Board of Education Meeting - July 7, 2025

001Welcome everyone. The July 7th, 2025 board of education meeting is called to order. The board welcomes everyone present and the Witchaw public schools will be the premier district of choice and inspire each student and staff member to thrive and become future ready within the greater community. This is a business meeting of the board of education and we are pleased that you have taken time to join us. for the roll call. All board members are present and please join me in a moment of silence. Thank you. Our color guard tonight is from the Heights High School JOTC. Please stand for the presentation of the colors followed by the pledge of allegiance. Close the colors. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under

002God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. [Applause] Thank you. Color Guard Latona. First item, good news. Celebrating student success. Heights High School state champions in wheelchair races. Welcome, Chris. Doing well. Okay. Well, again, thank you guys for for uh letting me speak tonight. Um so, uh one of the things uh we want to talk about is not only Isabelle, this is Isabelle Einwitch. I said it right. Einwick, sorry, Einwick. Um, I want to talk about her personal accomplishments, but I also want to put a spotlight on Heights's wheelchair track program, uh, which meets many of our accomplishments in our strategic goal, uh, number three. So, it is my honor to be here today to recognize an exceptional student and highlight the continued success of Witchaw Heights uh, wheelchair track program. Today with me, I

003have Isabelle Einwitch. Einwick. I'm going to mess that up a couple more times. I pro promise you. I apologize. Um, uh, Coach McMillan and athletic director, uh, Nick. I am proud to present our state champion, Isabelle Einwick. Third time's a charm. At least accomplished something today. Uh, who delivered an outstanding performance at this year's uh, state track meet. Isabelle secured a first place in the 400 meters with a time of 1 minute or what sorry uh time of 1 minute 22.89 seconds and in the 1600 meters with a time of 5 minutes 37.03 seconds. She also earned a second place finish in the 100 meters. Um the these obviously are achievements uh are testaments to her dedication and athleticism. But furthermore, further than that, uh Witchaw Heights has built a tradition of excellence in this

004area and we've actually had athletes uh having previously won state titles. Uh we have a we have a boy that has won the 100 meters and 400 meters. He's graduated just so you guys know, but I want to kind of give you this history. Um his name is Grant Pierce. Um he he won the 100 meter and the 400 meter uh events three different times. Um and I have found out that he also um holds records in both the 400 meter and the 1600 meter events and those are national records. That's correct. Okay. Um so tonight I am proud to celebrate Elizabeth's remarkable accomplishments Isabelle. Sorry I'm reading and looking up. I apologize. Isabelle's accomplishments and recognize the broader success and positive influence of Heights wheelchair track program. And I want to thank you all

005for your continued support for our student athletes and inclusive athletic programs. Thank you very much. Thank you guys very much. Thank you for staying strong and uh competing at such a high level. So great way to represent yourself and the district. Thank you very much. Okay, Latona. Next item. Rotary Club reading is fundamental partnership. Welcome Amanda. Good evening. How are you guys this evening? Good. I'm Amanda Sharel, executive director of Elementary CNI, and I'm here with a special guest tonight, David Hawkins, a 10year Rotary Club member and RIFF reader at multiple schools as well as site coordinator. Um, this good news item is really to highlight the partnership that we have between Reading is fundamental, the Rotary Club, and our Title One schools that have that program. um and how they're helping us towards strategic

006plan goal number one with every child becoming a reader. So, I'm going to get out of the way quickly, but I do want to highlight the program, what it's about, and a couple factoids for you. The mission embraced by Reading is Fundamental is to motivate children to have a lifelong I know you guys can't see the screen, so I'll read it to you. Um have a lifelong lifechanging love of reading. The volunteers provide inspiration and impact and appreciation for literacy when they visit classrooms aspiring to ignite a hunger for knowledge and a passion for learning. So actually Rotary Club's program RIFF started in 1988 and it had one school and one head start program. We are currently serving 20 title one schools in Witchaw public schools, all elementary. They distribute 17,000 books a year. This

