Board of Education Regular Meeting - June 1, 2026

001Heat. Heat. will come to order. Uh we recognize that the school district of Lacrosse occupies the land of the Ho Chunk people. Please take a moment to celebrate and honor this ancestral Ho Chunk land and the sacred lands of all indigenous peoples. >> Thank you. Will the secretary please call the role? >> Mr. Alberts >> here. >> Mr. Beeski >> here. >> Miss Fuks >> here. >> Dr. Garcia >> absent. >> Miss Hos >> here. >> Mr. Jackson >> here. >> Mr. Ma >> absent. >> Excused. >> Oh yes. Oh >> I didn't have that. Excused. >> Thank you. >> Mr. Newmeister. >> Sorry. Would you repeat that? >> Mr. Newmeister. >> Dr. Sprag. >> Here. A quorum of the board of education is present. So, the regularly scheduled meeting of June 1st, 2026 is

002called to order. We'll now have the pledge of allegiance. Please stand as you are able and face the American flag. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> All right, we have quite a lot on the docket for tonight. Um, so I would kind of ask board members as you're looking across the agenda, I know there's two items, one in information. Um, and and then one in the um gosh, excuse me, the reserve for board action, the linkage summaries. We always get into a conversation there. So, um, kind of keep in mind the the routine stuff if we can move through that quickly to save us all for we do have

003a workshop and a brief close session tonight as well. So, um, so we'll, um, we'll get right into it. Um, tonight's agenda has previously been distributed to the board. I would entertain at this time a motion with a second to approve the agenda as submitted, unless there is a motion to amend. >> Make a motion to approve the agenda as submitted. >> I'll second with >> a motion by Mr. Begski and a second by Miss Spooks. Uh, all in favor of the motion, >> please say I. >> I. All opposed. Motion carries. Okay. Uh we have no public speakers who registered for tonight. So we'll move ahead to uh the school showcase and we have Nell Saunders Scott, executive director from the Lacrosse Public Education Foundation. Welcome Nell. >> Thank you everyone. It has not

004been super long since I was last here, but uh with the school year just ending except for Monasuri, um it is always a good time for reflection and celebration. So, first I want to congratulate and welcome Loretta. Welcome. It's good to see you. I'm not going to talk a whole lot about the overview of the foundation, but I can catch you up later one-on-one at another time. Um and I also want to thank all of you as always for your time and commitment and service to our community. public education, as we all agree, is so vital and important, and I'm just grateful that you all are showing up for our students and educators and public schools. Um, shortly after my last update in March, um, we usually do these twice a year. These got close

005together, so we'll work on that. They'll be split out more, but, um, I was here in March. And, um, just after that, I had the privilege of gathering with about 200 education foundation leaders from around the country at the National Association of Education Foundations conference. Um, thousands of communities across the country like ours have responded to public funding deficits by establishing establishing independently run nonprofit foundations to ensure that their students have access to experiences and resources that just don't fit in district budgets. And I know you're very familiar with those challenging conversations. It's always enlightening and invigorating to connect with professional peers. But the most salient takeaway for me from this year's conference was the importance of a strong relationship between a school district and the education foundation. And there's always room to grow and

006even good relationships require continuous tending. But I can confidently say that the collaborative connection between LPF and the school district of Lacrosse is getting a lot of things right. It goes far beyond a good memorandum of understanding and having admin and staff and board of education representatives on our board. One side of this effective collaboration is that LPF and our board of directors are crystal clear that our support for students is most effective if it works in concert with how the district is already working to meet those needs. And the other key ingredient is that district leadership and staff view LPF as a key partner and welcome us to the table. I think these are things that you don't notice when they work well, but I can tell you from hearing stories um from ed

007foundations across the country, the these key ingredients are not a given. And I just want to share a few examples that highlight the collaboration that benefit students, educators, and schools in our district. A couple weeks ago, Alicia Place, um, our district homeless coordinator, came into my office to say that she was seeing an increase, um, number of requests from families for financial support on things like utility bills and car repairs, and she was a little concerned about the amount of funding available in the emergency family um, random acts of kindness fund that we operate or that we um, put funds into for that purpose. Um, this fund was created in 2021 because Alicia and Kurt and their colleagues recognized that for some students, family level stress, family level stressors are their biggest barriers to getting

008to school and being ready to learn. And they asked LPF to consider a new fund and we were able to create it. Uh, when Alicia came to me a couple weeks ago, I was able to reassure her that LPF could provide extra funds because our community has shown such great support for random acts of kindness. And these conversations that we have go far beyond the simple math. Do we have enough money? And look more deeply at what families are experiencing and how LPEF can ensure that our programs are set up to best support the work that staff do every day to help students and families. Um the emergency family fund is just one account through which it looks like about $55,000 will be distributed um once all is said and done through this school year.

009It's one of our largest. So, um, you're probably familiar with our Gold Star grant program, uh, from maybe just our grant announcements that are made in December and May of each year. What doesn't show up in the press release is the dozens of conversations I have with teachers and staff, um, to talk through their funding ideas, uh, confirm with buildings and grounds or technology services that they're on board with the project idea, and to brainstorm maybe other partnerships or other aspects of the projects that can improve it. LPF has also been invited to provide grant writing sessions during professional development. Um, and Carrie Huth sits on our grants committee to provide important input. So, our process goes far beyond application submission and review. And the result is that awarded projects are set up to be

010more successful and impactful for students. The impact of these projects is clear to LPF supporters. And we know that because community generosity has kept our budget for grants really strong. And uh this year we were allow able to award $90,000 for 35 projects. So another exciting year for grants. Um our support goes far beyond RAK and Goldstar grants and it varies widely outside of those programs. The LPF board has been working on both increasing our impact and deepening our understanding of where LPF can be more effective at providing support. So twice a year, we invite district leaders to share information about gaps in funding so that I have an up-to-date list of needs when I'm connecting with funders in our community. This process also involves one-on-one conversations with administrators, content coordinators, and principles to tighten

011up the project plan and problem solve the most likely sources of support. Through this process, over the past couple of years, um, donors and grant funders have contributed over $465,000 of support to projects like new outdoor equipment at Logan Middle, bike fleets for secondary PE classes, band and in orchestra instruments, literacy supports, and more. Um, it's truly astounding. A lot of these things are things the district is investing in. It just takes them longer to get there. And so by connecting community generosity to these needs, we're able to get those items or experiences in the hands of students right away. And it's um uh I couldn't tell the story about those needs to potential funders without the deep collaboration of district staff. It's important to note that every dollar that flows from LPF to benefit

012educated educators and students is facilitated by administrative assistants and Dvita and Patty's team in the business office who are always willing to problem solve and make processes more efficient. And I also have to highlight that district staff help spread the word about LPF's impact every day from Nick Maru who highlights our grants um in district communications and down to classroom teachers who shout out our funding in parent newsletters and just so many things in between. LPF is a drastically more effective partner for the district because district leadership and staff meet us at the table focused on what's best for students and ready to collaborate on telling the story to our community. So, I'm grateful to Dr. Engel and to district leadership um team for setting the tone. And I'm also grateful to you. Yes, you

013all have to uh have difficult conversations and make really tough decisions at this table, but I know you do so with the belief in the amazing potential of our students, the immense capabilities of our staff, and the importance of partnerships to make our district successful. So, I am really grateful to you all for your partnership and the opportunity to share tonight. It has been a wonderful year of collaboration and I look forward to very much more and I can answer any questions you have. >> Very much questions from board members. >> Thank you for the work you do. >> Always great to hear about the good things even just a couple months after we previously heard about the great things. So, thank you for continuing to do the work. So, >> thank you. >> All

