001We'll call the meeting of Keelier School District, Board of Education, to order. Meeting has been posted as prescribed by law and media notified. Could we have the Keel High School dance team lead us in our Pledge of Allegiance this evening? To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. I'm not sure how many people are here. Announcement of executive session. The board will consider convening the executive session under Wisconsin Statute 1-9.851-B-F and Wisconsin Statute 1-1-8.2 for consideration of issuance of preliminary notices of non-reunional to teachers for the purpose of reducing staff based on unanticipated budgetary and fiscal limitations for the 20, 26, 27th school year to discuss staffing directly relating to personnel and review a potential
002contract with a construction and planning firm to discuss our building needs, which if discussed in public would likely have a substantial adverse effect on the reputation of such persons. The board may reconvene into open session to act upon items discussed in closed. Welcome to our visitors and special guests here this evening. We have almost a full house, very exciting to see, and those online as well. Review of board norms. Who would like to take the lead on that? I could. Begin meetings on time. Do your homework before meetings. Be professional. Discuss the ideas, not the person. Be clear and concise. Seek first to understand, support the decisions, and praise the positives. Thank you, Mr. Johannes. Could I have approval of the consent, the agenda, consent agenda, with identifications of items to be taken off the
003consent agenda for discussion and or separate action? So moved. Moved by Ms. Willey. Is there a second? I'll second it. Second by Mr. Wenling. Anything to be taken off or any discussion prior to voting? We'll vote. Mr. Vajic? Mr. Wenling? Yes. Mr. Lee? Yes. Mr. Johannes? Yes. Ms. Dahl? Yes. Ms. Willey? Yes. I'll save yes. I didn't ask for a volunteer to do gifts to district. Is anyone interested this evening? I can do it. Thank you. First of all, thank you to everyone who is supportive of our students and our staff through your gifts to the district. We had a $1,000 donation to the high school close-up to help our students and families with the cost of a trip to Washington, D.C. That was from the Keele Area Community Chest. We had monetary donations to
004the Angel Fund from the following people and businesses, and the Angel Fund is the fund that helps our families if they need assistance with food and lunches, correct? Correct. We had $150 from Ann Hoban, $100 from Susan Meyer, $300 from Betty Shuler, $250 from Michael and Paulette Bouse, $200 from Kevin and Deborah Lichtenberg, and $540 from Pleasant View Realty LLC. Thank you. And I have one more. One more. To bring up, yes, and we have a special guest here tonight. It's no secret that so many businesses really, and as you can see, even just community members have donated to the Angel Fund, I believe this is our third week in a row, our third board meeting in a row. We've seen sort of a long list of people donating. And we had that on social
005media and the newspaper, and just from an email and a couple of those things, we've had such a huge turnout of support. And I don't think it's any surprise that the school district has partnered with AmeriQwip on a lot of different initiatives. I could go through all of them, I won't, but AmeriQwip has a representative here tonight. His name is Lucas, and I would ask that he comes on up to the front, that he come up to the front, and he's going to present us with a $2,000 check from AmeriQwip and for the Angel Fund. So he's here tonight, and he wanted to show up in person. I thought that was great. So I'm gonna get up, shake his hand, we're gonna take a picture and put it out there on social media and the
006media. So Lucas from AmeriQwip, everyone. Thank you. Thank you, Lucas and AmeriQwip. And I actually had a look at my agenda to make sure we had the right donations on this month. The last one was a laundry list of donors as well. It's truly remarkable when you ask this community for support how so many people step up. Really exciting. Recognition, state recognition. Dr. Ebert and Ms. Willie will recognize students who participated at the state level for the following activities. High school dance, middle school dance, boys swimming, and wrestling. Okay, good. I think that I will use one of the microphones up front so it doesn't squeak. All right, check, check. Yes, it works. I'll start with middle school dance. And so we asked the coaches to be here for all four sports that are being
007recognized tonight. And some were able to make it and some were not. I'm gonna give it one more chance. If it squeaks, I'll put it down. And Coach Bull was not able to be here tonight, but she did write up something very nice for the Keele Middle School dance team. So I'll read it. The Keele Middle School dance team had a very successful season full of growth and fun. The girls performed in parades, learned a new style of dance, and placed with solos and duets at competitions. The hard work that each girl put in this year resulted in third place in D3 Middle School Palm, and eighth in Middle School Kick at Little Shoot, first place in Middle School Palm at the Keele Invite, fifth place in D3 Middle School Palm, and seventh in Middle
008School Kick at Kakona, and fourth place in D3 Middle School Palm, and ninth in Middle School Kick at State. This year, the program had an incredible amount of participation showcased through 33 girls on the team, with 30 competing in Palm and 25 competing in Kick. The hard work of each and every dancer allowed them to bring home the school's first state trophy for Middle School dance. The improvements and accomplishments made by the team this year were truly an achievement. Congratulations to the Keele Middle School dance team. What we'll do now is I'll announce your name, and if you're here, you'll just walk up around here, right in front of me. Miss Willie will shake your hand, and then after that, just wait up there underneath that big screen, okay? And then Miss Schwartz will come
009up when everyone's there, take your picture, and we'll put it out everywhere we can possibly put it to show you off a little bit, okay? I will say your name, and I'll just keep reading, so just come on up right through here. Harper Fanky, Ava Conway, Chloe Fitzpatrick, Olivia Geezy, Emily Holbin, Kyra Iseni, Olivia Knuth, Scarlett Myers, Kate Orth, Nora Schwantz, Addison Sosinski, Olivia Bondi, Riley Curtis, Sophie Ford Ziegelbauer, Madison Heyman, Katie Hoban, Elise Johannes, Kylie Kramer, Chloe Nett, Alexa Propson, Ivy Silvernagel, Hallie Spott Maxey, Aliyah Carruthers, Kaylin D'Angelo, Annika Furtick, Claire Heathman, Amelia Hornick, Leona Keenbaum, Leah Kramer, Kelsey Nett, Emma Puro, Lucy Silvernagel, and MJ Hassan, and Coach Emily Bull and Sydney Heyman. So, this is our Keele Middle School dance team and state competitors. Let's give it up for them one more
010time, picture time. And I know we had a large middle school track meet out there. I know a lot of these names, I was just out there for a few hours, are out there right now, so sometimes that happens. All right, I am going to move to the high school dance team now. Need to get my, Coach Kim was not able to be here. I do not see a lot of faces in the audience, one for sure. So glad she's here. Maybe there's a couple of others. All right, so the coach says, ta ta ta, ta ta ta. All right, I'd like to recognize our outstanding dance team for an exceptional season, so this is high school dance. They placed at state in all three of their routines, an incredible accomplishment that reflects their talent
011and consistency, while also earning two regional championship titles along with a runner-up placement. All three soloists also earned all state honors, a testament to their individual excellence. These achievements are the result of hard work, long hours, and unwavering dedication. They've represented our school with pride and set a high standard for success. So state was in February on the sixth and the seventh. The team was the state runner-up in division three kick. They took third in division three jazz and fourth in division five palm. All right, and there was three all-state competitors, Annika Learman, Aubrey Loveland, and Carson Woods. And here are the team members. And so if you're here, if you come on up, we'll shake your hand, we'll go right over there. Rihanna Blotz, Allie Borden, Emma Ebert, Olivia Ebert, Riley Fritch, Madison Grunwald,
