001To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisibley and justice for all. Again, I want to apologize uh for the late start that I don't know, we've had uh roughly 200 plus meetings and uh we've never started one this late, but that was because we had other board business to start with. Uh before we get to citizens request to speak, we have uh recognition, I guess, and turn over to Dr. Olette. Yes. Uh thank you, Jamie. Um, we want to recognize we do have three board members uh this evening which this is their last board meeting. Uh, some of which uh have have been had a lot of meetings, a lot of meetings. Um, and so I just want to kind of go
002through we do have plaques for each of the board members. Uh, want to uh just I'd like to have an opportunity to talk about each of them individually. Uh but also then I'd open it up to any of the uh rest of the board that would like to make any comments or board members like to make comments. Um but I'm just I'm going to go through uh briefly with mine uh comments and then um I'll turn it over the rest of the board and then if the individual board members would like to make comments that that would be fine as well. And so uh want to talk first about uh Rob Brown. Uh Rob has been on the board uh nine out of the 10 years that I've been here. Uh Rob was part of
003the uh interview committee uh that I interviewed with as a school board candidate I remember on the auditorium stage at Lee Auditorium at Willow River Elementary School. Um and so uh Rob's been a great uh great board member for us. Tremendous background with our operational services and things along those lines. Has really been uh done a nice job with a lot of things. has has been part of the board through some of our most challenging fun situations whether it be COVID elementary reboundering referendums and so that's been a uh great experience having on the board he will definitely definitely be missed. Uh next I have Lynn Robson who al uh although has only been on the board for one year with this stint uh was part of the board that hired me uh 10 years
004ago uh and was on the board for nine years. Is that right? Uh prior to that. And so, uh, Lynn has has been an absolute voice of of reason. Uh, and I always have appreciated, um, she doesn't pull any punches. Uh, it doesn't matter with me or anybody else. And so, um, you know, it's it's going to be hard seeing her go and not no longer being on the board. Um, and like I said, uh, with Lynn and and Jamie leaving, those were two of the board members that actually acted on, uh, hiring me. And so the last two uh that are still on the board and so um I know that uh she will still stay very active in school business and and the community and so but she will be missed. Um and
005then our last board member that I wanted to address uh sitting to my left uh is Jamie Johnson who has been board president the entire time I've been here for 10 years and I think board president 11 years. Is that correct? Um, you know, when we had we always on the day of a board meeting, uh, I used to be a little uh, more punctual about it earlier in the morning called Jamie to go over the agenda, any surprises or anything that needs to be aware of. Uh, and then as things got busier, he would then eventually send a text saying, "Are we not talking today?" Um, and so I said, "No, we'll get to it." Uh, but then when I called him today about noon and said, "Well, this is it. This is 10
006years of him and I having these conversations at least twice a month on Mondays uh and uh going over the board agenda and anything that we have going on or anything to be be ready through. And so, uh, you know, having Jamie off the board, um, again was on the board that hired me, uh, 10 years ago and, uh, he's the only board president that I know in in Hudson, although we've had people fill in when he's been gone, I think a couple meetings, and those fill-ins have always said those meetings have gone much faster. Um, I think, uh, Bruce would always comment on that, and even Bob has had some speedier meetings, uh, than Jamie. So, uh, but, um, you know, I would be remissed if if I didn't say, you know, how much
007I will miss having all three of you on the board. Uh, it has, these jobs are very challenging. They're very difficult. Um, but being on the board is very difficult and, um, it's, uh, without the support of the board, you know, it's hard to do what we need to do administratively, educationally. Um, all three of these people, uh, there is no doubt in my mind through the last 10 years I've been with them, try to make every decision based on what they think is best for kids, what's good for the district. Sometimes that may not always be what's good for everybody involved. Um, but that's part of being a leader and being part of the decision-making crew is you have to make decisions that sometimes aren't always popular, but you do what's right uh for
008the district. And so I feel very fortunate to have uh gotten to know all three of these individuals over the last 10 years and uh uh look forward to getting our new uh getting uh forward to getting our new school board members on board and getting to know them as well. And so um I will turn it over to any board members before we give them an opportunity to speak if any other board members would like to speak. Dr. You know I like to speak first then nobody else can take what I'm going to say. It's been a longterm thing. Um, I just want to say how much I've enjoyed working with you, Rob and Jamie and Lynn. Um, I feel like, um, this is a working board, a board that functions, and that's thanks
009to the three of you and what you bring to the table. Um, I am so thankful for people like you who believe in public service. Um, don't be a stranger. If you want to go out for a drink, I would love to buy you a drink or you could buy me one. So, you guys are the best. Mr. um I just again thank you to Rob and and Lynn and Jamie. Um not just for your board work, but you Rob's involved in church and JA I believe over the years and Lynn Rotary and the hockey association, everything else. And Jamie, too long to list. Um, I I ran for school board because of Jamie Johnson and his leadership in our community and his his goal of, you know, um, intelligent, well-reasoned leadership, but also with
010heart. And I I've just grown to appreciate um, all the things he has done for Hudson and, you know, things that I would not be willing to give the time and and I don't know anybody else that that does put in the time. Um, on a funny note, uh, I have to hold up his little speech here, which which this gives me terrible anxiety because every every graduation, um, Jaime's sitting next to me on stage while the students are walking in and he's scribbling and and that's what he does. I don't know how he does it. He pulls off his speech. It always sounds great, controlled and and and again well measured and and and important, you know, for our community and but I have the shakes just looking at that paper. So, but thank
011you all. Thank you. Um it's been so great to work and learn from the three of you as a newbie who's still learning more every day. Um, I haven't told you this before, Jamie, but I was afraid of you before I joined the board because you can come across very serious. You know, you're a lawyer, but um, you know, you've just been such a great leader. Um, you are thoughtful and funny and you also give things the seriousness that they deserve and you put in a lot of time and reflection. Um, Lynn, thank you for stepping up when we needed someone to join the board. It's been great to get to know you, um, and learn from you. And you, too, Rob, thank you for your years of service, all of you. All right, I'm
012last. But I probably will repeat things. But um being on this board, I think a lot of people from the outside look in and think, "Oh my gosh, they must fight or they must not speak after board meetings." And that couldn't be any further from the truth. Um we all kind of know each other's families or what's going on in their lives and it's really been special to get to know the three of you. um whether we agree all the time, I think that we've always had such a good um a lot of respect for one another and I so appreciate that. Rob, everybody brings something different to the table and you bring um such an expertise in building and so we can always count on you for building, architecture, all of the above. We
013can always count on you to be watching that and uh to ask the right questions. Um, and I think you've always been really great at being a good financial steward for our our taxpayers. You're somebody that I can always look to to look for that. Um, Lynn, you jumped on. We're more than willing to help. And one thing I've never doubted about you is that you are in this for the kids um wholeheartedly and with no expectation, no um no other bias or agenda. Thank you. See, she's still helping. Um and that's so appreciated. and Jamie, you are an absolute staple in this community and for all the time that you've put on this board, I so appreciate it. Maybe I was a little intimidated as well, but um you've really been a a steady
014leader here and we can always look to you to say, "Okay, now what?" And you always somehow know the answers. So, I appreciate that and I know Hudson appreciates all of the time and effort that you put into our community and I I know it will not that I hope it continues. I know it will continue that we see you all around doing sprinkling your magic around town. So, much appreciated to all of you. Okay. Um well, Rob, I guess I'll give you the first retort. Well, I wasn't going to call it that, but uh you know, I was I've been reflecting on this meeting and you know, looking at Lynn, Jamie, you know, I of the three of us, I have the least tenure, three terms. Amongst the three of us, there's 21 years
015of board experience. 21 years. and uh the things that we've seen together, you know, as Nick mentioned, you know, COVID, the high school plan, the PST that led to the successful passage. Jamie, thank you for yours and others leadership there. um just there's a there's been so much good that's happened even through some really challenging times and I'm just grateful for the the friendship, the grace, the involvement of every single person that's on this board today and that have been on this board because it is a commitment. I'd like to thank Nick for your leadership, your willingness to always have a conversation to make time even though you're busy. Um, thank the entire cabinet, all of you, um, and those that came before you, some of you, um, you have to work with this board
016and provide a lot of great information and you're fantastic at your jobs. Um, Tim, thanks for being the glue. you know, you make uh you make a lot of this possible. And so with that, I I again can't thank you enough. And um I'm looking forward to seeing what the school district does into the future. Tempting to give me a microphone, so I'm guessing that means I can't speak. Who did you do that? Thank you. Um I just want to thank the cabinet, Dr. Brollette and my fellow board members. It was great serving with you for this last year. Um it's a big learning curve when you step onto this board. There's a lot to learn and a lot to know. And so I thank you for your grace and reminding me of how things
017have changed and teaching me things as well. But um Nick's right. I'm in this for the kids and I'll continue to be involved in the district because of the kids. So I think there's still an active role when you're not on the board of being involved in these community and community conversations. So, I plan to continue that work. And um I think Kate said it best. We come from very different backgrounds. And I've never served on a board. This board was the most cohesive um well thought of each other and well respectful of each other on differences of of opinions. So, I want to thank you guys. All right. As uh my tradition, when we have subjects on the agenda, I'd like to be the last to speak if I can. There's been a few
018exceptions over the last 12 years, but I just want to start with expressing my gratitude. Um I'm just grateful for the privilege and honor to uh work on the Hudson Board of Education. People say that it is a thankless job, but it's not true. Um I've had lots of people thank us for our work. Um as a board we are a team. Uh we are um I think many people said it a cohesive group but um that reflects what's necessary to be a high functioning school district. Need a high functioning board. We need we have awesome staff and we have an awesome administration. Um and we have uh frankly awesome families as well. It takes parents involvement um to achieve what this district has achieved. So um it's not true that it's a thankless job.