014right. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> Jim, I think your mic is off by the way. >> Thought I saw there. Okay. Um, moving right along. Uh, we don't have a showcase or recognition tonight on the agenda. So, we'll move on to the superintendent's consent agenda. The consent agenda is a mechanism used by the board to deal with routine business that must come before the body. Are there any items that the members want to remove from the consent agenda? hearing none. I'll look for a motion. >> I'll move to accept the superintendent's consent agenda. >> Second. With a motion by Mr. Bevki and a second by Mr. Alberts. I feel like I forget everybody's name. Gosh. Um, all in favor of the motion, please say I. >> I. I. >> All opposed. Motion

015carries. On to the board's consent agenda. So once again, the consent agenda is a mechanism used by the board to deal with routine business that must come before the body. Are there any items that members want to remove from the consent agenda? Board consent agenda. Hearing none, I'll look for a motion. >> I'll move to accept the board's consent agenda as written. >> I'll second. >> Motion by Mr. Bevki, second by Miss Fuks. Uh, all in favor of the motion? >> I. >> All opposed? Motion carries. >> Moving right along uh to matters reserved for board action. We have two um OE reports today. Uh the first one is operational expectation monitoring report OE12 on facilities. This is uh rehashing the one that we have seen the last two meetings. Um so approving any recommended

016changes. I'll turn it over to Dr. Angle. We have no recommended changes. So, we would um ask that the board approve it as written. >> Right. So, uh if there are no concerns about the way OE12 is currently presented to us and we want that to hold for the coming year, um I'll look for a motion to approve. >> I'll make a motion to approve. >> I'll second. >> Okay. With a motion by Mr. Newmeister, a second by Miss Fuks. Uh all in favor of the motion. >> All opposed? Motion carries. Okay. Uh, next up is operational expectation monitoring report OE2 emergency superintendent succession. Um, this monitoring report is pretty simple as the policy is pretty simple. It indicates that we should have a succession plan in case the superintendent is unable to execute their

017duties. The evidence is a letter starting well it'll start July one of this uh upcoming school year. The emergency superintendent succession plan is as follows. Dr. Stacy Iverson then Brandon Mson our uh incoming executive director of business services and then Matt Wenty uh director of human resources. These three individuals all have superintendent licenses and um given that most challenges that arise that are tricky are uh kind of curricular and staffing in nature. That's why I feel confident in Dr. Iverson's ability to handle those sorts of things first. It's going to be more likely in her purview than anyone else's. And so uh that is the recommended emergency action succession and the evidence thereof for this monitoring report. And that is it. >> Notably the first time that Patty is not included on the emergency succession.

018>> Yes. Yes. She's got 30 days. So we'll find a day where I'll go on vacation and we'll make something happen. Joe and I are working on it. >> Any questions or comments from board members? Okay, we'd be looking for a motion to uh approve the OE as in compliance then >> or whatever you feel is appropriate, whoever is making the motion. >> I'll make a motion to accept the succession secession report as written. >> I'll second. >> Okay. The motion by Mr. Begski and a second by Miss Fuks. Any further discussion? I realize I've been skipping over that. Okay. All in favor of the motion, please say I. I. >> I. >> All opposed. Motion carries. Moving right along, guys. Uh, linkage summaries. Uh, so the one on the agenda for tonight is the

019the May 12th linkage summary from the district-wide parent committee. Um, number of board members were present there. Loretta, I don't know if you have anything in particular you wanted to highlight from it or start a conversation. Meredith isn't here. So, I guess I really just want to know where we um were with finding out information about the free breakfast, the free meals for them. >> Sorry. >> Would you mind repeating it for the record? >> Just really wanted to know where we were if we had any information about the free meals for the children that were discussed during that one. Dr. Engel, I don't know if you got this in time. Um, yeah. Um, we did some rough calculations. If you extended our free lunch program to every student who would be eligible um, and

020include the lunch and breakfast, it'd be somewhere around $2.3 million of additional expense. Um, assuming every kid eats every day. There's some assumptions built into there. that would be the uh liability we would be incurring with that sort of a program. >> And does that does that 2.3 million that's that's exclusive of any title funds that could offset meal costs? >> So there's title funds specifically wouldn't qualify for um breakfast and lunch. There are schools that are C and I can't remember exactly what that stands for something program, educational program. Um we have two schools that qualify for that based on the um free reduced lunch rate in their neighborhood. And so as a result, the whole building can be considered free lunch as a result. Um and so you don't have to worry about

021some students, the handful of students that would have to pay, they don't have to. They they qualify for free lunch and breakfast because they're in a C school. There are some school districts who've tried this on a large scale. Uh Black River Falls is a notable one in our area. They tried to make the whole school district Celigible and they ended up having to back away from it because the costs became so great. You have to offset many of those costs yourself. Uh and while it was beneficial for the students, you know, who could, you know, theoretically qual afford lunch as a school district, it was no longer affordable to continue. And so they had to back away from that program this last year. >> Jim, >> would that 2.3 million would that be above

022and beyond those people students that receive free and reduced lunch? >> Above and beyond. That's correct. >> Thank you. Can you say, maybe you don't know, but can you say more about the context with Black River Falls and like what what were some of those additional costs? But my my understanding would be that if they are receiving the state or federal funds to provide free lunch under the C program, where are those additionals coming from that are more expensive than, you know, than providing lunch for everybody out of pocket? Maybe I misunderstood you. >> So, the they moved to a district C in Black River Falls. Um, and it allowed all students to receive meals at no cost. The district's identified student percentage, you know, plays a role in what your reimbursement is or what

023you're eligible to do. Black River Falls has a very high ISP. It's almost 80%. Uh, and then they had strong community support and funding to kind of offset some of the rest of it. um they already reverted back to paid meals. They ended up using about $175,000 of fund balance because they couldn't sustain a loss continually year-over-year. Um something so while our free and reduced lunch rate is, you know, about 48%, our ISP is only 36%. So it's half that of Black River Falls. So the reimbursement we would get through that program is even less than Black River Falls would. Um and so the the challenge would be trying to fund the difference in that which is substantial. Um fund50 might be able to cover a little bit for a little while but it would

024quickly run into the red probably within a year and we would be using fund $10 to pay for breakfast and lunch for students who theoretically can afford it on that fund. Is it Is there restrictions on where the revenue can come from into that fund or can it can it come from outside sources? Can it come from community members? Can it come from um businesses in the community, hospital systems, things like that? >> Yeah, it could come from outside sources. We already do accept um donations from Beer by Bre Brigade. every year they offset um the uh fund or the balances of of students who, you know, for some reason couldn't get on to to free reduced lunch right away or experience some sort of uh economic dis hardship throughout the year. And so we've

025taken in between 14 and $3,000 annually over the years from private folks in order to offset costs there. Okay. So if there was a large enough donor that wanted to give, you know, to that program, you could certainly receive those funds for that particular purpose. I know Minnesota has a free lunch and breakfast program. I know they're running into some economic challenges and it may or may not be sustainable for next their next bianium or however they do their their budgets. I know they're already talking about scaling back unfortunately just because of the costs involved. You know, for us it's $2.3 million, you know, extend that to 400 uh 32 school districts across the state, it adds up pretty quickly that overall budget. So, if you take your overall costs, how consistent are they year-to-year?

