an impromptu discussion like we kind of tend to do here because again this

190is the only time that we're together and the only time that board members are able to discuss anything and that's really hard for the public to understand but it is so true. I mean these impromptu discussions um including the idea of a charter or specialized creative programs that could grow our Hudson community in new ways. We should have had real conversations about that. And guess what? It's really not too late to do that. And beyond that, while we've received some information on what might happen after closures, there's still some really important details that warrant real focused conversations. If one or two schools close, we need clear plans. As a board, how are these buildings going to be used or maintained? Are we mothballing them? Are we repurposing them? Are we demolishing them? Are we selling

191them? We have as a board not had a discussion about that. How long are the buildings going to remain idle? What costs are associated with preparing them for future use or disposal? It has been noted that some of the numbers are incorrect. I haven't seen that updated information as a board member, and if any of you have, good for you, but not everybody is getting that. And just today at 2:19 p.m., the board received five plus pages of board member questions from all of you and myself with some answers that were not there and very little time to review them. That alone highlights why this decision should not be rushed. Even with partial answers, these decisions carry that long-term implication and deserve a comprehensive board discussion before finalizing any closures. It is not the time

192to decide first and deal with the aftermath here later. It's just not. And finally, we need to address our finances. And although the board has made efforts to trim the budget, that is on record, those steps came late after years of the continued spending increases. I mean, while I and and while I truly value and respect the hard work of our administration team and staff, we must acknowledge that wage increases, bonuses, and other board approved spending continue even as maintenance and compliance projects were deferred before limiting schools. We should really have taken a pause, maybe temporarily freezing raises, conducting an independent financial review, not just an audit, and taking a closer look at how our $80 million budget is being utilized to ensure every single dollar supports our students. We've spent our way into this

193challenging area and closing schools alone, it's not going to fix that. Therefore, while I recognize that closing at least one school may be necessary, I believe that we should be tableabling option number two, closing both schools at once until we have fully explored alternatives, answer these critical questions that we do not have all the answers to, and allow the time to discuss this as a board as we were elected to do. This vote is more than buildings. It is about how we value our education, our families, and the trust of our communities. Let's just slow down for a short pause and listen and make sure that this decision reflects the kind of district that we want to be. And and with that to end this, u Mr. President, I do wish to make a motion,

194but I would I I I respectfully want to hear from you. So, I would if now is appropriate, I will do that now. if you want to speak and then >> Mr. President, >> I I just have a question for Aaron. >> Sure. >> Um, so at the August 11th meeting, um, you said something I'm going to paraphrase, but you said something along the lines of it seems inevitable that we're going to close both schools, so why don't we just do it now? And then Brian said, I think we need to slow down. We don't want to do this in the summer. I agreed. So, I'm just I'm a little surprised since you came onto the board. You wanted to talk about school closures and then you were ready to put forward a motion for

195school closures on August 11th. And now that you've had more data and more time, >> it just kind of it's it it I I'm having trouble with like the cognitive dissonance of that. So, if you could what what data have you seen that helps you think that it's a better financial decision to wait longer when you were ready to go on August 11th? >> I think that's kind of a funny coming from you, Megan, to be totally honest, but I don't want to go down that road. Um my decision in my my decision when we were talking about that was I was open to opening that conversation up. That was that was what I agreed to and nothing more. At the time the data that has been presented has been constantly been built upon each

196and every board session. We have gotten more information and more data and even today five plus pages and really it's seven if anyone wants to know when I printed it seven pages of questions from you from me from Molly maybe there were more maybe people met with other adviserss here that we have and they should but we don't have this as a board to be making these decisions right now. I personally don't I'm not ready to do this. I would like to make a motion to table option number two to stop and pause. I'm not objective to closing one because it is a responsible financial and also a conservative decision with our taxpaying dollars. But to say that oh why am why why am I ready now? Why why I'm putting on a pause? I

197am absolutely listening to our community and I would really I really think that everybody here needs to just re-evaluate in their head if they are going to be able to sleep well tonight closing two schools without having answers that you have asked that have not been answered. Um um I'll Okay. So my opinion is um I think we do have the information. I think it's uh I'll I'll remind you that you asked twice to put school closures on the agenda before we started this conversation. you when we put uh school uh facilities discussion, you wanted it to be noted as closure. You wanted it changed on the agenda. I agree with Megan. You were you gave all indications that this was a financial responsibility. We we can't keep spending money on on underused school space.