012Sophie Johnson, Sophia Knuth, Aubrey Koska, Natalia Kren, Madison Kether, Annika Learman, Aubrey Loveland, Kaia Murphy, Peyton Nordyke, Anna Perot, Rhea Thiel, Brea Vandermuse, Emily Wirtz, Carson Woods, Aubrey Freund was the manager, and Coach Kim Vanden Houten. So let's give it up for our varsity dance team. Let's have our swim coach Noah come on up if he could. This is Noah Draxler, our swim coach. He's gonna talk a little bit about the season and then talk about our state qualifier. All right, Noah. I'll keep it short and sweet. Over the last couple years, we've developed a reputation as being small but mighty as our numbers decrease, but what we lack in depth, we more than make up for in individual performances, sportsmanship, and attitudes of our swimmers. This year we saw ability from never having swam
013before to our returning swimmers, and it was awesome to see the growth as a team of six strong individuals working together to excel. We were able to send all three of our returning swimmers to state, Sam Coyler from Keele, and then Aaron and Kawhi from the Elkhart Lake School District. It was great to see the support from the schools, the community, the families, and then the boys amongst themselves. So Sam's not here, I don't believe, but he finished 16th in the 100 fly, which was awesome to see. That was his goal throughout his swim career as well as the other boys. It was excellent to represent the team, the school at the state, meet consistently year after year and to watch their performances, so thank you. Speech, well done. All right, let's talk about state
014wrestling. I believe we have someone here that's gonna talk about it. Yes, our assistant coach, come on up. All right, fantastic. So we'll have him talk a little bit about how the season went and then of course get to our individual state performers if you could. So our season went pretty well actually for being low on numbers. It's hard to fill and win a whole lot of meets if you don't have all 14 weight classes filled. We still did very well overall for being as low as we were. The only way we can get better and get more teams or more students out for it, it all comes from all of our peers, our parents, our friends, we just gotta try to encourage them to get out there and do it. Wrestling is a tough
015sport. There's a lot of things you learn along the way. It's a lot of perseverance to get it done and it's only you out there. We had three state qualifiers. Two of them were first time qualifiers, Logan Coutzer and Brady Keenbaum and Logan Schod. He's a three time qualifier as a junior, which is awesome. Logan and Brady, give it up. Congratulations, good work. I like our tradition of always bringing teams and individuals that qualify for the state meet to meet our board members and all the effort and time and energy that the board puts in to keeping our program strong pays off and I'm glad that you're able to see what our students are able to accomplish. So great job everyone. Thank you parents and everyone for being here. We appreciate it. Let's hear for
016that this evening. Right there if that's okay. So bring an extra chair if you can. So go ahead and push that down the button and hold it for just a second. Our Keele High School Mission Club is student centered and service oriented. We're not quite sure when the club started but previous staff leaders include Mrs. Schmitz, Mrs. Dorner, Mrs. Oat and Mrs. Minow. Mrs. Raminger became the leader in 2022. Our club's mission is to make our school and community a better place. We have four main branches including volunteering at Zolanus and KCP, volunteering at the middle school, spreading positive messages around the high school and fundraising. Each year we choose new officers and this year our president is Keeley Volin. I am the vice president. Our secretary is Jordan Gussie and Addison Vogel is our
017treasurer. Some of our tasks include running meetings and planning new activities. Some of our events include annual toy drive which takes place at a home basketball game and selling Valentine's Day grams. Each year during the football season we host a cornhole tournament usually at the first football game and then we donate that money to the American Heart Association and our teddy bear toss happens during the winter usually also at a home basketball game and toys that we receive from there are given to our local emergency services for kids in need. One thing that we're looking forward to doing this year is putting together senior gift baggies for the seniors at the senior celebration. Something new this year was our dunk tank at our homecoming game which raised funds for people with cancer. Additional events include
018the Keele Middle School Egyptian Day, concessions and then one of our biggest events. One of our biggest events is the annual turkey bowl. This is our third year doing it and it's where homerooms compete by bringing in donations and this year we raised 232 items which was double last year. Those are more pictures of it which basically turkey bowling is they just roll a frozen turkey down a turn. Some recent activities include decorating gingerbread houses in December for the library display and on random acts of kindness day which was February 17th, mission club members carried bags of clothespins with positive messages around and then clipped them on people throughout the day which those are pictured on the right there. We made those at one of our meetings and we thank you for supporting the Keele
019High School Mission Club. Anything further? Can we have your names please? I'm Elsa Dainey. Maddie Augustine. Anya Dainey. Board have any questions? We really support your work. That's pretty cool of effort you put forward to help our community and help your fellow students. Why did you choose to be in the mission club? That was my question. I really enjoy helping people so I think it's a good way to give back to our community and just make a positive impact on people. I joined because it's like having fun ways to help improve our school and improve the mood. Helping our community is really important and so that's really a lot of what we do in the mission club. Thank you for your efforts and keep up the good work. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so
020much. Once submitted online, is there any verbal community feedback? I didn't get any submitted to me so tell me something good. Dr. Ebert, do you want to lead it off? Sure I will. This is more of a, I don't have to tell me something good but it's more of a factual thing that in April we saw that our three current board members that ran for reelection were reelected. So congratulations to Dan Meyer and Tony Johannes and Jim Bychak. So they have earned another three year term on the school board. So congratulations to all of you. I will kick off that last Friday I was lucky enough to be a part of, or see, not a part of the high school choir concert which I thought was really well done. That would be show choir then
021concert choir. So great job and congratulations to that group and Ms. Gorman for working so hard to put that on. I have more but I don't want to steal anyone's thunder so I would put it out there to the audience. If there's anything around our district that is good tell us about it. Tell us something good, who has something? So we had, this week we have seniors doing mock interviews. So as part of their graduation process and as part of their senior portfolio they have to complete mock interviews with local business leaders. So we had our first three business leaders in today and our first batch of seniors go. The results were really positive. I heard some really great things from our local business leaders and just saying how impressed they were with our kids.