026Do you see have you seen a increase? Have you seen a steadiness in it? like is it something you can predict when you look at it and you say hey overall the whole program whether it's readily funded or it's funded by you know users it costs us X is that something that you see or is it is it pretty does it have some variability in it >> fund 50 is pretty stable um we estimate a budget every year expenses and revenues and you know we're slightly in the black annually you know allowing us to avoid deficit budgets there um you know we have had to increase the compensation for our food service for nutrition folks over the years and you know that starts to jeopardize that balance. Um but we've been in a good enough

027position that we're able to purchase equipment out of that fund from time to time to improve our our kitchens without impacting our fund 10 budget and the other things that we're doing. And so it's been run as a pretty stable and steady business so to speak on its own for for many years. Okay. >> Thank you. Couple more things from that meeting. Um, we also talked about decreasing the use of technology for the younger kids. Um, I think up to grade I want to say second grade that it was discussed. Um, more hands-on learning. Um, not so much um worksheets um are using the tablets. um and Amore focus on spelling and reading and that meeting was a big topic for those parents. >> Yeah, I was also present in that one and and I'm

028glad to see it. It's reflected in the notes, I think, how much of the conversation really was around the technology question and I'm interested that that does keep coming up. And the parents also expressed I I think a pretty good understanding that there there's trade-offs between you know wanting the students to have tech literacy. We obviously live in a digital world and there's a point where we want to be educating students in that way. But um thinking in particular about the younger grades and and what are the skills that we are um what are the skills that we are focusing on with with device enabled learning versus more hands-on tactile kind of options and and play based learning came up as well. >> Any other questions or comments from board members? All right. Um, hearing

029none, I would uh look for a motion to approve the linkage minutes as presented. >> We'll make a motion to approve the linkage uh minutes as presented. >> Second. >> Okay. A motion by uh Miss Fuks and a mo a second by Mr. Begneski. All in favor? >> I. All opposed. >> Motion carries. All right, that concludes matters reserved for board action. Uh we have two information items tonight. The first um is the 2026 2027 proposed budget review of Fund 80 community service programs and services. I'll give it to you to give. >> Yeah. So we we do this annually kind of look at our Fund 80 programs. Um it's uh for for context, fund 80 is a a separate levy that the school board can dictate locally. It's outside the revenue limit and it

030has to be focused on uh uh programs that are not within the traditional boundaries of the school district and support all members, all students in our community. Um we bring this uh annually because it is a separate levy and we want to make sure that the school board's aware of of what's going on in this program. And we also bring uh recommendations uh from time to time uh depending on what we're seeing in the community or needs are in our school. Um traditionally we've brought this maybe in July or August. Um but we found it beneficial to get this in front of the school board earlier uh than later. And uh a new thing that we're doing this year is uh Miss Spang is bringing a proposed kind of preliminary budget uh at our next

031school board meeting. Um, given that our school year starts on July 1, it makes sense to kind of bring that to the board before we kick off the year. We don't have a lot of the details yet because the state doesn't provide those until October. Uh, but we're going to do our best to to get an estimate in front of the board at this time. Uh, and supporting that development of a budget is kind of getting a sense for where the board sits on fund 80. And so we'll review the program, um, look at, um, a little bit of history, and then, um, just kind of have some opportunities for discussion about what we want to do in the near future. And so I'll turn it over to Kurt Te, our director of community services,

032who oversees many of these uh, partnerships andus for these programs. >> All right, terrific. Thank you uh, for the opportunity to visit with you tonight about um, our community services fund 80 programs. Um, like Dr. Engel said, uh, really a a unique way to be able to target needs within a community. Um, things that we keep in mind when we're thinking about Fund80 programs or or making sure that they're serving the purpose that they're designed for. Um, making sure they're outside the regular curriculum. So, we can't use Fund 80 to just run schools. Um, so it has to be something in addition to, uh, what we currently offer within schools. um fund 80 um is um something that you've got to be prepared to not have exist I if if the funding ever changed or

033or went away. Um and then it's available to any resident students. So the programs you're going to see um have pathways for even private school students take advantage of it which they do which is a terrific thing to have in our community. Um so with fund 80 uh one of the things that we uh think a lot about is this idea of factors that impact student achievement uh and well-being. And there's obviously factors that we spend a lot of time thinking about and talking about that are well within the school's influence. uh the people we hire, how our how our schools are led, the curriculums that we select, how we approach school climate, um our resources, facilities, um our efforts to involve parents and the community in our schools. And then there's factors that uh

034we also think about that have a enormous impact uh on kids. Um early life experiences, economic stability, the home environment, uh their neighborhood. Uh and so um as we uh kind of think about fund 80, one thing we often share with our partners is you know you think of school as being a large part of the of a child's year. Um in terms of hours though it only represents about 25% of awake hours. Um, and so a lot of our strategies in fund 80 is how do we influence or or make better um time outside of school or extend opportunities to make sure that kids and families are are getting what they what they need. Uh, and so that's really what we target. And you're going to see a lot of the programs and services

035that I'm going to talk about tonight really do target uh those things that are traditionally less within reach for schools, but through fund 80 we've we've been able to make an impact. Uh so we got a number of programs in here that I'll go through. Um trying to just organize it in a way that that makes sense. I'm going to talk a little bit about our um early early childhood work that we're doing. Um one of our strategies is to enhance early early childhood development. We know how important uh early life quality early life experiences are on a developing child, the brain uh their ability to relate with others. Um, we also, uh, target empowering, uh, youth beyond the school day. Uh, we know for a lot of our students, they're involved in lots of

036things. They're going to clubs or sports or or have other opportunities. That isn't always true for all students. Um, so we think a lot about how do we make sure that kids have safe places to go after school, that they're uh getting the help they need outside of school, that they have opportunities to explore um, interests um, and have some of their basic needs met. Um third strategy that we'll talk about is strengthening um community connections and engagement. Um you heard a little bit about this at your last board meeting with our our cultural liaison uh work. Uh some of our partnership work that we do through community schools and our our neighborhood uh community impact work. And then the final uh is fostering school and community justice. And this is really efforts to make

037sure that um uh kids h have opportunities to resolve issues outside of punitive discipline or or law enforcement uh and that our schools are safe. So we're always trying to strike a balance um with that. So uh enhancing early childhood development. Um this slide I've shared with uh the board of education u uh before. Um but really why early childhood? Well, geez, so much happens before kids end up being school age. Uh, the brain uh before before five or six is just an incredible space of development and growth. And the experiences that kids have really do shape shape how that brain develops and and gets uh wired for learning. Um, we know that um for infants they're they're making a million connections a second. Um, we know that 90% of the brain is developed by

038the time kids are school age. Um, and and part of the reason why we focused on this strategy um, a couple years ago was we were really starting to see trends where young students were were coming in with more difficulty than they had in the past. And some of that was pandemic related. That was a strange time for kids and families. Um but we really wanted to make sure that uh you know for for young students that that we get that right. Um and so uh one of the uh things that we've been working on is our um early childhood impact strategy. Um some of you probably remember a presentation by Michelle Samson. She's our early childhood impact coordinator. Um really her work is um targeting the factors that the community tells us about that

039make the biggest difference for for kids. Um thinking about things like early learning opportunities, um economic opportunities, daycare, quality of environment that that kids are in. Um and I love this quote, place is not peripheral, it's built into the body. And we know that that that kids early life experiences have a tremendous impact um in how they grow uh develop uh and learn. And so Michelle had shared this at her presentation. What does the strategy look like? We've modeled the strategy largely off our community uh school strategy uh which starts with a community advised process uh a comprehensive needs and asset assessment. that's what she had presented on at at the last board meeting to really understand the needs. Um uh we're in the process of mining the root cause and starting to develop some