007was last year's number to over 8,600 students in our district. There are 150 volunteers who are in our schools reading to students and they're funded solely by Rotary Club member contributions. So, that's a little bit about the partnership. I'm going to let David step in and talk about its impact and then I'll wrap us up with some things for our librarians. Thank you. I'm I'm sorry Isabelle's not here anymore, but way to go Isabelle. Um, I'm a proud graduate of Southeast High School, so it's really fun to be back in this building, although I don't recall what this room was for back in the day. Um, my name is David Hawkins. Uh, I am an a retired insurance agent and currently an adjunct professor at Witchaw State University in the Barton School of Business. Um,

008I'm here today as just one of 350 members of our Witchaw Downtown Rotary Club. I'm currently co-chair of our literacy committee. Um, as Amanda said, over 150 different volunteers have distributed uh both dictionaries to third graders and conducted two readings a year for all students at 20 Title One schools for many years. We visit each classroom and tell the students a little bit about Rotary Club, why we personally like to read and what reading can do for them in school, in work, or in their life in general. We then get to read a book that uh to the class that the librarian or the classroom teacher has picked out. Oftentimes I bring my own books um just because I enjoy certain ones. After we read, then comes the fun part. We get to call out

009each student's name. And a lot of them aren't as easy as Isabelle. So, um, we call their name out and then we get to hand out a book to them that they have personally picked out at a book fair a few weeks earlier. And most Rotarians say that this halfhour hour of reading to our students is the best part of their week. And it always is the best part of my week. and and I've read in six to eight different schools here, none of which I attended, which is is unfortunate, but that's okay. Um, personally, I love reading because my mother was an avid reader and was an elementary school librarian just a couple blocks away at Caldwell for many years. Reading was just something we did in the Hawkins household. Um, our love of

010reading helped my brother, sister, and me to succeed in school and in our chosen professions. As leaders in the community, the Witchaw Rotary Club wants to encourage reading and instill a love of reading to uh, specifically in those children who may not own books in their own homes. Uh we have enjoyed partnering with USD 259 and the many talented principles, librarians, and classroom teachers. What's next for Rotary Club and literacy in USD 259? Well, we're looking at ways to supplement these book reads. Some ideas are more frequent visits to the classrooms, not just twice a year, um, and reading with individual students one-on-one, just like United Way Read to Succeed does, which I've participated in many years. We're already working with individuals at the Witchaw Public School Foundation and Project Teacher to get access to

011other uh, funds and resources. We thank you for the opportunity to help in a small way to educate the children of our community, but thank you to each of you on the board and superintendent for all that you do for our children and for our schools. Thank you, David. To share with you the buildings that this program is currently serving. Um, we are also wanting to send a huge shout out to our librarians. They are often the RIFF coordinators at their sites. They order the books, they set them out, they schedule, they bag them, they talk to the Rift coordinators and the readers. They are a central part of the success of this program. And we sent um a survey out last year to our librarians to say, "How is this impacting your building?" And

012I chose three buildings. They're very short. I'd like to start with Adams. So Adams Elementary's um librarian, who was a first year librarian in our district, I believe, says, "The joy and excitement the students have when they choose their own books is definitely a benefit of the RIFF program. The students can't wait to take home their book and look forward to their RiftF day." Cynthia Franklin uh Cynthia at Franklin Elementary said at Franklin, "We call the books given by the Rotary Club our forever books." When students first hear this, their eyes light up, excited to have something they can call their own. often this is the only way they have to build a home library of books that they can read over and over with their trusted adults at home and white the RIFF program

013has proven to be incredibly effective in fostering a love for reading not just through book distribution but by creating a supportive community around literacy the program helps build a foundation of lifelong readers by introducing children to books that resonate with them ultimately increasing their engagement and improving their reading skills. bills. This connection between children and reading often extends beyond the program as families and communities continue to support reading outside of the school environment, which is our ultimate goal, every child a reader. So, thank you for allowing us to come and highlight this program this evening. Thank you for highlighting it. And David, we thank you. Please pass on our condolences and uh gratitude, not condolences, but our gratitude for what you guys do um day in and day out and supporting reading. Um I love