022Making eye contact, how prepared they were. They all had resumes readily available and just how mature all of them and ready for the next step they all were. We also have, those of you who remember we approved a link crew club. So this school year was our first year of link crew and so now we are interviewing our second group of link crew members, of future link crew members. They have to go through an interview process and the results, I mean I was in on those interviews and just super impressed with all the kids that are in those interviews answering questions about why do you want to help younger students? Why do you want to be a leader in your school? And that's the sole purpose of link crew is to link our older kids
023with our incoming freshmen so that they feel supported as they come into high school. And so far, I mean, in those interviews I think we have a really great group of kids that are leaders for our incoming eighth graders soon to be freshmen. Thank you for sharing that, Mr. Hearth, our high school principal. We already got a few of them. First of all, you probably saw a lot of cars out there. First track meet of the year is going on. I think we're just shy of 90 kids in our track program which is really crazy, it's a lot of kids. So big shout out to our coaches for organizing that and coordinating all that every day. And there's a lot of successes happening out there which is really great. Last Friday we had a careers
024on wheels event at the middle school, third through eighth grade, joined in and just learned about some different careers from some people around the area. And it was really cool, it was a good turnout. Megan Coucher organized and ran it all and she did a really, really awesome job with that and it was definitely a hit. And then finally we wrapped up forward exam testing last week, which is a pretty big deal. And I'm proud to say that a lot of our, all of our kids really gave it all of their effort and there wasn't any clicking or just burning through it. So everyone did a really good job of taking it seriously and best representing themselves and our school. I'm glad Coach Drexler's here because my theme this time is really about giving back
025and there's a number of KHS alumni that have been, Absalane is volunteering through big brothers and big sisters so I appreciate Coach doing his part. I love the slogan with you might not have a lot of kids but that means a lot. Just the number of people that we have in the school, volunteering, taking time out of their day, these are full-time people as well, the big brothers, big sisters, it's a really, it's an important thing and they do a really good job at it and standing in the gap with kids who need it. So that's a, I think sometimes we don't do enough of that, recognizing all the people that just take time out of their day to come in and help kids. So it's a, we're really lucky. In Virtual Land we had
026a really nice event last Friday. Our elementary teachers put on a preview for what it's like to learn online in elementary school and we had some families that came and our students were very cute. They thought that the students were going to continue learning with them like the next day and they were kind of disappointed when they found out they were signing up for next year. So, but it was very cute, they were very, very welcoming and it was wonderful and I want to give another shout out to Keith, elementary students in the early grades who sign up with us this year will be getting a fantastic pack of books to promote early literacy. So thank you, thank you, Keith. Anything further from board members or anyone else? I do too, you go first. Okay,
027all right, I had two. One was this past week the middle school also did or ran a solo and ensemble competition which is the culmination of months of practicing, building of confidence, getting feedback and dealing with some self-doubt because they realized they're going to be up in front of a judge and they're going to be critiqued that way so that was great to see and the kids did a great job doing that. The other is a team that maybe doesn't compete in front of a lot of people but still does a great job and that's the forensics team wrapped up their season with competing at state and they won quite a few first, second and thirds which was great to see and I think they have kind of a showcase Friday night at the PAC
028so that if you happen to be free there'll be some great performances there. Anyone else? I had the privilege of being invited, we all were. I was able to attend, I went to Manitowoc, they had an open house for the robotics and there were teams that compete all around different counties and the Bond Brigade was there which is, we have a representative, Mr. Will Lee. I got to meet and talk with from our team that competes and then I also made my way around, they had booths set up and I got to meet our middle schoolers and big shout out to Anya Gage and Austin. I was so impressed with what these kids are doing and it happened to be the week that I don't know about anyone else but my eyes were glued to
029the NASA coverage and the astronauts and all I could think about was where our astronauts start is sometimes in middle schools just like ours and in elementary schools and the things that we can provide our students like this, it's just amazing to me and I saw in these teams not, I don't mean just STEM but in addition to STEM, science, technology, engineering and math, I saw people skills on display that are going to be so important to students when they move on and even now. They put a big price on, part of the team isn't just programming and fixing the robot, it is also working with other teams that you may be in competition with and they call it gracious professionalism. So if something, you can't figure it out with your robot, a team from
030another school may come and help because it's about collaboration which is really huge. They need the students to learn about public speaking and marketing and Mr. Will Lee, he did a speaking presentation to help us understand about Bond Brigade and I thought he did a phenomenal job. So I can't say enough about that. I think sometimes in the community we don't realize those things are going on. They can always use your support too by the way and my other one was I was very fortunate to have the time to be an interviewer at the Junior Achievement Biz Town and wow what a way to start your day. It's been a couple hours there in the morning interviewing fifth graders, what poise and composure. They had eye contact, they shook my hand, we had wonderful conversations
031about the jobs that they wanted in this Junior Achievement business world and I was just blown away and I'm proud of them and I'm proud of the people which are our teachers, our staff and the people who volunteer from Junior Achievement who helped put this together because boy, I don't remember having this kind of immersion into real world opportunities when I was in fifth grade and the more that we do that I think the better prepared we are and I think we're seeing it because I heard someone in back say how great our students did in high school. I can only imagine the roots are happening already in fifth grade so I'll be quiet now, I could go on but those were phenomenal experiences I had last week. I also got to pop in for
032the Biz Town interviews, that was fun. Some of those kids I wanna hire and let them run our city, let them run our school board, really neat. I had an opportunity this past week, two, three, four weeks ago, whatever it was recently, to interact with a community member who had some concerns and shared it with a few of us and I shared some facts because he made some statements that weren't quite true and shared some very, very, very positive facts about our district. Then he emailed me back and shared some other concerns and I shared some other facts. I think just getting facts out is important. People tend to believe whatever's on national news or wherever they get their information from. I think that's exciting when we can share facts with community members so I
033look forward to that person maybe getting a little more involved when we talk about concerns and issues we have and moving forward, I think that'd be exciting. Should we go on all day, but we do not have a short meeting in front of us. Let's keep moving, I guess. Business items, academic success, staffing plan. Dr. Ebert will provide an overview. We have seen it already. Does someone wanna make a motion that attaches the final staffing plan for the 2026-27 school year as presented? Make a motion so we can get it on the table and then we can talk about it more as we so choose. I can make a motion to approve the staffing plan for the 26-27 school year as presented. Moved by Mr. Lee, is there a second? I'll second. Second by Ms.