019It can be extremely difficult but it's also extremely rewarding and we know it's extremely important. Um we are in the business of improving people's lives, setting the path for the next generation for our community and our state and our nation. Lots of things um get blamed on CO, but if there's one thing that CO did was showed the importance of in-person learning. Talk that teachers can be replaced with machines is just not true. Education is a people business. And I'll have lots of memories, but it will be the people uh that I've met and uh had the pleasure of working with that make a difference. Um there's been some great people I want to name I've worked with 14 different school board members. Dan Turnoy, he had 20 years of experience and um I never
020thought that I was going to serve more than him and um I won't say that I won't because if I miss it enough, who knows? But uh did you hear that? Yeah. Your wife's here, you know. I know my wife is here. She's going to get her due uh in this speech. Um after on that same board with Dan Turnoy was Tom Holland, Brian Bell, Sandy Gerky, Lynn was on the board when I started. Um so when Bruce and I got elected in 2013, um we had a I think average of eight years of experience on the board. Within two years after we got um elected, uh we went down to 2.2 years of experience. And so we learned a lot of things together that so um after um I became president uh then um
021Carrie joined the board. Heather Logan, Sue Katas, Rob um was in that election and Bob Bowman, Molly Powers, Kate Garza, and Megan Rosowski. uh 14 very professional, high functioning people that um this district's been blessed to have as their leaders and it's been a pleasure to work with. Um that also extends to our superintendent. The only job tougher than being a school board member is being a school superintendent. uh he usually gets uh the blame for everything when it goes wrong and u when people have disagreements or concerns um you know they get directed to him and um he's been you know again somebody who has navigated us through some highs and lows that this district may never experience again. Um, contrary to public popular opinion, uh, there were times of disagreement and while we
022didn't agree always on an approach or an agenda, we understood each other and recognized that we had a common goal and that was putting kids first. So, literally hundreds of staff and families that I've interacted with, I want to thank. Um, I have to thank my wife, Jean, who's here tonight. uh spouses particularly put up with a lot and um there there's been well over 300 meetings that I've attended and it takes a lot of time hundreds and hundreds of hours but Jean's always been there supporting me she even went along to one of our national conventions which um was a pleasure to uh be able to have her see what our district does to always try to stay excellent. Um, of all those state conventions and national conventions, when conferences we go to, we
023find that we're already doing things really well here and it just reinforces what we do. So to the new school board members, I just hope that you continue that commitment to excellence to set an example of learning and understanding your role, keeping an open mind. Communicate by listening first and speaking last. The harder the decision, the longer you need to keep an open mind, and the longer you need to listen to ensure that you have all the facts before you make the best decision for kids. So, I will be a resource for those uh new board members if they wish uh since I'm going to have a lot more time on my hands now. But again, sincere thank you for all of you for the last 12 years. Um very proud of the different things
024that we've done. Uh lots and lots of memories. Um but I will have um very much cherished the the time that I served here. So, thank you very much. [Applause] One one group photo. [Music] Okay. While they're taking pictures, I just want to say on in the microphone that these are these plaques were made by our teched class. So that's pretty awesome. Okay, with that we'll move on to citizen requests to speak about non-action items. I want to point out that we had several uh requests. Normally we get over five total, then we reduce the amount of time. But since a couple of these requests to speak are actually on uh an action item, we'll take that up during that portion of the meeting. Sorry. Um one of those people would like to speak right
025away. Rachel speak. Okay. All right. So Okay. So, I I guess I got an order that I'm being uh being given here. So, losing my discretion as president just already. So, all right. Roy Schoberg, do you have u Yeah. Thanks, Tim, for putting me up first. Appreciate that. Well, um the old people of Hudson wanted me to come up and speak. uh 55 years ago I graduated from high school and about 20 years ago I was on the facilities task force that was Ron Burn was the superintendent and we spent Tracy was on that with me and we spent hundreds of hours trying to figure out what to do with our secondary high school situation. Uh and we a large group of us met and met and met and met. But what we didn't do
026is we didn't do the community engagement Jamie like you did and Nick and Rob and Lynn. And so you made such a big difference. I live very close to the high school and I didn't think that that pig's ear could ever be made into a silk purse, but it is. It's uh it's just so charming of a school and I'm filled with pride that it's there. And as much as I tried to lift the ball, I couldn't do it. Uh and you guys did. So, a sincere thank you for that. And, uh, Rob and Lynn, you're great friends. Uh, but Jamie, uh, as a fellow member of the bar, you made my profession very proud and, uh, I know that your lawyer skills came in very handy on a number of occasions. And, uh, that's
027why we get paid the big bucks is to take the hits, right? So, uh, again, thank you for all you did in that regard. But I also wanted to, uh, at this time provide a little history lesson because today is a big day. So, today is April 14th and way back on January 10th in 49 before Christ, Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon. What does that mean? Crossing the Rubicon meant the end of the Roman Empire. And it's, excuse me, the Roman Republic. And it started the end of that society and the beginning of a different society, an empire, a dictatorship. And I'm sad to say that today our US president disobeyed the US Supreme Court. So, of all of the constitutional law studies you've ever had, um, remember today, April 14th, a day that the
028line was crossed. And I just hope that our different systems of government that we have here, our three branches can rise up and save our democracy. So sorry for the history lesson. Uh today's a big day and it moves me to make this statement. But again, thank you so much for your service and for the new board members. Challenges are ahead. Take care. Thank you. Next up, Rachel Miller. Hello. I'm Rachel Miller. I have been teaching here in the district for 34 years. I am a single mother of a student at North Hudson. She has special needs. I am here to discuss the um possible action item which is the employee benefit renewal. And I just want to say that this is so personal to me as a staff member, as a parent in the
029community as well as a resident, for myself, health care is vital for my family. big changes that would be made would be absolutely devastating with her specialized medications, her regular procedures, surgeries, appointments. When I think of some of the changes that could be made, it takes my breath away. It It brings me to tears. And so I am here to let you know that knowing that my health care benefit could change tonight is scary and it is also scary for colleagues. Big changes without prior serious discussion and no feedback from those that would be impacted is frightening. I think transparency is something that is important. I have served on the teacher advisory committee for many years now. I feel we are a small group with good ideas and excellent discussions. We know that our discussions
030were a part of the community communications and those meetings. We know how powerful that was. I believe that something this big as a change to our health care should go to that committee first and then that feedback feedback should go to the board to consider before we make a big decision. I understand and and we understand that tweaks may be necessary, but that allowing TAC and the insurance committee opportunities to talk about this and talk about these changes would be very vital and important. TAC meets on Wednesday. Please postpone any action until after you get teacher feedback from TAC and the insurance committee. I truly believe that collaboration and working together now and moving forward is very important. Thank you. And I also want to thank the outgoing board members. I appreciate all that you've
031done for the Hudson community. Right. Thank you for your comments. Thank you for finishing within three minutes. All right. Next up is John Dole. I brought I brought my stopwatch. Welcome back. I brought my I brought my I brought my stopwatch. Go ahead. Three minutes. You got it. I started. Wait, no, I'm not ready yet. Okay, now I'm ready. Uh, so I'm John Dolan. Happy to be here, everyone. I'm really happy to be here now that the referendum is passed. I wanted to take the chance to thank you all for the opportunity to put it on the ballot, to let us work on it, to let us get it passed for the community, and thank you to the board members for everything that you've done that are outgoing. Rob, Jamie, Lynn, thank you. Um, so
032we know that as part of Friends of Hudson School, the S committee, member of the community, we know that the referendum is only step one of working through capacity, enrollment, and budget challenges. Right. Okay, it's step one and that we're still facing challenges about budget, capacity, enrollment, etc., etc. I just wanted to come up here and to verbally advocate and say I hope that the next steps were a really public process with lots of community involvement that's focused on data and fact factbased decisions such as the operating costs of all the schools enrollment projections current headcount future headcounts occupancy rates of current schools and capacities utilization rates geog geography of each school, school performance, and most importantly, where kids live now into our best estimates of where we think kids are going to live in
033the community in the future. And finally, something that can't always be forgotten, as Roy said earlier, the historical impact. We have particularly two schools and areas in the district that have been in service for more than a hundred years. We can't forget the history and the lifeblood of the community has been impacted by those two institutions. Um, neighborhood schools are important. They're important to where kids live, their foundations to the communities, and we want them to stay. So, lastly, just wanted to offer my volunteering. Happy to be a part of it. And a little bit about me. So, I'm a licensed civil engineer in the state of Wisconsin and Minnesota. I have 15 years of experience in facilities operations and space planning construction projects. I currently work for a global company where I support 100
034plus locations. And all I do every day is think about everybody's favorite topic, space planning, facilities operations, space utilization rates, and how to best spend our money on buildings that we need to still meet the requirements at at work or in the communities. So happy to volunteer. I'm really glad that I'm here to say thanks. The referendum passed. I'm looking forward to be a part of the next steps going forward. Thank you. Thank you. All right, next up we have Mark Dolan. Mark Dolan. Just real simple. Um, I'm Mark Dolan, John Dolan's dad, resident of Hudson Township, a registered professional engineer, state of Wisconsin, part-time teacher at W. Stout. I asked two questions. I think one says is the teched fund teched classes at the high school funded properly for that would be the welding
035and the small engine classes for the students. Item number two is in the K4 do the elementary students still have to read aloud. Thank you very much. Okay, next up is Scott. Well, Scott, you I guess we've already had one that commented on an action item. If do you do you want to wait till we discuss this as a board or do you want to That's fine. Go now. I can go now. I guess that's it's up to you. Your choice. Yeah, I'll do it now. Okay. Two minutes though. Yeah. For you. Two minutes. So, I'm I'm Scott Linkson and I'm a longtime teacher here and parent and do a lot of different things. Coach too a little bit. Um, before I really begin, I just want to thank Lynn and Jamie and Rob for
036your service and it's been good working with you guys and I know I could always call you up and have good conversations and just really appreciate your service. Um, so Rachel really talked well I thought about um having this go before TAC before a final decision or an action item is made before you. So that's she said that really well and I I totally agree. Um um the Dolan have spoken and I got to know them by working on the yes committee. I worked with them on the yes committee. Um and I I think you know we we really worked hard to steer our message to a good all district message not just a few buildings like that and we obviously were successful and I think without the committee's work we would not we'd be
037in a very different situ situation tonight. So thank you very much um for the yes committee. Thank you for your work and I just I just really think it's important to keep that in mind. I don't think that we and the teachers and all the support we got from our state organization did all that to then have the insurance come and really real fast and quick without a lot of debate and input before us. So I think it's really important that we wait okay here have the attack committee come up with their ideas and get their feedback. the insurance committee that I also serve on. Um, you know, we had a few meetings, little discussion, but mainly a lot of getting information, nodding and everything. We I think we thought there were more meetings to
038come and all of a sudden here we are. And just so you know, the committee itself did not recommend a significant increase for health insurance. It did not recommend major change to co-pay for dental. And we did talk about educating people and we talked about maybe an optimal um or excuse me optional vision coverage but we did not say hey go ahead and you know put the rates up really high especially if the referendum passes. So I just want to make that very clear. Um board members I've heard at all the meetings I've been watching I've heard you talk about attract and retain quality teachers. That's what impacts the classroom the kids the most. this this move would put us back to $2,000 per family insurance policy over $2,000. That's going backwards in terms of
039trying to be competitive and that's the leading thing that we have when we compete especially against Minnesota is our benefits. So, um again, we need to think about that. There are different ways to do that. We do understand like Rachel said that we do need to make some tweaks, but let's get some feedback and talk more about that. The board policy changes usually has a first reading one night, another meeting it has a second reading and some action. We think that something this big deserves that kind of attention and that kind of timing. So really really plead with you to consider that and you know our paras and our support staff would be even more impacted than us. So please let's wait. Let's get it right and get the feedback. Thank you so much. Right.