040strategies which is exciting uh to to uh begin um getting into the work. Um some of the things that our community have shared, they've talked about this fiscal cliff uh that families experience. um this idea where they uh make enough to get by but not enough to to really make a difference. Uh they don't qualify for anything but they're they're just kind of there. Uh which makes it difficult for them to provide the opportunities they'd like to for their families, challenges with child care, finding it, accessing it. Um they've they um uh also um Oh, I just lost my train of thought. Um any I'll come back to that. I'll I'll remember what it is. Number number of priorities that that the community um had had told us about um that uh we're we're working

041on uh change for. So um I think we'll plan on getting this slide deck because we put links into um I believe this was already shared with you, but the state of early childhood outlines uh a lot of the work that Michelle's u been doing um to date. Is it the they wish they knew the thing? >> Yeah. Yes, that's right. Yes. They wish they knew. Yeah. One of the things that that uh they they had shared is they they found that uh navigating early life and early life support happens in these really informal pathways. And uh what we over heard overwhelmingly from our community is families feeling like they didn't learn about what was available soon enough. Um so in fact we're currently working on a strategy that would provide early contact with families

042shortly after birth um to make sure families had a connection in the community uh and that we've got resources and support uh for that family in the early months of of life. Um and and this is not us doing it. It's leveraging partnerships. So it was always a question of early childhood gez if we if we get into this are we are we going to be responsible to to come up with all the solutions or cover the cost for those we have partners at the table who are interested in this work which is an exciting exciting thing. So thank you for that reminder um empowering uh youth behind the uh school day. Um, so we know that not all kids have opportunities to go off and and play sports or or uh uh get into

043clubs or activities or pay fees and the like. Uh so through fund 80 we've supported out of schooltime programming from boys and girls club uh which allows students to be able to go to a north side club or a southside club or some of our community clubs uh to be able to engage with staff get homework help um uh engage in healthy activities outside of school time. One of the questions from last year uh was what percentage of fund 80 actually funds the total cost of these programs and our fund 80 contribution um covers about 26% of the total cost for out of the out of schooltime programming. The rest of that is made up uh from the boys and girls club and and benefactors and and donors. Um but but this is really what

044makes um club experiences available um to kids at no cost within our community. Um I've got some data in there. Um about 1,400 youth served in our lacrosse club. So this isn't um all of Boys and Girls Club. This is just in our lacrosse clubs. Um 327 youth on any given day are on site receiving programming. Um that amounts to $6.44 per day per student based on that average daily attendance. Um, and when you think about it, it's four and a half hours of out of school time programming, academic support, homework help, mental health services built right within the club, snacks and meals. Uh, and we really feel like that is just a tremendous value uh for students who really don't have a lot of other places to go or things to do um after

045school. Strengthen uh community connections and engagement. Um so in in this strategy we have our cultural lison which you heard about uh at your last board meeting our community school coordinators our community impact coordinators lacrosse promise and our graduation specialists um so I'll talk about those um so won't spend a lot of time on the cultural and family uh connections because you just had a presentation but this was a slide uh out of that presentation um at your last board meeting really outlining the need uh to really scale up out and start digging into supporting um uh our historically marginalized uh populations. And so uh this outlines um enrollment and changes in enrollment um over time. Our community school strategy um so in in a lot of ways our community schools uh strategy is present

046in some form in in all of our schools. All of our schools are trying to meet student needs. Um in a lot of it is transactional. you know, if students have uh you know, need a coat, we get them a coat. If they need food, we all have pantries and pantry dollars from our community. Um if they need random acts of kindness from Lacrosse Public Education Foundation, they're there to help out as well. Uh we look at as our community school strategy at Hamilton and Northside as a transformational strategy. Um and part of the reason why those schools were selected was largely because of the concentration in need. um for many of our schools, they can handle the needs that that come up. But within um some of our neighborhoods in town, uh there are

047more needs than there are resources to support that. And the community school strategy is an evidence-based strategy to really make the school a hub for the neighborhood. Uh so it it provides um uh opportunities for engagement uh to to bring not just families in but the community in uh to work on collaborative uh strategies to expand services and opportunities for youth and families. Um in the slide deck I've got a couple of um in April we've got one school still working on finishing up their endofear report. Uh and then Hamilton has their endofear report. I'll give a quick example out of Hamilton that that they've cited. Um, one of the things that Hamilton was really targeting was um, chronic absenteeism. Uh, and what they found over time around chronic absenteeism was a high percentage of

048kids who were no call, no show, meaning there just wasn't any communication from the family at all about why they were not at school. Um so their strategy working with their community uh was around um really working to engage the the community differently. Um and they created, you can't quite see this, um but they um offer monthly family nights. They would bring uh information about the importance of attendance. They did early home visits to start the year. Uh they have a rapid response when kids aren't at school to get them into school. uh and they've been able to shift their data. Not only have no call no show uh absences reduced, um they've been able to reduce chronic absenteeism on the whole by 17% and they currently have an average daily attendance of 92%. Uh

049something that uh you know a community school coordinator working with a team and working with a a community um can accomplish um in the model. and they've got lots of other things that they're working on, but but really uh focused to make sure kids are at school ready to learn. Community impact. Um so again, using the community school strategy, uh we're working in a couple different neighborhoods and have been uh for some time now. Um the Hinchin Huber neighborhood out on the south end of town and the Shu Mullen neighborhood um are both uh Lacrosse Housing Authority uh properties um that we've been working in. Um similar to some of our schools, we were finding higher needs within those neighborhoods and and um one of the patterns we were seeing were carrying issues. So conflict

050that was maybe starting um in the neighborhood were was literally being brought into school and and kids were disregulated and there was conflict. And so we've been leveraging the community school strategy uh in the neighborhood and we've got a couple of community centers that we work out of. Um lots of partnerships within uh within this work. Um similar to a community school, we complete a comprehensive needs and asset assessment to to hear from residents what the top priorities are. Um one of our beliefs is that the people closest to the problem are closest to the solution. what they're not closest to is power, authority, influence, resources to get to get things done. Uh and so this is a strategy that we are doing with people. Uh they let us know what the priorities are and

051we uh serve and receive uh information back and forth to make sure that that we're on track. But it's resulted in tremendous partnerships uh being able to bring in parented classes, financial classes, um partnership with Western for um adults who want to finish their schooling or go on to go on to more schooling. So, uh tremendous work that that's um happening out there in our neighborhoods. Uh Lacrosse Promise has been a long-standing uh partnership. um and uh familiar with Lacrosse Promise um really started as a neighborhood revitalization strategy uh with opportunities for scholarships uh for uh homes that were purchased in in Lacrosse. Um part of the strategy also included um centers within each of the high schools and available to private school students um to give them experiences that are above and beyond what

052we offer all students within the school. So all students uh you know receive career academic and career planning um can meet with school counselors on options for college or university. Um, Lacrosse Promise, if you look at their activity from this year, really either take youth to or bring resources in um for students to really explore what's possible out there. Um, you know, number of uh uh visits uh to talk with students about um the future center and and college and uh career readiness um work that they complete around the FAFSA and financial aid uh navigation. um future fair 1,200 students 45 uh regional employers training programs and colleges connecting those a variety of uh campus visits including hosting large campus visits here where colleges come to students uh and then a range of other um

053opportunities for kids to explore careers um and uh work on figuring out about what's next. be great graduate. Uh this is another partnership that we have with Boys and Girls Club. Um Fund 80 has historically funded uh one of the positions. The other position is funded through a grant through uh Boys and Girls Club of America. Uh what it does is place a graduation specialist in each of the high schools um that really target kids who are off track. They're credit deficient. Um they're maybe chronically absent. They're they're not uh credit current. They're they're falling behind. Uh and they provide a range of supports. Uh making sure kids are getting to school. Uh making sure that kids are getting the help they need on their their academics, connecting them to mental health supports. Um providing