034Stoll. We'll start with questions or do we have anything else to present? We've pretty much been through it. You've been through it, been through it all. We've answered every question we possibly could up to this point, yep. I guess in related to the plan, I only received one comment or one bit of communication from the community and came later this afternoon. So I was hoping maybe we could talk a little bit about the plan changes to the workout, the fitness center position. Kind of what is the plan behind that? Who is going to take over those duties? Because I think the feedback, and I can understand is that, that is kind of a touch point for our community and we wanna make sure that that is in good shape. So what is kind of the
035plan to, who's gonna take over that? I guess is the best. Yeah, the plan is that the newly hired activities director will oversee the fitness center as well. That's our plan. The admin team feels very strongly that that's a very positive plan, a good direction. Yeah, we feel pretty strongly about it. So it'll be the new activities director. One thing we brought up maybe a little later last year, we talked about possibly at this meeting last year where we approved the staffing plan. This year we had a tidy sum of money sort of set aside for maintenance and things like that. State budget comes around and we get slashed and find out we didn't get as much as we thought from the state due to things being well beyond our control. So I was wondering,
036last year we approved the number of years ago we asked the administration to build in staff raises at CPI. That's correct. I would propose that we leave that in there, penciled in there. I think there's more discussion to be had about that. How do those staff raises get spread around and what happens if we get to October and we find out we have major reductions again this year and we have no opportunity to have any savings. Board members have thoughts on that or? Because in the past we never built, never, I shouldn't say that. My first years on the board there wasn't a raise often built into the staffing plan. Oftentimes it was, if we had a good year then we would determine that as we go a little further along the year when more
037details are known from the budget. So just some history for board members that maybe weren't here at the time. So the question on the table real simply is, is Dan sort of putting out there, are you going to approve the raise and approve it tonight or are you going to keep it on the table for future reference and future discussion? Correct, Dan? Yes, and the other thing is, I don't know if we ever talked about specifically kind of lumped all the groups together as one package. I mean we have some pretty nice things we do for our teaching staff as far as the bump ups they get every three years and six years based upon performance as well. So I don't think we talked about the details of that as a board. Correct me if
038I'm wrong, but I believe that now is the nuances of the CPI raise. Can you repeat that, Jim, please? The personnel committee is looking at nuances of the CPI raise, if it's going to be a percentage or if we're going to add on some peoples and so we're still discussing that. My point being beyond that is what happens if we find out our budget, our state funding is a half million dollars short from what we expected. That's where I'm going with this. Correct me, Ryan, are we going into the second year? Yes. Because then we tend historically not to see much of any changes. So I mean I think that's a good discussion point, but if we're heading into the second year, I think we can be pretty confident as to what the state's going
039to live up to. So I would be comfortable leaving the raises in as is and revisiting that perhaps next year. Anyone else have any thoughts? I guess I have a question. Are you proposing that that line item be pulled out for further discussion to be approved to change this year or just being mindful of it to look at next year? We, I thought we did talk about this last year a little bit as well and what I'm proposing is that we have it penciled in there as we have now and then we officially approve it later once we know our funding. If for some reason we have a substantial reduction instead of CPI, do we give a 1% raise or a 2% raise? Because over the years we've been able to keep up with CPI.
040It sure feels like we're in a different financial position the last couple of years of the state really not keeping up with inflation again. At least last year that was really a holy cow kind of budget and this year again we've made some substantial reductions just to stay in the game here as far as making sure we have a balanced budget going forward. I'll just give my two cents. I think it's a really complex topic that you bring up Dan. I think that there are a lot of factors obviously beyond our control to reference how things were when you started on the board. Our local as well as national economic situation is drastically different. Inflation is much less predictable in the last several years than it had been. I think that all employers are struggling
041to some degree with this question right now. And I think again it's not unique to our field but we are seeing fewer teachers getting fewer students getting educated to become teachers and sticking with the field. So I am hesitant what kind of message it would send to our current staff and potential teachers to look at pack peddling at this stage of the game. So if no one else wants to I'll call the question. We have a motion on the table. Could you please read the motion Mackenzie for the discussion? Yeah and I don't know if this is a motion, a suggestion or a pondering. Within the budget as we have presented we believe there will be a surplus. And I guess especially considering the needs of the buildings I would like to maybe see us
042at least entertain or discuss a line item where for the sake of discussion maybe half of that 75,000 or something like that is put in that account. And if it's not needed for some sort of emergency we commit that to repairs which I know we kind of do. But I guess to be a little bit more obvious and deliberate with that kind of thing. And again I think that's where we were last year. That was my point. We had money set aside and that went away real fast when we found out the final details of the final details which we thought we knew most of at the time. And things change. We don't know student numbers going into next year. We have a one year hold harmless which is very nice and we are doing
043a great job of managing that and looking at that. But I just worry about the unknowns and without facility needs being addressed from the community we I think are going to struggle from a standpoint of where are the priorities and how do we keep these buildings together. So I think that summarizes Tony where my concern was moving forward. So any further discussion before we vote? Well I wonder about Tony's proposal here. I think people should weigh in on that. So it's solidified or does that you want that to go to B and G or what? So could you clarify the line item specifically what is the total dollars, where is it in the budget? At the very bottom after the cuts. So typically we would leave a buffer there in case of shifts in attendance
044or whatever it may be at certain grade levels or needs with students with IEPs that lead us into next school year. We may need to hire an extra paraprofessional or get a bunch of kids in a certain grade level and they had a teacher, whatever it may be or need something. So we try to leave a little bit of wiggle room there typically but so right there you can see it up in there the number is 158, 269 so what Tony's proposing is could we take half of that and as we sort of said there I don't know if it's half or not or 100 of that and put it into our building maintenance fund and take care of at least something with that. I don't know Charles if you'd like to speak to your
045thoughts on how you feel about cutting into that as the board mulls over it a little bit. Well the only thought I have is we're talking about an estimate right now. This number is not gonna tell us exactly how we're gonna finish the year. We have to finish the year next year to see if we actually get a surplus of 158,000. So to suggest taking some of that and putting it aside it's really just a made up number right now. So I don't see the value in that. We know that when we get done with next year's fiscal we've always made an effort to put money in fund 46 if there's less budget surplus. And that was my goal if we could earmark that 158,000 for maintenance purely and if there is a short fall
046somewhere else we have to make it up somewhere else. And besides the CPI increases and weight on the raises I don't know where else that is in the budget. I'm not sure how to find that. Because again I think we had a pretty hearty number sort of built in that we were hoping was gonna be there this year. We really got hammered and there's unknowns. We don't know that until we know and that's October 1st usually is when we really find out the details of much of what's on our budget. But I think we've done a really good job with budgeting because one sign of that is with what the fund balance does. If the fund balance grows and we just completed a draw down not a couple years ago that means our numbers are
047coming in as we've kind of expected them to. So although I think it's better than just a made up number because everything on the staffing plan is a belief of what's going to happen. Just call it a poor choice of words. So I mean maybe a better track. How do we maybe track that to make sure that we're always gonna do what's best for kids but kind of keeping track of our first priority is gonna be after that start moving more and more money into something for maintenance. Any other board members have thoughts on that? Or Charles anything further? Is that a question you're asking there Tony? How do we track that over the course of the year? And then I guess back to Charles is there a, I know you have to wait till
048obviously the year ends next year but is that accurate like Dan's saying? Because we know that we, it's like October 15th or whatever you start to see the enrollment numbers and the spreadsheet comes out from DPI right? And so is that a time where you would feel even just slightly more confident in having a better understanding where it could be documented here at the meeting that that's revisited at that time? Like Tony's saying and sort of just keep track as best we can. Like did you need any of that to hire an extra paraprofessional? Did you need any of that? Like what does that look like come blank date? Is there a date it could be revisited, a certain board meeting? Are you talking this fiscal or next? Next. It would probably be what we