040Thanks Scott. All right, next up our reports. Turn over to Dr. Oled. Yeah. Um, so first up, uh, is the election report and referendum results. So, election report, you can see, uh, how the vote totals came in. Um, and, uh, the top three vote getters, uh, as you can see, Brian Dah, Aaron Gerlock, and Maria Rudy. Um, the third uh, highest vote getter, Maria Rudy, uh, that serves the remainder of the three-year term. Uh so she uh that position would actually be up for reelection again next April. Uh is how that works. Uh additionally um I want to uh express a sincere thank you and gratitude to uh people that are both in this room and and not in this room. Uh we have Bev Heagen, we have Tammy McKenzie, we have uh Kate Garza
041who were our board of canvasers. Uh, typically that's a pretty um low-key process. I think Kate, you've done it multiple years. You come in, it's about 20 minutes and it's done. Uh, not so much this year. And uh because all of the sudden we had a very very very close vote as it related to uh the referendum. It was within seven votes that the referendum did pass. Uh which then had an individual request a recount. And so, uh, that's where I also want to give a sincere thank you to my administrative assistant, Tim Miner, who was the logistics behind everything related to the recount. Uh, because we, uh, received the recount petition on Tuesday, Tim, right? Uh and by Thursday at 9:00 a.m. the canvas board uh led by Kate was conducting the recount and
042it uh went all day Thursday and into the evening and then all day Friday uh and into the evening uh to to get to our recount uh and in the end the vote total held. Uh the the difference was it was 7,412 votes to 7,46 votes. Uh, and so, uh, we'll be finalizing, I believe, some of that paperwork coming up, uh, which people will have, but, um, it was a, it was quite the process. I stopped over multiple times to see how things were going. Uh, thank you to the county, uh, and the county clerk who put in tremendous amount of time and effort uh, helping us go through this. Little did we know that a recount uh is requ uh when a recount is requested, it's the the municipality or school district in which
043the recount is being requested that has to actually conduct that. And we are not we don't we don't hold elections. That's not what we do as a school district, but uh we apparently hold recounts. And so, um, it was, uh, you know, a matter of within 24 hours, uh, Tim talking with the different, uh, town and and city and village clerks. We secured six counting machines, uh volunteer pole workers, um and got all the ballots that the county allowed us to utilize their facility to uh do the recount. And it was a uh thankfully they they allowed us to do that because, you know, not only do you have to recount uh the ballots, you have to worry about ballot security, you have to worry about machine security, you have to worry about all of
044these other things to maintain the integrity of the election. And I can say without without hesitation uh everybody involved did just an absolutely outstanding job. And so it was quite impressive how quickly this all came together uh and how well everyone did through this process. Um but uh the report is yes that the referendum did pass uh and that we'll continue to move forward with that. I don't know, Kate, if there's anything you want to say related to the the election or anything since you were a a much bigger role as the clerk this year. Well, and who Yes. Who knew that was the clerk's clerk's job? Um didn't know it when you got appointed last year that you were going to be the arbiter of election decisions. Yes. Yes. Um you know, honestly, all
045hands are on deck. tons of not tons but the amount of people needed were more than willing to help and it was run by an observer called it a welloiled machine. Um Tim was uh impeccable. We very very helpful. Christine Hines the clerk of St. Craig County was incredibly helpful. Um and then everybody who was there just to make sure that our election uh was held with integrity and indeed it was. Um so it was interesting to watch it all happen and kind of learn what a recount looks like. Um so we found one change in the vote total, but of course that did not make any difference in the referendum. So um it's remains as passed. Thanks. Any questions on the elections? Okay. Uh Hudson Safe report. I believe we have individual from Hudson
046Safe is going to come up and speak. Yeah. Right up here is just fine. Hi everyone. I'm uh Alicia Schneider. I am the co-president of Hudson Safe and one of the co-chairs for the senior all night party. I came last year uh as my first year of co-chair and spoke to you I believe at the April meeting. Uh so I had asked Dr. Olette about coming uh to provide an update as we gear up for the senior all night party coming in just a few short weeks. Uh it will take place right after commencement on Friday, May 23rd. We're thrilled to share that over 50% of our senior class have already registered and our goal is to have about 80% of the class uh registered to attend. We feel confident that we will get there.
047I should also say that uh my co-chair Stephanie Campbell was not able to be here tonight uh but she sends her thanks and appreciation to the board. Uh as always, the Hudson community continues to show up in amazing ways for our school district financially. uh we have hit the majority of our goals and we're expecting that the remainder of our expenses will be covered by incoming registrations. I wanted to give just a little bit of a of perspective. Excuse me. Um Stephanie and I had previously served as PTO presidents at Rivercrest Elementary for about 10 years up until 200 um 24. And in that time, the PTO uh at Rivercrest operated at the same budget annually that the senior all-night party operates for for one night. So that gives you an idea of the scope
048of what uh of what we are dealing with. Our new challenge this year uh has been the setup because graduation is on a Friday and historically we have set up on Friday evening for a Saturday night party following com commencement. Um we are trying to get everything in place from 1:00 until uh approximately 8:00 p.m. when we will be welcoming uh volunteers in for the party. It is proving to be tricky. we've only got about 13% of our volunteer needs met for that setup piece. Um, but we're going to navigate it for this year and we sincerely appreciate that. We saw for 2026 it will be a no school day. So, thank you to this board that makes a a huge difference um for the future planning for to continue the senior night party. Uh
049we are just so grateful for the continued support from the board, from the HHS uh administration, Mr. Ballard, and a special thank you to Mr. Halverson because he works very closely with us and is so patient with my neverending questions that I have uh in emails. So, thank you. Uh next year we will be celebrating 40 years of senior parties at Hudson High School. It's an incredible tradition that we are proud to keep going strong. We would love to invite all of the board members, past and incoming, uh, to the party on the 23rd, to volunteer and see what it's all about. It's really a a great evening, a great way to celebrate our, uh, senior class of 2025. I have a handout in your packet that Tim placed there. There is a QR code
050to the um, to the sign up if you should feel inclined, and we would love to see you there. So, thank you all for your support and uh we appreciate it. Thanks, Alicia, for the president report. We got board members that have might have questions. Yes. I just wondered so I see here that you can do this QR code if you want to volunteer. Yes. Is this or is there other ways so if people are watching they would know where to go to volunteer? Yes, they can go uh onto the Hudson Safe Facebook page. Okay. and we have the volunteer sign up there. They do need to have a background check on file with the Hudson School District and uh if they have questions they can reach out to us through Facebook or through our
051website hudsonsafe.org uh to gather more information. Yes. Thank you, Molly. Thank you, Mr. President. Um, I just want to say, um, having done the senior all night party and worked a little bit with Alicia, I would urge community members, parents, even of younger kids, everyone here to volunteer, whether set up if you don't like to stay up all night, but come at least do it one time because it is so much fun and these kids are together for the last time. and whether it is kind of like the breakfast club if you're old like me. There was all these groups but then they get thrown together again and they're like 17 18 but they're like 5-year-olds. They're like kindergarteners. They're having so much fun and it is a wonderful experience and you will go and
052see mostly kids are great. They're awesome. They really are awesome. Yes, they make mistakes but they're just wonderful. and Alicia and Stephanie put on the best show ever. It is so fantastic. So, please volunteer. These things don't happen if you don't volunteer. And I'm sure Jamie can um get behind this that the reason it started was because kids my age when I was in high school used to drink and drive a lot and get into terrible accidents and die. So, we haven't had that. So, what a great thing. So, thank you so much for doing this. I appreciate it so much. And volunteer. Yes, Molly. I can second that motion about the importance of the Hudson safe um concept. Um my wife and I, we were chairs when we were celebrating the 25th anniversary. That
053was 15 years ago. Uh when our kids were juniors and seniors going through that because it's a two-year commitment. you're a co-chair and you we had uh I mean back then Dean Canutson and his wife Sonia and um then Dennis Durst and um and Lois uh were co-chairs. But it is uh something for somebody in their 40s I think to do because it's easier to stay up all night than but but maybe I'll I'll talk to Jean after the meeting. We'll see if we can sign up. All right. Thank you very much, Mr. President. And thank you. And I would just say as one of those people that likes to stay up late and those that do volunteer on Lake Molly late at night, um there's plenty of pizza and Mountain Dew. So, and coffee.
