NPSD Board of Education Meeting - 6/30/25

001Good. Good evening and welcome to the regular board meeting of the North Pines Board of Education for June 2025. Would you please join me [Music] to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty andice for all here. Jennifer is here. Christopher is absent. Chelsea here all right. We have a quum. Susie, has the meeting been posted to open? Yes. That being said, thank you. I will entertain a motion to approve the agenda. I'll make a motion to approve the agenda as presented and leave the order of the meeting to discussion of the chair. I'll second motion. Second. All in favor, please say I. I. All right. The first item on our agenda is public participation. Susie, do we have anyone that

002wishes to speak this evening? We do not. We move on to board communications. Is there any board member that would like to communicate anything? And then we do have our committee reports in our packet. Um if there are any questions for any member that doesn't sit on the committee, they can certainly ask the other committee members. Um we also did not have items this month. So but we do have items in the consent agenda for that. So next on our agenda is the consent agenda. If there's is there any item that any board member wishes to remove from the consent agenda? Okay, not hearing any. I will entertain a motion for the consent agenda. I'll make a motion to approve all items. The motion has been made. Is there any information or other discussion on

003any of those items? Pretty straightforward. All right. All in favor, please say I. All right. So now we will go into discussion and action items. So the first item um for discussion and action item is the Eagle River Pickle Ball Association will be doing a presentation. My name is and I'm chairing a committee for the Eagle River Pickle Ball Association to locate sites for pickle a new pickle ball pickle ball courts in or around Eagle River. Um I have with me Randy Harbaugh who is the current president of Jane Jones who is the current secretary. Uh Jane and I have both been working on looking at potential pickle ball sites for probably Um and we've dealt extensively with Scott Dave as well and um we're looking at two sites now. Uh it would be Northland

004Pines and we're also looking at Oldenberg Park and our purpose here tonight is to give you a very brief overview. Uh those of you on the finance committee have seen this already so it's a little bit repetitious but give you a brief overview of why we're for this, what we're looking to put in, and a little bit of how we intend to work together and what we think that would look like in the future. We've got some slides and a video. I think if you could pop up that slide that shows the overview of you pop up the slide that shows the overview of the so it shows where Scott is doing that I will tell you that our current courts uh there are six of them and they're located over at Riverview and there

005are a number of challenges with those the courts are old uh they do require a lot of maintenance. They were put over existing asphalt and so contraction and expansion and they require a lot of a lot of fixing on an annual basis that's um kind of a a non- retrievable fund or expense. Um, additionally, we are getting too large. I would say we're over 300 people now just in the club. And I would say we attract, this isn't off the top of my head, guess, but we probably attract that many people as well during the summertime months primarily. So, um, there are times when there are waiting uh on these six courts. The courts are additionally on one side. They've got trees that nothing can be with those trees as far as trimming or taking

006down. and that root system is encroaching on the courts. So, it's not only unsightly, but it's also a little bit dangerous in that at the back of some of the courts as you step back, you're now you're kind of in the Grand Canyon. So, they're not super uh they're not super conducive to safe pickle ball. We need more courts. We're looking to put in uh probably 8 to 10 courts. Um what you have over here is an eight diagram as it would look kind of the would be most conducive to it. There's a bathroom to the left that we would also anticipate attempting to raise funds to construct the bathroom there. Two courts on either side, single courts, and then six courts in the middle. Um the current configuration shows fencing between each court and

007that's kind of the that's kind of the Rolls-Royce of making pickle ball courts. If you can have each court individually caged, as they say, then you don't have the problem of balls running back and forth so on and so forth if you have individual access gates people aren't crossing across courts. So our intention would be to make these courts um be very attractive be attractive to people who play pickle ball at a very high level and also the easy access and whatnot means you've got kids who are just running on don't yet know all the rules and regs and all that stuff they can pop in without bothering anybody. Um a slide that shows the entire high school. No, the one that's kind of multicolored, sort of where the baseball field is. That's what I'm

008looking for. So that's the orientation that we had talked about and we do know that there are on the north side there that it pokes into the trees a bit. So we're going to have to do some tree trimming there. Uh there is an existing electrical box at the top right there that probably has to be moved but we've anticipated having enough room for vehicles to go along the south side there if in fact need to get access anywhere around there. One of the things that of course we love about this particular site is the easy access to the parking. Um, and there are a number of other esoteric items that we like about this location that I'll tell you about in just a second. Um, if you could put up the proposed partnership slide,

009I think that would be beneficial for folks to look at the things that we're expecting to provide and what we hope we might get in return. And you're Did anybody get hard copy? You can always use those and there we go. Um, so what we would hope for is that the school district would donate the plot of land that we're talking about there and we would continue our coordination with Dave Bowman and any of his people Scott obviously regarding design features and specifics. There's going to need to be attention paid to drain and retaining walls and that type of thing because there is kind of a significant swale. Um so we're cognizant of that. Um all of the fundraising for this we would anticipate doing uh through Eagle River Pickle Ball Association. Um I've been

010in contact with Marloski to talk about grants and she seems to be something of the wizard and guru about how you do that. But Scott, I hope I'm not throwing you under the But Scott has also said that he may have some areas and directions in which he could show us to do that. But we anticipate providing all of the funds for the construction and the design the oversight where we would like to talk to the high school would be about sharing maintenance expenses and I don't expect that those would be particularly uh particularly high but it makes some sense logistically if if the school could take care take care of that with us. Who gets to use the courts? Everybody. Um the the kids get to use the court, the community gets to use

011the court, adults get to use the court, and Eagle River Pickle Ball Association gets to use the courts. The way things are set up currently and the way that we would anticipate them continuing, there are three three-hour blocks, maybe five hour blocks on a couple of days where uses the courts exclusively. We have leagues. We have lessons. We have what we call open play amongst members. That's typically from 8 to 11 most days of the week and then 1 to 4ish on Sundays. Um we also have drills um at those at some of the other times. Any and all of those are certainly available to the rest of the public if they want to join. But that's that's a price tag of $25 a year. Um, we would hope to be able to leverage with,

012you know, the FISE department here to get the kids involved, to get programs going for the kids. Some of us have offered to provide coaching. Maybe the teachers themselves would like some coaching in order to be able to instruct at at a little bit more comprehensive level. But that's what we that's what we've talked about there. Um, some of the things that are missing at the courts we currently have are things like distance between the courts right now. Sideline to sideline is maybe five to six feet. Um, when you are it's a safety issue number one because if I'm coming over here to try to get a shot and I'm running onto the next court, it's a safety issue. Um, the same thing holds true for behind the courts at the baselines. There's a very

013restricted as you come back, you'll hit the fence from time to time. Um, as I mentioned, the fencing between the courts would be a big addition for us. We currently don't have any shaded areas really around the courts. The drawings that were up there envision kind of a long walkway, a wide walkway between the courts with uh with shade. Um, the designs that we have in front of you are have been provided to another member of our ad hoc committee, Dennis Reagan, and he's a wiz that he can make any changes kind of on the fly. So, as we go through this and we're in conversations with you guys, we would hope for anticipate and want to incorporate things that make sense for you guys, too. Um that's kind of the thumbnail sketch and um

