001I get the honor to to start tonight's meeting in public forum is that first part if anyone completed a yellow sheet and is interested in in talking. Um I don't see any. Okay, we'll move on to the to the next part of our meeting and that is to call the meeting to order. Our board is established. Before we start tonight, I'd just like to welcome Andy Thorp as our newest board member. welcome Andy to our and officially well recognized Holly Switzer who won her second term and will support us as well and as board members. So congratulations to Holly. So with that, we'll stand for the pledge, [Music] please. To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, and liberty for all.
002All right, I'm going to take a seat and I'll do my best to project out so everybody can hear the the next part. But as I had shared earlier, uh this is our um April special meeting and at this session we'll elect new officers. The first position that we'll recognize is the office of the president and I'll lead the the board through that process and once that det is determined and we have a president recognized then the president will take over from that point uh and then continue on with the um other officers and nomination processes um that'll be recognized. So any question board members before we get going at all right very scripted maybe a little redundant when we go through it but just bear with me and we'll work through that. All right
003so the meeting had been called at 6 pm the quorum's been established. The pledge has been completed. We'll now move into the nomination for president. Is there a nomination for board president? Chris, I would like to proudly uh nominate the person that has been our vice president for the last three years and I feel is ready for this responsibility. John Heiden. Okay, John been nominated. Is there a second to nominate? A second. Okay, there is a second by Nate and Katie. Thank you for helping out with uh following through on the nominations there. John, are you willing to accept the nomination as presented? Okay. Now, this is where I ask uh are there any other nominations from the floor? And again, are there any other nominations from the floor? Okay. Hearing none, board now has
004two choices. Okay. Um, you can call for um a unanimous ballot to recognize John as the president or you can um individually vote to recognize the president as the follow Scott. Um I've been longing to make a motion for three years and I couldn't make one as the president. So, I will make that motion to uh cast the unanimous ballot for John Heidman and and elect him as as president. Okay. Is there a second to support that motion? I'll second. Okay. Motion made second for the unanimous ballot. Any further discussion? All right. Unanimous ballot has been casted for John Heidman and accepted to be our board of education. The technicality, it should call for a vote. Okay. All in favor? I oppose. All right. Very good. All right, John, you can help us out then
005and I'll assist you here through this process. There you go. Yep. All right. So, we'll just go through that. Looking for a nomination from the floor for vice president. I'd like to nominate Katie Baden. I'll second that. We have a second. Are you willing to accept? Yes. Okay. Do we have a second or do we have any other further nominations? Any further nominations? And motion to motion. Motion to close. And they have the choice of the unanimous ballot. Unanimous ballot. Do I have a motion? I'll make the motion. I'll second it. Okay. All in favor? I All right. Now we're moving on to [Music] record. Yeah. Moving on. Motion for a nomination from the floor for clerk. I'll nominate all sir. I can't make nominations. Right. Great. You shouldn't. Who nominated? I nominated Holly. Looking
006for a second. I'll second that. Okay. Um you accept that nomination? Yes. Okay. Any other nominations? I was going to nominate Mark. Do we have a second? I'll second. Okay. Did you accept the nomination? No. Okay. Thank you. Any other nominations? Okay. I'm motion to close. I'll move that we uh close the nominations and cast the unanimous ballot. And then for Schwitzer for clerk. Do we have a second? I'll second that. Okay. All in favor? I I Okay. Moving on. Uh, is there a nomination from the floor for treasurer? I'll nominate Nate Grey. Is there a second? I'll second. Any further nominations? I'll nominate Mark Gman. Is there a second? I'll second that. Would you accept? Yep. Okay. Um, we're going to have to have a ballot on this one. Okay. Close nominations. Need a
007motion. Need a second. Wait, what did you just say? Close. What? Close. Nominations are closed. Call for a vote for that. Oh, call for a vote. And we're going to vote by ballot. No, you can close it out. I thought we did already. No, you you didn't vote on the motion to close. Okay, you just you just need a motion to close. Motion to close. It has already been made. Okay. All in favor? I procedure. Okay. All right. They'll come. All right. Balance. Thank you. Margaret, will you assist with this for the redundancy and Correct. Okay. So the vote is five votes for Mark, two for Nick. Thank you. Are here anybody wants to inspect? All right. I think we're ready to move into the agenda then, Mr. Heidi with uh the consent agenda. All
008right. Do we have approval of 12 approve? I would like to um suggest that we set aside the consent agenda in the middle because I have questions about items that are in close session. Okay. So those items will move into close session later. Okay. All right. Moving on to new business. So no approval on the Senate. Not at this time. We will need to come out of close session if there is action recommended for approval at that time. All right. Moving on to new well is there any unfinished business? Not okay. New business. Uh Joel, I take you're going to lead off with budget. I I'll start the conversation. Thank you. Okay. uh board members. Uh at our last session, it was requested to bring forward uh an update, a budget update. As we all
009know, quarterly, if not more so, we're talking about our budget, budget impact projections um for current years and forward years. The topic summary, which has been compiled today, does just that. It highlights several bolded points of the known that the board and committee levels have been discussing um from budgetary numbers to potential wage adjustment increases and some of our staffing attritions that play into that puzzle each year when we work forward with our budget development. Mr. Markwart will lead us through the the refs and some other finer points as to where we are. Please just note that the budget from the state uh as we all know is still a work in progress. I think they completed their final listening session um uh by superior if I'm not mistaken. Um and so now our legislators
010will work uh collaboratively to put together what that budget will look like and school funding is the biggest item within that budget and there'll be plenty of conversations. that trickle down effect does come to us as a district as we continually advocate for uh resources and best practices to allow us to do our tasks and responsibilities as a school community. So, Mr. Mark, okay, thank you. Thank you for coming tonight as well. just a budget update that the board asked um as they consider an additional item. And our next uh uh item on the agenda is looking at the budget and how it looks into next year. This is uh very similar timing to what we've used in prior years to share, you know, where we are at in the next fiscal year. As Mr.
011Black shared, the bianium budget process is ongoing in the state. Uh we just got an email today that uh the last listening session uh occurred where you could go and present and we know that there were a lot of uh people around the state that went to those uh events. Were they able to testify and share the impacts of wherever they're sitting on a school district and municipality or organization? and several school districts throughout the state went and shared testimony similar to what you were able to share when you had hosted your legislative forum earlier this month that funding for schools is really important and especially for school districts like New London who sit at the low end of the revenue limit per member that is allowed in state law and any additional increases that
012are added to that really benefit school districts like New London because of where the the 12,000 or the $11,325 is at. The Association for Equity and Funding is hoping that they can bring all districts to within 90% of the state average, which would be $12,650. Uh that is not projected in the forecast that you have in front of you. We feel like that that would be too aggressive of an amount. If that's the amount that we receive, it would be great. We are using uh data that is in current law plus some minor revenue adjustments. So, as you looked at a couple of the bullets there, it uh uses the 325 that's in current state law and adds $25 to that, but no increases to per pupil aid, no increases to federal funding, and a
013small increase to special education aid. At this time, we feel that that is the most responsible way to move forward with budgeting for the 2526 year. And if indeed there is additional revenues that are approved in the next bianium, we can share that information with the board at that time and share option options that you would have to consider and how it impacts local budget. We have forecasted a couple significant expenditures into our forecast into next year and future years as well because one of them was already approved by the board. We have school bus purchases that are added back in. So that was something already approved by the board. So we made sure that we inserted that into our budget this year and into future years as well. Obviously the board can change that
014with any um annual approval of the budget. And since we have a wage uh increase on the agenda later on tonight, we did forecast how the 2.95% impacts the budget and then also any staffing adjustments that we have known for the 2526 school year. With that, it shows that we have a balanced budget for the information that we know today for the 25 26 year. And as we share later on the topic, summary, that is our goal all of the time. Whether we're talking with you here action or when we meet as a leadership team, the budget topic is always on that agenda where we're able to talk with our principal teams and what we are predicting into the future. so we can have active communication on how to best provide uh resources for children
015districtwide. And of course, as a board, you know that this is the time of year where it starts to be on a lot of agendas where you're able to, you know, glean as much knowledge as you can from where we're at today. The budget has a lot of complexity to it. I wish it was simpler to explain. We try to to create cliffnotee versions of it to help people understand how it it how the revenue limit formula impacts our budget. I wish it was simple to say this one change creates an equal change. There are so many mechanics of that revenue limit formula and I know as board members you've had to some sessions at WSB convention where they share how exceptions are built into your budget and how they can kind of stave off
016that immediate loss or they also don't give you that immediate increase. So, something interesting that I wanted to share with you tonight is let's say that the state reduces the revenue limit per member from the 325 that's in state law. And let's use 275 as an example. It actually does not decrease our budget for the 25 26 year because of that exemption process. The exemption process means that you will lose that money on your base. So that $50 that I just mentioned moving from 325 to 275, you lose it on your base, but they put it in over an averaging process. So we would still have the same revenue in the next year's budget. So the reason why I chose the 350, so the 325 plus the $25 is because that's where the breaking point
017starts is where more dollars in the revenue limit per member adds revenue to our budget into the future years. So, I felt like that was a good number to share as a base to try and demonstrate uh complex to simple where again if you get say that the state law changes where it's $250 per student less than we have to $200 with the way that the revenue limit formula works. We're still going to get the same revenue in the 25 26 year. the 26 27 27 28 it actually starts to reduce. So I feel that we are in good shape for our budget for 25 26 with all the known variables that we have right now. As you all know something could come up where there's a significant change and if that happens we will