054out of school time options and our out of school time programming and working on uh life and workforce readiness. Um so another successful year uh with our BG great graduate program. Um you can see 50 students participated, 27 at Logan High School, 23 at Central High School. Um I think the target in the program is 20 students. So we're we're reaching uh more students than was originally designed. Um they maintained a 100% graduation rate which is terrific. Um the graph small to see but uh uh analyzes um the percent of passing classes by grade level. So you've got freshman, sophomore, juniors, and seniors. um efforts to really catch kids early, build those learner skills, learner habits, get kids caught up, get them back into school. Um and what you can see in this graph is

055for our seniors this year, there are six of them. Um all pass classes and all graduated, which is terrific. Fostering school and community justice. Uh so in this one, a lot of different programs I want to highlight. Um so fund 80, uh we partner with the YW.CA CA for their restorative justice program. Um, this was mentioned at your last board meeting as well. Um, they've completed 136 circles uh restorative circles or or welcome circles with students. Um, thousand students participated in a circle of some type. Um, this year um they do a number of in addition to circles, they'll come in and complete restorative meetings uh when there's conflict. So even outside of circles um and they're available for classrooms and and other uh student needs. Our system of care school justice partnership um this

056is a longstanding partnership that followed some work in 2016 that looked at disproportionate minority contact within our uh community. Um this was a partnership to uh essentially decriminalize uh youth behaviors that didn't belong in the criminal justice system. Um either behaviors that are kind of typical of normal adolescent problematic but you know not criminal um or types of behaviors that just need intervention and support. And so we've been partnering with the county um uh Bridget Todd Robbins is our system of care administrator and and we've had some tremendous success um really uh targeting students um who would otherwise end up in the criminal justice system dealing with um you know citations or or referrals and really holding them accountable through intervention and support. Um, our school resource officer program uh is funded in fund 80.

057We currently have four SRO's, two on the north side and two on the south side. Um, we have an SRO advisory committee made up of community members. Um, sole purpose of the advisory is to advise Dr. Angel on uh ideas to improve or adjust the school resource officer program. Um, one of the components of the SRO report that Dr. angle uh completed in 2021 was this idea of if we're going to have police and we think we're probably going to need them because things that happen in the community happen in the school. We want to make sure that we have specially trained officers um who who can do that and that's part of our our police officers who serve in our schools are specially trained um to do that work. Um, one of the things

058that we target is to make sure most of the things that they need to get or that need uh police attention are handled by uh uh school resource officers. So that's what that 91.5% is. Um so most of the time uh the needs within our building are able to be handled right by the the SRO uh within the school district. Um as we've been uh working through the SRO program, we've also been monitoring just arrest rates. Um in in 2008 we had a big study on juvenile arrest rates found high levels of arrest and then disproportionate minority contact. Um since that time we've seen a steady decline um in uh juvenile arrest rates countywide. Um so you can see here uh you know since uh 2019 9% uh drop from 14% to 5%. Um we're

059we're um believe we're under the average of similar demographic uh communities. We stand we we're elevated compared to our uh county um but but um below average for uh similar demographic districts. Uh so the goals of the SRO program have have uh included increasing the likelihood that officers responding have that specialized training. Um we wanted to establish trusting channels of communication with students, parents and guardian. Uh build rapport between the SRO, parents, faculty, staff and administrators and maintain a safe and secure environment on on school grounds. And so the advisory that meets twice a year answers a few questions. Um one is are the SRO's being utilized appropriately? And one of the things that we do is we we it's called a look behind the curtain. We essentially take samples of time and review any

060police call, arrest, referral data out of that period. Uh so we can analyze are we asking law enforcement to get involved in the right things. Um we also look at what percentage of the time are we able to have an SRO respond? Um and and then we consider other conditions uh that might impact the program. This is a history of where we've been with the SRO program. You can see as far back to 2021 when we started the advisory um some of the changes that that have occurred. Um recommendation um after this year is to maintain four SRO's um historically what our advisory has said is you know the the calls are appropriate. Uh the response rates in check continue to maintain all the pro-social preventative uh services that you have. Um but but um

061the recommendation this year was to maintain four SRO. So I'm going to turn this over to >> Patty. Before we get into those numbers, are there any programming questions that board members wanted to get into? >> I just have a comment on on the SRO's. I I've only know of the the two on the north side and I cannot tell you what a difference they make in in our not only the school but the kids' lives and uh we're very very fortunate to have them and um so kudos to them and and kudos with you know the police department and the school district uh working together to get those back because it's a it's a huge huge confidence builder even for the children knowing that there's somebody there that uh got their back and and

062they feel comfortable with and I think they have a good rapport with. So, um it's good to see that we we're at four now. >> Thank you. >> Yeah, it's been a wellreceived change and now that we have four secondary buildings, it makes sense in terms of response rates and that's why we've gone from like a 72% to 91.5%. Um, our concern is that, you know, if somebody who isn't trained to deal with children shows up, they're going to do the best they can. And our road officers are great, patrol officers are great here in town, but if you have somebody who's specially trained, who knows kids and has relationships? I think to your point, Mr. Newmeister, things will be better. >> I have a question about the response rate, too. So, does does that

063just mean that 8.5% of the calls were handled by patrol? It it means it doesn't mean they weren't handled. >> Yes. No, they were handled. But yeah, most often what that means is they're initially handled by patrol. >> Um often times uh SRO's do the followup on it, but in terms of that initial response, it would be a patrol officer and and the police department has a terrific training program too, you know, and um even for our patrol officers, and we've seen a lot of professionalism out of there. Um what what I think is unique for the SRO program is our SRO's have a relationship and context with students and just increases the likelihood that that those um interactions will go more smoothly. >> Um I to Mr. Newmeister's uh point. There are SRO programs

064in the country where um it's a place where sometimes less skilled officers are assigned to uh and that is not how things are handled in lacrosse. Um leadership with Lacrosse Police Department and the culture really the SRO program is a pathway for promotion. Um, and we always have more candidates than we have spots. And um, so it's been terrific to get the the best of the best in our schools, kids who they're uh, SRO's who are committed to kids and understand those needs and and uh, it shows just like you said. >> Um, is just to follow up on that quick. Um, is the response rate included in theou? Like is there an expectation of of how much what you know what percentage will be handled by the SRO's that's baked in there? >> No,

065we uh we use that u mainly for right sizing. So a lot of the discussion around um the SRO's starting back in 2021 is to make sure that SRO's aren't unnecessarily getting involved in things that we don't have so many SRO's that all of a sudden um SRO's are supervising lunchrooms or you know students are having unnecessary contact with SRO's. So we use that as a metric within the advisory. Um you know if if we um if we got down to great example is when we were at three SRO's um uh one of the one of the things that we looked at with that um we it there's a pattern showing up where calls for service uh there there's such a priority to have SRO's respond that we ended up creating kind of a backlog

066of of followup in in our SRO's. were were busy, but it would be sometimes days before they could, you know, follow up with things. Um, so we use that as a metric uh really for right sizing, you know, and for some reason that became, you know, we're pretty satisfied with the 88.9 the 91.5. I don't think we'd ever get to 100%. Probably not realistic, hard for people to be everywhere all the time. Um, but if it ever drops significantly, that would be just a discussion point on right sizing. >> Thanks, Mr. Bevki. You showed a statistic there that since this program has started there was a 14% to a 5% drop. Okay. Do do you have anything like that for instance? I don't disagree with it but the uh lacrosse promise people at each school