014the nitty-gritty of what we are looking for tonight from from the full board would be an approval to go forward with doing things like getting bids and actually preparing slightly more detailed more specific um court dimensions and layouts and that type of thing. We know that there's a lot to do in that arena, but we don't want to obviously start that until we're secure in the idea that we have a spot to do it. Um I don't know, Scott, does that seem like everything that we've talked about? Yeah. So, just to recap for the board, what really tonight is if you go back in history before the referendum kind of said, "Wait, let's pause. Let's make sure we get the referendum forward." Uh board member Patrique was concerned with just idea that we're looking to

015spend money and if people won't get educated they probably think we're really not. Um so we put on pause then they came to finance finance that had discussion we can finance can share if they don't but was to come to the full board and really tonight is to say you know what we give Scott time not to you're not giving permission to sign anything or anything it's to do the work to get us to a point where you could see a draft they're comfortable with the draft you're comfortable with the draft if you're comfortable at the draft phase then we would move into more of a legal obligation to your attorney start looking at things. But really, this is just to say Scott, you, Dave, and anybody else that should be involved. AJ would be

016one for sure to be involved. But you know look at rep look at the land look at the agreement from use standpoint you know hear us talk through some dynamics and then give finance and all the committees updates and eventually bring it back to the full board for sharing of an idea and just see if we can move this project forward. You saying you're not interested at all then tonight's the night to say that so that we all don't spend more time moving forward. This is your chance to hear from the pickle ball association as a full board, six out of seven of you, and then let me know if you want us to keep working together to find ideas, make sure that the ground the spot, you know, is electricity feasible to move. I've

017had some conversations with AJ about cross country is uses that area. So does golf. Thank you. Those are things that we have to just make sure like there's going to be some ramifications. There's no that's okay as long as we talk through them. Dave and I and the team can bring back the best information. I know we had this presentation at finance. So is there so Becky Chris and I were present for that. Is there anybody that has questions? I would just need to see a lot more information. So I'm not opposed to moving forward with the proposal of moving on to the next step of planning, but the overall footprint, the square footage, the ramifications of what other programs have on the property, we just don't want to go down that road if it

018was No, we because we've been down I've asked this question on some other projects before. We just decided not to. That's fine. But this is where we want to know if you want me to go to the next step on this one or not. I agree with Nick. be a lot of decisions, a lot of information. Yeah. And like Jen said, we did have this presentation in finance. It has the back of the finance to move forward. And you know, one of our one of our stakeholders is we're going to be a partner with our community and I think this is a great example, a great opportunity for us to do just that. Um I have a little bit of clarification though on what it means by the donation of land. What does that exactly

019entail? That's what we would have to look through for whether what is the actual legal them and their courts who would own is it them one of those I'm just going to make a a 99 year lease kind of thing or is it actually us land you use you know those are what we would spend the next months on Terry and I have been trying to keep an eye on other districts that have these kind of things to say how did you do this did you get the courts donated and you still then you have take over ownership which means then you have all you agreeing to the fix of it or is it some kind of lease agreement and partnership where you know back and forth so those are the eyes that we need

020to dot we're a long ways from using I don't even know the correct term to use I've seen some of these other little ideas never seen the full final draft we would anticipate as Scott was saying that at some point after weated all the details and we anticipate that to be in conjunction with all with all of you who are part of that stakeholder process Um, but we would put together I would put together some sort of, you know, one page bullet point of this is what we think this looks like. Does that fit what the school thinks is appropriate? And I would ask Scott to do the same thing. That would then provide two things for us. Uh, it would provide us the ability and the opportunity to figure out what we've missed. Um,

021if we need to get more deeply into the legal aspects of of the land donation. And it would also give us the general construct for what I would call a memo memo of understanding. Uh nothing at that point is binding. Obviously, you've got to approve it. Our board has to approve it. But at some point in the next few months, you can give us the opportunity to go forward. That's what we're working for is to get something together that has all of the eyes dotted, the tees crossed so far as what makes sense for both entities. Um and then present that to you. And that would even be final final that would still be excuse me that would still be appropriate at that time that we missed that you wanted that you don't like all

022those types of things cost an what they would look for out of something worried that they would you know those things are free at this point. So before come back to you and just keep going with how far you comfortable or what more information need work on it make sure they're comfortable with it kind of similar to what happened when they sold the two similar process idea kind of concept phase final details, get the attorney to finalize it, and then board voted on something that their attorney said this is legal concept. Are you okay with any other questions? I will I will make a motion to approve authorizing and directing the district administrator to draft an agreement between the Eagle River Pickle Ball Association and the Northland Pine School District for the Northland school district

023to consider the approval of that future. The motion motion has been made and seconded. Any other discussion? All right. All in favor, please say I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you so much. Thank you all very much. I appreciate it. discuss and decide on our procedures for hiring the new district administrator which may include utilizing Wisconsin association schools. I can introduce So this evening we have a representative from Wisconsin Association of School Boards that could give us some direction in this process. Sure. I'm P man from WSB. Thank you very much for the opportunity to be with you this evening. Um I believe you have a proposal. Everyone had has seen that. Um it's a hybrid of what we typically do in looking for a district administrative process is usually a three to five month

024process looking district administrator uh in partnership with the district uh for an outside candidate. Obviously, this is something different. This is an internal uh search, if you will, that you have here. So, it's it's kind of hybridized a bit. Um I don't know where you're at though with what you're desiring. My understanding is there there's some thoughts doing it yourself. There's some thoughts utilizing WSB. So, I'm not quite sure where you're at with that process. So if there are any questions about what we would do um just to give you a little background as I said it's usually a three to five month process because this is internal that can be compressed somewhat um to try and compress it in conversation with Scott uh to where you're going to have actual interviews next Tuesday I

025believe July 8th. Um I don't know if WSB can accommodate that. I don't know that our process is uh amendable to getting the the questions chosen because the way we do the process, it's really up to you, the board, to choose those interview questions based on the direction that you see your district going. You know, I I see your collective commitments up there. Um, and and I understand have some survey data uh that you did, I believe, of staff in the not too distant past. Um, I don't know what you've done communitywise. Uh, typically that's part of our process as well. We do focus groups and that sort of thing as to what the community is looking for, what staff is looking for, what the board is looking for. Usually it's three focus groups for

026a search. Um, obviously we can't have that by Tuesday. And the challenge is you're here at a board meeting tonight and obviously this is open session. You're not going to go over and choose questions tonight. You're here to decide what your process is going to look like really. Um, so you really need a meeting because it's you, the board. It's it's your maybe one of your biggest responsibilities is choosing your next district administrator. And a huge part of that process is determining what questions you're going to ask because it's those questions that sort of allow you to prioritize what you're looking for in your next district administrator through those questions. So, it's important that you choose those questions. It's not WSB's questions. We have a bank that we can work with you to working on

027questions and that sort of thing, but it's really up to you to decide what it is you want those questions to ask. What are you trying to pull out of candidates to determine which is the best candidate, best fit in the district? Because that's critical in finding the next superintendent is the fit is what you're looking for for the future of the district. So with that said, if if like next Tuesday could be the planning meeting, if you will, where you determine it would be a close session, determine what the questions are. We can determine what the the interview process is going to look like. You know, we can talk about potential dates. We can look at all that. Um who's going to be doing the interviewing? Will you be involved in the community? Will