018bring that to you share that as appropriate. Do any of you have additional questions that either we could answer tonight or uh plan on answering at any future board meetings? I just had a question on your chart like these um the color one if you want to go to that page. Um so starting in 27 we're almost half a million dollar budget deficit right and then in 28 almost a million dollars. Have you has the district operated in a budget deficit before? And what have we done to solve that? We have not operated in a deficit budget in my time here. I I believe that it goes back to the comment that I made that if we know that we have a deficit coming forward. We're trying to actively change operations the best we can
019and if there's something that we feel like we haven't been able to accomplish, we would share that with the board. Attrition was a bullet that I put into the topic summary. So if there's a position in the 26 27 year that operationally we feel like we don't need to replace because someone retires, then that is removed from the budget. And then if there gets to be a point where the the admin team feels like they have staffed appropriately and we still have a shortfall, we would bring that information to the board to to share. Okay, here are some options to consider. The the projections into the future don't increase significant revenues. In the last bianium budget, there was a smaller increase in the second year versus the first year. So you just you can't forecast
020how that looks. If they give additional dollars on the 325 and additional special education aid and additional per pupil aid, that immediately shrinks the deficits that are forecasted there. Also, when you look into the 29 and 30 year, the $1.3 million referendum that is on annually, I wanted to leave that on there to show you that if we would continue to spend on our maintenance projects as we are, we would have a short, but reality is if the board decided not to go back and renew that referendum, we would move that $1.3 million from the budget. That's a really good question on how that looks after the 2728 year because it's showing the expense of the projects that we've been doing. So like for example, the high school book is a big portion of the
021last two years budget. If we continue to spend on our maintenance projects that way and we don't have the referendum, the shortfall is there. If you remove that or the referendum discussion at the board changes, that would impact those last two colored items on your packet. So I can see Mr. Thor's pages that green and blue. So the darker green and blue is the those two years of the referendum expenses being there, but the revenue is not. So over the next couple years, we've left that in because it wasn't approved by. Does that make sense? Yeah. I was just trying to figure out like when are we actually out of money and it looks like 29 and then you'd have to maybe do like a referendum for operating not just capital. So that's a that's
022a loaded question. Okay. I'm just trying to understand it looks like the fund balance just so your operating deficits you're just chewing down the fund balance, right? And then according to this chart in 29 is kind of crucial. One one item and it's easier said than done is when we look at we really do track with the state bianium budget development and looking beyond more than two years is very important for us to see that vision of what it could be. But the bianium budget really kind of sets the table as to to where we are going to be in the next two years. So we know that the state is going to acknowledge um let's see over the 325 in pending if they sustain that as Mr. Markwart mentioned if there are adjustments to
023special education funding reimbursement rates um for that that ultimately frees up um funds within our budget that now offset you know the carryover crossover to support special ed funding. So it it is definitely a moving target. I think it's this is a great conversation to always be eyes out on the horizon of what that could be. Uh but in reality um following that state budget is what we should be thinking about right now and and what that means to us. if it if it predicts or if it comes out in a way that shows that the the forecast is truer than than what we hope that it will be, all the items mentioned become now our priority of us. We see that in the news right now. You hear about districts and um you know,
024if it's a failed operational referendum and what they're doing to balance their budgets within um those are strategies that would be input and or a continued operational referendum to support. He said, "Hey, this is where we're at and we we need this." Well, then that becomes now an opportunity to look at. So, did you have a question? Yes. Yeah. Jo um Joe, I just wanted to point out the danger of extrapolation. The your your graphs are an extrapolation based on all things being similar. Um, and I just want to say I I I've been sitting in these board meetings longer than anybody else here that's around the table. And I can remember some of your projections back in 2016, 2017. And had they come true, we'd have been in receiverhip for the state a long
025time ago, you know. So um extrapolations uh it's very very hard to project income three years from now. It's it's a political process that that's through. It's a b it's a partisan political process through the legislature and the governor and um you know that there's a lot of error in projecting potential error in projecting that there's also uh danger in projecting even things like what our enrollment would be and and uh things like that. So it's useful. I don't want to say it's doesn't do any good to do this. It's important that we know that everything being equal, we're we're on a curve to be below underwater. But I think it's always been that way since in the last 10 years probably. It's it's always look that way if you look that far out. And
026it it takes off the table the fact that we have a proactive board that isn't going to uh wait till we're way underwater to do something. We're going to take this information you're giving us and we're going to look for solutions. And the solutions have the two two different things. either we cut expenses or we find other income sources or combination. And uh so there's a lot of things we're not in charge of, but there are a lot of things that that we are in charge of. And you know, one of these things, your projections um take into consideration a declining enrollment. But in a declining enrollment, we may have to face facts and say we don't need as many employees. Let's look at where uh changing the number of employees are going to hurt
027less. You know, keep education going. Uh I mean it it just is u I want I want people to take this with a grain of salt is what I do because uh you're you're very proactive at looking for solutions. I We have a board that is very proactive about looking for solutions and always looking at well we need this uh you know and also can we do something to up open enrollment can we advertise more can we you know offer things that they don't offer in our neighboring districts to attract students in. So I just want to I just want to add that grain of salt to to these tables. So, I had a a question that's kind of similar but different to that because you've been doing this for a long time and um
028I've been here for seven years and when we've seen projections like this in the past, is it your experience that um they've never come to fruition because the state did make the adjustments because every district is in the same boat that we are 420 some across the state and um and we're not going to let them all fall off the fall off the table. I mean, is is that what you've seen as a trend um over the over the years? So, yes, very loaded question. It's I think that I can summarize something that is really important. If we would go back to like the 20089 budget, that was kind of before for what I would say a massive change in our state budget of Act 10 and just a whole bunch of different ways that
029impact our school districts and looked where state law was then where there was over $300 per pupil that they'd be adding in the state budget from the 20089 year to our current year 2425 the average increase of the revenue when I told you that first student was only 1.5%. A lot of that was because of about eight budgets that there was close to zero dollars added to the per people per pupil revenue per and last bianium here we had some discussions about um with Joan Ball who was a senator at that time how important increasing the loan revenue limit floor or ceiling whatever you want to call it does impact school districts like ours. With that happening, that helped our district tremendously for a couple years and helped get our base up where the deficits
030would have already been in our budgets if we didn't have that. The second piece to that is the board has done a really good job of hearing our recommendations about how respond in the budget. You know, for example, we don't have any debt right now. When you have debt, whether it's referendum debt or non-referendum debt, which is inside of your budget, where it takes away from your authority, that's an ongoing expense. So, by not having anymore, that lever goes pulled and it allows you to use dollars on tactic operations. The second thing that I know of, you know, when we have people here tonight is the ESSER funding for the most part was not used for ongoing operations where it would have created fiscal cliffs. So some other districts for whatever reason they have every
031place has their own way of operating that's why they elect board members had some permanent components inserted into their operations budgets which created a fiscal cliff. So when you have a fiscal cliff you spent and then you keep you have a shortfall. So the long and short of that is there's been active engagement and active planning to stave off shortfalls, but the state is a key driver to that. There's increases to the revenue limit that are more than zero dollars because one year we had $50. That's way less than inflation. And when you get less than inflation on your increases, it's hard to manage that budget for the long term. You can always make adjustments in a year. That's what all the people do, whether it's a personal or business budget. You make adjustments to
032be above water instead of, you know, below water. And what you could see in future years, if there are not increases to budgets, yeah, we'll have some challenges. we could decrease staffing, decrease services. I mean, right now, if someone would say, "What is what could you do in the 27 year with the $42,000 that is there?" Okay, we would order buses that year. That would be probably our top recommendation as an admin team. I haven't asked Mr. Black yet, but that's the easy one to to share because you take that out of your mix and then you can continue as is. So, I hope that there is more predictability in our future budgets because with 325 and law, it kind of takes you back to the 2000s where you were getting, you know, $350 per
033pupil or at least an inflationary increase on that amount where it helped with predictability of budgets. Then when you have that long-term forecast, you can look the five years in the future and have a more accurate estimate where like Mr. Martin has shared, hey, there's the extrapolation of budgets is dangerous because our bieniums have been very very difficult to predict and when you have more predictability, you can make better long-term decisions that help you be sustainable. when you're at the mercy of a two-year ban and you have no idea what's going to happen because it can be political at times. We all know that. I don't think I'm speaking something you don't know. When it's political, it we are held at the mercy of what will that look like. So predictability and increases to revenue
034help us in the long run because this board has done a really good job of being responsible with expenditures. So we don't have liabilities, if you will, that impact current and future budgets. So I know I talked a long time about that. I hope that helps with a big picture. I I think tonight we were hoping to spend a couple minutes on it. We ended up spending 20, which is great because the budget is really important to our district. Thanks. All right, moving on. review and potential approval of 202526 base wages certified support and administration staff employee groups. Yeah, board members. Uh this is a conversation on a topic which we've discussed now. Uh this will be the third time whether it be via committee andor at the board level. Um as we had shared