198So, um, you know, I I never wanted I know people have said, "Well, you guys are pitting school against school." And I'm telling you, I can I can sit here and name the wonderful things about Willow River. I can also name the reasons why it is a huge inefficiency and is is problematic to our budget. I can talk about Holton as well and list everything against why why Holton should be listed as our number one inefficiency. So I think three years ago or two years ago when we had 300 people more than we've gotten here today at the middle school and I agree with the the kind of that moment where people were like yeah I get the numbers now. It is serious and it is about affordable housing. It is about um you know

199uh teacher pay and retaining good quality teachers and it is about the state in the funding. Uh you know and we need to do things. We need as a community we need to you know rally and we need to talk to our our municipality people. We need to talk to people in Madison. We need to to push for change. And at that time it was like we need to be creative. We need to come up with some things you know as a community. and you know I mean the referendum passed by six votes and haven't had much since. So a lot of the the the criticism or like there's mistrust like we've we just have the information that is in front of us and what we've seen. Uh as far as the predictions we've been

200lower than all the predictions enrollment wise that is to the point of again this year we were predicting 50 kids less and it turned out to be 147 or 145. that that's an extra $1.3 million we don't have, you know, and insurance benefits went how much, Mike, Megan? >> Two million over. >> Two million. Two two million over. We have we have to come up with that number. what ten tentatively Bonnie's gonna number >> but but I mean so that's that's a $3 point whatever million dollar that we didn't have that information you know when we were first making these these having these discussions and you know predictions of next year you know again like Molly said or we can't count on the state to save us and for the people in this room with

201kids in elementary. You know, my biggest concern is we're sitting on 60 some% capacity and if we lose another 50 to 80 elementary students next year, I mean, we're going to be like at under 1,900 elementary students and potentially closer to 1,800. And when these elementary kids get today, I don't want to make decisions today to hold on to an inefficiency that will make your students when they are in middle school and high school not have the same educational opportunities, the same options and and that that the parents of those kids now enjoy and and expect. So, you know, I I was going to say that I, you know, I I don't have to say much because I'm so proud of this board that I work with that some people have come on the board

202recently, you know, and looked at a fresh set of eyes. I mean, I the facilities task force years ago laid the blueprint. So, they they they did the work. our community-led task force of local business owners, parents, um you know, they looked at it. They looked at what buildings were actually technically neighborhood schools, what what buildings had the most walkers, what buildings needed the least amount of maintenance or just from the future looking at what is going to work to keep this district strong. And their work was not was not an error. Their work was not an error. I hear a lot of information uh you know there's 500 plus home sites are going to be built on UU property that is just all over the community 500 plus home sites on 90 acres. So

203we called called Derek Construction. Hey what changed? We saw your we saw your plans. It's 175 to 220 something like that. It is not 500. So there's a lot of you know the talk of our numbers keep changing. It's because our enrollment keeps changing. It's because the state keeps changing. Yeah. It's because the the Fed keeps making different votes on cutting special ed. I mean, all of that does change and it does make the numbers move. I mean, we had you you you can't you can't throw out everything because geez, I see an inconsistency here. I'm telling you, Bonnie and Nick, we'll find a reason for that. I mean, there's a reason for that inconsistency that explains it. So, but the amount of information being thrown out there um that's in the public is very

204disappointing. It's disappointing how how people have taken, you know, on the surface say I'm for keeping schools open, but then whisper, "Hey, close Willow in River. You got to do that." You know, I mean, it's it's it gives me great pause. But I the point was I don't really have to say much. I'm very proud of the work that this board has done. I'm proud of the work that the administration has put has put into this and you know there's no there's no secret agenda here folks. This is is not fun. I I raised my kids when there was a boom in in this uh in this community and we were all growing. Our housing values are shooting through the through the roof and everybody was having three, four kids and every neighborhood park was