054Thanks, Alicia. Thank you. All right. Um then we have a report from um Dave. What's that? Not here yet. Not here yet. All right. Well, yeah, we're juggling with the schedule because of our late start and everything. So, community conversation recap. Nick, why don't you take the next three items? Thanks. Appreciate that. So, uh, community conversation recap. We did have a follow-up meeting. We sent out, uh, I think it was 170 invitations. Is that right, Tracy? To people from last year. We might even been higher than that. The invitations we invited. What was the number? I said 170. It was 220. 220. Okay. Sorry. So, we sent out 220 uh, invitations plus we put it out there for people to come. you know, we had somewhere between, you know, 30 and 50 people that did
055end up showing up. And really what it was was an opportunity for us to follow up uh with with that anybody that was involved with the community conversation last spring to say, "Hey, the time that you put in last spring, it wasn't just uh an opportunity to say, "Okay, it's we did it. Now we're moving on." We actually took that feedback which actually moves into uh number E or letter E on the uh reports which is the district strategic plan and that's uh what we did on uh Thursday night last week. So we uh gave uh folks an opportunity to give us feedback on are we hitting the targets based on the feedback we got from the community conversation with you know drafting our strategic plan and what does that look like and our strategic
056plan uh we have spent a lot of time looking at this coming up with the different areas that that how are we going to impact students how are we going to impact staff how is it impact parents and families and then also community members and it's been broken into those four different areas uh as as you can see on here, educational excellence, well-being, uh partnerships, and also operations. And so what we've done as a district uh leadership team is we've meeting over the last few months to kind of uh come up with some of the actions that that could be taken in order to make sure that we're meeting the direction that the community asked us to to go in after last last spring community conversation. From there, we had a lot of different uh
057ideas for each of the each of the areas, but knowing that you can't do everything well. You have to be able to target some things and you have to be able to pull some things out. And so, some of the things uh didn't quite make it into the strategic plan, but then also we had to look at we broke uh our leadership team into five groups. an elementary group, a middle school group, a high school group, uh, and then an instructional district instructional side, and a district operational side. And what we did in those groups most at the most recent meeting is we started to look at all of these different actions for all these different groups and started to say, okay, if looking at it through the lens of your group, is this an
058is this an area where you're going to take leadership uh, as far as this part of the plan goes? Uh not that it wouldn't not that all of these things aren't important, but really you just can't do everything. Every department can't do everything. Every building can't do everything. Uh every level can't do everything. And so what you see is those uh in parenthesis behind each of the of the different actions is what area of emphasis it's going to be. So if it has an E behind it, that means the elementary team said this is going to be an area emphasis for them as they look forward over the next five years. and M would be for the middle school team, H for the high school team, I for instructional, and O for operational. So, our
059next steps and what's going to happen from here with our team is we're going to start we're going to take the feedback that we got Thursday night and we're going to start to look at, okay, what are the level of the priorities? So you kind of almost almost like if you take these different items and you kind of put them in a a structure kind of a fourbox structure up along the left hand side maybe you have urgency and on the bottom you have um uh order of you know importance and so we try to look for you know trying to figure out we can't do every item on here starting in September. It just doesn't work that way. And so some of these things are going to roll out uh with over the next
060five years. Some of them are going to take multiple years to roll out. Some of them are are things that we're continuing to do. So, not everything in this plan is new. Some of these things are extending, building on, expanding, strengthening a lot of things that we have going on already in the district. And so over the next uh like I said the next few months we'll be kind of refining this and then really creating kind of strategic action plans for each of the departments so we can create the roadmap and bring it to the board and say okay here's a roadmap of how we're going to try to get the strategic plan accomplished over the next five years. And then we'll continue to develop the metrics in which we're going to measure whether or
061not we're getting it done so that we have a way to report out to the community and report out to the board uh so that there's a level of accountability. It's not just words on a wall. They're actual actions that we're going to take and that we believe will make a difference with our our students, our staff, our families, and our community. So, that's where we're at as far as kind of a brief update with our strategic plan. Plan on having, you know, some board work session time coming up here in the next couple months once we get it refined even more to make sure that we are hitting where the board would like us to go as well. Uh, and then get a final adoption probably sometime this summer. So, questions. So, the goal
062is to have a strategic plan set in place by uh school start. Yes. Yep. That that's correct. All right. Questions? Yes, Nick. So, then the the scorecard that we've had historically, that'll be just updated with the new plan. Yep. Yep. So, we'll have the scorecard action plans that'll be updated. Those are kind of per department or per area. And then, you know, we'll be re-updating kind of more of a a central district scorecard to be able to keep track of all the different components. Yep. Okay. Uh, next one is the construction update, Nick. All right. Uh, so, uh, construction update. Kind of go through these. Um, we are making tremendous progress on the construction projects. Uh, the first thing out of the gate is, I believe, the middle school. Um, you're starting to see, uh,
063second picture down. There's work on the swimming pool area. The heating, ventilation systems are being updated. Uh the pool you can see is drained and they have scaffolding through the middle uh as they put in some dratification fans and things along those lines as we try to improve our our air quality there. Uh if you keep going down, you start to see we're turning over two more um remodeled houses actually tonight. They're moving into them as we speak. Uh go down a little bit further. This is on the back side of the uh middle school. uh some of the retaining walls being built so we can put our new water chilled air conditioning system up behind the building uh kind of tuck it in there uh as we as we work through. Right now it's
064kind of a mess as you try to drive back through there, but that'll be all cleaned up by the time we are uh by the end of the school year as we as we move forward. Uh some additional pictures of, you know, the remodeled house areas. They've really turned out nice. They've done a nice job with them. Uh, and then the last picture, last couple pictures, you have middle school pool. Again, uh, I always thought the tile in the pool was blue. Apparently, when you take the water out of it, it's actually white. Um, so, uh, we don't we don't typically drain the pool all the way down. Um, a lot of people ask us about that. Uh, you know, as we talked to the pool chemists, they said water itself doesn't go bad. You
065know, it's the chemistry that can that you have to constantly balance. But I think that pool last uh if I remember correctly has somewhere around 325,000 gallons of water in it. Um and so it it when we ended up uh emptying that pool uh we empty it at a rate of about 2,000 gallons a minute. Uh if you can think about that and we don't dump it into the sanitary sewer system because obviously the city of Hudson doesn't want to treat water that they don't have to treat us. But we are required to actually neutralize the water before we dump it. it goes into the storm system. So the water that actually gets dumped into the storm system, it's been tested so that it is purely basically like tap water. Uh it doesn't have any
066of the chemicals that's been neutralized. Um and it actually dumps into the storm sewers that then go down to a pond back behind the uh the kind of the football uh soccer area back there and then it kind of leeches into the ground so that we're not just dumping, you know, almost a half a million gallons of water into the sanitary sewer system and asking them to treat it. Uh so just we've had people ask about that before. The system the pool should be up and running because we've had a lot of questions about this. The goal is to have it up and running by June 1st. Uh we're also taking advantage while uh the pool is empty to do repairs on tile work uh and some of the other uh pieces in the pool.
067Um it's just pools are a lot of maintenance and and they are they are a lot of work and and we try to do the best we can to to get those things done. Uh once we Bruce Hansen's not even on the school board. You're spending a lot of time talking about the pool. The reason I spent a lot of time, we've gotten a lot of questions about the pool. So, I want to make sure that's on there. Um, you can see, keep going down again, the retaining wall pictures, uh, science classrooms. If you keep going down with the polished concrete floors as we go through, um, we have a lot of pictures in the middle school. Uh, and then it wouldn't be a construction update if you don't go down a little bit further
068without a shot of a bathroom and, uh, some bathroom tile work in the remodeled bathrooms in the middle school. Uh, no urinal this week. No, no urinals this time. All right. Um, and you can start to see some of the new carpet. In the first phase, we weren't able to do the carpet in the classrooms because we didn't it wasn't in in time. And so, that carpet is going to get replaced, uh, this summer. But in this phase, we were able to get the classroom carpet replaced. It was in in time in order to get those get those things done. So, uh, keep working our way down. Uh, EP Rock, if you keep going down, uh, EP Rocks changing quite a bit. If you look at the front of the building, doesn't look quite like
069it did. The canopy's gone. They're going to be starting the new uh controlled entrance, secure entrance addition. Actually, I think they started digging that potentially today. I wasn't over there today. The new front drive. That's all of that is happening. You can see the next picture. There's the um this is back where the I think the long jump areas were uh by the track. That's where the um uh the utility yard is going to be, the chiller, the um generator, things like that, backup generators, things along those lines are getting that done. you start to see uh they're getting really close to turn over another section of the building. You can see uh floors are getting polished and things are starting to look uh starting to look good. Uh the ceilings and everything else getting
070done. So, it's really coming along. You start to see classrooms are starting to get uh right above that ceilings and then of course some shots of some bathrooms as we continue to kind of work our way through and some different work through there. North Hudson. Top picture, you start to see classrooms that are getting close to being remodeled. Those are going to uh so EP Rock, I think, is about another week out before they'll be turning that over. North Hudson's about a week behind that for that next phase to be turned over. Uh the next page down, you start to see the gym is being painted. Um and uh they're working through that component. Keep going down North Hudson, you start to see some classrooms that are getting really close. outside of North Hudson Elementary.
071The outside's actually taking shape uh with the brick work and the windows and things along those lines. Um you see the scaffling where they're finishing up some of that stuff. All in all, we're we're moving along. We we picked up some time uh in these most recent phases and still plan on being able to open on time. There are going to be a lot of moving pieces and a lot of work done this summer, but um uh the uh construction manager architects have been working hard to try to make sure that we stay on track, stay on budget, and right now we're still on budget and still on time. So, that's a good sign. So, Rob, it wouldn't be a construction update without a question from you. Thank you, Jamie. So, any uh any notable
072change orders or anything that's worth sharing? Um, you know, I mean, yeah, we've had some we've had some different change orders that have come through as it's related to um some unforeseen conditions. Uh, one of them, we had a $63,000 change order that came through for EP Rock when they opened up the ceilings. We talked about this. Uh, the walls didn't go all the way to the bottom of the roof. And so, we had to they had to come and actually build small walls on top of the walls. Otherwise, um when you take out the three layers of ceiling that were up there, uh the staff are going to hear each other, you know, through the through the walls. And so, some of that stuff has to happen. Um you know, we've had some different
073uh changes as it relates to some of our air handlers and placements that way. But I think we're finally starting to get some of those things worked out and back on track. Uh we are still, I believe, uh still right on target budget-wise and our goal is to bring it in under budget. So, Jamie, yes. Thanks. Um, Nick, could you comment on I' I've heard some uh people in the neighborhood around EP Rock uh concerned about we we took down all those trees at front looks much different. I know some of them were ash and we are expanding the drive or the drive. So, that was going to happen. The concern in the neighborhood is we are going to plant new trees, right? Um yeah. Yeah, we are. Um, no. Actually, you know, the tough
074thing that happened at EP Rock is we had a ton of dead ash trees at each at EP Rock that had to come down. And of course, they happened to be in all the places where we didn't need to cut trees. And then the trees that were in good shape, uh, were in places where we needed to cut trees. And so, uh, there was a tremendous difference, especially the front of the building with the amount of trees that are gone. But yes, similar to like what we did at the high school, we do have there'll be tree plantings and things along those lines. Uh and a variety of different types of trees so that we're not kind of all in on one one variety. Uh so yes, that'll all happen. Uh but it will take,
075you know, years for them obviously to reach the same size of what we cut down because they were pretty substantial trees. So other questions or comments for Nick on the construction update? Otherwise, I'm sure in two weeks there'll be another construction update. All right. Um, now we'll move on to topics for discussion andor possible action. We always start with the consent agenda items and I'll entertain a motion pursuant to the spending language. Mr. Mr. President, I move approval of the consent items and that the chief financial and operations officer be authorized to pay bills in the amount of $4,337,879.96. Is there a second? Second. Second by Lynn. Uh all those all those in favor signify by saying I. I. Those opposed say nay. The eyes have it. Next up is uh the 2526 food service
076prices. Bonnie, we discussed this. Any changes since our work session discussion last week? Same recommendation. Essentially, it's a 5-cent raise. Is that correct? Um we are anticipating a 3% increase um in our contracted service meal prices. And if you look at what USDA is also indicating is that the outlook is food prices are going to continue to go up. So we are recommending a 5-cent increase in all meal prices. Obviously free and reduced would stay at the same rates. No change there. So the reduced price stays the same. The other full prices and that includes for adults. Correct. On breakfast and lunch 5 cents. Correct. Okay. And just to give our folks who are listening and watching might not be able to see the fine print. Uh the example is uh elementary breakfast is a
077$1.70 for students and then uh the price for an adult lunch is $4.95. So it's still under $5. But uh any other f questions or comments for um Bonnie? Mr. President, just uh again thanks to Bonnie for doing this homework. I had I asked how many uh breakfasts and lunch lunches we served adults uh lunch appears to be around 3100 but in total for our district it's 458,000 meals in one year. It's absolutely crazy. So thank you for that information. Nothing more. And u All right. So, you can still get about a $3 lunch, whether it's elementary, 3:15 if it's a secondary lunch. Um, all right. Ready for a vote. All those in favor of um a motion. I'll make a motion. All right. So, second, Megan, your motion is to approve. Sorry. All right.