067before and after graduation rate used to be at this level. Now it's at this level. We credit that a lot to the program as far as hiring those graduate people. >> Yeah. I I don't have that data. That's something we could certainly add. And I think with all of this outcome data, there are just so many levers at play, too. Um, you know, for instance, the uh the reduction in uh law enforcement involvement. Um, we have a school justice partnership. I could point to that to say, hey, that made a difference in some way and and we've uh really done a lot of work around our code of rights and responsibilities. I could say that played a part. Having the right SRO's absolutely plays a plays a part of that. So there's multiple levers in

068there um for the graduation specialist. So absolutely we've been tracking the percentage of of students who participate in that program and what that graduation rate is but we could easily make a comparison to did that change about the same time on the whole. Uh and then on your statistic there as far as you had four graphs freshman, sophomore, junior and failure rate and it looked like the largest failure rate was in ninth grade and it was mathematics. Is there something being done to try to address address that so that that many students are not failing that class? Some kind of support, >> right? We have not debriefed. So um normally our our end of year reports are coming in in June. So, we had our partners put things together, but we really haven't debriefed the

069year, but those would be all questions that we'd be curious to see what these changes are. Yeah, >> good question, though. >> I had a question. Are do the the BG great graduate specialists connect with CRVA students at all? Even though they're cited in the buildings, do they have any opportunities to do that? >> They certain there would be nothing that would prevent them from doing that, but I I don't know if they have any any students there. Yeah. Now, maybe Patty's going to answer this question, but you talked about the different areas. For instance, we talk about making sure everybody graduates. We talk about early childhood, etc. Can you give us an indication of how much money was spent out of fund 80 in each of those categories? >> That's probably a good Patty

070question. >> Maybe. Yeah. Any other programmatic questions? Then we can head on to budget and adjustments for next year. All right, Patty, you're up. And I would just add that remember these services are not only for our school district students, but all the students within the district. So the private schools um have the SRO serve them also. So just keep that in mind. So um this one here, so to your uh question, this is just the budget that we've had for the last three years in these areas. And the levy is what we um have to go out to the voters for because uh there is something maybe left over in each of these categories at the end of a fiscal year. So that is why this is usually brought to you in August because

071at that point we know how much is left over on any one of those uh budget lines. and then we don't have to levy as much in that next year. So this um just just shows you that once we levy in that area, we cannot move those leftover dollars to any other area within fund 80 to make sure that the funding uh is going to the right places as the board and um the community would like it to go. Uh there also are three other areas within the community services budget that we do not levy for, but because they affect the community, our food pantries at our schools, the bike works program and the 21st century community learning grant um those are offset by other revenues. We do not uh levy for those. So now

072when the next meeting when I have a preliminary budget for you, we'll come up with a really good estimate about what's left in each of these areas after the 2026 school year ends and uh then we'll be able to determine an estimate on the levy for the next year. >> Can you the middle school coc curricular um What I noticed there wasn't any for the last two years. What is that for this year? >> Yes, that was >> the board um had uh approved the movement of co-curricular expenditures at the middle school level uh to the fund 80. >> Are you curious what we're going to anticipate it for this next year? >> Yes. >> I'm not quite sure yet. I'm I'm kind of trying to figure that out right now. 30 days. >> Exactly.

073Actually, I have less than that because I want to bring this to you on the 15th. So, so we'll have some estimates. Of course, they'll be tweaked once we have final numbers, but yeah. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Any questions about the past year's budget? So, you can see the budgets are sometimes larger than what we levy for because we have leftover funds from the previous year. Okay. >> All right. And I think Erin was gonna talk. >> Yeah, I'll talk through this one. So, um this highlights some of the things that we did last year. Um in strategy one, early childhood development. We maintained our programming. Uh we had added the early childhood community impact individual and that uh uh program is is off and running. In strategy two, we had uh moved middle

074school extracurricular costs to fund 80, freed up some space in our fund 10 budget, allowed us to to do more there. Uh strategy three strengthened community connections and engagement. We added the grow lacrosse garden programming to our schools. Uh to guarantee access, equal access to all of our students across our elementary schools. uh and to make it viable into the future. It's really become a um a standard part of our experiences for students that we want to make sure all kids get access to regardless of the school they go to. And so that's been really valuable. We just cut a ribbon on the the um garden at Southern Bluffs and they've already been receiving lessons this year. So it's been very exciting. And then strategy four, fostering school and community justice. Um we update our

075SRO contract to be the actual costs. You know, sometimes they'll they'll have a raise that the the police department provides or maybe they'll get a new officer who gets paid less than the last one. And so the costs might go down. It's variable from year to year. And it's just actual costs. Um and the way we calculate that is 75% of 75% of their um of their uh total costs. you know, they're working for us three quarters out of the year during the school year and then we um take on 75% of that responsibility and the police department knows they're going to have to respond to schoolbased stuff anyway, so they pick up 25% of that responsibility. Um our topics for conversation for next year, the things we'd love to discuss with the board, um

076maintain the early childhood development program. We're really excited where that's going. Um we're into root cause and strategy development. Uh and like we said from the outset, our goal isn't to do all the work, it's to partner with others to to do good work. Uh and so we think maintaining that programming is uh good. Um empowering youth beyond the school day. Um when we set these budgets, you know, sometimes years ago, uh we don't account for inflation here, the increasing costs to to run programs. And so that's something we've thought about a little bit. We've not gone there yet, but we wanted the board to consider an inflationary adjustment for the afterchool programming with the Boys and Girls Club. Uh, another topic that's a little different is considering secondary co-curriculars. It' be the non-academic, I

077think that should say non-academic co- We can't do the academic ones. Like we moved. So Jeff had challenged us to like find creative ways and so we started to think about it. This one's pushing the envelope a little bit further. Um, middle school co-curriculars, easy move into fund 80. Secondary things like um, uh, Southeast Asian club or the FEM club or the Pokemon club or potentially even show choir or Skills USA. They often have curricular connections. Um, but you know, we could look at those as potential opportunities to move into to fund 80. The largest cost is really the transportation associated with all of them. It doesn't have a lot of budget, so to speak. Um, but there are cases where it would create better equal access. So, on some of our programs, there's some

078fees and things that can add up that we don't see in other programs. Showquire as an example, I think it's a $1,000 fee per individual to participate in Showquire. There are scholarships available, but that's a real barrier for access for our students that might not have the means. And so, there would be a way to address some of those challenges in uh this area and make things more accessible to our students and also put a little relief from the fund 10 budget to allow us to do other things. Um, strategy three, um, we have talked about it at our last schoolboard meeting, adding two community cultural liaison. We want to grow up and out and we want to, uh, be able to internally take on some of the so, uh, the restorative justice work that

079we have contracted out uh, for many years uh, and be able to expand to to portions of our community that we have, you know, historically not been able to do as much for that we wanted to. um community school coordinators um they've been school year uh workers so far, but that work really doesn't stop and we lose momentum over the summer. And a lot of our students need that additional support. Our families and our community need that support through the summer to ensure that from the time we end school to the time we start school, um they're able to uh to be connected. And this is partly because we moved from year-round school at those two sites, North Side and Hamilton, and now we're on kind of traditional calendars. Uh, and so this would allow

080that work to continue with our community school coordinators. Um, considering adjustment to the BG Great program, the um, uh, state or the the national level uh, funding, they increase from 65,000 to 70,000. We've said that we would match that historically and so it's just a consideration. Would we continue to match the grant that the Boys and Girls Club receives be a $5,000 increase. Um this next one, the transition our restorative justice strategy. Um as we're building up our own community cultural liaison, we would be able to kind of reduce our um contracted services for restorative justice. We still believe we need their expertise for the time being. They do great training. They would support us in this transition. And so we'd be able to move from $150,000 down to 75. And in the second year,