028you be involving staff in the process? There's a lot of details that need to be gone over with the board to determine what that process is going to look like because in the end that process is really important to choosing your next district administrator. So with that, I'm happy to answer any questions you might have about the process. But that's kind of where WSB sort of sees ourselves fitting into what you've got moving forward. I just want to clarify a timeline for the board. So to make sure that WSB gets their fair understanding of what or you get their what happened here. So when you left your last meeting internal um there was some direction to at least put together a proposal some timelines. It wasn't long into it that I said what is there

029a neutral party that could do this for you so that it is neutral clear. I reached out to Bendy House. Bendy House is what his official title? He's our member service. Member service director. Ben used to be superintendent Florence. I worked with him there. Always had a great working relationship. He had a good relationship. My predecessor Mike Richie as well. So I reached out to Ben and said, "Hey, our district is doing something a little not necessarily unique because a lot of districts are doing this, but have you guys done internal searches only where you don't have to go out and advertise and do all the other parts?" And he said, "Well, we haven't done a lot of that." And I said, "Well, what if here's what I was thinking that you could use your

030talents? We know Pat's in the area. Some of you have met Pat at the new member trainings." Um, I said it would kind of be efficient costwise. The I think the board is comfortable at WSB. You know, would you guys put a proposal together put in front of the board in that time frame? You guys came up with a date. So the one thing they didn't have the whole time they were working to customize this for pines was your date until till we had the date. So I just want to be fair to WSB like they didn't just come here and just say like this really hard to do. They started all this work and it was work to get to this point tonight and to give your proposal when you saw that at the

031committee meetings without knowing that date. So just want to be fair to them and and be transparent with everybody like they we started this process on to get them involved so that it would remove internal people but they didn't have the data then all of a sudden it's like oh this isn't going to work in the mindset of how it usually does but um I thought Ben and I talked and Pat and said you know what you need to come I think there's some good stuff yet that could be done I think the process could be followed but maybe the board has to be comfortable with adjusting the time frame. So that's why Pat's here. I just want to give you in fairness to WSB and to everybody here of how we got here and

032why those dates are kind of like, well, they showed up in the camp interview on Tuesday. Well, this is why because they want to do a quality process and represent your association, you in a good way. So just wanted to pass that time frame of how we got out of order here a little bit. So basically we will be talking about our meeting next week for all seven because all seven of us will be there and then we can really kind of do a work session is the proposed idea to really get down to what we want to do with questions and all of that. And um then we would have to choose a future day for interviews and that and the reason we had thrown that July 8th out there was it was kind

033of we had our main meeting was the week before Memorial Day and this one was so much later. So there was a long time meeting the last board meeting and committee meetings and this meeting. So I have spoken spoken with Susie about when can we all get together but I also feel it would be valuable for us to meet next week and work on this like really sit down and work on it and not rush the process if that feels comfortable to everybody. Where does this process potentially fit into what you just proposed? Is that what we're going to discuss next? And then if we do I mean I don't but I feel I feel personally that it would be valuable for me to be involved and give us that neutrality give us um transparency

034professionalism things that we aren't experts at that you might be more of an expert at and there are some pitfalls in the hiring process obviously that that you know board wants to avoid in our facilitation process can help help with that and we talk through much of that that will be at next Tuesday's meeting as to what that looks like and what your process overall is going to look like and whatever you pick for your interviews and it gives some time to actually set that up and do the process justice and quite honestly for the public as well to know that you're putting in the time and effort for the process to find your next administrator internal or anybody else any questions No, if I understand correctly though, we're going to meet a week from

035tomorrow, but we are tonight going to decide to either involve them or not. Correct. And I'm incessum. you laid out a really nice or proposal for us to consider. Um within that it says the scheduled activities and there's a draft obviously. Um these dates are subject to change. They're kind of arbitrary. Yeah. As Scott mentioned those were proposed as a compressed timeline before we had any idea of what you were looking for other than it being internal. I mean that's if we were to do the whole process of internal hiring right with this sort of hybridized way of doing it from a regular external process that's what it could look like. Okay. You would have to determine which of any of those things that you wanted to include in your process and when those dates

036would be that would happen at a planning and could that planning meeting coincide with the July 8th? Yes, that's exactly yourility. proposing the policy. That's why the short time late they had to give us something to bring to the house. So, it wasn't tonight. You guys had this as policy. That's why it was a quick turn, you know, and we kind and I don't know if I jumped the gun on talking with Susie about wrangling everybody together for dates, but obviously a busy time vacations. So, and I didn't mention just a little my background. I was uh finished my career as superintendent school district where I was super I think for 12 years I was elementary middle school principal for a year and a half invis before that before that I was a teacher in

037the school district for 19 years that's where I grew up and graduated high school went back and taught so that's that's a little bit about my background I worked now for I think two and a half years doing searches work that sort of thing and if you have any other questions prior to whenever whatever you decide Scott's got my can get that out to use myself. It's on there 247. Thank you again. Can I ask you just one question? Kind of the work that's done there at that planning meeting would be valuable for long-term planning for the district as well. It's healthy conversation of where they want to go. Absolutely. As a former superintendent, I just wanted to throw that out that it's a high value of your time. It wouldn't be wasted at all.

038I just want you would have multiple positives for the new person in in the district. Correct. It gets the entire board on the same page as the direction you're going, the person you're looking for, the attributes and qualities, you know, professionalism of that person. It really winnows things down and focuses your attention to what you think is most valuable in your um could I make a motion to Well, actually, I will make a motion to approve utilizing the Wisconsin Association of School Board Search. to facilitate the interview process of the two candidates for the district administrator vacancy. All right, the motion has been made second. Is there any other discussion? Not hearing any. All in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, we said we said four. Is

039that possible? That's absolutely fine. And Susie are connected. So Susie from this can help with all that now moving forward. Perfect. Talk to you soon. Thanks everyone. Thanks forward. I just want to point out on the next couple items, feel free to have some conversation. Some of this stuff did not take place at finance, so it's healthy to have it here. It's totally fine. Just that there's not recommendations, but it would be a good healthy conversation to have as a full board if there are questions to Tara and I are here this evening. The first So, this is a motion to approve meal costs. So, I will make a motion to approve meal costs for the 202526 school year as follows. Students, elementary breakfast about $1.60, elementary lunch $3.40, middle High school breakfast $185. Middle

040and high school lunches $3.50. Snack milk50. Students who qualify for reduced will receive breakfast for free. Reduce lunch 40. Adult breakfast $2.90. Adult $4.35. The second is discussion. Usually we talk about all this stuff at finance. So, so Ter and I just and Terry can step in here too, but know that um there is a tool that DPI uses to say what you should do for your lunch prices that factors in some of the costs and other aspects. We're not required to do that. We did work with our interim director Maggie Bishop to kind of look at, you know, the feasibility. Obviously, we want to charge the least possible for our students and their families, but as you probably are aware, raising food costs, labor costs, and other things. Um, and we do want participation.