078Thank you. That's good. I just didn't want a negative stated motion. That's good. And Rob, you second. All right. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Those opposed signify by saying nay. The eyes have it. Last item on the agenda before we go into close session. Oh. All right, Dave, your folks are here. Yeah. Well, we've got most of them anyway. So, why don't we have Laura, Aaron, and Tom come on up and um as you know, we periodically bring forward curriculum updates. And tonight, we're going to be talking about secondary mathematics. Very excited to bring this information forward. Um, as you all know, we've been focusing a lot of energy on secondary mathematics, and tonight you're going to see the fruits of that labor. Um, a lot of great progress. So, we
079implemented a new math curriculum two years ago at the middle school, and then this year's our first year with a new algebra program. You're going to hear about next steps at the high school as well. Um, we have sort of two celebrations. One of the celebrations will be the data that, um, some really impressive growth. The second celebration, we're hoping we have some high school kids that were part of a math celebration that we'd like to bring forward and recognize because it shows um the other end of that spectrum, some really high-end, pretty amazing um math um students that celebrated or participated in a competition and did amazing work. So, we're looking forward to that as well. Um when we talk about the work that happened at the middle school, I'm just going to share
080a little anecdote that there was a professional learning session. was actually in this room and we were talking about all of the work that went into the success with middle school and now going into high school math and um it was tough. We were asking a lot of our teachers and they stepped up in a huge way and one of the teachers um just mentioned the fact that it was really tough but then she said, "But I'm so happy and so proud to be part of that journey." So just cool to see and we're um looking forward to continued success. But I'm going to turn it over to Laura and Aaron and Tom to share some data and then we'll hopefully have some high school kids in a little bit. All right. And we got
081first names of folks, but if you could just give your full name, please thanks. So, this is Aaron Larson. She's an instructional coach at the middle school and Tom Johnson, instructional coach at the high school. And as Dave said, we're just so proud of the work that they have done in leading our teachers through these curriculum changes. Um, it's really exciting and I think you're going to be excited to see the data. So, I'll let Erin talk a little bit about middle school math. I think I turned it on. Yeah, I did. Okay. Uh, so what you have here is this year's sixth and seventh grade, beginning of the year and middle of the year growth measure data. This is a test that comes within our um our new curriculum, our HMH resource that we
082use. So what is exciting about this is we have kids coming in and beginning of the year are testing above or on level and that approaching even within the program like that's okay because they haven't even really started sixth grade yet or seventh grade at the beginning of the year. That sounds so good. Um so and then we see that in both of these grades we are increasing the amount of students who are on and above which is really great because over the past several years we've seen that we have lost students uh to proficiency and now not only are we maintaining but we're actually growing in both sixth and seventh grade. Uh you can go to the next one please. So here we're going to look a little more deeply at the eighth grade
083uh data. So that top left one is actually last year's data, beginning of the year, middle of the year, end of the year. So we saw some really great tremendous growth in eighth grade last year. But then down here in the bottom right, you see this year's beginning of the year, middle of the year. And we see even more um growth there within the eighth grade. And then what's really exciting to me is the next slide where we're comparing beginning of last year with beginning of this year, eighth grade. So, starting off the year this year in 8th grade, we started with over 15% more students in the hon or above category and almost 9% less students um indicating that they needed additional support outside of what would happen within the core classroom. And then
084the next slide, we're going to compare last year's middle of the year data to this year's middle of the year data. So again, you see we're we're above, you know, where we were a year ago. And then the last one, we're actually going to compare last year's end of the year with this year's middle of the year. So that the one on the right on the left, I'm sorry, would have been after a whole complete year of learning math compared to middle of the year this year where they still have half of the standards left to complete. And we're already have more students in the on and above category um halfway through this year than we did after all of last year. And what I really like um about this and really focusing on the
085eighth grade is that's really a culmination of all of the learning that they've had all throughout because they wouldn't be this successful in eighth grade if they didn't experience success in sixth grade and then in seventh grade as well. So this is super exciting. And then um knowing that our new algebra curriculum is just so much more rigorous and increasing what we're asking students to do is we feel pretty good about sending these students to the high school um to engage in learning in a much more rigorous resource. Any questions about the data before we move on from those slides? Just quick comment. We know we've been having or realizing some challenges as it relates to math at the middle school and it's just fantastic to see the improvement. So, thank thank you for your
086work. Um what I wanted to share a little bit is uh the middle school math is a couple years ahead of where the high school math is at in terms of implementation. Um and so this year um the algebra for lack of a better word algebra is piloting the first year of SAVIS um moving forward. So we don't have the kind of the longitudinal data just yet. Um but we wanted to share the process that we kind of go through when we're looking at uh a curriculum change or adopting a new resource. Um so this is part of phase three where we t we dig into um the the resources that companies provide us. And so we'll look at assessments, we'll look at the standards um and then these resources are vetted against um are
087basically are they high quality. So there's a um nonprofit out there called um ad reports. Thank you Blake. Um that will rate these um as kind of meeting a certain expectation or exceeding a certain expectation. and we're only interested in looking at resources that meet and exceed um how well they align to standards. So that's one of our first um steps. Um and then Tim, if you can go to the next. So then when we go through this process, there's also heavy teacher involvement. So, we bring the teachers in, they review the resource against kind of an internally built rubric where the teachers will then rate um anywhere from three to six resources um and they'll say they're meeting or exceeding our standards inhouse as well. Um and then we bring in the top vendors
088uh for some presentations um and after going through this uh this past year, the teachers unanimously selected u the resource that we went with and that is for SAVIS. So um Savis is kind of parent company uh by Pearson. So well known in the um educational world and what we decided in moving this way is that we were going to pick a resource that had algebra 1, geometry and algebra 2 in one full sequence. We knew that it would be fully aligned if we did that and we didn't want to pick three different companies to have the three different courses. Um with this purchase we get just a plethora of resources for students. So we get print copies of uh we have a classroom set of textbooks for students. Um the students also have companion
089um or kind of an individualized workbook. So a little bit different way of taking notes. Um but teachers have a lot of flexibility in how they want to use that. So whether the students kind of work individually or we put them in groups. Um there's a there's a good resource there for students as well as kind of a full comprehensive online access. So students can get online. Um they can do their own personalized work. U we also have an option for adaptive work. So as students can get in there and as they get problems right, the problems get a little bit harder and if they get one wrong, they get one down. They kind of levels out for the students to kind of meet them where they're at. So then we can support them moving
090up from there. Um regardless of where the students are taking the course, the course is the same. So algebra students at the middle school and algebra students at the high school are receiving the same course, same assessments, same standards. Mr. President, yes. with the online access. Does that have like tutorials or you know what's involved with that? Yeah. Um Tim, if you want to go to the next. So that was your perfect segue. Um so one of the support we wanted to share a little bit about support that the students have um both from teachers and at home. So there um are a couple options for providing um for parents to provide support for their students. Um, one option is with all of our resources is students can always or parents can always have their
091students log into their Chromebook through class link. So whether it's support with social studies or math, parents can always have their student do that. However, SAVIS also has an online family engagement um that provides some videos and some prompts for parents to support their kids as well. Um, we know that as we're getting into algebra, geometry, algebra 2, that math is getting a little uncomfortable for some parents. Um and so having that opportunity for parents to um to support their students at home. Um and then we also have the additional support for students within the high school. Um so these are high school specific um options that we have available. Um but every hour of every day we have a a licensed math teacher available that will provide targeted intervention support for students um based
092specifically on skills that they um could provide or could work on. But then we also have drop-in support where students can just say, "I need a math teacher to help me with my homework." Um, and it might not be the teacher that they have in class throughout the day. It's just a different teacher. Um, but a algebra teacher can go or an algebra student can go to a calculus teacher or vice versa. And all the students have that available to them. Um, our teachers also request students during advisory, a high frequency of time. the algebra teachers during that time in particular. It's 25 kids in the room and it's and it's crazy, but that's an option for kids to get the support. And of course the tutor.com and so we always have that that's a
093247 resource for students um to log in and get really targeted um support. So no matter where that student's at, we feel good about the opportunity either to enrich where they're at um and get them above grade level and continue to challenge them um or meet them where they're at and build from there. Um and then lastly, just a couple highlights. As I mentioned, the new resources has a ton of different ways we can um the teachers can support the students. A lot of between print and online materials. Um we feel really good about the rigor uh of the grade level materials. It's challenging for students. Um and that is one of the challenges for teachers as well is is finding ways to get that information to them. Um but what we love is that
094this really allows the teachers to focus their time and effort on how to teach the material. So their expertise and their professionalism as teachers um can really be geared towards um how do I reach the students? How do I adjust my instruction um so that the students can grow as much as possible and then along with that is just really robust support for teachers to then implement. So as stated Aaron and I can provide the same implementation support whether it's at the middle school or the high school. um the teachers PLC on a frequent basis where they're bringing data into those conversations. Um we'll do check-ins as necessary with Laura and Dave um and building administration. Um and then also when we have questions, we have representatives from these companies that we can reach out
095to and get support as well. So really no stone unturned, full team effort. Um and the algebra team this year and I'm really excited about geometry and algebra 2 next year have really um they are working so hard. Um, and we just know that they're willing to do what's best for students and it's been really enjoyable to to be a part of. Okay. Any questions uh from the presentation? I guess my question was when you talked about it being very rigorous for the students. Does that that probably means it's going to be rigorous for parents that want to help their kids with homework, right? Well, we have those online tutorials for them. Okay. Good. Good. All right. Anybody have another question or I have a just a comment. Um, I wish that I mean I'm
096amazed at the stuff that you guys are doing. It's amazing. You see the results, but then the the support and the access is it's incredible. I mean, it makes me want to learn something. So, thank you so much. We know you guys work really hard on this and take a lot of pride in what you're doing and we're very proud of you. Thank you. Yes. And as Rob said earlier, it's so so great to have good news about math in middle school and and now high school. So, um, just excellent, excellent work. Yep. And just real quick again, thanks to the three folks up here. They're putting in a lot of work. But if you see a math teacher at the secondary level, thank them. They're doing great work and they've really stepped up in