014the program title of reading is fundamental because it truly is. And thank you for helping us um reach out to each every each and every child uh to make sure that they can read and giving them books. So thank you guys very much. We appreciate you. [Applause] Latona. Next item, district level recognition and accomplishments. Rachel, welcome. Good evening. Uh my name is Rachel Bell and I am the chief communication officer for the district. Um, and tonight I have the privilege of highlighting five WPS employees. And in a school district our size, as you know probably better than I do, um, the needs are great and the work never ends. And we are fortunate to have educators and non-educators who are dedicated to serving our students. Sometimes that looks like self-improvement. And so that's what we're

015going to talk about tonight. First, I want to introduce Dr. Steve Noble, who is the district's chief operations officer. He starts this week, so trial by fire here. Um, and we will we will make a formal announcement about his hiring tomorrow. Dr. Dr. Noble is a former superintendent and has worked adjacent to education through private industry for the past couple of years. So, welcome Dr. Noble. Next, I want to introduce Alicia Allen, marketing coordinator, and Latona Hoy, clerk of the board. Both have been selected to participate in the Witchaw Business Journal's Emerging Leaders Program. This program develops new leaders in our community. Congratulations to both of you on your selection. [Applause] Recently, director of operations Fabian Armanderas, who couldn't be with us this evening, uh, completed Bold, which is business operations leadership development through the

016CA the Kansas Association of School Boards. This program focuses on enhancing skills and knowledge around facilities planning, technology planning, security, financial strategies, procurement, and human resource management. KASB staff and industry experts led the trainings which were held in school districts across the state. And finally, assistant super superintendent of secondary Dr. Lauren Hatfield participated in the director the district administrator leadership academy offered through USA Kansas. This program is a comprehensive professional learning experience that empowers central office educational leaders with skills and strategies for driving systemic improvements in their districts. Participation in the academy also involved a leadership coaching component which is intended to help leaders navigate challenges and refine their leadership styles. So again, welcome to Dr. Noble. And congratulations to Alicia, Latona, Fabian, and Dr. Hatfield. [Applause] Thank you, Rachel. Latona. Next item. United Teachers

017of Witchah. Hello. Can you hear me? Okay. Okay. Okay. Um, good evening, President Albert, Vice President McCrae Miller, Superintendent Beldeld, and distinguished members of the board. I'd like to begin tonight with some exciting news. UTW has once again been awarded a $10,000 reading opens the world grant from AFT, which will help us get more books into the hands of Witchaw students. We're currently working in collaboration with um Deputy Superintendent Alvarez to develop a thoughtful distribution plan that includes volunteer involvement and community support. This effort builds on a recent project we're especially proud of that we shared about in May. UTW funded a brand new book for every incoming kindergartener in the district for the 2526 school year. Now, we're excited to reach even more students with books they can truly connect with. We know that

018when students have or when children have access to books at home, they're more likely to read. But we also know that not every family can afford to build a home library. So, we are committed to making sure that students receive grade level highinterest books so they can fall in love with reading, build their skills, and ultimately reach grade level proficiency. This is the kind of work that happens when we come together around what's best for kids. And we're grateful for our continued partnership and look forward to putting more books into this into students hands. Now, I would like to turn to something more serious. Our continued concern over the financial oversight committee. For months, we have asked, "Where are the educators on this committee? When you left educators off the committee, you left out an

019essential voice, the people who are in the buildings every day educating our students. I recently heard that the committee may recommend a pause on a potential bond issue. And I'm here to say clearly, our students and educators should not have to wait for adults to sort out their issues before we do what's right for their learning environment. At a recent board meeting, multiple educators stood at the podium and shared firsthand concerns, classrooms that are too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter, sewage issues, gyms without air conditioning, and even serious electrical problems. Our students deserve the same opportunities as students in the suburbs, including access to safe, modern, and climate controlled classrooms, gyms, and facilities. I recently spoke with Superintendent Beldeldeld and I appreciate that commitment he he shared with me about