049do when we look at the annual meeting materials with the finance committee. That's when we would have a much better picture of what next year's budget is gonna look like. Charles could you speak to this fiscal year to maybe inform what that would look like a year from now? In what way? Not to put you on the spot with like hard numbers but in general like tracking where we're at based on what we have predicted from the last school year to where we're at right now. And just I expect it's probably a messy answer and that's what I kind of want to get to if that's the case to just kind of let us know. It is a messy answer. You know I track our spending every month to make sure we're on budget. The
050hard part when we get to the end of the year is we have a process called contract completion where we essentially, we do payrolls for the summer, right? So there's a huge expense every year at this time of year and to look at the numbers right now it's gonna look like we're wildly in a surplus situation when we just need to do all those payrolls that we do when we finish out contract completion. But yes, we could easily estimate what that's going to be and we would know where we're at. Further discussion? I'm just not sure we're in a sort of, I'd like some, just to be respectful of your thought and idea, some kind of follow up to this, right? Like I don't want to leave you hanging on this or the board at
051all. Like if that's on the table and there's some interest in that, when's the next time we talk about it? Or like if, I don't know if the rest of the group is in favor of taking some of that and moving it Tony like you're suggesting. Maybe that needs to be what's discussed now. If not, is there a time that it can be reviewed to see if that can happen? That's what I'm putting out there just so we can have some closure. That's what I'm looking for. Closure on that piece of it. And then you have Tony's and then what does it look like with the personnel committee? Are they going to come to the board with a recommendation for each sub employee group? Or what is that going to look like moving forward? I'm
052just curious what that approval process was like. You're talking about the raise? Yes. Maybe personnel committee goes. We brought forward using CPI and then the discussion was going to be how to administer that amount. I think the last couple of years we have done a percentage of the base. Another way of doing that, that tends to help staff that are towards the top of the scale. Now addressing more of the middle of the scale by kind of taking that and bringing it up evenly, which I think in the past the district has done that periodically. I heard of a pattern. I never understood the pattern since I'm on the board. So I think that's a conversation worth having every year, not just flip-flopping. I think there's a real reason to have that conversation every single
053year to make sure we're bringing up the newer employees as well. So it's a very good conversation, I think for annual discussion. And I think as far as additional money for maintenance, I think what I heard is that we feel much better about that number in October-ish. And then I'd be happy to push for that again for a discussion topic or if we're not really ready for that now, I understand that. Again, though, Tony, understanding that, sorry, I don't mean to cut you off, even in October, it's still a budget at that point. Yeah. Right. We don't know how we're gonna finish next fiscal until we have our audit. Right. So just keep in mind that it's still a budget at that point. Right. Not an actual surplus number. And even then we have insurance
054carry out and things like that, right? That could bump back or does that go on next year's budget? What kind of insurance are you just talking about? Sorry, health insurance. We have a three month runoff. Okay. So we will book what's called incurred but not reported claims, expenditure claims. We'll book that entry at the end of the fiscal. But that is a hard number we're gonna use and either we're right or wrong with that. And then if we're wrong, we... Which number are you talking about? The carry out that you book. We actually get that from the actuary. Oh, we do, okay. Yeah. That's a hard number, okay. I feel like I'm not clear on what we are talking about as far as what we would be doing here. So this is on the agenda
055to approve the staffing plan. But if we have concerns about the possibility of funding not coming through and causing a very bad ripple in the budget that we need to cover, your proposal is to rethink the percentage increase for salaries? My proposal is to do what we did a number of years ago. And I thought that was original intent of including the CPI increase built into the budget and then approving that actually later. If we find out there's some unforeseen things. It's, is it 1.67? I don't have that number in my head exactly. That's probably the wrong number. Sorry, 2.67, I thought it was somewhere around there. 2.63. Oh, off by a foot. It matters, trust me, it matters. If we're thinking that we need that 160,000 for maintenance and the folks on the B
056and G, we know what that maintenance is. It never seems to go to get less. Could we approve a 2% instead of a 2.6? Just food for thought. That's because I learned really fast when I first got on the board that we don't know the final numbers until we know the final number is October 1st. And even then, to Charles' point, we don't know the final numbers till further out as well. And Tammy, the big picture is that this is the staffing plan that the admin team feels collectively and unanimously is the best way to move forward for the district in times where we have to balance budgets, right? Ads takes away, we gotta keep up with the declining enrollment period, a less government funding sort of period. And in theory though, you as a
057group could pull something off of here. You could approve the plan. I'm not talking about the raise or anything, anything really. Tony had a question about something before, right? About the fitness center. If it's something you're uncomfortable with and you want to talk about people, if you wanna talk about discussions behind, like you wanna talk in close about specific people and positions, we can absolutely do that. You would just have to, as a group, decide you wanna pull something and bring it forth in the future and talk about it. We'd set up a different meeting or have it be part of a closed session if you wanna get real deep into the people side of things. Otherwise, you're approving all of these ideas as a whole. But you absolutely, as a group, can, as a
058majority, take something off, save it for later, depending on what it might be, ask us to do something else with that, relook at it, give us other options. It could be any of those things. But unanimously, this is how we feel the district would best be served to move forward. And right around in the past, there's actually been years where the board edited a position and that's a little scary when the budget doesn't call for it. Please don't do that board. What he means by that is, years ago, as prior to my time here, I've heard the story that there was a board that was looking at reading scores as an example and said, we need a reading specialist, like in this meeting. We're gonna add that. Well, so that added an X amount of
059dollars and it didn't work out so good in the end. And it's what I hear, I don't know all the details, but that's what he's referring to. It may have happened other times, too. That's an interesting way to do it, but it can be done. You're the board. So I hope that helps with the bigger picture as to what this plan actually is and how you can work with it. So this 158,000, that would be used for anything that's on here, correct? You would have to borrow from that. Nope. No? Not what that is at all. No, so that means that when we reduced items and when we added items, that's the difference. So we reduced more than we added. Okay. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. Thank you. So right now, we're better
060than a balanced budget. We're 158,000 on the positive side. And we always call that, like I said before, a buffer. Let's just be careful. You never know what the spending could look like. You never know when we're required to provide ex-staff member for ex-student that may show up into our district, with an IEP as an example, or class numbers go up somewhere. We have to be prepared for that and have some kind of buffer, we call it, so we always try to leave that. And in the end, it heads into fund balance if it's not used at the end of the, but again, we could come back and take another look at a certain time period and see where we're at with our budget as an example. So I have two things. One is, and
061you can speak to this if you want, Charles, but I got the impression, if I recall correctly, this is one of the smaller buffers, we're gonna call it that, that we've had in just my short time here. I believe it was a little over 200 last year, if I'm not mistaken. We've come with varying amounts of buffer to this meeting. I can remember we came one year with I think 50,000 or 70,000. We've also had other years. One of the guiding principles that the admin team uses is that we don't cut unless we have to. School finance is unique in that it's like a year-to-year process. And if we don't need to reduce, then we don't. So just that part of it being, from my recollection, at least a little bit less than what we
062had in other years that we are considering a buffer, gives me a little bit of pause to move a chunk of it into an account that makes it unavailable to us should we need the buffering. That's the first piece. But then building on that, and this is a question that I just don't know the answer to, but if we were, so this would be no different than if our budget came out at a net zero, right, and even, and we ended up with a student who needed another paraprofessional, we would have to find the way to pay for that. So if we would move a portion of that buffer into a fund that was more earmarked for some sort of maintenance that now made that money unavailable for buffering, we would just need to find
063a solution to that should we be presented with that situation, correct? Yes, and I'll just add to that. We could very much, if this plan was perfect and we ended the year with $158,000 budget surplus, there's a really good chance that we might have actually spent some of that already on things that go wrong in the district that are not budgeted for. You know, there could be a leak. You could have lights falling in the gym. So putting it aside right now is a little premature because we don't know exactly what it's going to actually be. But right now we are, in our back of our minds, penciling that for, hopefully that's there at the end. We'll fight to keep it there at the end if at all possible. I don't mean alarm the board.