041It's our number one indicator of us breaking even, which is all we're trying to do. We're not trying to make money on food service. We're trying to break even. So, I don't know, Ter, anything else to say? No. Um, so we don't have to use the PL tool currently because we do have a fund balance in 50. If and when we go negative, we have to use the PL tool suggestion which is actually quite a bit higher than where we're at right now. Um so although we didn't want to increase prices too much we chose to increase them a bit so that we're closer to that PL to number one question please say I motion carries All right. Next is the approval of the pre preliminary budget. So, this is something um we haven't been

042as consistent as I think we should be. Terry and I have discussed this. We think um even though we're very proud, we're very transparent of our budget going into the following year. We spend months on it in finance um try to bring things to the board. This is kind of more make it a little more official even though it's still a draft also gives you as a board. We're not talking about individual lines but two things I wanted you to take a look at um you've had one is a summary which um in general terms if this is your biggest question typically we are proposing a balanced budget for next year. Um there are there is another document that some of you have been on finance for some time um something that and I came

043up with called the budget assumption sheet. These are all the factors that go into uh making a budget and uh they're things that we don't have control of. Remember, you will have um and the public will have a chance to look at the budget at our annual meeting in June. Excuse me, we're in June. September. Thank you. Um that's when we have our annual budget meeting in our hearing. Um the community also votes on it. However, that's a preliminary budget in itself as well. Um because we have to then you as a full board make the final vote in October because at that time then we have things as hopefully the state budget done. Um enrollment staffing needs could adjust. We could have enrollment fluctuation. We could have specialized needs. Um and then also in

044this case this year the federal budget is also probably going to have an impact on our budget. So, what we're saying tonight is the budget we've built, the one we've shared for the last few months, we're confident in bringing you a balanced budget as of tonight. And we want you to know because our new budget starts tomorrow. So, that's the whole purpose of this. We are in a fiscal year July 1 to June 30th. So, the reason why we're asking you tonight is so that, you know, we're having communication with each other on the budget all the time. you always approve our purchases and spending. So, it's not like, oh, you have 30 million, do what you need to. No, it's that you have a proposed budget. We're still going to approve each step, and

045we're going to work on it for the next months as we find out what the state votes on for a budget, what the feds, what our enrollment is on the third Friday count in September. So, we can't even give you a final budget till October because we're not we don't have all the data to do that. And then the only piece in the final budget is the mill rate which we only is an outcome of the budget. But we need to know property value to do that and we don't have that either. So that's why it takes all that. We can't even tell the taxpayers right now. We're proposing basically what we did at the referendum. But we're recommending a balanced budget for next year, which is good news because we were projecting smaller budget

046or over negative budget. Any questions for Ter or the process being that it's hasn't been done every single year. Some districts do most districts do this, but not all. All right. Still discussion motion to approve. I will make a motion to approve the Northland Pine School District the preliminary budget to be effective July 1st, 2025 for the 2025 2026 fiscal year, including spend spending authority pursuant to Wisconsin statute 12.13 subsection 33. All right. Any other discussion for anybody that's kind of maybe their first go around with our school budget? I would recommend one this budget assumption sheet I think is very helpful. And then two, our annual booklet which is on our website and we have hard copies down in the main in the district office is kind of a great tool. Terra does a

047phenomenal job with their team putting together that annual book. Um, so I would recommend those two documents in the coming months as we continue to move forward and these some of these assumptions will be coming hard fast numbers in the next couple months. Any other discussion? Not hearing any. All in favor, please say I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Next item is the approval of student personal device changes and updates on the cell. I'll make a motion to approve changes to the student personal devices procedures the 2025 26 school year specifically in the bring your own device agreement including that NPSD will only allow students in grades 9 through 12 to bring their own devices as presented. All right, the motion has been made second. Any discussion? Harland has a mic. Okay. No, I was just

048going to share that you know at policy um I did share an update on the um student cell phone policy um that you enacted last year. Just some updates of teacher feedback and students and parents that we had received and um Dr. Mar and I had collaborated before that meeting of just like the the feedback from staff was very positive for this year of staff kind of saying like we can't imagine going back. I know we've received um questions and things from other school districts, other communities kind of asking Dr. Mine especially like how he went through that process and kind of um wanting to emulate that in their own communities. So, we've received a lot of positive feedback on that. I shared um just some numbers about numbers of um incidents that we had

049with technology. I was happy that I could show kind of in a graph that at the beginning of last year we had a lot of incidents with student cell phones as they kind of got used to that policy and then it went down as the year went on. So obviously they were getting used to it. Um but um a lot of positive and I think we showed at the m middle of the year that we actually saw um a dramatic uh decrease in the number of failed classes that we had from students. So that was a piece of evidence that kind of obviously there was other things going on there, but hopefully that contributed to some of the you know less distraction for students and more ability to concentrate on their school work while at

050school. Other things to add on policy. Yeah. And Harlot did a lot of the work here with policy. I was unavailable that day. So thanks to him for for getting that done. Um the other you were presenting it. I wasn't in. So, um, no, I I appreciate that. But I think, um, there's been a lot of unintended or maybe not focused on um, positive impacts that this has had on our students as well, just the the amount of time that they're actually using their phones outside of school. You know, I've gotten a lot of comments from community members, um, parents of the change they've seen in their students using their cell phones a lot less around the house, which is not an intended target that we have. We were really focused on academics and taking

051away the um what we viewed as a pretty big hurdle for engagement. Um, but then even at, you know, I was at uh someone's wedding a week and a half ago or so and there were a lot of uh there were some high school age students that were there. not from our school, but possible relatives of the groom. And uh those kids were on their phones like all night long at a wedding where their cousin was married and there was all their aunts and uncles and everything and they were sitting at tables playing on their phones looking at TikTok. Like it was crazy to watch. And we don't see those types of things with our kids come to a basketball game or a football game or anywhere. They're not sitting there staring at their phones

052all the time. um they're in the moment, which is kind of a carryover of what we've seen. So, I just there's been so many positive impacts that this has had on our kids, you know, not only in school, but I think just overall that um that we're very happy with the results. We're very happy with our our students adapted um and our families as well because it's a significant change that we went through. Um and even this morning I received a um principal from Partyville wants to do a Google meet on Wednesday to understand what we did two years ago because he wants to emulate our process this year so they can take them away a year from now. So um yeah there we do get those uh requests frequently and this morning was the

053latest. So, I appreciate all the work that the team has done to to get us to this point and our staff has been great um and very united and the fact that you know they they've stuck to the guidelines that we created last August which was a crucial piece of this and we were very clear in that staff meeting in in August last in service that all the work that we had done was going to be for nothing if even one of them had their own cell phone jail which is a game that we were playing a couple years ago you know in a variety of classrooms. So a huge credit to our staff for being consistent too because that's a hard thing to do. Let me just though be make sure clarity so you

054can ask these two questions. We're a little bit here tonight. One I'm glad for that because that I think should have been we talked about giving you an update and you have both of them there and they both have done a nice update. What we're also here tonight though is for the bring your own device agreement and as much as we're glad to see that change, there are some that would still like to fight us. You heard from some students and they handled themselves very well. I thought they did a great job. They worked with Dr. Marine on that process. They came in front of you. This device like this iPad has value to some kids to learn it differently and we want to respect that and support that. However, others find this is their