097a huge way. Good. Anyone else? Lyn, I just wanted to comment. I did click on those um links for parent tutorials and help and they were they were easy to understand. I mean, they were clear and well, maybe just the first one I clicked on was easy to understand. All right. Thank you very much for the report. Look forward to hearing more good news in that route. All right. Now, we'll get back to the uh action items or discussion and that is uh the 2526 employee benefit renewals. Uh turn over to Nick and Bonnie to explain this agenda item and where we're at timingwise. Sure. Okay. So, one of our goals this year um was to really invite the our staff members, not just teachers, but all of our staff members to participate in an
098insurance committee. So, an email, just to give you a little history of where we were at. So, an email went out to the entire staff. Um everybody was invited to participate in an insurance committee. Um we did have three meetings throughout the year. Um the first two meetings were really base building like what does our insurance cover? Um, we really looked at all of our insuranceances, not just health insurance, but dental. Um, our third meeting, um, which I don't believe Scott was at. Um, but we had a third meeting and we really talked kind of about when we started looking at our experience, which I don't know if you can bring that up, Tim, but that was another tab on the agenda. Um, we started talking about the experience of our plan year. Um, we
099brought it to the board last month and bringing to you again. Um, typically a good plan year would be to be at 100%. For every dollar we put in, we pay $1 in claims. If you go all the way to the right, I believe it's too small. What are we at? 120. Yep. So, as of the end, we're at 128% this year. So, if you go over two columns to the right, we're operating at a deficit of $2.2 million. And we're not through the year yet. And we're not through the year. And if you look at our months, typically you have up and down months. I I don't know if it's an anomaly year or what's going on this year, but month after month, we are just not having good claim experience. Um at our
100third meeting with the insurance committee, we really started talking about um some of the um what our consultants put out as recommendations of how we could get down to that 8% because our renewal came in at 25%. Every percent is What does that mean? Every percent is approximately $100,000. So, in our budget projections, we estimated about an $800,000 increase in premiums with a 25% increase renewal. It would be 2.5 million. Bonnie, and when you say 25% increase renewal, you're assuming we that's making a projection we'll be at 125% by the end of the year. That was provided to us by Health Partners through our underwriting claims. Thank you. Yep. So we kind of at our third meeting we started saying we have been sharing this information throughout the year with the committee and again to
101go back this committee was an advisory committee. It wasn't a decision-making it was to say give us some feedback. One of the things, a big one was um to eliminate weight loss medication like WGOI. That would be almost a 5% increase in or decrease in premiums if we didn't cover that. Um one of the there was some questions from the committee that we really took into account is that we have quite a few people like 150 participants that utilize that. So rather than eliminate that coverage, what we proposed was increase the deductible up to the $300 per month co-pay, I'm sorry. Um the average premium per month for WGO is about $1,000. So the district is still picking up that that amount, but to bridge to try to um not pull the rug out of
102those people that are depending on that medication. Um but that is still an option out there. So we tried to meet somewhere in the middle on that one. Um the deductible from 350700 to 500,000 um our again that was a compromise. Our um consultant thought that that was well below benchmark and should be higher. Um but we tried to get the middle of the ground. Um the sec the second bullet point is to implement an achieve network. So to offer two plans for employees. One plan is you can go there's no network. You can go to that but it costs more. The second one is an achieve network which is restricted to health partners. Hudson physician is a part of that network. Um but it would reduce there's bigger discounts for the plan. participants wouldn't
103have would have a lower um premium for that. Specialty drugs um 150 is industry what our consultant told an industry norm 25 is kind of unheard of. Um so they're they are recommending that that go to the benchmark. Um and then our last one and again this was to try to get us within that 8%. We actually with these recommendations actually only get down to 12% increase. So we would still need to find another $400,000 to get there. Um but our goal was or the what the last bullet would be would be to make the open network to an 837%. So district pays 83% of premium, employee 17%. And then if you were to participate in that achieve network, um it would be 8515. We did run the numbers. If you kept the open network
104at 8317 but made the achieve network, sorry that's not on here, um so you can't find it. um and then kept the um 874 126 split that it currently is for the achieve network. It would only increase the percent by 1%. So that would be a 13% increase. Bonnie, I know this is hard. There's a lot of numbers and I always have too many questions. No. So when you say 12% increase, you mean an increase to the district's cost. The district cost, correct? Thank you. Yep. Um, so thank you for doing all this and I understand, you know, um, from my understanding of of the timing. I talked to Nick earlier today, Dr. Wlette earlier today. Um, you were waiting for data and open enrollment usually starts May 1. Um, just to to get a
105sense of like why is this happening now and why does it feel quick? And yeah, typically um districts receive their renewals in April, end of March. Um we've been pushing on them just because we've been trying to get it to be better than what it was and we thought our experience might be better, but really it hasn't. Um you know, I mean, I guess, you know, there's several options you could do. One, you could say we're just going to eat the 2.4 million. We didn't think that we could come to the board and say that after you we created a budget with 800,000. Mhm. Two, we can take some of these recommendations and or we could adopt what we proposed to you. That's another option. Another option is if we eliminate WGOI, that's a 5%
106and don't have the co-pay. That's another option. Um I mean, we we tried to give you different scenarios. Um none of them are great. And again, would we have liked to have more discussion throughout the district? Yep. But we also our open enrollment period is May 1st. We probably can push that till May 15th to give more time. Um but ultimately I think the board needs to like do we want to make plain changes to stay within our budget projections or do we want to just eat the 25% and that's a $2.4 million increase or somewhere in the middle. I have two questions to make sure I understand things before. So when we talk about weight loss drugs like WGOI that means that if someone has type 2 diabetes and is on a similar drug
107that wouldn't apply then because it's Okay. Correct. And then um but it would apply if they're on like we had a situation today we checked somebody's on WGOI to reduce their high blood pressure. Yep. That would not be covered. It would be at the copay. It would be covered but at that $300 copay. Okay. And can you tell me it's like I'm at my insurance meeting. I think I ask this every year at work. That's okay. Can you explain like give me some examples of specialty drugs? What are they? I feel like I don't know I not that you have to give a long list but just to help me understand how that's different from the formulary generic specialty drugs and I kind of researched it today so I'm not an expert on it but
108it's typically for high skyrizzy I believe is on there. Humumera was on there, but now there's a it's not generic. It's called bioimilar. Is that what it's called? Um that's on there. There's what the other one? There's a whole but typically they're they're not common drugs and if you go to the health partners website, they have the links of and you can look up your specific medications. Um just a question about like you mentioned a couple times why go, right? That's a weight loss drug, correct? Um, but if you're if you're diabetic or whatever, you're on ozambic, that would be covered, which does the same thing basically as WGOI does. So, um, I guess my question is, what is what is it going to cost us per year to have WGOI co-paid through us potentially?
109So, if we have full coverage, the WGOI coverage they're estimating for next year is $500,000. Okay. And there also um at recent insurance meetings we've gone to is that there's 12 more um categories of illness that are going to have that as a remedy and that's not going to change. It's correct. It's going to continue. It's going to continue to rise and the cost is continuing to increase. So are you saying Bonnie without the $300 co-pay for a drug like WGO it's $500,000? Correct. Even with the $300 co-pay, with a 300 copay, it knocks it down probably about half because we do get rebates on that. Okay. But and we cover is WGOI just like Ozmpic. Same deal, same category of drugs. Yeah, Ompic is a little bit different because typically that's for what I'm
110learning that's for diabetic and that would be a covered drug covered benefit. Okay, Mr. President. Yes. Does this renewal impact our stop-loss coverage? Are there any impacts to that with We had our stock loss covered. It increased, I believe it was 14% and it was locked in last year for a two-year contract. So, that was good. Okay. So, going back to on the timing, um we could take action tonight, but you're saying that we could still get um the the benefit defined or redefined, if you will, and give employees time to open enroll before May 15th if we would we have to make the decision, we being the board, and that would include the three new board members, making that decision in two weeks or uh the May meeting. Yeah, I mean I think you
111could you could do the April 28th or potentially the May meeting. It's just going to be really tight. We'll have to close down how long the open enrollment period is. It'll probably be only a two week, maybe three week open enrollment period versus a one month open enrollment period. Um the other thing I think you know and Bonnie talked about and don't want to overlook is we are looking at uh offering a new plan option called the Achieve Network. Um, and one of the things that potentially could happen too, because it is a substantial increase to employees, there's just there's just no doubt about it. I mean, it's it's big dollars and um it's big dollars to all of our staff, especially our hourly staff. Um, but right now, if everything plays out the way
112it is, we have to come up with an extra $2.2 million this budget year to cover our health insurance. And if we don't make these changes and it plays out next year similar to how it plays out this year, we got to come up with another $2.5 million on top of that. And so what we were trying to do is trying to find some type balance where we're only having to come up with an extra 1.2 million essentially um you know going into next year. Uh but it it is it is substantial. you know, the achieve plan. Um, one of the things I just passed out to you guys, had Bonnie run the numbers. What if we could keep the same ratio, the 87 12 to 12 a half ratio as far as employer paid
113to employee paid, what would the increase then be? If somebody wanted to go on the Achieve network, which is the same benefit levels, correct? Correct. Just a different network. um it'd be about $17 a paycheck or $34 a month for family versus $80 a paycheck or $160 difference for the open access which is the plan we have. Uh so it would give people an option to select a different coverage. Now the biggest difference between the achieve network and the open access is the network there's going to be um the achieve network is health partners network. It's primarily health partners folks, but they do have other folks. We did confirm today Hudson Physicians is in the achieve network. Uh the urgent care is in achieve network, things like that. Um so there's there's an option. We're
114trying to do another option for for folks that you know would may maybe cost less. Um but we're we're we're really struggling. I mean, we've had years, you know, last 5 years, we've had we've been over 100% every year and and we've raised health insurance rates anywhere from 5% 8%. Um, we don't know if this is an anomaly year. I mean, it could be just a total anomaly and and things are going to go back down to normal or this could be the new normal for us. You know, when we tried to look at where exactly are we getting hit the hardest in our plan, it's it's not the really big claims where our stop loss kicks in. Actually, I think right now we've only had one claim hit our stop-loss insurance. We have a
115lot of claims in that $30 to $60,000 range. Um, which that those are tough claims because they don't our stop loss is at 150,000. Uh, and so, um, you know, some of the medication changes, you know, the the thought process behind the weight loss changes was if we went to a $300 co-pay, it give people an opportunity to understand that there's a strong possibility this medication could go away in a year. Uh, if that change makes it easier for the district forward, maybe it can stay. But it's it's kind of we didn't want to all of a sudden cut a medication and give people a month's notice on some of the stuff. But there's no doubt about it. It's it's expensive. The board could choose to wait till the 28th. They could wait till the
11610th. They could ask us to say, "Can you get if if all of a sudden we say, "Okay, the district portion, we're going to do what what's on this sheet for the district portion, but the employee portion, we're only going to raise it half as much as what we're proposing." And then what you'd be doing is kind of rolling the dice to see is that going to be enough premium collected to pay what what happens next year. It may it may be I I nobody has a crystal ball. If you would have told us a year ago that our claims are going to be 125% at this point in the year, we would said we have no indication to point to that. Um, but you know, and I think the other piece with this and