020bringing staff into this conversation moving forward. However, I am asking tonight that the board pause any recommendations from many committees until the committee has had a chance to hear directly from the educators who work in these buildings every single day and who are affected by the outcomes of those decisions. Their voices and expertise must be part of this process. We must invest in our students. We should not let any adult issues stall improvements that our buildings desperately need. Finally, I want to briefly address the devastating news we received about funding last week. With less than 24 hours notice, the federal government pulled back $45 million from Kansas public schools. Let me remind you that 90% of Kansas students attend public schools. The funding cuts will impact budgets across the state, especially our school district. Once

021again, educators are expected to do more with less. That means fewer resources, fewer supports, and more strain on a system that's already stretched thin. Our kids always pay the price when public education is cut. This is bad news for our schools, our communities, and our future. Our students deserve much better than this. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Katie. Latona. Next item. Service Employees International Union. Seeing no representative from SEIU, uh, next item, public communications, Dr. Gretchen Ike. Okay. So, thank you for joining us tonight. And if you have signed up for public comment, you'll have three minutes to speak and we kindly ask that you acknowledge your aotted time according normally have a timer displayed. Tonight, I will uh give you a hand signal uh when your time is up. But we encourage

022you to share your thoughts openly and honestly, but we ask that your remarks remain focused on school related matters and are respectful and constructive. The board will listen to your input, but will not respond during this meeting. However, we are listening and may follow up as appropriate. And just as a reminder per uh the board of education policy that um no attacks by the public comment speakers are should be geared towards personal integrity, character or competency of any employee, student or board member of USD 259. Speakers shall maintain an appropriate level of decorum, courtesy and professionalism in their comments to the board. And with that we welcome our first speaker. Dr. Gretchen is not present this evening. Okay. Second speaker, Dave Clark. Is Dave Clark present? I do not see Dave here tonight. Next speaker,

023Matt Malot. Welcome, Matt. I feel like I won something by getting to come up here. This is great. All right. Good evening, President Albert, Superintendent Beerfeld, and members of the board. My name is Matt Malgot. I'm a current administrator in our district, a parent of Witchtop Public School students, and a proud member of this community. I want to begin by thanking each of you for the time, energy, and leadership you put into the last bond vote. The items that were identified were very well thought out and very much needed. Even though we didn't get the voting outcome we hoped for, then we must push through and try again. With the community's clear understanding and support behind us, we can get a better outcome. I've been with the district for over 20 years, and in that

024time, I've worked in buildings that have seen better days, some built long before modern learning needs um were even imagined. I've also had the opportunity to work in our newer facilities, and I can tell you the difference is real. In our newer schools, classrooms are the right size. There's space for students to move, collaborate, and focus. The lighting is better. The air is cleaner. the technology is reliable. These things may seem small, but they add up to a learning environment where both students and staff can thrive. This bond gives us the opportunity to bring those same benefits to more schools across the district. It's about safety, accessibility, and creating spaces that reflect the high standards we hold for our kids and our educators. That's why I'm here tonight to voice my full support for moving

025forward with the bond as soon as possible. I strongly encourage the board to take action. Our students and staff are counting on us and this is our moment to deliver. Thank you. Thank you, Matt. Latona. Next speaker, Connie Reic. Should have rethought the heels, but it's okay. Good evening, board of education members, district leadership, and other stakeholders invested in the work to make USD 259 the premier district of choice. I am a parent and a principal in this district. Though moving to Southeast, I've been blessed to serve as principal at Curtis for nearly four years with incredible staff and resilient students who I represent today to impress upon you a sense of urgency to pursue a bond. Now, please strongly consider to the point of affirming a decision to seek another bond before our current

026bond expires next year. The enhancement of safety and belonging at Curtis through a controlled entrance years ago has given me the courage to come before you today. Science lessons in classrooms without sinks and water indicate facilities that do not mirror the quality education that our staff provide. You may believe we have time before pursuing a bond because perhaps you're unaware that my PE classes learn outside during August due to heat advisory in the gym. My family engagement nights in the gym during October still occur in with doors propped open for air flow. Even with air conditioning, if we had it, our competition gym fits less than 30% of our school population. You may believe we have time because perhaps you're unaware that I looked into a wheelchair ramp in our auditorium so that it would