205packed. We're not seeing it. These new trends are not providing numbers to to maintain what we have. And I agree with Megan totally. We hope we're we're nearing the bottom. We're hope we're nearing the level, you know, but uh for people to say now, well, we can we can be creative. We can find these ways, you know, stadium naming rights and and things like that. So, some of these numbers I see out there, the millions have promised. I'm I'm sorry. I I've looked into some of it. These Texas football stadiums that, you know, it's it's not we're not in Texas with the 25,000 seat stadium that shares five high schools. I mean, we're one high school and as far as a comment of of, you know, companies like Uline, we have Uline's logo on our

206on our billboard in three different places in the district. Um, is it fair to ask our community that already, I mean, we've got boosters, we've got Rotary, we've got all these fund these groups that do fundraising in our community. Is it fair for us to say, "Well, we're going to we're going to keep a glaring inefficiency of extra space that all indications look, we're going to continue to have for the foreseeable future." And now go to the public once again and say, "Please subsidize our inefficiency." I don't think that's responsible. And I'm the last person in this town probably that would be called a fiscal conservative or uh uh you know uh uh so um I I I disagree I mean we're going to turn this into you know again a conversation. Um I do

207I do disagree with Aaron's take on on our responsibility from a fiscal standpoint. Just from a fiscal standpoint, from emotions, I get it. No one wants to be in this position. No one there's going to be no matter what decision we make, there's going to be tears. And I'm confident in the numbers. I'm confident in in the work of our administration that has presented what we have asked for them, not what they have provided uh under duress or under direction of Nick or Bonnie or Shannon's, you know, evil plans. I don't know. But, um, so none of it's fun. And we've all said it. We've all, you know, I and I and I also I'm I'm not going to fall into that we made poor decisions or previous boards made poor decisions. I mean, um

208Scott Schneider spoke earlier. You will never hear you will never hear a bigger booster for Hudson schools, the teachers, and my concern is that while we do have good people like that, um we still have to be responsible. We still have to be accountable and you know I'll open it up for more discussion but I I'm I'm that's where I am. I mean I don't see even short term you know to say well we don't have to make a decision till 2030 that is absolutely incorrect. That will put us in a deficit situation where we are doing things like raising class sizes. the myth that keeping the schools open will eliminate, you know, raising class sizes, it's it's incorrect. The goal of all of this is to make us more efficient with the space we

209have and flexibility so we don't have a two-section school here with low or high, you know, uh it's so we can balance things out. It's so we can share services. Absolutely. about uh center-based special ed. The goal should be all of our schools deliver equal and excellent special ed. So that that is an argument that I mean from an equity standpoint from just what we should expect for all of our families at all of our schools no matter what we you know to to say well all of our schools need to be the same not true. You know schools can have some unique character absolutely but they also have have to have shared services. They have to be very equal in the in the product in the that we can deliver the the services for

210those students. So things change. There are districts all over the place that reboundry. They reboundry every so many years because they have to to balance their numbers. We've been fortunate. We've done one reboundary in the last how many years? And that was a big struggle. So, but is it is it impossible? No, it's not impossible. And um you know, districts all around the state and the country are being forced to consolidate or close schools. All of our schools are wonderful. Sometimes I I think to myself, I it's it's almost insulting to how do the teachers feel at these other schools when they're seeing all over the internet and everywhere else? Well, our school is so special. It's like none other. The kids, if we have to change, you know, oh my god, it's the end.