055underground game for the phone. They can Google, they can chat on here, they can do watch movies, they can ignore their teacher. So what I I was it was great to hear these two work together based on feedback from from all parties and said okay let's treat these young adults like adults and say we're going to give you some opportunities but what is your what is your part of this what's our part of this and that's relevant learning right like when you sign an agreement at work or in in college or military when you sign your name to something it means something and this is that process so it's relevant learning It's a change. Um, and that's what's in front of you. So, I just want to make sure you know what you're voting on

056tonight. How we got here was through a year of process and and seeing some things. Um, there are extreme views in this. Um, there are people in the tech security side that would say nothing except your own devices in your network. Then there's others, let's live the world like it's meant to be and just have anything you want whenever you want. And this is really that balance of making sure learning is our focus. We're keeping kids safe. We're we're keeping them engaged with their teachers and moving forward. So, so to boil it down, uh what we're asking for tonight kind of seeing the change that the cell phone brought in obviously and I shared that policy. We did see a pretty especially with the juniors and seniors, we saw a pretty dramatic uptick in the

057amount of students bringing their own device, whether that be an iPad or a personal Chromebook, a MacBook. Um, and some of those students are legitimately bringing it for it as a device that helps them with learning. Are all of those juniors and seniors doing it that way? Probably not. You know, they're looking for additional ways to um, use iMessage on an iPad or something like that. So with the data that we saw um and kind of just in keeping in mind that we have a 712 building and seventh and eighth graders that haven't learned some of these skills yet um what we're asking for is to number one make bring your own device only the policy of the 9th through 12th graders. Um in the data that I shared I believe we only had four

058middle school students uh last year that were bringing their own device. So, it sounds like a small number, but um I think Dr. May could attest to this, too. Those four students, it may have been dramatically affecting their learning because they were making that choice out of wanting to go to something else rather than I want this device for additional learning opportunities. So, and that kind of takes us back to, you know, when there was a 678 building in this district, there was no bingaround device. Even when we were one to one, we provided the Chromebooks for all those students. And it kind of gave them those buffer years of, okay, this is when you're learning how to be a secondary student and switch between classes and all those things. And then when you got

059to high school, you had some additional privileges and freedom. So that's what we're asking to go back to um is a 9th through 12th bring your own device policy. And then I also put in here a specific bring your own device agreement that every student would sign that kind of co-ops some of the things that Dr. was doing this year with um iPads and things like that and just saying every student that brings their own device should agree that they're bringing that device for learning purposes, outlining what that device is for um and what it's not for and what the consequences may be if they don't um if they don't follow those those expectations with that device. Um so basically um approving a 9 through12 B policy and then every student signing that agreement. Any

060questions? Further questions or comments? I would say those 26ers are trying to beat the system. I don't want to read that but out of 130 that's not too many. Well, and we've always been of the like when we passed when we did BOD, it was with that like, hey, how many, you know, parents with a kid going into college is like, okay, you know, Christmas in your senior year, I'm buying you that computer that you're probably going to use when you go off to college. And we wanted to not inhibit that and then that, you know, student can use that for the rest of the year. So, we would like for that to be like, okay, we can continue with that policy, but acknowledging if those numbers just keep going up and up and up,

061those are not all students that are using that to just be better at learning or going on to college. Great. Thank you guys very much for the presentation. Any other questions? Sounds like it was a good year overall as we look forward to next year with that policy. So, all right. And all in favor of this motion, please say I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. All right. Now we'll go into district administrator report. First up would be Gretchen and Tony for AGR. Yeah, I can share for AGR. So just to back up a little bit. First off, AGR is stands for achievement gap reduction. For those of you that are new on the board, um AGR is basically federal funding that we receive because of having reach reaching a certain threshold of amount of students

062having Um, so the federal government gives districts AGR funding. Essentially, the goal for it is to have to close that achievement gap for students that are considered economically disadvantaged. So, we can use those funds one of three ways. We can use it to make smaller class sizes. And what DPI considers a smaller class size is having 18 students to one teacher ratio or fewer. U, we can also use it for instructional coaching or we can use it for onetoone tutoring. So, we can use funding for one of those three ways. And then Part of the requirements for AG is that we present to the school board twice a year mid year that's why we always present to you in February and at the end of the year about how our students in that are receiving

063those fundings how are they performing. So in your board packet you have the graphs for each of our three elementary schools Eagle River Lakes and St. Germaine because they're the three that receive AGR funding. Um so that's why we include those three. Monastery does not get AGR funding so that's why that's not included. Um but I'll go over St. Germaine real quick and then I'll hand it over to Gretchen just to share a few things about Eagle River as well too. We'll just highlight a few things that are maybe successes or celebrations and also areas for growth as well too. Um so first off to read the chart as you can see on the far left that's just the grade level. The second column is the assessment whether it was given math or literacy. Um

064and then the strategy that we use for each of those classes as well too. Something we have to report to you and to the state twice a year. The baseline data. So that's the data that we received on students in this September. So we give this star assessment in the fall, winter and spring on basic literacy and math skills students. And then we set our goal. So that's the end of year goal. Our winter score which reported to in February and then that last column is our spring score which is the scores that received in May. So that's basically how it works. Um I guess a celebration is most all of the classes in St. showed growth from fall to spring which is awesome. Um most of them either came close to achieving the goal

065or even achieve the goal. So that's the biggest celebration but obviously there are some classes I won't go into each class. Um but some classes did not achieve at the level that we would expect or hope to. Um but that also gives us a great springboard for analyzing the data having collaboration and communication about what we can do to improve in those areas. Um so for example in St. elementary school. One of the areas we identified working with staff that we need to improve is small groupoup instruction. Um and staff wanted more training and support and how to provide small groupoup instruction with the students. So an example of that today actually our four K through second grade teachers all took part in a literacy training. They all learned how to implement a program called

066UFI. Um it's a literacy program that can be used universally but it also can be used for interventions uh because teachers wanted more support and knowledge and resources on what can they do for small group instruction for those kids that are not in grade level. How can they better support? So we got them some of the training today and we are already starting to plan about how we can do to implement it next year. So even though we might not have achieved some of our goals on here, it does help us make some decisions and improvement efforts because we're always looking to get better. So that's pretty much it for St. Germaine. Unless you have questions for me. So when we are looking at the data for elementary school, it's um it's actually sort of

067flip. Um our celebration is if you look at the minimal category uh you can see a trend in grades first grade, second grade and third grade where our minimal category has actually significantly decreased. Um so I think that's due a lot to the fact that our staff um and our student support team process work really hard with that small group instruction getting tight on ours processing programing. So, not only were students that were struggling receiving that universal instruction, they were also receiving tier 2 small groups during win time as well as intensive intervention with with our title staff. Um, so and then also not showing in kindergarten with this star data, but um that same population um in kindergarten showed significant gains with as web data. So, you looked students with personalized reading plans. And

068it's not on here, but I I just wanted to share this information with you as well because um as administrators, we look at multiple sources of data. Um we have 42% of our kindergarters on personalized reading plans at winter time. So that was 19 students that decreased from 42% to 18% um for the spring. So those 19 students to eight students. Um so those those groups of students were showing positive growth across the board. Um of course our our area of continued growth is to ensure um high proficiency rates across the board. So we'll be working on that universal instruction. We've spent the last two years um with the science of reading training. So we want to make sure regardless of whether we're using Ames web or star we're making the gains reducing um uh