035an earlier at an earlier meeting it was brought forward from the the committee of the 2.95% uh for all groups and what that looks like. The information within your materials represents just that. There's no changes to that uh process. There was conversation at our last um committee meeting of compensation to present both both opportunities for certified staff and if there was any further dialogue from the board as far as that the funding and how that potentially could be separated out of that certified staff you'll notice in the relevant points um that CPI increase which Mr. Mark just references that 2.95 and if applied to individual base range salaries that ranges anywhere from 1328 to 25.99 per individual based on years of experience and their salary contract within. Um there was also conversation of looking at
036that CPEI increase and all and everyone receiving uh the same rate of increase for certified staff and that was acknowledged at that 1850 if the board chose to go that route via discussion within and then looking at our total number days of 187 which our certified staff look at. In summary, the recommendation that comes forward from our myself and our administrative team and Mr. Mark where it is to to acknowledge that 2.95 increase on the current base wage for our current staff. The board has a flexibility to further discuss andor make a recommendation outside of that. And just like to say we we have a history of uh continually following CPI. I mean, I don't know the exact years that we've been doing that, but that is not a shortterm not a short-term uh um
037plan. That's been that's been followed for some quite some time. Um go ahead, Chris. Um since Mandy was the chair of our compensation committee, she's no longer uh with us. I I thought I would share the thinking of a compensation committee. Normally, we would come to you with an exact proposal on what to do. Uh the committee was split on this, but everybody felt that regardless of their position on what should be done that we would respect the uh majority of this board on that. Therefore, we did not we we did uh pass a unanimous decision to recommend that we budget the 2.95% uh of our our current wage and salary total expenditure um for the current year u 2.95% of that as uh the budget for increases. we were not together on how to
038how to spread that. There were two different thoughts on that. Um John was the main articulator of one and Mandy of the other and one was to do what we've done the past several years which is across the board um 2.95%. So regardless of where you were, if you were an hourly worker, um you know, making $19 an hour, you get 2.95%. If you're a salaried uh person um uh with a a longstanding record, you you'd be, you know, um somewhere at the high end of the the salary range, you'd get 2.95%. Uh the other idea was um a flat amount for everybody who is a full-time employee and then of course part-time would would be it would be based on you know the percentage of full-time. So, you know, half time you get half
039of that. And Joe figured that to be uh a flat $1850 for every hourly and salaried employee. That's for the certified staff. Certified staff. It was $1850. Well, the proposal was for all hourly and and I going into that I'm I'm not dead set on that idea, but I would like us to I would like us to do a little more research and down the road, I think we need to have some sort of a a merit-based part of our compensation there. We need to do something along that lines to to acknowledge some of our our star performers that give 120% every every day. Um, we don't have a system. Let's be honest. We don't have a good system to do that at this time, but I would like to see that down the road
040us have have some sort of system merit-based in place. But for this year's for this year's uh CPI renewal, I'd be I'd be I'd be fine with either. I'm I'm fine if we if we do it exactly the way Joe has scripted it there for this year. That would be fine with me. Anybody else have any discussion? I'll make a motion that for the first uh item that's on the uh on this topic to approve the u 2.9% or 2.95 for getting back to that page for our certified staff as uh group as presented because we have to do one for each, right? Correct. Yep. Correct. Okay. So, you're doing I want to make sure I phrase this right, but in light of our current budget situation and the seriousness of it, I be fine
041with your motion, but I would like to amend that. And that might mean amending each of the additional motions that come in that we do this in light of of agreeing not to increase spending on a church. Point order. Um I you can't you can't amend it until there's a second. Okay. Secondly, it's it's best for under Robert's rules for the chair not to amendment, but it's fine to suggest something. I will suggest it then. Okay. seeking a second just to get it off center. I'll second. Okay. Go ahead. I'll second. Okay. Okay. And then I would like to make a motion to amend it to maybe I don't like saying not do the 8% insurance increase, but we need to strongly consider if we can based on Joe's uh budget Joe's budget forecast that
042he just proposed. So I'm not saying that we have more. We need to make a decision on that now. No. But I think we need to strongly consider whether or not that's very good consideration of whether or not we can do that 8% insurance increase and that will be a large discussion this fall. Um I mean we are I don't want to get into that here. That just muddies the waters. But there's there's a lot of carryover obligations from some aggressive previous years pay raises that we are going to be dealing with for a while. And uh you know the idea that that we can go back and and uh delay bus purchases again as we've done in the past. I don't know that that's something we need to that we I don't think that's
043an avenue that we should necessarily go down again. Um, keeping a current busing fleet is a is a is a high safety priority for me. But, um, just a second. Motion in a second. Uh, it sounds like Nate has made an amendment. I just need Well, a little bit of clearing. What exactly is the amendment? Is if if I can just butt in. That's completely separate. Like my clerk notes. I mean, I don't like that's not even on here. Okay. But it won't happen if there's not a second. So is well I'm just all I'm saying is like what we I don't think we have to even talk about that because in our top we can delay that. It's not it's not what we are voting on. Yeah. We are voting on 2.95 and the
044future discussion will come in a future meeting right you're raising the the question. raising a question, but I don't see there's nothing that says we can't amend it and and do that. We can't do anything to a motion that doesn't have a second. So, right, if it doesn't have a second, it's a clarification on your motion. Right. So, what So, what are you proposing? Are you proposing that that um at some point we're going to go we we won't do 2.95 because of the insurance? No. No, that is how the opposite. No. So, first of all, I can't vote on the 2.95 because nothing's a teacher. So, I'm not going to be voting on that at all when we decide as a board. I think I shouldn't have any part in that. That's that's correct.
045And therefore, in my opinion, you can't make an amendment to kind of controlling unless somebody else wants to amendment, it's it's probably going to That's fine. die at this point. But just there's a motion on the floor to recognize the 295. Okay, we need a roll call vote for Yeah, before before we do, just we can have discussion on it. And I would say in in discussion, it's it's very good to consider that idea down the line. Board members just just for a point of clarity uh within the certified staff recommendations following through on the recommendation which was provided in the packet of increase on current base wage. Is that accurate then? Yeah. Okay. All right. That's what Yeah. And just uh uh I guess you know to John's point, you know, it it's it's
046not a a bad idea to say now we have to watch our expense on insurance and realize that passing 2.9% has implications for that and whether we can do the 8%. There's no problem noting that. Thank you, Chris. Yeah, I mean my husband's company didn't give raises this year again because they didn't have the money. I think it's awesome that we can do this for now, but obviously we just talked about other ways to ste roll call. Mark, yes. Nate Grundy. Oh, that's right. John Haidman, yes. Holly Schwitzer, yes. Andy Thorp, yes. Chris Martinson, yes. Katie Bam, yes. Okay, our next topic is the support staff recommendation. Mr. Mark, will you share the complexity of what that just just to add just clarity to that because it's important to share. We shared at the committee
047and it's also in the math separate how the support staff increase would look. Um, in your packet you have the support staff wage schedules. So, if they're currently sitting at a level one or level two, they would be eligible for a level increase. If you're at a one, you go to a level two. Two, you go to a level three, you would receive that increase. And then if you were at a level three, you would get a flat 60 cent increase. Mr. Mark, if I can interrupt you one second, at your workstation is the support staff uh grid, if you will, within A through M and the other groups that are noted in there just for point of reference referencing. Thank you, Joe. So, this has been common practice of the committee and the board
048to function this way for a very long time where there's those level increases that available to do so. The only time that that didn't happen is when the board chose to add that additional increase in the 23 24 year. So that was the only year that I can remember in several that level increases haven't happened. So there are staff members that will get larger than a 60 cent increase. It just depends on where they sit on that group. you know, using the library aid, for example, if you're at a level one, you're going to get a$14 increase, which ends up being a 5.26% increase. If you were a library aid at level two, you're going to go up to level three, you're going to get a little over a dollar again on that increase. So
049the percentages look a little bit different for support staff depending on the level that they're at. And the purpose and intent of that is to start a person at a lower rate of pay than a person who's been doing the job for a few years and then accelerate them up the level group. So then they can reach the top wage in that category as quick as they can. And that helps with the balancing of our groups that we have. Now, of course, someone will say, "Well, I'm at level three and I only get 60 cents." There are years where you can see that there was a 2.95 added there. And the the complexities of that are never simple, but they've someone started at a level one at some point in their their career, too. So
050that's where we've uh set the hourly wage scale for support staff for a long time and that was our recommendation to move forward with that again. I would uh I would say um anything we can do for the these elderly people because we're bleeding um loss of employees especially in paras and especially in special ed and u anything we can do to make those jobs look sweeter. I'm not saying I'm suggesting we change what what you're suggesting, but I think uh we really have to keep that in mind. Um, how do we attract and keep uh excellent hourly educators to to help our education staff and you know especially in special ed areas and the the map of that specific one because it's the biggest group of employees. If you are a person who has
051level With that 60 cent increase, they're going to get a 2.96% increase if you're at the level three. If you're at level one or two, you're going to get over a 5% increase on your holiday. So, the mechanics of that work for that particular group that you mentioned. No. Right. We have a motion on that. I'll make that motion to approve it. Call second. Okay. Roll call vote for support staff. Holly Schwitzer. Yes. Andy G. Yes. Katy Batam. Yes. Chris Martinson. Yes. Mark Rosen. Yes. Nate. Yes. No. I can't. No. Sorry. Not John Hman. Yes. Okay, our next uh employee groups are the administr administrative staff recommendation and board members. This this group again uh looks to acknowledge the 295 for the group as a whole as a past practice. uh work with the uh
052administrative team and as well communicate with our board uh recommendations to be presented uh noting that there's flexibility within the 295 with our admin group when those recommendations come forward. A question on this for Joe. Um to get that base, did did did you pull out um the salary for the um teacher uh director of teaching and learning and the special director out of that to make that because yes, they're they're those are already negotiated. Yes, they were pulled out of that calculation. And I would remind the board that this is just the maximum that we would be allowed to spend. It doesn't mean we can't on this more than anything else. The board can make performance judgments on based on what's happening in those those departments and you know how that person has performed.