211I If I was a teacher at one of those schools, I would be very I would be very disheartened by that. I remember when EP Rock with many challenges in their demographics was a top score. And I so I don't pit schools against schools and I don't want to pit community members against community members and I don't appreciate some of the things I read about our administration and our board members in the community because Hudson's better than that. Need to be better than that. Anyone? >> Yes. Maria, >> Mr. President, I'd like to make a motion on option two to close two schools. >> Mr. President, I made that beforehand. I would like to resend that. >> You like to what? >> I I asked you when you were done if I could make a

212motion for option two. >> Okay, that's fine. So, you want what is your motion? >> I would like to make a motion to table option two, closing both schools until these questions have been fully addressed and the board has had adequate time for discussion. It's a motion from Aaron. Do I have a second? I'll ask again. Do I have a second? I'll ask a third time. Do I have a second? Hearing none. The motion fails. I have another motion for Maria. >> Mr. President, I move forward with a motion to consider option two, closing two schools. >> Do I have a second? >> Second from Brian. We have open for discussion before a vote. >> What is the plan that this board has when these two schools close? What is your plan for closing it?

213What are you going to do with the buildings? >> We need to discuss that. >> The plan for the closing of the schools has been on a on a schedule worked out by administration that we discussed numerous times. Is this possible? What do we need to take moving forward and what what should that schedule look like? So, I believe we've discussed the schedule of the closing and what that you know when we would have to do different things. Um, you know, Nick can speak more on that if he'd like, but as far as the question, what will we do with the buildings? We can't we can't make a prediction. We we the decision on UYU was we would really like a developer to come in and make affordable affordable homes as many as possible, right?

214Because we want affordable homes. Um Derek said, "Well, this is how we are what we're capable of doing to make, you know, their plan work." And it was dependent on numerous things, but the school board doesn't ha we can't force. It's up for this the municipality to determine what's approved for zoning and what have you. As far as our buildings, we have no we have no offers. We can't really speak to what do we do. I would hope that it would be, you know, one, you know, I don't know, any number of things. Um, uh, >> cost, what is the cost to mothball them and leave them sit? I mean, look how long it's taken to sell this other property. Are we willing to sit on these schools empty for two years >> and not

215have children in them? Well, I think Erin sometimes I think parts of these discussions I understand people want to know all these things, but it's a little cart before the horse. So, how are we supposed to know what we will do with a closed property, a closed school, if it's not closed? It would be very odd. >> How do you know what you're doing with it if we don't have the discussion? Why would we why my question was when I was interrupted by people like Jiren? Well, I felt like I was interrupted. >> Okay. >> But for what it's worth, I don't know how you can say that we don't h It is a board's decision on what we're going to do with these schools. And if you're going to sit here and say for

216the next two years, these schools could could potentially sit empty when we could have and it's going to cost us money anyhow, why not say close one now? I mean, we just kind of, you know, we're in that discussion right now. I get that. I get that. But to not have a plan, what we're planning actionably to do as a board is beyond negligent. >> Can I go now? >> Yes. >> Okay. Thank you. So, I would say that I would imagine depending on the outcome of this meeting, it would be on our work session next week on are we going to put the buildings up for sale? What are we going to do with them? It's sort of the same thing. Once we know what when schools are if which schools close, then we

217can start the reboundering process and that's going to have community feedback sessions. So making if we made kind of fake boundaries based on what had happened and then fake bus routes, it would have taken a lot of spent money on examples where things weren't going to turn out that way. Okay. So, I would assume Bob that we would have a discussion next uh at the October work session about what to do with the buildings depending on the outcome of the vote today. Is that correct? >> That is correct. If uh the question you know I mean there are are many uses you look at other school buildings in other communities what they are used for uh market rate or rent adjusted housing uh libraries uh senior centers it could could be in the public the

218mun local municipality could purchase it. It could be purchased by a developer. Um, you know, we've been we've been asking previous boards, even before me, was saying you shouldn't build a new high school on new property. You should keep as much property in the in the taxable uh sector as possible. It's why we are selling the UYU or it's sold hopefully uh with annexation from the city. And um it it's it's kind of it's kind of that argument that so now we're going to get criticized because we're potentially putting property back onto the onto the tax roles that wasn't there before. And again, just because we have capacity and and the building's not sold, I don't know if that's a valid reason to keep it open and still be putting that money in still still