081we might even be able to consider a lower amount as we really rely on them for training and advice uh as we build our own internal capacity. And so that's an option to consider as well. And then just the updating of the SRO program costs. Uh the current estimates $18,377, but we'll know the actual cost here uh relatively soon. Uh and so those are our proposals. Happy to to listen to discussion, answer any questions, hear your thoughts. Uh and as we get a sense for where folks are at, we'll be taking notes so that we can build a budget for next year. >> Questions, comments from board members? Well, obviously I I like that we're looking at saving some funds and transition um restorative with a justice strategy is I think is the right way

082to go. Not just cut the tie though. Um just see how it goes the first year. So it gives us the opportunity to either gear back up or or continue our downward uh path to maybe even half that next year. Who knows? But um I do like to see that and you know the other community culturally on we talked about that in pretty great length that uh that's something we wanted to look at. So it's it's good to see that we're we're looking at these possibilities. We'll see how you know budgetary constraints really allow us to do some of this but it's good work so far. So thank you. Uh, do you have the quick math on what a 2.5% increase is to the inflationary adjustment? >> $9,000. >> And you may have said it,

083but how many um community school coordinators do we have right now? >> We have two. >> Yeah. One at North Side and one at Hamilton. And how much of it or do we pay at all for the CTE education training going on at Boys and Girls Club? >> Uh we don't pay for any of that training right now. Yep. That's uh something they've been fundraising for and offering uh to students in the summer. And so um there are some costs to families for uh summer programming. You know, our out of schooltime funding pays for the school year uh programming. Uh the Boys and Girls Club has done their best to not charge lacrosse students because of our long-standing partnership, but for some things that just requires fees because of the expense, transportation and instruction and

084things. >> I think they work pretty hard to get those donated as well as much as possible. >> Absolutely. >> Jeff, you had something. >> Yeah. the strategy to the shift for the academic tied co-curriculars. You mentioned transportation. Um is transportation something whether it's athletic or co-curricular is that something you could shift into the fund to cover >> academic? We couldn't co-curricular >> so that's what I'm saying. co-curricular >> or academic. Yes, co-curriculars. Yes. Not uh not athletic co-curricular >> even on transportation. You couldn't do that. I know that >> not the athletics because those programs are run through fund 80 or they so the so like high school sports through WIAA which has to be associated with a school. Um because it has to be associated with a school. We can't let anyone participate

085in our community who isn't a part of that school. And so then the costs for that have to be we couldn't offer transportation for an Aquinus kid to get to, you know, Mustin for a basketball game. That would be Yeah, it wouldn't pass the muster. >> Okay, that makes sense. >> Yeah, >> thanks for walking me through that. I was just trying to think there's a way to continue to shift funding if that because again it's an access barrier as well, right? So totally >> um just whether it's practices or you know trying to get kids to the right places at the right time like just being able to shift some of that would make >> and we don't we don't have fees for athletics those are free for our students you know there are

086some equipment challenges shoes and other things random acts of kindness through LPF has been huge in terms of providing those uh there are still stigma barriers you know if you're shy about asking or embarrassed that you might have to you might never even start you know because of some of those things. Transportation's free, some of those academic co-curriculars, the, you know, show choir being a big example, like there are legitimate barriers there. You know, that would be a place where it's hard to participate. And if if you're embarrassed about asking, you know, there's not a lot not a lot of wiggle room there. >> I think they do a pretty good job fundraising as well, though, to try to help the >> absolutely >> those that are in need. I mean, they seem to be

087professionals at that. So, >> I was talking to the director the other day, and I think their budget for next year is like $140,000. It costs a lot of money. It's like football essentially, just because of the equipment that's involved, the travel that's involved, the the volume that they're dealing with. You know, it's a big it's a sport, so to speak. It it doesn't compare to cross country in terms of its equipment needs. It compares to football. Well, I hear concerns about the early childhood and is there it says maintaining the program. Is there some rationale that we could use to enhance that program to do a better job in the city with early childhood development? >> Yeah, I we have some ideas about strategies, but at this time we wouldn't feel comfortable investing in

088any of them as the school district yet. um the strategies that we're looking at, there's partners in our community who are excited to do the work or have their own funding to be able to make it happen. I think in this area in particular and some of the others as well, what we provide is leadership and that ability to connect people using a a high quality researchbased strategy. So using a needs and assets assessment, I we spend a lot of time gathering up evidence in our community about what parents actually want and need. And that that takes time. And then bringing people to the table from all different areas in our community. Uh the and building uh that collaboration and that support. We can stay the expert in those things and we can leverage our

089partners to provide the money for the strategies for the initiatives. There may come a day when we come to the school board and say like, "Hey, this is an area there's a real gap. Nobody else is willing to do it. It's school centered. We think this is a time to increase, but right now we're focused on what we should be doing, which is collaboration, needs and assets assessment, coordination, and leverage our partners to do the work. So, essentially, right now, the programming is is is the position that we created when we approved it. And she's been doing the work that we heard about for the last year. and we're in that kind of next phase of I think you mentioned we're at the root cause phase trying to really find where those needs are and

090then maybe in the next year we could see some of those opportunities start to come up. >> Yeah, it's a yeah it's really one person in a small small budget. Uh and it's had very big impact so far and there's a lot of excitement about bright beginnings in our community already. Um just so I'm clear about how everything happened again. Um the three the 300,000 for moving the middle school extracurriculars was a fund transfer from general fund to fund to fund 80. >> Correct. >> The movement would be the same for secondary academic. We have nonacademic. >> No academic. You're right. I said it wrong. >> Slide is correct. >> Okay. >> I wasn't reading it correctly. >> So it would be a similar move. So in other words, from a taxpayer perspective, it's it's

091budget neutral. It's not adding. >> It is adding. Okay. >> Yes, it is. >> It's adding Well, it's adding to the to the fund 80 levy, but those dollars are coming out of the general the fund 10, which we're then repurposing for >> educating students, all the things. Okay, good. Just being clear about what the impact and the visibility is. It likely wouldn't get to 300,000 though. We're talking maybe in the neighborhood of 80 to 100,000. You know, maybe it's a little higher than that. I don't know. But it's not going to be what middle school sports and co-curriculars is. There's just so much more of that than there would be for secondary academic co-curriculars. So, it it it doesn't have the same impact. But when you're looking at pennies everywhere, those little p if

092if I can find 1% every year, some, you know, we'll make real real strides over time. So just kind of looking everywhere. >> Then the other consideration with that move is that it it creates access for kids who are not attending our schools. It becomes a a truly community focused resource then. >> Absolutely. And we have found from time to time that um kids that are homeschooled or at, you know, a private charter or something, when they get engaged in our schools, they start to choose our school in a comprehensive way. So they might start with sixth grade cross country, make some friends, get excited about a teacher, and then by eighth grade they're enrolled in our school district, and we're receiving the the funding for that student that we might not otherwise. And so

093there is a a minor recruitment element to this. I won't say it's big, you know, but there is something to that. And we do see a few kids every year flow through these programs because they find our schools attractive once they get a taste of it. We looked at that kind of expanding on that strategy because I I have multip my kids have had homeschool kids start out in an extracurricular activity and whether it's because they're how they're getting their education, whether they get to the point where they need access to labs and higherend um learning. Uh we typically I've seen lots of the I've seen multiple of them start to flow into the district full-time. If you look at what we did last year, it was a shift conversation rather than a budget increase

094for middle school co-curriculars. Um I mean I I might be one that would like to explore do we expand that budget? Maybe not this year but as we go into next year depending on what the rest of the budget is because it's it's how you start kids in safe spaces, right? And give them access but at the same time it is a bit of a recruiting mechanism at that age. It's a lot of transition that happens. Um whether that is we lose kids to private education or homeschooling from because they're we we see a lot of kids that are very safe the families feel very safe in their their elementary environment but we lose them in middle school. A lot of my children's classmates we've lost in that transition phase. So how do we make