064I feel like our administration and the work of Charles and the people in his office are extraordinary compared to anything I've seen before. This is really neat to see the fact that we are turning over every stone. The administrative team has worked on this probably since October, if not before that, to figure out what's it going to look like moving forward, knowing we're going to have cuts again this coming year. This isn't a short-term, let's make it work kind of thing. This is well thought out and a lot of effort has been put into this. And quite frankly, since we were presented with this, we had a different resignation that might change this as well to the positive or the negative. So it's an ever-evolving, ever-flowing dynamic budget. Yes, that would be correct, Dan. Say
065it was about November of this year, we started to kick it off. And the battles and debates amongst admin team members, advocating for their departments and buildings, just happens for months. And so even something you see as just a few thousand dollar reduction on there has implications as well as additions have implications. And every time you take away, it has some implication and impact on staff or more importantly, students. So painstakingly, every one of those have been discussed for hours and hours and hours. So that's why I'm confident to say that the admin team supports everything up there. But again, you have to also support it. And we understand if you have questions and we're not afraid to answer them, if you take something off and we can continue to have the conversation, whatever that
066may be, big or small, we have plenty of explanation for everything up there. And again, we are not approving the budget tonight. That happens in October. We're approving the staffing plan, which is a building block that gets us down to that road. I'm gonna make the motion to approve the staffing plan. So we have that already. We have the motion. Oh, okay. We're good with that. So if you're ready to call the question, you can call the question by saying, I call the question. You wanna do that, Todd? Sure. I call the question. There we go. Everyone's prepared to vote? Mr. Lee? Yes. Mr. Johannes? Yes. Mr. Wenling? Yes. Ms. Dahl? Yes. Mr. Bichek? I will say yes. Yes. Motion passes. Excuse me. Next, we have a polemic of staff. Dr. Ebert, do you have
067an overview or should I keep going here? Well, I'll just say this, Dan. I won't speak for every staff member we have on this sheet, but man, we always hate to lose somebody for various reasons, whether they're moving closer to home or better opportunity for family or whatever it may be. But I'm going to tell you that we are so pleased, and I think I sent the message to the board the other day, we're so pleased with the candidates that we're getting. Not a lot of candidates, but some really, really good ones and excited people that want to be here. And the people that are on this agenda are some of those great folks, and we're so excited to get them going. I can't wait for you to meet them. That's what I'd say. Attach
068is a recommendation from Chad Reminger to hire Alicia Hovey as 4K teacher for the 2026-27 school year. Someone like to make that motion? I'll move to approve the employment of Alicia Hovey as a 4K teacher for the 2026-27 school year. Move by Mr. Johannes. Is there a second? I'll second. Second by Mr. Lee. Discussion? We'll vote. I'll say yes. Mr. Wenling? Yes. Ms. Willie? Yes. Ms. Dahl? Yes. Mr. Johannes? Yes. Mr. Lee? Yes. Mr. Bychak? Yes. Next, we have Attach is a recommendation from Chad Reminger to hire Alicia Teigen as a 4K teacher for the 2026-27 school year. Yep, that's Alyssa Teigen. Yep. Teigen, did I say that right? Pretty close. Okay, sorry. I'll make a motion to approve the employment of Alyssa Teigen as 4K teacher for the 2026-27 school year. Move by Mr.
069Lee. Is there a second? I'll second it. Mr. Wenling? Discussion? We'll vote. Ms. Willie? Yes. I'll say yes. Mr. Bychak? Yes. Mr. Wenling? Yes. Mr. Lee? Yes. Mr. Johannes? Yes. Ms. Dahl? Yes. Next, we have recommendation from Chad Reminger to hire Brianna Remy as a second grade teacher for the 2026-27 school year. I move that we approve the employment of Brianna Remy as a second grade teacher for the 2026-27 school year. I'll second. Second by Ms. Willie. Discussion? We have a former student coming back to teach in her school district, and that's really exciting. And it's someone that was one of those kids that was really accelerated when she was going through school and lots of college credits in high school. As Dr. said earlier, we're pretty excited about, I'm pretty excited about these choices.
070It just shook her hand in 2022. Couldn't believe it. Back, so it's great, fantastic person. Further discussion? Yes. Ms. Dahl? Yes. Ms. Willie? Yes. Mr. Bichek? Yes. Mr. Lee? Yes. Mr. Wenling? Yes. Next, attaches recommendation from Chad Reminger to hire Jennifer Dittbenner as elementary art teacher for the 2026-27 school year. I move to approve the employment of Jennifer Dittenbenner as an elementary art teacher for the 26-27 school year. Move by Ms. Dahl, is there a second? I can second. Mr. Johannes, discussion? We'll vote. I'll say yes. Ms. Willie? Yes. Mr. Wenling? Yes. Mr. Bichek? Yes. Ms. Dahl? Yes. Mr. Lee? Yes. Mr. Johannes? Yes. Finance and facilities, health insurance renewal. If Charles would like to provide an overview, the business office is recommending renewing the district's plan with UMR at no increase and no plan
071design. Would someone like to make that motion before Charles presents? I'll move to approve continuing with UMR plan with no increase and no plan design changes. Move by Mr. Johannes, is there a second? Second. Second by Mrs. Dahl. Mr. Doctor, would you like to lead it? They're not really design changes. That is true, there are no design changes, but we did have a couple of tweaks that we made within the plan that will benefit our members. On the prescription drug plan, we had a formulary change. Very little disruption to our staff, but basically it will allow our members access to lower cost prescription drugs. We also, based on some new legislation, we're able to add the Teladoc fees on the medical Teladoc visits. Does everybody know Teladoc? You can go see a doctor through your
072phone. The district will be covering that cost next year versus the staff members. We're hoping that will help improve usage and keep our medical claims cost down. And we are kicking the tires again this year on short-term disability for our staff, offering that on a voluntary basis. We need 50% or more than 10, which one ever is higher, in order for them to write us a policy for short-term disability. We did not get the required number of people last year, so we're hopefully gonna do some more education with staff so that they understand. Fortunately, one of the things that short-term disability is used for is for expecting mothers. That's a big use of it. And the way that they calculate how much you pay in premiums is based on your age, and that's one of
073the most expensive times. So it's the higher premium, and some of the staff didn't really see the value at that level. So hopefully we'll get some other people interested. That's all I have. But yeah, no premium increase. So, excellent. And that's a big deal. We've had years of holy cow type of years, and that's a really big deal. It is. We've seen in that very staffing plan, certain years where there's hundreds of thousands of dollar increases to the district, depending on what health insurance does, and it's shocking that we've had, would you say four out of five years where we've had zero increase. I mean, we should be feeling blessed by that. Every staff member should be thankful that we're rolling along like we are. And just one more thing I wanna point out. We
074are self-funded, so we pay our own claims. We do have stop-loss insurance, but we pay a majority of our claims. There was some discussion many, many boards ago about going to fully insured. And although that is more comfortable, you don't have to deal with the swings of high claim costs in a year. We are saving the money that we would be paying an insurance company for their services. And we can set our premium at whatever we want because we pay the claims. So not only are we having good years in terms of our claims experience, but the people who are fully insured are completely at the mercy of the market. They're told what their increase is. And I heard some pretty scary numbers from back at M3 this year about other districts who were receiving