053So that the while that's the maximum there's nothing that you know everybody's going to get that necessary. Any other discussion? Do we have a motion? I'll make that motion. We have a second. I'll second. So, can Nate support? Yes. A motion for the Okay. Roll a couple. Nate Grande. Yes. John Hayman, yes. Holly Schwitzer, yes. Andy Thorp, yes. Katie Batnam, yes. Mark Rosson, yes. Chris Martinson, yes. And lastly in the topic summary were just budget impact and committee notes that were shared accordingly with our budget update. We believe that they were all covered within there specifically on that 325 increase to the revenue limit there. Any additional questions? If not, moving on. Yes. Um, WSB board of education self-evaluation process and analysis objectives. I'm going to speak to this. Yep. I'll start it off. Okay.
054Uh, so board members, uh, all of you completed this, uh, right after the first of the year, I believe. And this is something that the board has done annually uh since my time here which has been a valative tool to kind of self-reflect and bring forward uh kind of the status of where we are. Understanding and knowing that the feedback is really intended for us as a group or the board itself to um WASP does present this model. It's not the bioendall model, but it does show some longitudinal data that I'm sure all of you reflected on. Just a couple points of of interest in the item analysis. 58% of the board's opinion on your responses were above state average uh in comparison to the state where boards like you take that. And then in
055that um longitudinal data seeing a 64% of our board members felt we were in the plus if you will or an increase from last year. on the various noted items within. So that is that's good. That's a good thing. We're working hard and the acknowledgement within it doesn't say that there's not items that we should be looking at or or considering. On page 22, I'll just point this out and then I'll turn it over to if there are talking points within on page 22 of your packet. That's the standard deviation analysis which was presented both from WASP and school perceptions. And and what that did, it just rated out the the largest standard deviation um comparison to the state if you will. And what this tells us this is where there was the lowest consensus
056amongst the group on those 15 items. Okay. So when we think about areas that okay what can we really look at hone in on if there's targets that we want to address in a positive way this would be in my opinion a recommendation to say you know what what can we do to this or is it relevant or maybe they missed the mark and it doesn't represent what we feel but that that appreciate that that represents where you as a board collectively said hey yeah we don't we don't agree or we don't feel that we're meeting the mark of those individual items. So there any other questions from this that analysis point uh that have come up? Otherwise uh this this is your evaluation and um it can be used as appropriate to support what
057we do. Mr. President, can I add a few things? I've been involved with these ever since the board started doing it. I think it may be five. This might be 24th time. and I've been involved in, you know, helping to administer it the last three years. Um, it's it's real important on these things to realize unlike our evaluation of administrative staff etc. We do not, you know, as board members work for other board members. So, uh, we are, uh, in in that sense, we are cohorts. We're we're working together. We're all equal. We all get one vote on here. And um therefore uh you know, we're not after perfection here. We're not after um we're not after uh you know, there isn't a question that says uh rate the board on how unanimous you are.
058That that's not an issue here. You know, it's uh we are rating ourselves on how We are proactive about u considering things on the agenda that need to be done and about how we debate them and discuss them and do we follow our norms that we've established when we discuss them and you know are there um uh and and it's it's it's about opportunities to tell how we can improve move. It's it is easy to, you know, use the comment section to take things out on one another if we're frustrated and I can understand that, you know, but um uh the you got to take those with a grain of salt because we all get frustrated at points where we disagree and we all say things that we regret later. So don't um uh don't
059uh you know let's pay attention to the stuff that gives us comments and how we can improve as opposed to um you know using using this as a format to express a disagreement. So, you know, even if a person steps outside the norms, it's it may be best not to unload on it in here. Even it's it's anonymous and everything, but it's not uh and it's also important not to take it personally if that that happens. It's happened to me before, you know, uh and you get you get upset. But, um uh I think u what we're trying to do is uh as opposed to tell somebody else how they should think or how they should is to propose ideas through this on how we can improve in the following ways. you know, uh to
060debate something and um come out with decisions where we agree, decisions where we don't agree, but we can come to something in the middle and agree or come to points where we vastly disagree and we've had, you know, a number of those in the last few years. uh but how do we how do we do that in a way that um uh leaves the door open for discussion on the other issues and you know disagree in a way that's uh in an agreeable fashion and I just want to say that because you know I I I've seen it in this tool before and I've done it myself in the past of unloading on somebody that I thought did something I think, you know, I still think they did something over the top, but it probably
061wasn't the best way to respond in that. Not that you let it go, but there might be another way to phrase it. You know, I don't know. That's my opinion. If I can speak for a minute. Um, I'm going to keep my comments very short. In my opinion, um, overall positive board interaction is the highest it's been in the eight years that I've been on the board and I'm I'm very happy with that. Yeah, we have we always have some points to work on. But I will say that that coming into the board meetings and coming to the table is has been over the last year um the the most positive and um less stressful period of of probably my entire time on the board. So I would agree with you, John. In fact, I
062I scored us probably the highest that I have in the years that we were doing this. I agree. Y um but much to my surprise, I was taken back by the pointed comments that were made about me. And so I'm here tonight to discuss those things with you. One of them, I was accused of going into teachers meetings. In the seven years I've been on this board, I have never ever been in an administrative meeting with a group of teachers. Never. Now, it's easy to come up with that idea from somewhere because I am in the buildings on a somewhat regular basis. Whether it be I'm in the elementary buildings reading to the first graders and the second graders and the kindergarteners or I'm over at the middle school uh preparing the eighth graders to
063attend the junior achievement job fair. I've been doing that for the last few years. couple of years ago, I was there every Tuesday afternoon at lunchtime to have lunch with a with a young man that needed some needed some interaction with an adult male. That was positive. So, I was there once a week. I can see how people might have thought I was going into administrative meetings. At the high school, I'm there doing senior exit interviews. I'm there doing newass interviews. So, whoever made that comment, where that source came from, it's totally totally false. Now, if you've got some good information to to counteract that, I I'd like to hear it right now. I'm guessing it's just hearsay. And you all know how I feel about hearsay. It doesn't have any any any foundation. There
064were a number of comments about me arguing against the majority. Well, I tell you what, this is a democratic process that we do here every two weeks and everybody has the ability to present their opinion. Now we also have rules that state once the board votes on on something and the majority that uh the majority rules obviously that board members are expected then to adhere to that vote and that I have always done. In fact a lot of these comments I think came from the conversations we've been having the last few few months in regards to this special committee. I went through and I watched all of the board meetings about those conversations and yes, I was I was pretty vocal about my stance on how I thought the staff would feel about what was
065going on and the administrative staff and so forth. But I tell you what, a good thing came out of that because we ended up at one of our meetings having a presentation by each of our building principles telling us exactly what's been going on in their buildings to try and improve the state testing scores. And I was asking and and Chris, I did indeed ask you to call the building principles. I saw it again today and you didn't do it. And it was I didn't see it when I Well, it was it was there. I'll I'll show it to you sometime if you need it. But it's not. My point is is that it wasn't a motion and it wasn't my point is it was it was a suggestion, but you didn't take it. And
066all I was trying to do was trying to give everybody an opportunity before we we moved on this to find out what's been going on in our buildings. And up to that point, there had been nothing in regards to it. So to Mr. Bleck's credit, he could he came up with the idea of at our next meeting having the principles all come in and present that information. And I you can disagree me with me if you want, but I thought that was a very very informative meeting. They did a really good job of letting us know that we're not just doing the same thing and getting the same results. we're we're working at things. And somebody else made a comment that I break policy and I break rules. Well, if if if I'm doing that,
067the board president's responsibility is is to is to is to make me aware of that. I've never and Chris and I in our conversations, it never came up. You also have the ability if I'm breaking a board policy to go ahead and put me up for censorship. So if you still believe that that's what's going on, go ahead. I I'd be interested. But I don't believe I have have broken any policies or broken any any rules. Last year, I I pushed really hard for us to take a hard look at this survey because again, we were not getting good results from our staff on it. It was the third survey or second survey in a row. I proposed to Mr. Martinsson that him and I get together and talk about different ways that we could
068help raise those scores, bridge that gap between the board and the um and the and the staff. and we had a couple of really good meetings and out of that meeting came us sponsoring a breakfast um in in in the early part of uh January or February, I can't remember it was for the staff and then for us to attend that and if we could and go around and and just get introduce ourselves to staff members that we couldn't we couldn't uh we didn't know very well and so forth. I will say at that meeting, at that that breakfast, I was approached by um a couple of teachers from Park View who asked me if I'd be willing to come and spend a day at Park View and observe what goes on in the building.