117and Bonnie didn't hasn't totally touched on the dental insurance piece because I know you've gotten some emails on this. Sorry, I can talk about that again. Do you want to kind of go through the dental insurance pieces as well? Sure. So, we did um Delta Dental did give us a renewal um and what one of the things they said was that our plan is very disproportionate that it's very rare that a plan does not have 100% coverage for preventive care. Um, and if you look at our data, I believe there was 500 people that have not been to the dentist in like three years that are covered on our plan. And they really highly recommended that we should I think if you keep going down the dental um that our annual maximum, they said keep
118that the same. The deductible, the deductible only applies if if it's a um like a cavity or something like that. But if it's preventative care, it does not apply. Um the preventative co insurance obviously 100% um the fillings would stay the same and basically crowns would go from 80 to 50%. If you actually do a calculation which we did with the committee at the last meeting almost 95% of the time if you go it will be less out of pocket for employees because preventative is going to be paid 100% versus being paid at 80%. and the majority of visits of what people go with for preventative care. So really we thought this was a really good idea to try to get people in and not only is dental health important, it affects your health insurance
119and they really get a strong tie to that. So um the recommendation there would be no increase in premiums for that. Um the district pays for that policy for the employees. Um but just really um switching um the emphasis on preventative care of our plan. Um the insurance committee, we actually surveyed the people that were at the committee and all of them actually favored this this plan change. So we have 800 employees and 500 haven't gone to the dentist in three years. Well, the the um some dependence some dependent this would be like and this is just a benefit that we provide. Yes. at no cost to the employee to the employee. Okay, Mr. President, I just want to clarify um in one of the documents it says all recommendations for changes keep comparables below
120industry benchmarks. Yes. Um do you know is industry benchmarks like other districts or um it was private sector? It was Gallagher and it's their book of business. So it's both um school districts and private. Okay. Yep. Mr. President. Yes, Rob. And so with um we want to be competitive with other school districts. Are we seeing other school districts working through these exact same issues? Are most districts looking at increasing what their employees pay for benefits? I I guess I've not done the comparables. I would say anecdotally through our business managers, most districts have gone to high deductible plans with HSAs. Um I don't know if a lot of districts have I guess I don't know if you've done that stud I don't think we've done that analysis of what um other districts are doing. Um
121I would say when you talk to other like my business manager group high deductibles are very common with HSA contributions also um options with restricted networks to keep costs down for participants are very are becoming more and more popular. And if you even look at some districts, very restrictive on certain procedures. Like some districts, they're saying that you can only go to this place for a knee replacement and if you choose not to go there, you have to pay the difference. If I think if you look at Rice Lakes plan, it's very um restrictive of what you can do. And I don't think that's a path we want to go down. I think we value people's choice. Um, but at some point I guess you need to make a decision of, you know, what we
122can afford as a district. And as far as the the open access plan versus the achieve network, were these uh premiums determined based on a certain percentage of participation? And so, for instance, if it's 5050 hypothetically, if 80% of the uh district employees choose the achieve network, are we going to be financially in trouble? with the rates on the open network. Um they did the the quotes based on between the 30 and 40% participation in the achieve network. The more people we can get to go to the achieve network because there's negotiated discounts with those providers, it's better for the district. So I think if we get any more than that, it's going to be a good thing for us. Okay. Um I did talk to River Falls. um they actually put in the achieve
123network last year and they've I think they um estimated 20% and they far exceeded that and people have been very satisfied with that network as an option and and we're saying that the achieve network which I thought didn't include Hudson physicians now it does and health partners. Yes. Okay. So my concern is as Scott mentioned earlier in in the evening um you know we we want to have good benefits. we want to, you know, I don't I don't know that that is a cornerstone of us attracting and retaining teachers. I I'm worried that the pendulum is swinging. Uh you brought up River Falls. I've heard that their starting salary is, you know, more than ours now and that we we've potentially losing out on some teachers because of that. So, my concern is like can
124can we look at this as a whole? you know, what can we do to maybe get our our our our younger educators um this is going to hit them hard. Our paras are going to get hard hit hard by this. And that's a big concern of me because I for me I I don't know that we can justify, you know, covering an all 2.2 or $2.4 million when we just passed $5 million referendum for to help fix a lot of things knowing it was never going to fix everything and knowing that there's going to be have to be some shared pain. So, I I I would like to entertain something like that. Like, if if we're going to go with changing it and it's going to be a larger cause, could we look at some
125type of restructuring of steps or something? And um you know, maybe a little fund balance, not not nothing to damage our our bond rating or anything, but because it's basically a one year, maybe it's a wait and see. Uh, and also I'm not saying we have to vote tonight, but um I would have a concern moving forward if we have three new board members that are coming on that haven't had this information and we're going to be asking them to vote on something that is uh pretty pretty big deal. Mr. Welcome to the club. Yes. All right. Um just to echo what Bob said, I think this is going to be important when we think about um pay increases later in the year. You know, how much would pay increases offset this? Um you know,
126we just saw that food prices might go up 7% this year. So, you know, um I I am concerned about this how this could impact in particular hourly staff. I I know you all did this quickly today. I appreciate it. I love that we could offer the achieve network, the new network at the same level um of district and employee uh split on on the cost for next year. Um and I with big changes I hesitate to have a shortened open enrollment period when people have big decisions to make. I I would like to not have the open access network go up quite as much, but I think the other thing is I worry about those specialty medications going up so much. Is there is there a way to do a st is there a
127way I bigger changes might be coming? It it depends on what we see next year, right? And I think we're health care costs are going up everywhere. Like every cost is going up. Um but could we not raise specialty medications so much because those are usually medications people really need. Um and I don't know if there's a way to not do the open access network going up so much. Can it be 8515 or are we just eating so much of it then that it's such a problem for us? That was a lot at once. Sorry. Right. I mean, well, as I'm hearing um Megan, you go through that um what I wanted to step back is look at again bigger picture because there's a lot of moving parts to this whole health care thing. And
128um in our firm which is private sector I know it's a different ballgame than um than the public sector but um you know we always try to balance a balancing act between uh user pay and just trying to provide that safety net for for all right and things cost more and you know we you know we were hopeful I guess that we would have similar losses but if we're using the system more, it shouldn't be a shock that it's going to cost more. Um, but again, stepping back bigger picture, we had projected uh as we were going into the whole discussion about the next budget, right? And potential need for a referendum, we were looking at a $2.9 million shortfall for the next budget, right? 2526. That was assuming we were going to have an
129$800,000 increase in these health care costs. Instead, it's going to be two and a half million. So that's 1.7 has to be added now to 2.9 if we keep everything the same and not change anything. So that's $4.6 million. Well, but you got to remember we did we did make cuts. I I was getting there, Nick. I was getting there. Right. So on that 2.9, you know what we've been preaching since we had the vote, you know, and again, it wasn't a unanimous vote on this board because people look at things differently and whatnot, but we we had a commitment even for the people that were against it that this has got to be done by a combination of cuts and referendum. And we heard people allude to the referendum. I'm looking at my email
130between the announcement of the agenda and this meeting. I got six emails. I don't know about the other board members. Uh pretty sure they're all teachers andor staff. Um but I recognize many of the names. There's six emails. Surprisingly, all six people are against having their insurance raised. I'm that's I don't know going to be a shock to anyone that people don't want to see their insurance raised. But again, there's a cost that it's got to be absorbed somehow. We've been talking about potential cuts. Raising our cost of our benefits was something that was in that discussion as far back as January. Now, it didn't go over very popularly in that room that all seven of us on the board attended. There were things that were more disfavored than others. Um, you know, for instance,
131going to every other day cleaning was one things that they would prefer to do rather than freeze or cut teacher pay or cut positions and so forth. to address that 2.9 million. Even before we knew what the results of the referendum, the board had preliminarily and the administration come up with 1.7 million in cuts. So it didn't cover that whole 2.9, but we got it down to 1.2 and now this news bumps it up another 1.7. So we're back where we were to begin with even with nearly two million in cuts. So, uh, just because we passed the referendum, now we're going to have people that will say, uh, we can do bigger payraises. We can do all the bells and whistles of a benefits package and keep that all that and we can keep
132all six buildings open, and we can keep every employee and not have to cut anyone. No, that five million is not going to be able to allow us to do that. maybe one year, but then we're going to be back into this. Um, we've got a six-year non-reoccurring. My advice to the board is to continue to build trust with the community. You got to have integrity. Follow through with what you say you're going to do. If you say it's going to be a balance of referendum, of revenue increases, and spending cuts, you got to be willing to do the spending cuts along with the referendum increase. So, I do think though there's a lot of moving parts. And if I were in the shoes of these people sending me emails, I'd want to be part
133of that discussion. Um, there is going to be a TAC meeting Wednesday, right? So, I would say give them that opportunity to weigh in, have the insurance committee meet if that's possible. Um, but if the board doesn't make a decision on the 28th, definitely by May 12th, that's the next action meeting. um it would need to be made because just the way of timing is open enrollment's got to be offered now. We can't postpone that to next fall. Um and we have to decide this before we know what pay raises are. So my question in the big picture was what is the assumption when it comes to pay raises for this whole projected deficit budget we have for next year? We were not planning on freezing pay. What were we planning on giving? Correct. We
134um calculated the 2.95 CPI is included in the in the and what does that translate in terms of dollars then if we if we did that 2.95%. I don't have that but I can get that for you. Sorry because I'm just saying if we don't make any changes to the benefits package that money's got to come somewhere. So then the question is are is the benefits package that important that it should remain untouched as opposed to possibly freezing or having lower increases in pay. I mean that's the other op that's the only other time and and I wish that pay would be discussed first but the way it comes up in the discussions in the annual negotiations and whatnot is it has to be decided after the benefits. Anecdotally, what I've heard is that there's
135not many districts in Minnesota uh that can compete with our benefits package here in Hudson School District. But conversely, they make more money over Minnesota teachers generally do than Hudson teachers. So, it's a balancing act. Um, and if my firm or in the private sector was paying 87.4% 4% of the cost I would be doing cartwheels because in the private sector if you're starting look at dependent and spouses included you know the employer is only paying closer to 60% of that they might pay 85% or 80% for the employee but it's less for dependent I don't know about you Rob or Kate and Bob all of us work in the private sector um so anyway um you were going to say something Rob Yeah, I just to build on what you were saying, you know,