075double digit increases in a fully insured system. So just wanted to mention that. Is the industry standard still something like between eight and 10%? Yeah. So I mean, zero never looked so good. I mean, that's amazing. Correct. And in fact, the way that the calculation came out, we actually have some wiggle room there with our premiums. We might see some, we call it income in the plan. And if it's tracking that way, we could maybe look at doing some things for our staff, like another premium holiday or something like that. But we'll see it. We'll see how it goes. Can I just say, I think that you've done some things too, to incentivize to staff wellness. Yes. And so staff really- Award-winning wellness program. Absolutely. Staff deserve some credit for the fact that this is
076coming in at a very nice zero. Yep. Great questions. Anything further? We'll vote. Mr. Lee? Yes. Mr. Wenling? Yes. I'll say yes. Ms. Willie? Yes. Mr. Bichek? Yes. Mr. Johannes? Yes. Ms. Stull? Yes. Next we have dental insurance. The business office is recommending renewing the district's plan for Delta Dental at no increase and no plan design changes. So dental is a little, I don't know. It's not as big of a deal as the medical plan. Can I make a motion to approve continuing with the Delta Dental plan with no increase and no plan design changes? Thank you, John. Moved by Mr. Lee. Is there a second? I'll second that. Ms. Willie got that one. Sorry, Todd. Sorry, Todd. You're good. Go ahead, Charles. Sorry. Just to give you some numbers here. The current funding rates
077will put our medical plan at about 2.5 million. Dental is about 180,000. So it's definitely a small fry. We're really tight on that one this year. And we're at about 99% utilization. So it doesn't make sense to increase it just by a little bit. We went so many years without touching dental and then we just increased it one year. So we're not suggesting a premium increase right now. Questions from the board before we vote? Ms. Willie. Yes. Ms. Stahl. Yes. Mr. Wenling. Yes. Mr. Lee. Yes. Mr. Johannes. Yes. I'll say yes, Mr. Vichek. Yes. Next, lawn fertilization recommendation attaches recommendation from Jason Szyzynski to contract with Pigeon River Landscaping for district-wide lawn fertilizer and broadleaf weed control for three years. The B&G committee reviewed and support this request. Seek a motion. I'll move contracting with
078Pigeon River Landscaping for district-wide lawn fertilizer and broadleaf weed control for three years. Moved by Mr. Johannes. I will second that discussion. Charles, you want to provide a little bit of an overview about $10,000 savings per year, is that what it was about? Yep, we took a look at how many applications we were having done, and right now we have four everywhere in the district. We're gonna scale that back to three on all of the athletic fields, and then just one application on the other areas on the district grounds, and we were able to save about $10,000 a year, every year, in that three-year contract, so. I think from committee members, it's pretty hard to discussion and looking for ways to save all around the district is what that discussion is all about. So there's
079no further discussion, we'll vote. Mr. Bichek? Yes. Mr. Lee? Yes. Mr. Johannes? Yes. Ms. Stahl? Yes. I'll say yes. Ms. Wellie? Yes. Who am I missing, Mr. Wendling? Yes. Motion passes. Next, we have an update. B&G will share out about the 840 projects on the consent agenda, and I'm sure Charles will have a couple things to add as well. You want to take the lead on that? I think this was a discussion about, kind of elevator-tied into it a little bit, but we kind of, I think, are gonna piecemeal out a little bit. One of the projects we had at the middle school, that's a pretty big dollar amount, the boiler pipe replacement, and have that quoted out in multiple segments based upon greatest safety risk, as well as greatest likelihood to need replacing. I
080think you're getting ahead of yourself. Am I? Yeah, that's a separate agenda item. Elevator discussion. Right now, we're just talking about 840 projects, and the only one that you approved is the Zelanius Clocks and Bells as a committee. I'm sorry. And one other thing with that, Dan, I apologize, I should have jumped in. One thing that the B&G committee wanted, and it may have been at the board meeting last time as well, they wanted, you all, I think you all did, when projects were approved, maintenance projects, you wanted them on the agenda for at least just discussion, so that the community knew of what was being taken care of, and that we're, again, like we've always said, taking care of things as best as we can with the resources that we have. I thought that
081either B&G or this full board wanted that to be on here because you wanted the community to be aware. So on the consent agenda under 16C, we have the Zelanius Clocks and Bells. So just wanted to point that out to the board so everyone on the board understands that when things are there, that means they were, that was money that was approved by the board previously. Yeah, and just a quick note on that. This will bring that school up to the same Clocks and Bells system that we have at the other two schools. It was a little bit more expensive this year, just with the cost of everything kind of increasing. So, I mean, had we had the budget to have done it a few years ago, maybe we could have gotten it all at
082the same price, but that's just the cost of doing business. When we are trying to be as fiscally responsible as we can, sometimes we have to put things off until another year or two down the road. And so I don't think it was a drastic difference, but it was something that we discussed and talked about how that could affect some other projects. Thank you, Charles, for getting me back on the right track. I thought we were going the other direction with that one. I didn't see the consent agenda part there. Anything further on that? If anyone ever has any questions, feel free to reach out to district office anytime if you're not clear about something on the agenda or consent agenda. Next, we have minus school elevator update. Would a B and G member like
083to share an update on the middle school elevator? Well, a couple of weeks ago, three weeks ago, maybe, there was a malfunction of the elevator. And during that time, we had two students, correct? Yes. That were unfortunately unable to get out of the elevator and step in if I get a detail wrong. We connected with the elevator repair people that we use. We also connected with our local fire department to assist us. The parents of those two students were called so that they were aware. The good news, the students were able to be removed from the elevator safely, but it was not fast. It took about 35 minutes where the students were in the elevator waiting to be on a ground level where they could safely exit. Dr. Ebert did contact the parents so that
084they were aware, but also that they were able to come to school if they wanted to to be there to assist with their children. I believe what we learned is that we have, it really isn't what we learned, it's confirming what we know. And that is we have a very old, often susceptible to malfunction elevator. And so when the repair crew came in, they looked at it and they were able to fix it for now, the panel. So there was a panel that went awry and they could do repairs on that, but we were told that that is not a long-term solution and that very likely it may get us through the end of the year or part of next year. And so what we talked about as a building and grounds committee is we're
085looking at things at the middle school, no surprise, competing safety issues at this point for us. Is it safe to have students being trapped in an elevator? No. Is it safe to have a boiler system that there are parts of it that could malfunction and hurt a child? No. Can we afford to do both of those things? No. So as Mr. Meyer stated and John again jump in, what we've tasked the administration to do is take a look at some quotes that we had for the boiler system, which was an approved process or a thing on the 840 list. And instead of doing as much as we thought, what can we do that is most critical? Because now we need to free up dollars to hopefully be able to refurbish the elevator. At this point,