069And because of the issues they were having with with with behavior and and kids coming to school, not being prepared and so forth, I didn't make any commitment to them. I said, "What I'll do is I will touch base with Mrs. Peterson because that was appropriate the appropriate protocol," which I did. I talked to her about it. I called her up and I said, "Is this something that you're on board with? Are you aware of it?" She says, "Yes, I'm totally aware of it and I'm totally on board with it." I said, "Okay, my next step is to contact Mr. Black and ask him for some direction on this." Which I did. I called Mr. Black. he was aware of of of of what uh they were they were asking and he said I'll leave
070it up to you but um also it should be available to all board members and I contacted Mrs. Peterson and I said at this time I'm I'm not in a position to do this but I think if this is something you're really serious about the invitation should go out to all board members. So again, I'm not going behind your backs trying to trying to trying to do anything. All right? I don't go out and solicit information from our staff. They they come to me. All right? I feel good about that because I feel like they have a lot of trust in in me. I'm not saying that they don't have trust in you, but but they do. Um, and the last thing that probably bothers me the most is when a couple of you accuse
071me of lying. That's a direct and derogatory insult on me. I don't lie. I never have. I don't lie. You better have some good proof of when I've lied. I don't appreciate this at all. I work pretty hard at at at being a at being a part of this group. It's no secret that I'm kind of the odd man out. All right. But I'm still here and I'm going to continue to be here. I agree with Chris. This is not the place for this. If you have an issue with me, call me up. We'll get together. We'll have a conversation. All right. I'm I'm here for one reason, to improve the education of the students in this district. It's the only reason why I ran for for school board 7 years ago. I had no
072agenda. I wanted to see this district continue to improve. That's all I have to say. and you know it in spite of the roughness about this you know um I'd love to see the fact that our numbers are improving our ability to respect one another um Mark you know, I'll take some of the blame for those comments. I didn't put any comments myself on the whole thing. I just But uh, you know, in sharing the meeting, there's times I feel like I should have been quicker to recognize an infringement of our norms. um you know both sometimes when I feel like you were going outside the norms and maybe also when others were in this um you know the one situation I can think of is when you were um accusing the rest of us
073of not having u of not respecting the staff and by having uh by supporting the ad hoc committee. I should have gathered that down quicker and said, you know, this, you know, it's okay for us to disagree on that and have a different opinion, but it doesn't mean that that different opinion is disrespectful towards others. So, I I will take some of the blame. I I wasn't always quick on the draw on on on the gavl on norms in both ways. I think I will certainly do my best to make sure that I'm within the norms and anytime that I think I'm I'm creeping outside of it, I will do I would expect somebody to bring it up and vice versa if I see somebody else doing it too. If we do if we stay
074to the norms, I mean, we're going to have disagreements and we're going to be very upset with people that have different opinion, but um we're all here for the same reason. If we didn't disagree, we wouldn't come up with good solutions. None of us, I think, having opposing views is a great way. That's why we we are we are build strength, but it's also a good thing if if we don't yell at each other about it. It's and get upset over it and keep your emotions at bay. It's it, you know, it's passion. We wouldn't be here. We wouldn't go through getting elected and being here if we didn't have passion about about ideas. All right. I think we can I think we can go forward and moving on. Put that behind us and I
075hope so. I hope so because I tell you what, it was extremely disturbing to read read that read those comments. You know, I thought we had hit a low last year when my mother was dying and I asked to put this this meeting off for a week so that I could participate in the elections and two of our board members said no, he should be here. But we did fortunately fortunately there was compassion from from others. The majority were compassionate about this one. So I recovered from that. So we're going to move on. Moving on. discussion on um the schoolboard summit coming up. Chris, did you ask? Yes. Um the uh last year at this time I attended the uh Wisconsin Institute of Law and Liberty um annual uh their first annual education summit. Um
076and they I found it just excellent. There were quite a few board representatives there and u uh they all rated it quite high and will this was a new thing in the last few years with will for them to enter the policy area. Um there mainly had had been a civil rights organization that defended people who they felt their constitutional rights were being violated. But um uh they saw a need out there to um uh to begin to give um legal seminars and seminars about policy. I have uh they came out with uh a whole bunch of policies empowering school boards and um I asked them to send me enough for the everybody and they didn't have uh enough to do that. So, I got four copies. I can I can get more copies um
077from people or I can I can send you a link to an online u an online version of that, but it's it's things similar to what the WSB does, but I think it's more effective. Uh yes, do they lean right? Yes. Does WSB lean left? Absolutely. But um I still find value by going to WB because they have a lot of good information and you meet a lot of other board members. Um I actually found more value in this than some of the seminars that than I did at the WSP. Uh just because they were out front on the on things like Title Nine. When I went there last year, they had a great seminar on the title nine changes that the Biden administration presented u which would have uh tried to force boards to
078to do radical transgender policies all over the country. Uh they they had a better legal handle. WSB is very good at telling you how to comply with something that the federal government wants. They're not very good about telling you tools if the federal government isn't doing it right, how to defend yourself against having to do it. Will was really good about that. They said they were given advice way in advance to boards that said, um, look, this is being challenged by, you know, 24 22 states at that time and it's in court. The Department of Education is not going to come after New London School Board for not implementing their policy because they have too many bigger fish to fry. They're they're on the defensive on this. They had the Moms for Liberty suit uh
079as well. And they told us back in May, they told us all about those. And they said, "Look, we can't tell you that you're not going to be in legal jeopardy if you if you don't put federal policy in there, but we can tell you that the likelihood is small because they have bigger fish to fry. And it's very likely that some of these suits are going to win." And by then there was actually injunctions uh in in several states to stop the implementation of the Biden things. WSB wasn't telling us that. They were just telling us how to comply and they were keeping it kind of and so and I'm not saying they weren't right about they they knew exactly how to comply. They knew all the ins and outs and um and uh
080but they just weren't willing to put effort into looking at how do you how do you defend yourself when the federal government does something bad that your local citizens do not want to see. So that's that was that's one big advantage to that. Uh last year I went and I paid it out of my pocket and I'm going to go again and pay it out of my pocket if I need to. But um because it's valuable to me as a board member, but uh I do want to suggest uh that we do what several other boards that I'm familiar with around the state are doing, which is treat this as another educational opportunity just like the WSB. I'm not saying instead of WSB, I still want to go to the WB summer leadership conference in
081uh Stevens Point because you you meet so many more board members there than here. There's this is a smaller group of boards and it's growing. But um uh and just you know uh our attorney Jim Macy is is one of their their consulting attorneys that helps put this thing on. And he he uh he says regardless of what you think of where they're coming from, their attorneys are doing it right and their policy people are writing the policies right. As far as I'm not saying the policy is good or bad. I'm saying if you're going to do this policy, this is it's well written, you know, and so I would I I guess uh I would uh start the conversation off by moving that we support board members that want to go. I'm not going
082to make a motion for all time for will. We'll we'll watch and see what they do and make sure that they continue putting on good education and stuff. But for this particular conference, I'd like to make a motion that we support it uh for board member development in a similar way, not instead of WSB, but in addition to WSB. We have a motion. Do we have a second? I'll second that. Okay, roll I assume roll call. It's an expenditure. Well, any discussion? Any further discussion? I'll say their their guidance that came from them and from Jim Macy save saved this board in this district a lot of funds that otherwise would have been spent on on legal expenses and unnecessarily as it as it turned out. So, so far I think they're doing good. Um,