219absorbing that risk of oh what happens when the boiler goes out now we just spent another x hundreds of thousands of dollars and does it does it then and also from the community from a teacher aspect u or you know staffing I've heard well you know you think of the teachers I am thinking of the teachers I'm thinking teachers that have been concerned about if they're going to have a job for the last couple years and now we say I mean if we keep a school open which one that's that's the big one we can agree on that um but also you know these teachers if we we're going to keep it open for a year what does that mean we're going to close it automatically in a year because if if nothing changes with

220enrollment you know what what would be what would be the change agent that would that or would we be instilling hope for people that hey They kept they kept Willow open. That is awesome. We won. You know, we we we're keeping this wonderful school. And there's some other people that are like, "Hey, we we lost." Then the question is what happens when, you know, next year or the year after that enrollment goes, we've absorbed that cost that cost the inefficiency is still there and uh you you know I I don't know how to how to respond that then you've got going through this again. Then would we need to do another task force like we did three or four years ago? Would we need to have all new community input? Would we have people coming

221out out of and coming up with saying you're not being creative, you need to think of, you know, putting cell towers on top of the buildings. I don't know. >> I think those are all really great questions that we should have answers to. >> Yeah. But but >> and and I think that really the reason that we're being going to be criticized is simply because there is really no plan here. You guys closed schools. Great. what happens next. I would like to have those discussions, [Applause] >> Mr. President. >> Yes, ma'am. >> And um maybe you can answer this or maybe it's uh Bonnie or Nick. I would imagine that there is state law that you can't make a plan for a building ahead of time unless it's going to be a district plan. like

222you have to put it up for sale and have a a competitive offer situation. I I don't think we can just decide what happens to a building we close unless we're going to use it as a district property, right? I mean, we can't just be like, "Oh, so and so said they're going to turn it into these really nice condos, so we're >> Okay, thank you. No comments." um when the district disposes of property, they have to they have to give everybody an equal opportunity to purchase it. um as far as you know when you do that or that timing that's that's really something that's that's set forth by the board. But um yes, you you couldn't enter into you'd have to publicly advertise it and give everybody an opportunity to purchase um if that's

223the process similar to what we did with uh the UYU property solicited uh bids and ideas and then the board weighed those bids and ideas. Um ASC property is listed with the realer for sale that way. Okay. So, anybody could purchase it that way. So, you wouldn't be able to say this one person came to me uh without giving it an option for everybody. >> Thank you. >> Yep. You know, I I I think of the we know we have a fi a referendum for operation that we'll have to try and renew in five years. It's another time coming to the district. There will be people in our community that say, "Here they go again." They won't care that it was a a non-recurring. They won't care that it was a a you know a

224band-aid if you will, you know, because they won't care that it's a state funding or enrollment is the reason we're in this situation. But to to potentially tack on another referendum uh for maintenance and upgrades on schools that we are not using efficiently to me is a double hit. So you say you've you've got mistrust in your district because you've closed schools. Well, won't we have mistrust in our in our district taxpayers when when we come at them again and say, "Hey, we could have saved you $4 million a year or three point whatever million dollars a year. We could have could have saved you that, you know, year after year after year, but now we're coming back to you because uh because we we need to keep these schools open or we'd like to

225keep this and of course we'd like to keep the schools open, you So I just look at is is is that the responsible thing to do when we as a you know I think I think six of us believe we can we can properly educate with within our range class sizes and and educational opportunities in four schools. Um I I I don't I don't know what else to say on that, >> Mr. President. >> Molly, >> um I just wanted to address the the questions that we sent to the administration today. Um so Aaron, me and Megan had some questions and some of these were like, "Hey, remind me of this." Okay. How many sections are in each school? Yep. Remind me what capacity is. remind me how this works because we're just citizens like

226you guys. Um that's not my these aren't my areas of expertise. So, you know, we're like, okay, let's make sure we understand. Um and this is where we also got what the neighboring school districts enrollments are. Um down at the bottom, Erin, on this document, these are some things that we've been talking about because I I asked also, what is it? You know, how do can we mothball Holton? Can we kind of put a pause on it and keep it in case we see some growth in a couple years and we could open it up again? So, those are the questions we've been asked. It's difficult. Um I would assume they have to drain. I mean, this is what basically what does. You have to drain all the fluids. You have to let the building