027be ADA compliant. But adding a ramp with eliminate seats in an already cramped space. Programs that celebrate student achievement, heritage, and extracurricular engagement cannot be held with the expectation of 900 plus participants. For family involvement, Curtis presently takes field trips to AAC, adjusting the bell schedule, which reduces optimal learning time. Toward strategic goal one, academic achievement, schools use terms a year's growth for a year's time. However, when students come to middle school struggling to read for various reasons, our amazing teachers teach them how to read while also teaching them the content of 612 standards. They teach them this while also closing gaps of that. I reference this so that our board does the hard work of this and that at the same time. Though not a resident during our bond previous years, I know that

028trust is low concerning bonds, but I urge you to establish and rebuild trust while pursuing adequate and updated facilities for our students. The crisis of facilities in our schools forces us to employ simultaneous strategies. Our community will believe us when we show them our current reality and offer a transparent and inclusive plan for how we'll fix it. Thank you again for your faith in me as a leader. I offer you my faith in your leadership to truly do what is best for students and our community. Thank you, Connie Batona. Next speaker, Greg Ty. Thank you for letting me be here today. Uh hello, my name is Greg Ty. I'm the managing partner at SPT Architecture. I also served as 12 years as a school board member in the Renick School District. So during that 12

029years, I was uh board board president, six years, and three years was on the KSB executive board. So I want to start by saying thank you all for serving on the USD 259 school board. I understand firsthand what that takes. Um I'm here today to express support and observations on the future bond issue you are considering. My firm has helped school districts throughout Kansas pass bond issues and we have passed 14 out of 15 bond issues on the first attempt. Uh although I do not live in the 259 school district, we do own our office building and pay taxes in the school district boundary. My experience as a schoolboard member as a taxpayer in your district and architect for K12 schools in Kansas gives me a unique perspective to offer. I felt compelled to come

030speak to you because I have heard there have not been enough business leaders voicing their support for the next bond effort. It may be quiet currently because it is not on everyone's minds, but do not forget that you have a lot of support in the community. All the surveys and information that were gathered before you decided to move forward last year were very positive. I have spoken to several leaders in the community and that support still exists. I want to tell you that you're on the right path with the bond plan. There are two reasons that we see bond votes fail. The first is that school districts try to do too much. We've often seen school districts try to pass 20 mil plus bond votes that ask really too much of the taxpayer. That typically

031gets angered that typically angers a community and there are a lot of no votes. The second reason we see bond votes fail is a lack of communication and information in the community. Voters want to know what they're voting for. When this doesn't happen, this leads to voter apathy. Apathy will kill a bond vote. And that is most likely what happened to your bond vote in February. It was not that you had a bad plan. It was simply that it was not clearly communicated. You definitely were not asking too much. The average bonded interest mills for schools in Kansas is around 12 mills. Most schools in this area have between 12 and 20 mills. Your bond mills of 7.5 mills is certainly a reasonable ask. I looked at the taxes that we pay for our office

032building. In 2024, we paid $264 a month, which is about $15.52 per $100,000. A homeowner that has a $100,000 house pay $7.14 a month. Neither of those amounts seem unreasonable to help USD259 students thrive and become future ready for our community. Finally, when should you have a next bond election? This November is definitely too soon. You would find yourself repeating the problems of the last bond election. We have found that springtime in March is especially the best time to have a bond election. Studies have shown March is the best time for a bond election. You also, this allows you enough time to educate and build the bond campaign and also inform the voters along the way. You could do November 26, but we typically stay away from November elections. Uh there can be a lot

033of other issues that come into play in November elections and they can become partisan and we especially don't like it when you have um school board members running for bonds. Of the 14 bond votes we have passed, only one has been a November vote. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Greg. Latona. Next, next uh speaker, Charlene Marvin. Welcome, Charlene. Uh before I start, I would like you to know that what I'm going to basically express to you this evening is not only my feelings, but also others within the native community. So, I don't want anyone to take offense or anything, but there's a lot of questions that we don't have answers to. Okay. And I would probably wouldn't be here, but I've been trying to call someone since May 30th within the district and