083all right. Any other discussion? Roll call. I'm trying to get everybody's list. This one is not my thing. Okay. And my motion is it okay? It would be board members and administrators that that want to see, you know, that Scott would approve that. Is that a friendly amendment to more of a second? Okay. Roll call vote. Mark, no. John, yes. Ali Schwitzer. Yes. Andy, yes. Nate, yes. Did I get everybody? Not me. I have to make on this one. Uh, Chris. Yes, Katie. I'm a No. I'm trying to save money. Yeah, we don't ever use the budget for our Oh, I thought we were Everybody get No, we're not going to we're not going to increase the budget for it. We just never ever, you know, we don't get enough people going to those to
084use it up. Okay. Anybody that would like one of these books? All right. Moving on. Uh discussion on the grant writer that's going to chamber of commerce. Yep. Board members, I'd like to uh to share the good news that the action that the board recognized several months ago to identify a shared grant writer between the city of New London, New London area chamber of commerce and the school district has been identified. Payton Laneir uh Payton's background is shared within some of the topic summary information and her expertise and what she can bring forward. Uh Payton's first day will be next week on May 5th. um between April at the chamber, Chad at the at the city, and then myself, we will be meeting with her. The voted points are noted in are the the targets
085in which we will look to bring her on board with and ultimately have uh Payton at one of our meetings, her formal introduction, but then really engage her in working with our district as appropriate of targeted grants that u would bring value add to our district. um where in the past we may have not taken that opportunity to use a time dedicated for grant writing the city chamber will do as well. Uh the working models which I've shared before Howard Swamico City of Waka and their organizations have really deemed some some great results for this. So we're excited to bring Kate on board. That's all I have. I just had a question on that for you. So I know a lot of times you see things come over and like we just don't have staff
086that I know on some staff does it on their own, right? Is she seeking out her own things as well as like anything we could say, hey, can you take the time to do this because we don't have the man? So part of the scope will be that she'll keep a collective eye on targets you know that we're talking about but ultimately when we met as our admin team um taking back conversations to our guiding coalitions at building levels something that comes forward having it kind of work up the up the hill if you will and then prioritizing um you know a grant is always great but what does that grant mean? Does it mean uh match matching or other accountability pieces that go with it? So, kind of vetting that out and then said,
087"Hey, let's do it." You know, keeping the board informed as to what those are. Not and it's not all just, you know, the large, you know, what we would think large sum grants. It it very much could be uh local grants as well, whether it be foundations or uh business organizations that she could support us in that process. It's a good question though, that she's on the lookout. Yeah, absolutely. I got the impression they were proactive, but I also know that we we have some of our own and it just takes up so much time, right? I would say 10 a week that come across my desk whether they're relevant or not, but at least it's it's something that And how often do you anticipate reporting uh reporting back to us on like time on
088taskable hours in between? I know it's supposed to be even, but right, are we doing I know she's visiting everybody. Are we doing like a half year check-in or, you know, are you spending more time on us than We will have monthly check-ins with with uh Payton, you know, from the city chamber and and myself as well and develop, you know, how she's reporting back to each entity individually. I'm excited about this. Yeah, me too. Moving on our update on the stadium water, bathroom, and concessions project. So, board members, within your packet, there's materials and opinion of probable causes. uh the topic that we've covered long and hard uh since I've been here on the uh potential progress of looking to make some improvements to Bulldog Stadium and facilities that would support bathrooms running water
089and a concession area to support just that. Uh included in your topic summary is work that has been done thus far. Uh I know our facilities committee has met uh many times on this topic and has given some direction for us Mr. Markwart and myself working with other administrators Mr. Sloma our co-curriculars director to to bring up some feasibility ideas of what might be something that would work to support our school community just to backfill as well when we look at you know why are we talking about this and why does it come forward again you know last year we shared feedback from our parent guardians with our school perception survey feedback came back that was one of the target items that they thought we could make improvements to um you know just that event
090experience. Um, being able to support our students and school community in positive ways. Uh, I'd like to compliment all of our co-curriculars and groups and support staff that right now do a tremendous job with our current facility of concessions and how that works. They're they're the best around. I'll give them the a nod every time. They they do a great job to keep our our students and fans um with some snacks and so on and so forth and support them. But it is it is troublesome to watch them bring in water to to try to establish hot water for hot chocolate or um you know grilling in spaces that may not be as uh productive as they could be. And you know to set the tone of this the structure that we were always looking
091at is something that is not a Taj Mahal if you will or a north star of of facilities. It's it's something that would meet the needs. Uh something we all could be very proud of as a school community and when none of us are here it stands the test of time as we move forward. So with that Mr. Mark would you like to take us through that process and what's been done and some opportunities that we have in front of us. I was looking today before we came to the meeting at how much we've talked about this over the last few years. It's been on seven of our last eight facilities agendas and the only reason why it wasn't on the other facilities committee agendas because we specifically reviewed the food service bids. So it
092has been on every one of our agendas. We have talked about it at great length with different ideas, different concepts, different contractors. We've had our principal team in, we talked to Mr. Grunzel about it. We've really tried to work hard on trying to conceptualize this project. And even if I would back up before that, when we did our last facility study where we approved our capital project plan in 2018, it was even on that list at that time and at that time it was before what I call the Romanesco subdivision is there. It was budgeted at over a million dollars. So the project has not gone away from the discussion point from our last seven facilities committee meetings that we've had also to even our capital projects plan. It's definitely been something that we're trying
093to accomplish and we wanted to even bring it back to our board for tonight for more discussion to see where your pulse would be at it. When we met in March, um I shared that our February committee meeting said we really need to try to budget for this project if we can in our upcoming year. And the way to do that was to get a formal plan. And I was looking at my notes on the March directory report and I noted that we were going to try to get a proposal from Somerville to show us what this might look like. We haven't spent any money with Somerville yet. We've had a long-term partnership with them on our other projects. So, even when we have the opinion of probable costs and you can see some planning
094minutes that I included in the packet in a rendering, they have not charged us for anything yet. That's why we wanted to talk to the board about some options. One of the things that I've really pushed back on taking um information from Holly and John at our committee meeting is how can we look at this project when the budget number keeps being what it is. For example, years ago it was over a million dollars. Then we had Bolt give us a number last year where because we worked with Bolt on projects and we said, "Hey, how could we include some of our students and doing this project? What would this look like?" and they gave us a budgeted estimate of $525,000 and that did not include the sewer laterals because at that time we were
095still discussing at the board would we could we use esser dollars to try and do that and then we just backed away from that. Then last fall we got a number from Somerville with um another opinion of probable cost where they contacted IML and shared okay again over $500,000 for Mr. Black and I have met with penn builders. I sent the information to Clearary to try and get some information. And we talked to local contractors. And what we came back to is having a formal design of the project is really important to get competitive bids on the project. I met with Somerville yesterday and said, "I know that I'm going to be giving some information to the board uh tomorrow night and what can I share with them about what that budget might look like?"