227freeze and get hot. That's what that that means. Not great for buildings. Um, emptying and relocating all the materials. This will be handled by in-house by our maintenance staff. What is the timeline for making the decision? The board can set that timeline. What the board would like. Where will all of the materials go? Will it be reused, sold, disposed of? Some items will be reused in other buildings. Some items that have no value would be disposed of and some items would be put put up for sale. What is the timeline to complete the moving test? We would get the stuff moved to the new buildings over the summer and then we would deal with the remaining items. What is the plan for transitioning students? We would have a very robust transitioning plan laid out by

228the building principles, teaching and learning and student services. The team would start working on that plan within weeks of the board making decision. We would do a lot of similar activities that we did when we reboundered the district in 2018. Um, if we were choose to do nothing, what are other options and recommendations for for cut or alternative solutions? I believe those are laid out in the document from the January 25 community meeting. Okay. Um, you asked for a financial advisor. Um, the district has audits every year considered one of the top financially slown districts. I think Bonnie's an excellent administrator, chief financial offer. Um, yeah. So, that's pretty much what was in there. I I think what you're feeling is what I'm feeling, too, is I don't want to close two schools. I don't

229want to I don't want to do this at all. If I could walk out the door and not do this, sign me up. You know, guarantee I'll leave here and I'll cry. But I don't have that choice. I can't sit in the audience and um make faces, jeer, say nasty things. I can't do that because I have to make a choice. I have to make a decision. And if I abstain, that's kind of chickenening out, isn't it? It's kind of like Ashley said earlier, she has to make terrible decisions. Terrible. And these are terrible, too. So, I I don't know. It's easy to sit aside and and make judgments when you're not sitting here. And I I can't remove myself from this. This is, you know, this is the responsibility. When you when you take

230office or do something, you agree that you're going to do some hard and this is really hard. So, I think that's what you're feeling. Erin, >> I apologize. I apologize. >> Yes, I apologize. I Yeah, >> Mr. President. >> Yes, Megan. >> You know, I think you hear a lot um you know, from like Congress people or people in state legislature like it's about your family budget and of course federal budgets are different because they can run massive deficits and print money etc etc which is not an option for us. But I think we've all been in a position in our own lives with our own families where there are things that we would really like to be able to do or we'd really like to be able to have or keep and we say

231we can't afford this. And we don't have the kids and we don't have the money for six schools. We cannot afford this. I remember three years ago when I was in the audience and I was like, there's no way we're going to see huge enrollment growth. Things are going to get better. I was wrong. But board members at the time, in particular the former board president Jamie Johnson, he said, "And these are our other options for big cuts, guys. If we keep six schools open, freezing teacher pay, unpaid furlow days, increasing health care costs, the majority of our costs are staffing. I don't know what is it 60 >> 75 80% are staffing and then we have facility costs. So when people say I've heard a lot from people Holton is the cheapest school to

232operate per square foot. That's the utilities. Staffing is our most expensive part of our budget. Our teachers are the center of our schools that make things happen. Our principles, our paras. I do not want to freeze their pay. I do not want to cut their pay. I don't want to have unpaid for a low days because you know what's going to happen? They're going to leave. They will look for other jobs. There is a teacher shortage. We will lose teachers. And and I've gotten a few emails saying, "Please just delay this one school year. vote for closure and give us a year. We already had a hard time this year hiring enough support staff at Holton. If we delay this for a year, does that mean, and I don't even know if it's legal from

233an HR standpoint, that we say, "Okay, well, some of you are going to have a job continuously, but just know for x number of people, you won't have a job in 27,28, but we really hope you'll stick around." They're going to look for another job. How are we going to staff for a year if we're going to let this go on for a year? What would you do if your work told you we're not going to keep you only only just for a year? You'd start looking for a job because everybody has bills to pay. Our teachers have bills to pay. They bust their butt every day. I'm not cutting their pay. I'm not freezing their pay so that we can keep buildings open. I love these schools. But we can love these other schools.