034never have received a return phone call. Okay. The native program. Oh, and also I want to ask you, is it okay if I mention a name? No. Okay. So, if I stop, it's because I've got a name. Okay. Okay. The nadium program has changed throughout the years. Um but when the last director came on board, he turned the program into something so much better than the previous. He put his heart and soul into the program and the students. He's given the students so much more opportunities, education on their heritage, always there for them, having mic uh workshops, etc. And being proud of who they are. In fact, I don't feel like in this main situation that maybe the students were per first because they had an event that following week and they had to cancel

035it because their director could not come with them and they were quite hurt by that. The community was told that the past ones were let go due to budgets and their question was why the natives. There are a lot of other ways that you know might be considered uh such as and again no offense to anyone but a question um we have a chief super uh assistant superintendent. We have several other superintendent. Why did we need so many? Why do we need more than one principal or multiple assistant principles in a high school or any school or multiple adults in a nonself-contained classroom? Um we have multiple coordinators etc. Now after talking to the state Native American education program at the state level he was shared with me that at the last count there was

0361,400 Native students in this particular district and the program is actually funded also that in some districts which we would also fall under was that the funding the grant the funding or some other um there's no other other means. The program staff is paid through that and also some of the uh districts choose to pay half pardon. Oh, okay. Anyway, I have to question then as to why the cuts were due. Uh it sounds to the community kind of more public. It might want to re-evaluate. Um also that within the community native program this did not happen. Did you know that you have eighth graders that have not been taught their states and capitals or eighth graders that ask a question response was go look it up on Google. Thank you for being here tonight.

037Um Charlene, you had your We have uh three minutes for each public comment speaker. So, thank you Latona. Next speaker, please. Cuttingham. Welcome, Michelle. Good evening, members of the board and everyone here tonight. My name is Michelle Cunningham. I'm a therapist here locally. Um, I'm also a parent of one student in Witchto Public Schools and one future student. USD259 buildings and their facilities are in need of repair and updating. And now with federal cuts on the way to important programs, new questions are emerging about how USD259 will be able to support the nearly 47,000 students equally. With 9,640 students who receive ESOL services and 8,289 students who receive special education services in WPS, roughly a third of families are anxiously awaiting answers about how their children will receive an education that serves their needs. Last

038February, the bond vote failed to pass by 319 votes, which is about 1% of the 28,000 voters who participated. I think that narrow margin shows our path forward for funding public schooling in Witchah is within reach and is cause for hope rather than despair in the face of such mounting challenges. The district must look at new ways to engage the community to rebuild trust and create a plan that is long-term, sustainable, and that addresses the needs of our students and our teachers. In 2008, when the previous bond issue passed, things were slightly different. The vote was in November during a general election for one, but there was also a great deal of community engagement and the issue on the issue prior to its consideration. Afterward, however, some of the public was disappointed with the amount

039of accountability and followthrough. There were reports that the lack of completed projects due to funding cuts at the state and federal levels created distrust in the community. Collectively, many in Witchah were not happy with the uncertainty of its implementation, and respecting that fact is an important element of the path forward. 2008 teaches us that listening matters, and with more budgetary constraints on the way, there is an urgent need for the community to come together to support public education. This includes the board and district talking with community members about what is important to them and presenting a research and data-driven plan with those goals in mind. In order to get funding support, the community, including teachers, must be on board and involved. Teachers are a great resource for determining the current needs of both the students

040and the buildings. They are essential partners in creating a sustainable plan and should be included every step of the way. As a parent of a child in Witchah public schools, I want the best for my kid and the other students at our school. Maintain buildings with working working HVAC, for instance. create a learning environment which can focus on the whole student emotionally, physically, and academically. Teachers and school staff will be better able to focus on students when they don't have to focus on what is or isn't working in their buildings. In order for our public schools to continue to operate successfully, I urge the board to really listen and take to heart what the community is telling them, many people here tonight are telling them, and be honest with the community about the urgent needs