096And they shared, "Well, like all of our past projects with you, our opinion of probable cost was a little bit higher than what we actually approved by the board, what was approved by the board in the final contract." And I said, "Well, is that going to happen again?" And like any contractor, they always tell you, "Well, it depends. We're in tariff world right now. Everybody is saying that we need to add, you know, potential tariff costs." Then you'll get another contractor that says, "Why don't you work right now?" Because everybody's scared about tariffs. So you might get competitive bits. So it kind of led me back to we as Mr. Black and I were preparing for the meeting today. We feel like getting a formal plan is really important. So, it gives um a solution
097to contractors to bid on and that way it is going to allow the board to decide if you want to move forward with the project at whatever the cost comes forward. We are still really trying to push down that cost with active discussions with them. So, for example, when I met with him yesterday, I said, "Hey, we have two fire rated doors that we've had from other projects that we didn't use. Can we use them for the project because they're new, they look good." They said, "Absolutely." Uh, we talked to them about what are some other value engineering things that we can do that can drive down the cost. And we started talking about things that make a lot of sense about do you want just basic polished concrete floors or resin floors? Absolutely. We
098don't need, you know, like we're Mr. Black sharing the Taj Mahal. We're looking to provide restroom facilities um to our our spectators, our coaches, our kids. The concession workers are trying to have some hot water so when they're serving food, we we can have them wash their hands and sanitary effect. We also are Mr. Slowmo will always tell us we are the only school in the conference that has porta bodies and no running water at our at our stadium and we said we know that we just haven't been able to make this project happen yet. So that's why we have this on the potential agenda tonight for you to talk about. It will help give us feedback on what you feel like the next steps are as a board. What do we need to do
099next steps? I mean You have to pay for the plan first. Is that what you're saying? We haven't paid anything yet. What we have done on other projects is once the board approves a a direction, if you will. We have worked with Somerville to bring us, you know, the documents. So, the schematic design, the design developments, and then each time, you know, Melanie would come and she'd show some pictures. And then we would also have the formal bids come in and the board got to decide do you want to do this project or not. So I think what if I'm answering Chris's question if you want to keep moving forward with some of them we would would like that blessing. If you don't feel like that's something we should do let us know and we
100can uh start over and try a different route or we can do a combination of any of of what you would recommend to us. a drawing going to cost? I don't understand what Somerville is providing us. What What are they providing us and what's it costing us? So, if you look in the documents, they're going to specify that they would put together a design phase, a bidding phase, a construction administrator phase or construction administration phase. And it'd be like they would put together the blueprints with the architectural, the electrical, the plumbing, the HVAC, and the finishes. That gives a general contractor or subcontractors an opportunity to say, I want to work with the school district on that project and provide a bid. And we have also asked that we include local contractors in the document
101language there. So if one of you know somebody that you really think would want to help work on this project, they they could help do that. We've had informal conversations with some of our contractors who live in town that, you know, is this something that you would be interested in? Yes. But where's your plan? What plans do you have? What what does it look like? Well, we kind of want it to look like you know, a different school district. And that's where the committee has talked because we've brought up examples of other districts where we'd pull them up on the, you know, the back room and we'd say, "Well, this is what this looks like." And tonight in your packet, you can see what rendering that they've provided of what a potential uh concession stand
102space with bathrooms would look like. And then if if I give them the go-ahad that because the board says you can do that, well then they would really move forward with all parts of blueprints where you're going to have the architectural, the site, the plumbing, the electrical, the mechanical and the they would they would be agreeing to be the general on the basically. Well, because like other projects, remember Bolt did our reield and Park View projects. Um, out at Sugar Bush, we had IEI, they were the general contractor, and over at the middle, we had Lach Construction. In other projects, we've had Myron bid on things. We've used RJM Construction on projects, too. So, even before that, when Blue Design Group, which was an architectural firm, Portonville created some documents. They helped us do our
103interior alterations and RGM Construction did some work. They're a general contractor. Delman Construction did uh the work as well. So, the intent of it would to be to have a general secure the project and then have subs do the work that they specialize. So, plumbers, we sure hope we could have a local plumber do it if they're interested. Electrical, um, if you remember a lot of projects, North Electric, um, did all of our electrical work. And even when they did the bolt estimate when I talked to Andrew Bolter at that time, he said, "Joe, with the number from um from us, it it's showing work with Northland Electric, but they really want to be a part of this project." So, they've had sharpen sharpened pencils with the number that they use that. And we would
104hope that, you know, any other, you know, whether a building supply in town or you name it, we want it to stay local. if you can. That's best for our process. Mr. Grey, just to add to Mr. Bark's comment there, what with the summer bill or what do they do? Um, draw it to schematics, specs, create that bid pack, and then manage that bid pack process when it goes out to to bid. So, how much do we pay them for that? Based on the percent of the total project cost of the Yeah. So, the more expensive it costs, where it said well percent of the those ranges are in there. I I have a question for you on this. I'm just there's nobody that's more on board with this idea than me because I've hauled
105the water in thermoses from home for hot chocolate. And right now our good iron president hauls uh thermoses of water in the back of his truck and I work every home football game and it's water in the back of the truck and we bring a roll of paper towel. So there's nobody on board with this more than I am. I was at the track meet last night and I bet five people ask me when are we getting bathrooms? But I have a hard time with this 500 to 600,000 amount. Like I just because my neighbor guy built a shed and I'm I'm not comparing apples to apples because he does not have running water but he had a 1600 foot shed put up last um fall just finished in the winter and he paid $80,000.
106Now, I know we need government approved plants, and I understand that, and we want it to look a certain way, but is there any way to meet in the middle without committing to 600,000? Like, I would form a subcommittee and walk around and put some boots on the ground because I want this to happen, but I have a hard time with this $600,000. Yeah. Joe, we talked about different Joe, can I uh ask this? I mean, Somerville has been very good to us for these big projects for the addition to Park View and things like that and they're very but this is a simple project. I mean, it's not completely simple, but it's it's way different. and um that formula of having them u be involved from start to finish. We we don't even have
107a drawing yet. Um and so if we have them do the drawing, we're committed to them all the way through the end. I don't like that. I think why don't we find a local engineering firm that can do a bare bones um project draw it up that meets codes and laws and you know tell uh get a creative one that has a good idea you know I don't think we don't have to Chris wait sorry it's it's as simple as I'm proposing I've got foots plans here. We could get We could get Seymour's plans. Whichever one you want to copy. We don't need to recreate the wheel. It's It's there. Yeah. Yeah. We don't have the grade isn't going to be on. Somebody's got to put the drawing of Somebody's got to set the grade
108on. It's not This This isn't as complicated as as we're getting into. My proposal would be to send it back to committee, come up with a timeline, move this thing forward, have have it really moving forward by July 1st. And I I don't think we need to spend this much money and I don't think we need it this complex. And I think we need to look at what do we need versus what do we want and the Somerville idea I think is is is a want and I think especially in light of our budget. Well, and you put so much time into it like I know they and I know they've done good work for us. I was just wondering like um does it have to be brick because we already have a metal like
109if you see the shed the equipment shed it's red like barnaminium looking and then right now where we're doing concessions will probably be a storage that's also red like is there anything wrong with going with like a clear building red and that's hey this is a really nice building it looks nice but it's not brick and it's functional and it's insulated I just I want to help with this and I want to keep it moving but I have a hard time with this amount So regardless of when we go out to bid and that process is that would be set for contractor to look at what you just mentioned Katie is is critical to that if we if the image shows black what's an alternative to that right what's the value engineer alternative that could
110bring cost down that's where the communication on our end with the the contract yeah you can say if it's fine okay the recommendation block for as the spec shows, okay, what is that? All right, and then what potentially is an alternative material, you know, if it's whatever that might be and show the difference and that maybe that then makes more sense to us than the original print. But I think that flexibility uh laid out in that bid pack gives contractor to say all right I can do that make it look relatively the same functionality but with different materials that obviously drive a different cost in the big picture. I would take it a different way. I think the commission needs to decide what we want. What level of of quality do we want? What do
111we need? and just make a decision rather than going out to bid with lots of options because it's really easy to to determine what our lowest cost options are and what our highest cost options are. I don't think we need to have Somerville lay that out for us. That's pretty easy to see. Um I I'd like to see this go back to committee. I'd like us to come forward after that next committee meeting with a proposal, something we can all get behind and just get this ball rolling. Why don't you just call up Clear? Well, Joseph, they needed plants. They need They want plants. They want to see something. They want to see. So, where are we going to find somebody to draw drop the plants? You can just give them those. We can use
112these, but they're going to have to add in the other. do have to you still have to figure out the grade work. Y you still that's a pretty easy process. I don't think we need to be paying somebody to do that especially not at these prices would be a small amount. So if we would just like say give clearary those plans and say in addition we need this and see what they see what they come back with. It's we teach it in our school. I was just going to ask that. Do you know I know it has to be stamped by a registered architect, but like this is the kind of stuff my son's doing and he learned it all in New London. Is that anything we could charge Grenzel's class with? Like, hey, you
113get to be a part of this. I mean, it's part of our strategic improvement is to tie the community together with hands-on. I just think maybe we task the class and say, "Hey, you've got two weeks. What do you come up with?" And then maybe a registered architect would stamp it. I don't know. I mean, if we know if we know the size of the building, we know whether we want it insulated or not, whether we want it block or whether we want it a stud frame steel wall building. I mean, all we want is toilets. I mean, that's it. That's really we want to not have portaotties, you know. I think we can all agree at the table on that. 600. I mean, we were talking about this when I first got on the