136I mean, we we did spend time with Nick and the cabinet's help, better understanding where we could make cuts, but if 75 80% of our district's budget is people, salaries, benefits, you know, you can't cut your way out of, you know, where we could be, you know, and so ultimately it's uh it's a hard decision, but, you something for uh maybe next next meeting. Yeah. Yeah. Mr. President. Yes. I guess you know we've gotten emails on this and I know it it's something that's really near and dear to people's hearts and their pocketbook. Um certainly nobody ever wants to see things change in their pocketbook. I don't unless it's going something amazing's happened. Um, but I think as we move forward, because we are looking at struggles with our budget, we're going to have a
137lot of people come to us with something that's really near and dear to them. And as a board, we're going to have to say no to some people maybe, you know, but I think we can't always look at the, you know, getting a few emails and then all of a sudden we're all worried about what we should do or should we not do it or and that's not to say we shouldn't get feedback, but I don't think it's a it shouldn't be a surprise to people that we need to make cuts in our budget and you know one group's going to say make a cut here, one group's going to say make a cut here but don't don't do it to mine. So I think we need to keep that in mind that it's kind
138of an impending doom that we are going to have to do that Mr. President. Yes. Um, yeah, I think your point there are a lot of moving parts and this is complicated and I'm not a health insurance expert though I will say my work does cover 80% of my family's health care costs. So, it's other other places still do it. Um, uh, if we delay this and we talk about at the work session and then it maybe even extends to the action meeting, when when does open enrollment is there a have to close date for open enrollment? Is it June 1st? It doesn't have to close on June 1st, but if we have to process all the changes, I mean, I would say by the 15th of June, probably no later because especially with this
139amount of changes that we'll have, it takes a lot of I mean, it's Andrea's office that has to make all those changes and get those in. So, but if we waited and got some feedback and you ran possibly different scenarios and um we could still give people three or four weeks for open enrollment if we made our decision by May 12th at the latest. Yeah. I mean, I think we talked about May 15th through the maybe that first week in June and then we make a decision like and then they have the rest of that gives us time to get those if they had three weeks. Okay. Does the B benefit committee meet? Can we get them to meet? We can definitely schedule meeting. Yep. Can we make this decision on the 28th at the
140work session? Yeah, you can if you want because and then as we still could have a month more or less we we can open enrollment we can um post the post the item on the agenda that it's going to be a possible action item because we don't usually take a lot of action at work sessions but we have um you guys will probably be approving a a personnel pack. We do that. Um, so we would just we would just notice it similar to how it is, you know, up for discussion, possible action. I think it would be a good idea. I mean, I think just out of respect, um, I think we have the time and I know we want to get this done. I think we should be talking to the teacher advisory committee
141and it's not so much it's it's a conversation that we all are going to need to figure out all the different moving parts. I would like to see um bringing up base pay because this wipes out any raise. Um and I would also like to see using some of our fund balance. This is an opportunity to use a little bit of it to um bring, you know, make the blow not be quite so bad. Not saying that the district's going to cover all of that, that we're all going to have to everybody's going to have to pay for it in some way. And I would like to see these are all the things. Write make a list. Got a pen? Make a list. Um um yes, get it. Um I really would like to know
142what other school districts are doing. Um just to kind of get an idea um where we're at. And I don't know if it's even possible. Can we add more plans, high deductible plans? And I I mean I had a discussion. We all talk about private what happens in the private sector. It's not exactly the same. Um but similarly through our insurance we have an open access and we have a restricted. We have open access that we get because our kids are in college. So they're throughout the country. So we have to do that kind of or you'll find out when your kids go to college, colleges require your kids to come with health insurance or they you will be paying for it there. Um, so there's lots of choices to be made, but um, I
143think that we can figure this out so this is a little more palatable for for everybody and we can get through this. So, oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, just I would caution this board and the next board, anytime you talk about spending fund balance for ongoing expenses, you quickly drain your savings. So, just keep that in mind. Yeah, I totally know what you're saying. It's more so um is it a blip? Is it a blip this much? Do you know what I mean? Well, and I think um I saw Andrea reach for the mic, but um I worry about asking them to try to put together a third option so quickly. I think there is no ability for us to put together a high deductible plan for next year. That just that it can't happen. So,
144if we're going to talk about high deductible plan, that would be kind of a next step. Yep. Going into next year. It would not. The options on the table for this year are going to be these two plans. Great. And depending on what the tweaks are related to the cost associated with these, but there's not going to be a third option. We don't have the ability to clarify because I think, you know, that's the question. Is this a blip or is this going to be an ongoing issue? And I think this is going to be something that the board like I'm, you know, keep showing us every month where we're at. And then do we need some more holistic reform or changes or other options the following year? Like I know it stinks to have
145to keep thinking like this, but well and we've we've had those discussions because I can came from a district that really emphasized high deductibles and I think there's benefits because it improves consumerism of participants. So I think we've talked about that and that would be our goal for next year. One of my questions is is um we do have TAC on Wednesday and if we get the insurance committee, what type of information would you because I feel like if we go they're the the response is going to be don't change anything. I mean what information are you looking for just so we bring you what their feedback that's helpful? I I would think that uh prioritizing um would be helpful like what what is more important to you again keeping the big picture is if
146they are willing to entertain you know the the entire compensation package has to be considered but we're just looking at benefits here and I know I don't know who it was that talked about $2,000 increase to a family but what I'm seeing is a $300 increase on the deductible so we're not talking high deductible but a3 $300 increase from 700 to a,000. And I'm seeing if they chose the achieve network, it would be a $270 increase. So that's I add 270 and 300, that's 570. That doesn't include the changes on some of these drugs, but assuming that you're just looking at, you know, standard, not everyone is on all these specialty drugs and so forth. So yeah, and I like your point, Jamie. It u it it's not a matter of visiting with the TAC
147and having them say, well, keep everything the same. It's things need to change and help us prioritize. I I very much like that idea. And to clarify, when I mentioned fund balance bank, that would just be a small to ease the pain as Molly said for one year or whatever to see what see where the new normal is if there is one. and and Rob is completely right. We're not gonna give up our our financial position for bond and all that stuff. So, Mr. President, I agree. I'm not saying I also don't think we should spend fund balance ongoing to deal with insurance costs. I think it's uh I kind of see it as a bridge as we figure out what is the longer term outlook here. Um I'm Yeah. How do people prioritize pay
148versus this versus are people more concerned with the premium increases versus drug cost changes? I I think the $300 co-ay for uh weight loss drugs, from what I hear, that's still very good compared to what most employers do. And I know that stinks for people who are on them, but All right. Any other comments on this? I'm not hearing that anyone making a motion for tonight, but um if there if this is going to be uh put on the next agenda, I haven't heard anybody say postpone it definitely to May 12th, but I don't know what can be learned and gathered in two weeks time versus four. Go ahead. I move to table this conversation to our work session. Okay. Second to vote on it. motion and second by two of the members that aren't
149going to be here. But uh all those in favor signify by saying I. I. Those opposed say nay. The eyes have it. And now I'll entertain a motion pursuant to the language in the hang on one minute. Yep. Mr. So we wanted to save the best for last. So we do have two students that we're here to recognize. So Beth and Tori Peele, if you could come on up. Great. So, we started the day with um a little celebration and update on secondary math and Beth and Tori um accomplished something pretty impressive with secondary math. They're both calculus students in Mr. Kaufman's class and they participated in the W River Falls integration be. I'm going to have them talk a little bit about what that's all about and what they accomplished. Go ahead. So we
150last week Monday we went to the integration be at WRF and we were invited because like you said we are in Mr. Kaufman's AP calculus BC class but Tori and I have been taking it as a dual credit class. So instead of trying to pass an AP test and hopefully that gets us credit, we're actually taking it and getting college credit through UWRF. So I think that concept is really cool. But um we went to the integration bee. It's basically like a spelling bee but for math. So there was like 30 people in the room and we would like go up to this chalkboard and they everyone would do like solve a math problem and then we both made it to the last round. So it was us and another college student and that was
151the lightning round. So, we had to like race. Um, it was really fun. And then the first person to get three points um won. So, yeah, she was runner up and I won. And I just thought, no, it was it was really fun and I kind of we didn't really know what to expect. Um, but I thought it was really fun. We kind of just did it for fun. We didn't know what was going to happen, but um yeah, I had so much fun. Um, like she said, like we didn't really know what's going to happen. and we kind of found out about it one week before and so we signed up and obviously didn't know what to expect and so we didn't really have much time to prepare but honestly being in Mr. Kaufman's
152class the past two years was like more preparation than we could have ever asked for and I know that they talked about Raider time before in the other math part. But we've been like utilizing that the past two years a lot and we've spent a lot of time in his class outside of like our actual class because like study halls and we've only really had we both only taken study halls for one semester both these past years. So it was just really nice to have extra time like during the school day not outside of school. But being able to work with our friends who were also in the class and also when it was really really nice to have Mr. coffin there as a resource whenever we had questions. And so, yeah, I'm just really
153happy that we've had this opportunity to take these classes because they're they've really prepared us for not only that integration be, but also for our future plans next year. And I'm just super happy that we've had this opportunity to build a great foundation for our future. And yeah, thank you. Mr. President, just one minute. We have board members that have comments. Yes. Yeah. So, first off, rock chalk Jay-Hawk, congrats again on University of Kansas. Thank you. Fantastic. Um, so what how did you guys learn about this WRF event? Mr. Kaufman just like I think it was our we were taking a test that day and before the test he was like, "Oh, there's also this opportunity." And we didn't know I think that this was the fourth year that a Hudson student has won the
154integration B. So we didn't know that like this is a thing like people had been doing it before we went. So I don't know. He just was like here's the link and there was a Q QR code. So yeah, that's awesome. We just signed up. So So yeah, congratulations. And just one question, what what what's harder uh winning the math competition or sitting through a school board meeting? So, actually, it's been really interesting. I like to No, no, it's not. It's not. I just want to say congratulations. Great job. Um earlier, um before you guys arrived, we talked about the fact that three of us are leaving the school board, but I can't think of a more appropriate way to end our service on the board is hearing, uh the achievements directly from our students.
155And uh it just fills me with pride to hear how well you guys have done. and it's integrated so well on the subject matter of the of our agenda today talking about secondary mathematics. So, thank you for living and breathing uh what you've been taught here and and thank you. Um I'm sure you guys are going to excel. Unfortunately, you're not going to WMadison, but thank you very much. Thank you. Thanks for having us. All right. Now, anybody anything else to come before the body? Well, good because it's not on the agenda. Um, next up, close session. So, I'll entertain a motion to convene a close session pursuant to the language. Just uh just letter B, not letter A. Okay, very good. Mr. President, I'd like to make a motion to convene in close session
156pursuant to Wisconsin statute 19.85 85 parent one parent E to deliberate or negotiate the sale of public properties wherever competitive or bargaining reasons require. We have a second by Kate. This requires a roll call vote. Bowman Brown I. Garza. Powers. Hi. Robson I. Rosowski I. And Johnson I. We go into close session. We will not return to open session. Thank you.