069student students not only with those lowest performing bands but also ensuring all students are are meeting those proficiency rates and above. So um we've started this summer working um with Zoo on our literacy essentials document uh that really hones in on those best instructional practices that we've been learning about for the the last two years. Um, and that will give us an opportunity to revamp our unit plans um to really strengthen that universal instruction for all students. I'll fill in for land principal familiar with the building and I'd like to just echo what these two have said. entire staff is doing a lot of great work um between Sue, the principles, Emily and the team. Um it's all hands on deck and I think Land Lakes would be a great example of that. One of

070the challenges of Land Lakes is when you do percentages and have small class sizes, it's really simple to slip back real quick with percentages and they set themselves up for 100% on target at almost every one of their goals and they almost met every one of them. So kudos. Um I didn't want to pass by without giving kudos to that staff and car's leadership and the partnership of all the people enrolled and being part of that. So kudos to that staff, those families and those students should be proud of their work and celebrated um just as we're seeing the direction in a positive way across their board across the district and just want to give kudos to lands as well tonight as well because Carrie was unable to be here and she deserve her and

071her staff deserve kudos for this outcomes tonight as you sen and Sue would be much better answering questions. Does anybody have any other questions for Thank you for those reports. Congratulations for your celebrations and continue your work. We're going to move the agenda around a little bit. We have Rachel Perry, our school nurse, here to talk about bridging brighter smiling. Um I'm here to talk about Bridging Brighter Smiles. It's a nonprofit organization that provides dental care to children throughout the state of Wisconsin. They travel to all of our schools districtwide to provide dental care um services such as oral screenings, cleanings, for varnish, oral hygiene, education, sealants, and referral assistance, and have since expanded to include a silver damine fluoride, which is a treatment that stops cavities from progressing. In the 2024 2025 school year,

072the team has seen 266 students districtwide and provided 302 charitable procedures, which is equivalent to over $8,000 in services at no cost to families. This program has allowed students to not be absent from school as much for dental appointments, has lessened the burden of families having to miss work to get their student or students to dental appointments, and has made a profound impact on our communities. I would also like to recognize the amazing team of hygienists we're lucky enough to have visit our schools, Deanna Thompson and Leslie Horty. Diana and Leslie go the extra mile to make sure every child that sits in their chair feels comfortable and has a good experience. They have worked with our special education case managers on creating a comfortable environment for all students with social stories. They coordinate with

073myself and Christina Man, our district health on what time of day may work best for some students and they do everything in their power to create a fun educational atmosphere. We extremely for their kindness and their important work through the bridging brighter smiles program and we look forward to yours to come. Thank you. I I think these are the things that go unnoticed. We want every kid to read and do math, but as we talked about our mission and our collective commitments, this is one of those. And kudos to Rachel, Emily. And like they said, I think Rachel highlighted it so well. It isn't just kid gets help. They do it well. They figure out what's best. They take something that Mr. Fosters even like going to and they can make it fun for a

074student maybe for the first time. And we've seen the impacts on negativity in the mouth on learning and even life, you know. So these are making life changing things. So thank you so much for coming in tonight, Rachel, and appreciate that so much and thanks for all your work with it as well. The next item on our agenda is the annual student random drug testing report. Uh so this is just an annual summary that we prepared for you um at the end of the school year. So this year um like other years we test six students um each time. Um so a total of of 18 and we had all 18 were negative this year which typically doesn't happen. There's normally something that gets flagged um which causes some good discussion with parents but uh

075this year was pretty seamless and um Rachel and Christine did a great job. probably the most efficient um time wise that we've ever been this year. Just the um the amount of time it takes to get through six students or see which six are are actually in the building. We normally do multiple alternates because it's rare that all six are actually here. Uh but we run what we do and I don't know if we've gone over this in the past, but every every time we do this um obviously it's a secret. Rachel knows and myself and this year Mr. the days we're going to do it. And when we get in, we do a random number generator. Um, so it's always done in my office. Ryan stands over my shoulder, I tell him the number,

076he writes it down. So we just go from one to whatever number we have as far as signed contracts from parents. Mrs. Edwards has that behind her in a in a binder. Um, and then we generate w numbers in order. And um, when we get to our six that are present, then those are the six that we call down the test. We contact parents when we do the test. and then it doesn't take that long, less than a week to get the results back and then we call parents again to to kind of close with what we found out. So, um it's a decent process. It it runs really well. Again, thanks to Rachel and Christine um and Mr. Tara who who definitely did more work on it this year than I did the actual

077getting the students down to the office and stuff like that. So, that's our summary. The only hiccup we had this year was We did have a parent um kind of forget even though didn't read all the materials that once you sign in unless you tell us you're in it until you're tell us you want out and they got upset because their child got picked even though they got the phone call and so on. But we'll just make sure we do the best we can to remind them that once you sign up unless you tell us your child's going to be in it. And we worked with the parent when the phone call is made. So it wasn't like was forced upon this And also remember the child, the student, young adult and the parent both

078have to sign per your attorney, not just the parent. A parent can't just force the child to do this. That's they both have to sign to agree. So even though they're a minor, that's something that the law said. So thank you. Next is our state budget update. Yeah. So, it has been a very interesting budget process. Um, as if you're not aware, the governor puts in a proposal for all parts of the state budget. Then the joint finance committee starts the budget process which is um made up of representatives from both parties. Um, whoever party is in control of each of those houses, they get the majority and they lead the process. this year, like the prior two years, they just threw out the governor's budget and started with their own and didn't even really

079look at that. Um, if they I shouldn't say in fairness, they looked at it, but they they said they're not going to do anything with it. They're going to create their own. So, that process is going along. Um probably the aspect that really is impacting Northland Pines and our taxpayers is that when the part of the budget they first worked on, they go department by department to department. So they got to K12 and at every hearing there was a line out the door to say fund special education up to 60%. I would say all the groups that I belong to and those in this room belong to including your own WSB kind of said we're going to not think about a million things but this would make spendable money. This is local taxpayers dollars that

080went to Madison and would come back in the form of special education funding which then would be used across all of our students because currently we transfer over $2 million from fund 10 or excuse me from fund 2 from fun 10 to 27. Look at that chair. She's shaking. Yes, I almost said that backwards. Um, but when they got to the education part, they were still very upset when the governor raised the revenue limit by $325 for 400 years. So, part of that is they weren't going to backfund that at all for school aid or property tax relief. and they decided they weren't going to give school special ed funding. They put it all in high cost special ed which is less than 50% of the districts and it's very burdensome paperwork wise to claim

081all that. So there was quite a bit of backlash. There was actually some disagreements within their own party and they actually stopped the joint finance budgeting process. They were going to meet on Friday because they not only wanted to work on the budget because by law it's supposed to be done by July 1. They also had $50 million for literacy that they were supposed to release because they fought with the governor at the Supreme Court level in Wisconsin of who gets to decide that. Well, they won and they the sun or the joint finance gets to release that. However, they had to release it by June 30th, which is today. So, they they didn't meet. They're supposed to meet and like four times. I got alerts throughout the day that we're not meeting. We even