086we as a committee felt that we can't really even look at a completely new elevator unless we're told that is our only option. So that's what we're balancing and we just felt it was really important to discuss that in an open meeting so that people were aware of the balancing that we're doing and that safety is the big consideration and both of these things involve student safety. I know it's Mr. Arata came forward, I just wanted to give him an opportunity if there's any clarification or anything additional that we didn't cover on that. Yeah, I mean, it was pretty spot on. There was, in order to get the kids out of the elevator, Mr. Zinger, he was running around like a crazy man. So big shout out to him for everything he did, but basically
087had to release the hydraulic system, so with being taught on the fly, so that the elevator would drop all the way to the bottom floor. And then we had to pry open the door. Since then, he's learned some things to assist with that. But yes, there were two students in there, 35-ish minutes, I would say, maybe a little bit longer. But one of the biggest things too for the two or three weeks that it was auto-commissioned, I think it was like that. We do have a student who relies on that in order to get to different levels of our building because that is the only way to do that. So we did have to adjust some classes a bit and the location of where those classes would meet. So thankfully we had some very flexible
088staff with giving up their room and allowing that so that this student wouldn't miss a certain class. Like it wasn't an option to just say, oh, that student's gonna have a study hall or work on this. No, the choir was an example, right? So we moved the choir room up to the first floor for that grade level because that student needed that accommodation. So from my understanding too, it's not like you just get a new elevator. I don't really know elevators very well, but basically the structure of it and the shaft and like the steel that's with it is what it stays and then more of a refurbished updated version of it. What I can tell is that from the part that malfunctioned was the control panel, which I think a couple of years ago,
089might've been my first year here, same thing happened on the other side of it. So there's two different sides of the elevator. It goes up both sides. So it happened on one side and this one happened just recently. It's been working since then, knock on wood. But yeah, that's kind of the position we're in right now. And I was gonna actually share this under telling me something good because we had lots of people helping out. We have district accommodating students when they need to. The kids sound like they're calm, cool, and collective from my conversation with Mr. Arada and we're just gonna have to keep finding solutions. Tough situation and tough choices have to be made and that's where we're at right now. Did they give any idea what a refurbishment costs? We have an
090estimate that we received a couple of years ago. It was around 135,000. Obviously that was two years ago. So Mr. Zinger right now is currently in talks with some of the elevators. There aren't a lot of companies that do this, yeah. He's got one coming on Tuesday and then one coming next Friday. So next Tuesday, next Friday. It's Schindler, Otis, and something else, I can't remember what he said. But there's three that they're looking into. So once we know what the estimate will be, then we'll be able to take a look at that other project that we put on pause right now, the boiler supply line. And my plan is to then work with the engineers to maybe split that project up into phases so that we can still address the most important areas yet
091this year and not have to wait till next year. The next year we would complete the whole thing. So. For the questions before we move on. I have a question. Could someone on B&G or maybe Mr. Octor speak to the boiler supply line issues and just sort of let us, help us understand. Okay, the boiler supply line runs from the boiler, supplies all the hot water to the entire building. So there's a run from the east side of the building all the way to the west side of the building. And if you remember about two years ago, the pipe actually ruptured in the band room and there was some water on the floor and we had to get a vendor in here to fix just that piece. But this project would be replacing the entire
092line. Apparently when it was installed, the different, you were allowed to install them with a different gauge pipe. And basically the pipe that they used is the same pipe that in today's standards we would only use on a sprinkler system. In fact, I remember a story of one of the workers was welding on it and weld right through it. I don't know a lot about welding, Mr. Meyer, but I don't think that's good when you can weld right through something, right? Where are your plugs when that happens? Yeah. Where it's gonna be set? So we know it's susceptible to fail. Also the joints where they connect, those are constantly under pressure. So I forget what your question was. Well, I was just trying to understand the issues, the safety concerns related to that just to
093sort of understand. Well, and we do have exposed pipe in areas where students are. So that's really the main concern. They're hot, I'm assuming. Yes. Yes. And they're from, we think 1958 or something like that when the middle school was built, I believe. I'm sorry, when the middle school gym was built. Okay. That's the common theory that I heard. So whether that's true or not, that's when those type of fittings or connections were used apparently. More so. From what someone told me. Anything further? I would just add to Karen's question. It is not an inexpensive item, but I think it is something that B&G committee is unanimously prioritized knowing that we need to make accommodations in that middle school to continue to safely function. And so this is a tricky situation to, obviously being that
094expensive item on our list for this year was kind of what we had to target to scale back because of this unexpected cost with the elevator. So it's still something that obviously we're navigating. We want to do the best that we can, but we are exploring, can we do a more phased approach rather than replacing it all at once? If there's nothing further, we appreciate your time, Mr. Octor and Mr. Arana. Thank you for everything you do. Next, we have future agenda items, I believe. Anything to be added there or any further discussion on that? If not, review and reflect. Who'd like to take the lead on that? I guess I would kind of build off of what Dr. Ebert talked about. As far as school goes, we're kind of getting, we're in middle of
095hiring season, maybe towards the end of the hiring season. And if you talk to districts, there continues to be a real hard time just getting applicants, let alone multiple applicants to pick from. So the fact that we are finding people that not only we want to hire, but excite us, and we're glad they're here, I think is a tribute to everyone associated with the district. That Keele is definitely a place that teachers want to come to. We're getting people that we need in the right positions. We're not reposting time and time again. I think all of that is a good sign of where we're headed. Anything further? I'd seek a motion to convene into executive session. I'll move to convene into executive session under Wisconsin Statutes 19.851BF and Wisconsin Statutes 118.22 for consideration of issuance
096of preliminary notices of non-renewal to teachers for the purpose of reducing staff based upon anticipated budgetary and fiscal limitations for the 2026-27 school year to discuss staffing directly relating to personnel and review a potential contract with a construction and planning firm to discuss our building needs, which if discussed in public would likely have a substantial adverse effect upon the reputation of such persons. The board may reconvene into open session to act upon items discussed in closed. I'll second that. I'm glad I didn't have to read it the second time. Thank you, Mr. Johannes. We'll vote. Mr. Bichek. Yes. Ms. Willie. Yes. Mr. Wenling. Yes. Ms. Stone. Yes. Mr. Lee. Yes. Mr. Johannes. Yes. I will say yes. We are in closed and correct me if I'm wrong. We will meet in the other room.