234It can be okay. I think part of it is this is harder for parents than it is for kids. And we need to lead by example with our children. And as much as grade grade school, the f the foundation of your education in grade school is key. But if we make cuts at the middle school and the high school level, the quality of what we provide to our students is going to go downhill so fast. I mean, you look at St. Paul, not that we're the same. They don't have bands in any middle schools. They have not closed schools. They have not consolidated. There is no more music in middle school. That is heartbreaking to me. And there are boards around the country that kick the can on the hard decisions because they want to

235keep the schools open because they I care about what every one of you are saying, but we can't afford it and we don't have the kids to fill the buildings. >> Mr. President, >> Brian, >> I don't know if you all remember back in January, we had another community meeting where we where we talked about budget options. Um we we similar to the one two weeks ago where we had people sit at tables. Um the district prepared options for saving money. Um we we did this I I know you were there. You talked about what are we going to cut in the budget. Um schools were on that list. Closing schools. They they happened to be among the more popular options in that group of people that showed up that day. But I took the

236data the the administration provided the data from from that day and I kind of built my own straw man budget to to get to just so we know what we're talking about here. What are what are our alternatives to if we were to keep these schools open? So I did two two options. One that saves $3 million a year, one that saves $2.7 million a year. Um, I kind of put things into buckets like admin, building maintenance, staff compensation, student outcomes, and student support. So, within admin, it's like district administrative support. It's district or I'm sorry, building administrative support, then district administrative support, and then office support. So, these are the folks working in the the office that we all when we go to pick up our kids for a doctor's appointment. Um, maintenance is

237reducing our capital maintenance budget. So, letting our buildings fall apart like Bob talked about. Um, reducing the cleaning schedule. If I remember that one was really popular. Let's not clean our classrooms. Um, uh, reduce uh district and and school building non-staffing related budgets. I honestly I'm not completely sure what that one is, but you know, so be it. Um, then staff compensation. So implement unpaid furlow days. So that's for certified staff and support staff and administrative staff. Reduce employee benefits, reduce salary increases, then student outcomes, delay a new curriculum adoption, go to a junior high model at the middle school. That's is that eliminating the houses? Is that what that is? Okay. Um reduce electives at the secondary level. Reduce graduation requirements. Reduce instructional coaching, library media, related teaching and learning services. Reduce student service

238supports for gifted and talented. Our counselors, our psychologists, our nursing, delay technology replacement schedules, increase participation fees for athletics, reduce student and intervention services at the secondary level. So, my option one, I said, let's hit admin hardest. Sorry. We're going to take the max there and the minimum for every everywhere else. We get to $3 million in savings per year. If we just take the minimum everywhere else, we only get to $2.6 million per year under our current model. Those are the those are the alternatives we have. Or we can move to this four building model where we have the space. We absolutely have the space. I have talked to the administration. I have looked at the numbers. I have looked at the spreadsheets. We have the space. We are also having less students in

239our buildings every year. It's still falling. We can still deliver the excellent outcomes and not cut these things. As I said earlier, these are my kids go to these schools. I went to this school. I understand what it is to the community of St. Joseph. I absolutely understand. But at the end of the day, it's choosing bricks and mortar over our student outcomes. It absolutely is. Do we have any other questions or any other comments? So, we have a motion and a second. I'll do a roll call vote. Doll. Do you think we should repeat that? >> Oh, should you repeat the motion? >> Sure. The motion was to close two schools, Willow and Holton >> and a second by Brian. Yep. So, roll call vote. Dah I. Garza >> I. >> Gerlock. >> No.

240>> Powers. >> I. >> Rosowski. >> I. Rudy >> I >> Bowman I motion passes >> there's children here sir >> okay do I have do I have a motion to adjurnn >> so move adjourn second >> motion second all those in favor say I I >> I >> We are now adjourned.