114the the committee seven years ago and now we got the water cuz that was the big that was the big How much is water to bring in now? Is that still 100 from the city? We had a quote, right? For that, we never had a formal quote because we when the Romanesco subdivision was added, we paid Martins and Eley to make sure that they gave us the plans for the laterals. So they put a lateral hookup right at the end of that subdivision. So Romanesco put both sewer and water right there. So the next step we had um an excavating company when they were in business at the time come out and look at that. They said well you need to give us you got to have somebody tell us where we can dig, how
115deep, where it's going to hook up, but you're looking at anywhere from 50 to $75,000 from what our estimates. Now, someone could say we do it for 25 40, but that has to happen, right? And that does their quote had nothing to do with bringing water, right? Oh, it did. Okay. So, this full encompassing project. I think honestly what would help us the most is if you could tell us where you're comfortable at a budget target because honestly, we have talked about this so much. Yeah. If $500,000 is too much, you need to tell us what it is because that's going to help us. I know that it's scary to say it adds up fast, but there's 12. We're looking at 12 stations. And so, six in the men's, six in the women's bathroom. If
116you're looking at sink in the concession space, you're looking at electrical, you're looking at site work, making sure that because we're you can't just build it on the asphalt. We have We got to tear up that asphalt right there and make sure that the plumbing comes in. We got to make sure that we have power there that comes off the poles. The city may ask us to have just hook up to where we're at. So, the reason why I'm sharing all those things is yes, it would be nice to do it for $100,000, but if that's what the board says, well, then that's what we have as our marching board is define what the next steps are. And I know the committee is going to want to do that too because if we go back
117to committee and we do all the things that you mentioned and it comes in at $491,000, is it still going to be a note? That's for the board to decide. We've given you a recommendation of options. Fund 146 can pay for it or it doesn't come from our operating budget. 146 is an appropriate funding source because it comes from a long-term capital improvement fund. There's 1.2 $2 million in that fund. A lot of that is since it was started in 2015. There's been deposits that's been made there. We've opened up CDs when it was over 5% to earn interest. So, a lot of that is interest earnings from inactivity of spending the dollars. I think realistically you're still going to be in the 250 to $300 range for three. And I think that's reasonable. Well,
118I mean, it's saving it's saving 200,000 off of a half a million, but I mean, let's not kid ourselves. This will not be able to be dumped for 100,000 bucks. Just the digging in under the would cost and when you throw the grade work. So, John, it's pretty easy. I'll get it off center by making a motion that we send this back to to committee with with the idea of coming up with a drawing that can be uh then bid coming up somehow with with a drawing and if it takes a little bit of budget to get a drawing I think the board let's say send it back to committee but um anything we can do to advance that July 1 thing closer would be better but can you guys look at I guess the
119motion though is just send it back to committee and hurry up and get us something. Yeah, I don't Okay, the budget. Well, the only reason I wanted you guys to look on the I'll second. Okay, I got to write that down. If you look at your page um more discussion, more discussion just if you look at page 47 under site letter C, it says current storage building near toilet area can be removed as a part of this construction project. Do you know what that means? Oh, that's Oh, they're removing the red shan, right? We removed the CCA. That's the track storage. Oh, that's just asking us some questions. It was just me being transparent and what they sent me. It's right in your packet. So, some of the questions you might What does that? Well,
120that's what they asked us. It's just our ongoing dialogue to try to make this project a reality however we can get there. Can we Okay. So, send back to committee voting. Mark, what was the verbiage? Send it back to committee with the timeline. I thought you said no. John John said something about July. I think we need to put a a line in the sand at some point that July 1st is that's too far. I think the committee needs to come up with the budget too of how much we're willing to spend on this. Yep. Fair enough. Send back to committee with plans and budget and that was motioned by Chris and I second it. All in favor? I All right, moving on. Discussion on policy 383, animals and inner schools. So board members, this
121was uh asked to be part of the the discussion tonight. What you have policy 383 references um when a request to have an animal in school. Our policy does recognize that. the board recognized the benefits of having animals as part of the learning process and in the appropriate conditions. Um when we look towards uh the administrative guidelines, it's more so um blending towards students and families if there would ever be a need for a service animal and what that would play in. that does recognize the principal and director of people's services, school nurse, taking with that that lead to ensure all those safety parameters and accountability pieces within. And then it also references all of the expectations of the the animal itself being a good standing train to provide um you know and not creating
122a disturbance and potential communication that would go to families, you know, if that were part of an everyday or on occurrence part within that. Um, one piece that isn't part of this is, um, on occasion we do have staff, okay, that have animals, therapy dogs, uh, respbit dogs, uh, that are part of different programming within for the board's insight on that. That is something that does happen. We do have uh clearance documentation and support from our insurance companies that support that process uh through that umbrella process. And as well we ask for um accountability from the individual, the owner, the handler of certifications of that animal. So that might be an opportunity to to look at as we go forward to um develop whether it be guidelines or policies to support that. There any other
123specifics on this this topic? Yeah, but that's the overview of what we currently have. Without going into too much detail on it, is there I guess anybody would anybody be opposed to sending this to the policy committee for further discussion just for clarity on what our standards are, what our what our what our actual guidance is because some of this seems a little murky. Sure. as I stand. That's a good idea. Any other conversation on it? So, we don't need a motion for that. It's just send it back. Okay. Yeah. Anybody objective, we do a motion. Everybody's Okay. Uh, moving on. Board of Education subgroup committee update on student achievement and growth. So, I can start the conversation. I know Chris and Katie have been part of our subgroup committee uh which has met twice
124now and we're scheduled to meet again on May 7th. Um overall we've had two uh good meetings uh within your materials are the um what I'll say the findings were that have been established chair who supported facilitating the process. Our first session was u kind of a meet and greet and and set some norms and expectations to attend that allowed us to understand one another and move forward with some targets. At our second session, we took some time to evaluate uh uh school report card or district report card trend data of the past three years and the information that is shared in your uh packet talks through those four different areas. achievement, growth, target groups and on track and uh we were asked to identify strengths, opportunities, aspirations and results. Um but I'll say with
125limited insight and perspective like myself and some others have much stronger some of our board members have a stronger insight perspective but some of them are um individuals that might have been the first time they looked at a school report card. Uh so it was a good activity maybe a little advanced of uh timing of that but the ideas that came forward did demonstrate some some sound understanding and perhaps we'll do this again when we move down the the process a little bit more but I know Chris you wanted to share some feedback on yeah I just I think we got a awful good start and we got an awful good bunch of uh people and they're developing relationships you know with each other and u I love a a a deal where we have
126staff and community members working together, meeting each other, and uh developing a mutual project. And um I think uh we're off to a great start. And I think uh that that we're about to do our third meeting and um uh we're we're bringing up u a lady who is the executive director of the uh forward literacy which is a group that helps schools all across the state um improve their literacy results. and it's a private nonprofit and um she's also on the state she was appointed onto the state committee of nine people for the uh implementation of act 20 and um has a lot of good resources and going to share what those uh what data is available and out there and then we'll ask the committee of all all the data that you know
127so far that we've found out from CISA 6 we found out from our own district and we found out from wherever else, you know, people are researching which ones do we actually want to look at and we're playing very close attention so we're not duplicating what is going on in the schools. We have some great staff members that are part of this that are helping us make sure that, you know, we're not barking up a tree that they're already um advanced on, you know, in the school. I think uh I think we uh we will um we're a little bit behind our schedule. Uh so I'm not sure we'll actually be done when when I uh u first laid this out and we had the goal of middle of the summer. We might be a
128little bit behind that. Uh the idea being though it's better to have a good product than to keep to the original schedule because these are ideas that are going to you know potentially have an impact for a long time. Um and um uh I I'm excited for for for this process. It's not the it's not supposed to be the be all and end all of solving these problems. It's supposed to come up with minimum of two suggestions, smart goals that would then be presented here, adopted here, be implemented, and um we're going to really make sure that that the staff is is excited about those as well. So, the last thing you want to do is impose a goal on people that that don't buy into it. So, that's why we have the staff members
129on there. participating in a very active way. So, yep. I've just enjoyed listening to the collaboration of like Steve Stalker is I mean, I know we're talking about achievement with reading and math, but he he was like, "New London students are the most prepared, but because he hires from all over, right?" And he's like, "They're the most prepared to harness work ethic and like I will choose New London students every time." And I'm like, "Oh my gosh, that was so cool, you know, to hear from him." And then I asked him to explain it. So, I've enjoyed the community collaboration part because he's actually employing our kids some days and he has hired hired people straight out of here. So, that's that's all I have to say. It's not we're not too far along the
130road yet, but in the document that you all passed, we promise to keep you up to date uh on what's going on and we'll continue to read all four. Okay. So, looking at close session, well, just need a motion now. We go into close session. We have we should read them all. Person section 19.85 85 Wisconsin statute statute board of education will meet in close session to discuss the continued employment of certified support staff members or which the board has jurisdiction and exercises responsibility pursuant to section 19.85 985 Wisconsin statutes. The board of education will convene in close session to discuss the employment and compensation of certified support staff and coaching staff members over which the board has jurisdiction under exercise responsibility. First under section 19.85 85 Wisconsin statutes. The board of education will convene
131a close session for the purpose of considering personal information concerning financial, medical, social, personal histories or disciplinary data of specific persons where part applies which if discussed publicly would likely have substantial adverse effect upon the reputation of any person referred to in such histories or data pursuit to section 19.85 85 as what A and F as well as 120.131 C Wisconsin statute board of education will convene in close session for the purpose of a student expulsionary force C motion to move into close session I'll second yesy Thor yes Mark yes yes Martin Yes. All right. Session at 803. What you saying? 802. 803 question. That's probably Fighters.