082we're going to meet in two hours. We'll meet in two hours. We'll meet in two hours. We'll meet in two hours. Finally, they came together. They didn't release all the money. They only released a part of it. So, the rest of it goes away. We lost out. We would have got a whole lot out of that. There is some instructional coaching that we'll have to into and see if we fall into a category. The other piece is they didn't work on the budget at all. This today I got a message um as did you in your email from your WSB. The current plan is to meet tomorrow as joint finance work on any changes to K12 because apparently there's been some behind the door dealings between the assembly, the Senate, and the governor. And there's

083some possibility some K12 changes could be made, but we don't know. It's very secretive right now. But they have to vote on UW Department of Child and Families and Department of Health Services. Then they have to send whatever they come up with to the assembly and to the state senate. And in the state senate, I think there's only a two vote difference right now. This is not the federal, this is the state. And if that if only a couple senators say no, then they're not going to be able to pass what they want. So there's a lot of politics going on right now. It mirrors the federal government issues of passing a bill. So we will see. The one thing different in Wisconsin than in Washington DC is in Wisconsin our constitution says if you

084do not pass a new budget by July 1, which is not going to happen, then the current funding mechanism stays in place. So that assumption sheet I showed you, Terry and I have to work off the assumption that that 325 will be there and basically we're not counting on a whole lot else except for probably the same amount of funding in the other categories. The federal one is a whole another I'm not even getting involved with that one because that one there's too many different things happening there. Um I will say I'm very disappointed in the budget. I have um was had the great fortune to sit at a table with Mary Senator Felkowski lat she always feel she feels like calling Mary um last Monday and um she's finding that being the Senate chair

085I think is a little more political that she really enjoys but she's doing a good job down there. um she u isn't on joint finance anymore so she doesn't have quite um as she said there's only so much money to spend and we have to figure out what the priorities are and spend it the way it's appropriate and not overspend and make sure our taxes stay in line. So we'll keep watching. I'll keep you up to date. Um there hopefully maybe next at the end of the week some movement might take place but it is kind of a monkey situation. I'm hoping in the next week to two that we'll have a budget. Uh we will be fine. We will operate. It would just make Taran and I's life and yours and finance committee and

086the future bud board a little clearer on our direction if we knew how much the state was giving us. As soon as we get details, then I can be a little more specific about the how it would impact you and the taxpayers of Northern Pines in the future. The one other one they funded and I'll just get this is a little soap box and it's been it was my predecessors and it continues to be mine is they like to fund sparity aid. We as a district do not get spar aid. We made every criteria and we're actually more sparse than some of the districts that get it. It's just we have too many students. So the responsible taxpayers of the North Pine School District took a union district and put it together to save money.

087Right? You have one superintendent, one business manager, one building ground. I can just go down the line. If we would have stayed in Union District, we would have got sparse aid, but you're responsible. So now you're being punished for it. And that's this is the same speech Senator Philowski's heard multiple times. And I'm not trying to knock my neighboring district like Lakeland Union because I don't want to take my neighboring district's money. But I also want to say how come they get sparse aid and we don't. You know, each one of those schools because they're small enough all get spared which totals almost a million dollars. That means they're ahead that much than we are. So I would love to see all that money be shifted into transportation because it's the same people, right? It's

088going to help all people who have high cost transportation. She agreed with me, but she can't change that right now. So, um, I don't want to take their money. If it went to transportation, they would still get a bunch of it and we would get some, but we're not winning that race. But I'll keep fighting on behalf of our taxpayers and our children. So, that's the update on state budget. Next on our agenda is St. Elementary School. No, school resource officers if we can do that. Oh, shoot. All right. Yeah, school resource officers um Christensen and Alex shared their end of year summaries for 242. And I just want to point out that um this was Shel's first full year. She started January the prior year. So, I want to mention that this was Deputy

089Christensen's first year with us and he was here for the full year. Um, just want to thank them and again Vio County. I did attend the Vias County board meeting last Tuesday and myself and Brent Zinsky from North Lakeland presented to the county board. Thank them for their participation, their their vig vigilance. Thanks the sheriff's department. Um, highlighted our hunter safety, border safety, snowmobile, UTD, all those things. Um, highlighted what they do for us. And also probably just as important is we continue to need as a whole county. I took on the responsibility if the countyy's going to step up and support us, how are we supporting back with both having the same goal of keeping staff and students safe. So on um June 17th, all the counties and the SROS met again was the

090third time this year. Um we talked about a lot of our planning for next year, our reification, also our mapping as well, just where we're all at with that and what updates we might be looking at doing. I also want to give credit um every three years the state of Wisconsin requires us to have all of our schools go through a safety assessment that's both walking through looking and then meeting with each of the key members of the district. Um Shelby and Chad each did that. So it was kind of nice. We've had it now this is the third one we've done since I've been here and every time it's been a different SRO which is really nice actually because Eric did the first one gave us his input. We made that first one there

091was probably more changes. Then the second time it was Matt Wilson and we made some changes and this time Chad and Shelby. One of the changes for example Shelby brought up was um the UTV trail next to St. Germaine continues to get more use and we have found that for fires and other drills and also just a ball could roll over there and a kid could run over there. But now there's UTVs going down that trail more frequently. So we're just going to run a fence along that. We have a fenceful halfway. We're just going to run it the rest of the way. Just to kind of be a mental block of like, oh, I didn't want to run across there. We had tried a drill one day. They all stood on the trail. But

092that's why you do drills, right? Like you say, you shouldn't stop here even though you're hidden and it's safe. You think it's safe. A UTV could be barreling down the trail. So, those are just things that the deputies do a really nice job of giving us input on. Um we're also looking at um bringing in in October a sextorion um presentation. Um myself, Tony, and Carrie attended the one at Lakeland put on by Onidita County, but this one will be done by um I think it's Detective Miller. Um her and the and we're going to partner together on it, but we worked as a county. So what she does here then can be used at North Lakeland and AVW will probably combine for one. We'll invite Phelps to ours, but also this will be students

093and parents as well. So, um, Detective Miller and Deputy Christensen go into the classrooms already for something very similar, but we want to really get this message out to our parents um on safety. So, um, the last thing I was mention is or is, um, that thanks to the deputies we did and Harland and Jason in our tech department, we've renamed all our cameras so they're easier to understand for all of us that are new and also for the deputies and the 911 call center. So the other thing is we made it so that if every camera has a code on it so that you could see where it fits on our CRG mapping quadrant. So if they say on this camera I'm seeing this everybody can look on the map and say that's where

094that camera is. So big it was nice advancement. Plus um they figured out that down at the call center their listing of what their cameras were weren't what ours were. So it was very hard. So if they work together and now everything matches and it's the same. So it's really a nice step forward for and that was a camera software thing that but it took humans to figure that out. So another good year. You saw some data on the back. Um next month I'll present on something called act 12 which they've helped me with but I can give you more information on that next month. Now we can go to St. Germaine Solar. Yeah. So, we got approached by this organization out down to K12. They promote um good use of energy and and good

095use of tax dollars and uh they approached us. Uh we were some believe we were one of if not one of them might have been the first that received this opportunity for IRA checks from the federal government for energy. Um, so they came to us and we would love to do a video because we think others really could learn and I really think it turned out well on behalf of St. Germaine. Um, it really puts the school but more importantly the whole community in a good light. So I just like to take it's like less than five minutes and show it. Just want to twist it so everybody can see it. little less. There you go. Perfect. We are so fortunate to have first off a very supportive community here in St. Louis. We have