041of the district. It's dire. There must be unity in the decision-making and the presentation of these real issues. And I ask the community to listen and hear the need that our schools have for providing the best for our students. Thank you, Lona. Next speaker, Eugene Cameron. Okay, I don't see Eugene present. Next speaker Dominguez. Welcome Shantel. Um, good evening everyone. My name is Shantel Nez Dominguez. I am from the Dth Nation, also known as the Navajo Nation located in Arizona. Um, tonight I'm here because, as you all know, I believe I sent you all an email regarding our youth camp coming up this Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Um, I am a parent. I'm an advocate. I've worked in the public health system programs for over 20 years. I've worked in community engagement. Um my son

042will be entering in the first grade this year. So I am very active as far as his education goes. My mother was a teacher for 35 years. And so education has always been very important in our family. Um, so back in April when the Native American parent advisory committee were told that there was going to be no summer program for our students, um, there was a lot of disappointment in the community and also within the parents in that group as well. And so as a parent and as someone who typically doesn't take no for an answer, I took it upon myself to plan this event literally on a Z budget. And I've been so blessed to have gotten the support not only from the district but also from community members uh different health insurance companies

043who are actually paying for two of the lunches. Um and then also uh Nike in7 which is a nativeowned Nike ambassador who is also is willing to help in funding this program and this event as well. Um I think I just wanted to come to invite you in person. I think it's different when you do it face to face. So, just wanted to invite you in person. I think it's really important especially now for our native communities to see our leaders in that room with us and I think it would make a big difference for us and really just drawing in more support, more dedication and to making sure that this program thrives in the future. So, thank you very much. Thank you, Chantel. And we appreciate the invitation. Latona. Next speaker, Trish Hileman. Welcome,

044Trish. Hello, Superintendent Beerfeld, President Alberts, and members of the BOE. Um, thank you for the opportunity to speak. As many of you know, I've never been shy about sharing feedback. Um, and I do so because I care deeply about our public schools and our community. Today, I want to say a sincere thank you uh for establishing the financial oversight committee. This kind of community involvement is crucial. I'm honored to serve on the committee and truly energized by the thoughtful conversations and innovative ideas already taking shape. I know many of my fellow members feel the same. With nearly 200 applicants, it's clear their strong community interest in supporting our school's financial health and transparency. You've set up this committee with some very important guard rails like ensuring only community members have a vote, not paid staff.

045This isn't a knock on staff. It simply helps ensure open, unguarded feedback. It creates a space for honesty, and new perspectives. That said, I want to offer a few suggestions um that could help build even more transparency, trust, and impact. Let the community lead member selection going forward. Uh, now that we're established, having the committee itself nominate and vote on replacements or additions would reinforce independence and build long-term credibility. Strengthen agenda collaboration. Allow the co-chairs to collect agenda topics from committee members and work with staff at least one week before meetings. Um, this gives everyone time to prepare thoughtful, informed input. Balance the conversation. ensure at least half of each meeting is reserved for listening to community voices, not just presentations. Uh the goal of this committee is to hear from the public and that

046requires space to speak, ask questions, and discuss openly. Finally, I'd love this. I actually wrote this before y'all. So, I'd love to see a staff-led version of this committee, too, uh with representation from all employee groups. I imagine the wisdom and perspective from classified staff, teachers, administrators, and others could be just as valuable in finding efficiencies and improving outcomes, maybe more. Um, I genuinely believe committees like this one can help rebuild trust between our community and our schools. Thank you again for taking the risk to do something meaningful. It matters. Thank you, Trish. Latona, next item. English for speakers of other languages program update and data. And the timing of this is is good um because of some of the comments that have made. We'll we'll talk about federal programs tonight because that's um hot

047topic and relevant to what Christine is going to be talking about tonight. I don't think this is part of her presentation, so I hope I'm not stealing any thunder. Um, but I do think it's important uh because we don't start at the root a lot of times when we when we present. We just talk we just jump in. We start talking about these are the kids we serve and they speak a lot of languages and here's all the great things we do. Um, we are constitutionally required per a Supreme Court decision in 1992 to serve every kid that comes to us regardless of citizenship status, regardless of what language they speak. So the idea that somehow cutting funding that's used to support these kids is going to help us achieve our goals for our student