095that middle school experience feel good? uh make it make them excited about what's what they can access at that time. Whether that's I'm thinking more clubs, probably less sports, you know, you'll make them feel they belong. >> Yeah. And make them feel excited about having that opportunity to access those clubs and and athletics of course is there, but um I can definitely see some opportunities there from a club standpoint. So again, I more of a I'm throwing it out there and let everybody else marinate on that one, but I I think there could be some opportunities there to to strengthen this programming. >> Other thoughts from board members? So, this is just information item tonight, but it uh it will appear as an action item on the agenda for our June 15th meeting. So, we'll

096have to consider uh the proposals and potential approval of all or some or any. Okay. Uh we'll move on then. Um next information item and thank you Mr. Te for for the presentation as well and Patty. Uh the referendum construction plan update is next. Um we continue to make good progress at State Road Elementary. They are putting up the exterior brick outside the the block that's already been up. Uh I think the west or the east wall is already complete. Uh so it's going to be moving fast. Um removing the temporary wall inside the building and starting to to renovate internal spaces. Uh and then they're going to be uh replacing the air handler in the front of the building and moving it over to the side and then working on the the cafeteria space

097pretty quick here. So, that building's coming along nicely. It will be right up to the day we start. Um, but we're going to do our best to have everything ready for when kids walk through the door on the first day. Um, at the Hogan Elementary School, uh, they are delivering steel right now. Uh, so big trucks with big steel beams. Uh, that will provide the internal structure for the building. Uh, and uh, we'll see that going up here very shortly. Um they've had two well drillers there for the geothermal wells. I think they've got 80ome complete so far. There's about 30 some more to go. Uh they'll only need one well drilling machine to finish that out because they're ahead of schedule. And so they'll you'll see just one machine there now for the next

098uh few weeks. Um, and that building's on track and, uh, you know, fingers crossed that one will be done well in advance of the start of school and should give us a solid month uh, to be able to move in and do what we need to do there. Um, the just going back to State Road real quick, almost every room in that school is being touched. It's really going to be a new new school. Um, modifying some rooms for special education, uh, replacing finishes in a lot of spots. We're in the process right now of moving all of the classroom furniture and stuff into conxes storage units that'll be outside uh for the time being and then moving it all back in. Um our teachers, you know, with their students help pack up some stuff,

099but it's really our staff, our our our custodial staff that's doing all that work. And so our teachers didn't have to move anything. They helped out where it made sense, but we're moving all that stuff out to the the the the storage units and back into the buildings for our staff. So, um, projects are on track, on budget. Uh, excited to to see them continue. Any questions? Okay, thank you for that. Uh, we'll move on to our announcements for tonight. Um, Dr. Garcia is not present tonight, so we'll and we got a great update from uh, LPEF, so we'll uh, head into Mr. Alberts and Mr. Newmeister on the city school consortium. Okay. >> Um, all of our listening sessions have concluded, right? >> Correct. >> Um, and update coming. >> How many did you

100have? >> I think there was like six total or five total somewhere in there. There was a combination of um virtual and then live ones too. We had almost 3,500 responses so far. Closes June one. Hopefully, we're close to 4,000 responses. That's pretty good. Out of like 23,000 box holders, you know, so be a solid number. >> When does that close again? >> June 1st. >> So, today it was >> today. Uh if folks send stuff in, I know that we we want a good response rate. You got to pick an end date, but as stuff filters in this week, they will be entering in uh that information as well. So you forget about it till tomorrow, you can still fill it out. >> Um I have more of a question. How how are we

101proceeding in terms of you know taking the information and we just going to talk about it? Um, I would say that largely that can be up to how you guys want to present to the board. We can make it an information item to start. We can schedule a workshop. Happy to plan what makes sense for the way you're getting the information. >> I imagine our committee will look at the results initially. Okay. >> And then we'll bring it to the city council and the school board or the parks board and the school board and see what it means to us. If it's 80% say go forth and conquer, it'll be a clear mandate. If it's 48% to 48% with 4% undecided, it will be really difficult. >> Anything else? >> At least we're seeking their

102opinions. Correct. Correct. >> Exactly. >> All right. Anything else? >> That's it. >> Okay. Thank you both. Um announcements from me. Uh just a couple of quick things. Um tomorrow actually I believe I'm meeting uh with the lacrosse area um school board presidents. This is the group that President Sukla had had first kind of interacted with of the uh schoolboard presidents from the surrounding areas going up to an Alaska for that meeting. Excited to make those connections um continue the conversations. Um, one of the topics on the agenda proposed was just sort of the the reactions and the discussions around the kind of resolution that we had passed um to to formally ask for uh the school voucher costs to be placed on on the tax bill. So, that's that'll be something we talk about

103um tomorrow night and I will hopefully have some more announcements to bring back from that. Um, I'll I'll be on the news on uh Thursday on on Wisdom uh with Rick Soulm asked for an interview. So, that'll be my my first interview as president if there's anything you want me to make sure I talk about. Um, please shoot me an email between now and uh 2 o'clock tomorrow afternoon uh when I record that. That should air on Thursday. Um, state track is this weekend, as I'm sure many of you know, at W Lacrosse. um come on out and support our students and maybe maybe walk and don't try to drive on campus because it'll be jammed up. Um and then that just this last week uh maybe some of you went out to the Renew

104the Block party out at Logan Middle School. Uh it was a great fundraiser for Habitat for Humanity Lacrosse Confluence played. They do a lot of Chicago and really really good classic stuff right now. They had a really and like Steelely Dan great playlist and they did an amazing job. We've got some really talented kids there. That's it from me, Dr. Engel. >> Um, we have one week of school left for North Side and Kulie Monasuri. Uh, they'll wrap up here this Friday. Uh, school's out for summer. So, it's exciting. All right. All right. Uh, moving on to agenda planning. Uh, give board members a chance to look over the proposed agenda for uh, the June 15th meeting. Noticing that OEE2 uh the emergency superintendent succession will show up for recommended um changes uh that we

105looked at tonight. Um we'll consider the approval of the fund 80 levy um proposal uh from the district including some of those possible opportunities we talked about tonight. Uh we'll see the 2025 20226 budget amendment from Patty as well. Are there any um if there are any budget related items or professional development topics board members would find helpful um please feel free to share them >> via email you mean or >> we can do it we can do it live you can do it by email if it doesn't occur to you until later as well as long as it's before what Thursday the 13th or something so we can get it posted Okay. Um, moving on then. So, we do uh have Oh, wait. We I'm sorry. We need a um a motion to approve

106the June 15th uh agenda as presented. >> I'll make a motion to approve the June 15th agenda as presented. >> Second. Okay. Uh motion and a second. Um any further discussion on the agenda? And all in favor, please say I. >> All opposed. Motion carries. We'll look at our board debriefing tonight. And tonight, tonight is me. Uh, so we had a lot on the agenda. Uh, I appreciate everybody moving quickly through the routine stuff. Um, great conversation about, uh, the operating uh, the o, excuse me, the fund 80 um, proposals. I'm sure more questions will come up and we'll continue to have a good discussion next time. I look forward to that. Um yeah, otherwise a a quick one so we can get into our our workshop and everything. So I appreciate that from everybody.

107So um happy summer everyone and then um for adjournment because we're moving into workshop first. We don't need a vote to move into close session. That'll be at the end. So okay, great. Then we will stand adjourned. >> Brief break. Do we need a break or do people want