096great families, great students, great staff, and we're also very fortunate to be in an amazing business. Our schools were surrounded by miles and miles of bike. We have miles and miles of hiking trails that the kids could cross country ski on, hike on, do nature scavenger hunts on. So having a solar panel just kind of goes along, I think, with what our mission is here in St. J to teach some of those really important lessons about environmental education and things of that nature. When we sat down and used all the different avenues we had, it really was an economic decision first with the money that we save on utility bills. Obviously, that gives us more money to be able to put into different programs throughout the district. Our power bills going down are putting money

097in kids classrooms right out of the gates this year because of those savings. Some of the biggest costs that the district has to is busing and fuel energy and those are funds that we aren't being able to use to educate kids with them. So obviously the priority is for us to be teaching students and student learning. So whenever we can save money in an area such as electricity bills, it allows us to use those funds in a more appropriate way for student learning. That's a huge benefit to the school because of that. now have a future where every year your energy bills are lower and that allows you to say can we use that savings to help support another teacher or some curriculum materials or other activities that St. Jerine Elementary School wants to do.

098The other aspect of I think is just the educational advantage of it as well too with the students. So not only does it really help us financially, it also creates a great learning opportunity for kids as well too. The largest single incentive that St. elementary school received as part of its installation was the incentive from the inflation reduction act. That knowing that that was going to be there was what absolutely cemented the ability of elementary to receive installing solar the portion of savings was $111,000 check back to us from the government. So we were able to take that off the total cost of the project and immensely we were able to reduce the payback of the system from a 12 year to 5.9 so it really help you know going forward with the IRA being

099available for schools and churches was a huge opening the opportunity to save that money directly really helps the taxpayers from day one that's more direct savings to your school and church right out of the gates think that's a big incentive it probably will push it over the edge for some churches and schools to do a If the inflation reduction act is eliminated or changed so that it no longer provides tax incentives for not for profits, it will simply mean that there are many school districts that will look at the challenge of adding silver and just I think many times the connection between Washington DC and small gets lost when a person asks what happens to my tax dollars in a small rural community here ended up in St. Wisconsin. The IRA for us helps everybody.

100Doesn't matter where you're coming from or what your views are. Really is saving us money and I see it as a true investment for the long-term success of our district and our community. All right. Congratulations. [Applause] Just remember too for those in the audience, we did get donations to cover other aspects of this project. Kudos really goes to Dave. um his work, his vision, and then you as a board to support that. We said in there, we really hope that the savings is for years to come. We, you know, that's the unique piece of it, right? Is we can reduce those energy bills because they're only going up over time. So, we can reduce them. Um it it makes for a better better situation for the future boards and for the students of St. Germaine

101and Monor there. Um I have two other things quick. Um one is or three actually. One's on the agenda. I'll pass it along. So um the youth apprenticeship book that gets put out by C9 every year. It's always great to see and it's always great to see when you have some students um that are involved on in the book and spotlighted. So kudos to Adam Matisca, the great job he does with our youth apprentichip. He's just amazing job. I also want to give kudos alashong. None of this works without a great local businesses or groups. Um without local businesses, none of this works. Kids don't have experiences and I'm allowed to try and meet new things. So um I um just tag the ones in there. Two things that aren't also going on. One um

102work in our parking lot continues. David Pick and Wick have been working hard to kind of make sure we're being efficient out here. Hopefully the next two days the back parking lot, possibly the front tomorrow morning, we'll get partially the first process or I guess the second. They already did the crack sealing. I don't know what they call leveling or what they call the second. Yeah, the chip seal will go in tomorrow. Hopefully hopefully they'll get everything done tomorrow. It sounds like front and back. Yeah, they want to block off the front too, especially with the weather. So, um, we'll keep everybody in the loop. Just know it's also in a good way. It worked out well because this is the WA down week. So, you can't work with student athletes this week. So, a

103few less kids in the gym and different places means that we can It's a little easier, less impact on shutting down parking lots and stuff as well. And then finally on the back table, um we we only provide our forklift and the space, but the community recycling event is coming back to our parking lot out front here. Um if you're looking for dates, I think it's the 23rd of August. It's on the sheet in the back. This year, they're adding scrap metal. So Sheriff is working with them to collect scrap metal out there. So there's electronics, it's I forget the whole it's about anything you want to bring just about. Um that's all on the list back there. There's more information on our website. Ashley will be promoting on social media. Remember it used to

104be on the fairgrounds. It caused so much traffic delays that it didn't work out real well. So we moved it to here and it went very smooth last year. It was quicker for the people. It worked better for the company and the local um Karen Tine and and another gentleman that are working on it. So we want to help them. It's good giving back to our community as we said earlier. So just uh keep that on your radar and there's a sheet back there if you're looking to have anything recycled. That concludes my report. And we have I see uh praise in the pines again July 17th. So July is very busy. So two big events in that week. So that Wednesday kids from Wisconsin are here through the um what am I doing? performing

105arts group, our community performing arts. Um they are bringing in kids from Wisconsin. If you're looking for a really just enjoyable show with some insane talent of high school kids, come to that's on Wednesday. Then they leave and then we start setting up and actually they already working this weekend and we it's year round to work with praise in the pines. So we've been helping them. Year two is much easier than year one. We just know a lot more. We know what they need. They know what we need. Um, so Dave and his crew, um, Dave and I have met multiple times with the leadership team. Again, um, we kind of got it narrowed down to the ones that really need to run the place. So those working with unloading and loading, we've asked for,

106um, they provided some plywood to make sure our floor stays nice in the fieldhouse. U, we installed that door where that center pillar comes out, which they help pay for. So that'll make things easier for them. We're working with them. Harland's helping them with the tech side and all the and stuff. Our SRO, you saw in the report, it looks like they will be working the vent. Um, typically they have hired them to do that. Um, so we're working through that. So they use the auditorium, the commons, the field house, and probably about 10 classrooms spaces. So including this one. So yep, it's busy, busy, busy. Antique show for Rotary also moved here instead of the derby track. So that's the first Friday and Saturday in August as well. So that's another opportunity that for

107the community to use our spaces. So and there's probably sports of some sort going on in the fieldhouse every night as well. Then at some point we got to shut it down and clean it and redo the floors and all things hit before sports start the first week of August. All right, that will conclude our regular um meeting. Um thank you all for being here tonight and I will make the motion to go to convene in close session pursuant to the provisions of Wisconsin statute 19.85 subsection considering employment, promotion, compensation or performance evaluation data of any public employee over which governmental body has jurisdiction or exercises responsibility. The purpose of the close session is to discuss the staff performance regarding the district administrator search and process to discuss resignations of certified staff. One of which

108uh includes liquid damages to discuss the issue of an administrative contract for the position of assistant principal and further pursuant to statute 18.85 subsection to discuss an addendum to the transportation contract will entertain a motion to reconvene and may take action on items discussed in close session and we'll do a roll call. Oh, sorry. Second and um All right. Eric Lane, yes. Becky, yes. Jennifer is absent. Nicker. Yes. And Paul. Yes. All right.