048outcomes to have every kid reading um is the opposite of what we need because we're required to teach them, right? We're required to teach them regardless of what they come to us with. And that comes with disabilities and languages and all the different kinds of kids that we get. Um and I think that's part of what makes our institutions so great is because we do take them all, right? Um, but it it needs to be said, right? It needs to be said that this whole presentation is not some extra that we do for kids. This is part of the core of what we're trying to do to get every kid to be able to read. Um, and it is what we're required to do at the very basic level. So, um, I know there's other

049opinions in the in the atmosphere about that, but the truth of the matter is for us, we teach the kids that show up. And no matter what language that is, we teach them as best we can. And I think I'm biased, but I think we do a pretty darn good job of that, Christina. Don't you? So, I'll pass it off to you guys to brag about yourselves and tell us about all the good stuff. Uh, I'm really just here to uh be a really good sidekick to my fabulous colleague. Um, I'm Holly Ingram. Good evening. We're glad to be here. Thank you, superintendent, for that. We are not talking about the funding piece, so thank you for holding off those questions. Got it. Yes, we'll talk about later. We are not talking about the funding

050piece. Um I'm Holly Ingram, assistant superintendent of learning services, joined by Christina Ber, executive director of ESL programming. So we're going to run through some data and pieces about the programming. As the superintendent said, it is really good timing. Um it was just really good coincidence that this was planned. So um we're going to share just some overall data with you. As a couple of the speakers referenced, we have 21% of students in Witchaw public schools who are identified as ESOL, meaning English for speakers of other languages. ELLL is another acronym you will hear of that is the student an English language learner. And the program is ESOL, English for speakers of other languages. We have 116 languages spoken in students homes. These were our statistics for the 2425 school year. That number has been

051closer to 120. It fluctuates every year based off enrollment. 104 countries of birth represented in our um student body. And you can see on the graphic um our top 10 languages spoken in Witchaw public schools. English, Spanish, Vietnamese are obviously our top three, but you can see the other top ones there as well. Some other demographics that I think are also pretty telling of the story happening um in our district as well as across the country are enrollment trends. Um so you can see for the last four school years by month and I know those bars are really little um what our enrollment has been yeartoyear. Obviously, we would expect high enrollment numbers in July and August, but we know students don't come to um Witchaw just in time to enroll for school. We enroll

052students year round. So, these are students specifically um that are coming to enroll in our ESOL programming because English is not spoken um in the home. So, you can see, especially um with the bar graph on the right side, how our numbers have jumped significantly in the last two school years. Um, and that's going to be more in what uh Miss Ber shares with you next. Okay, just another fact. We have over 1500 ESOL endorsed staff and our schools working with our kids every day. Um, approximately 150 certified staff complete their ESOL endorsement annually. We work with um local partner schools to help us with this. um Newman, Witchaw State, K State, KU, any of those um state, local schools um that our staff um sign up. Um we pay for their endorsement thanks to

053your help. Um we pay for their endorsement, we pay for their textbooks, we pay for their um practice reimbursement, and they give us a minimum of two years um back for Witchaw Public Schools. So, we're pretty happy about that high number and hopefully we um can continue to add to that overall number of endorsed staff. Um ESOL programs provide quality education for English language learners through co-eing, embedded teaching, and pushin models. And your the next slide will kind of show you a little bit about each one of those models and how we're how we've shifted our instruction um so that we're more inclusive and students are staying in the classroom with their same age peers and not pulled out. So you have a graphic, you have co-eing and pushin. Those are very similar models. The

054biggest difference between co-eing and pushin is the planning. So co-eing there's usually some joint planning collaboration that has happened between the two teachers or the teacher and the para profofessional um and pushin you know due to timing and really trying to meet the needs of all students pushin might be the support that happens in that particular classroom it's still meeting all of the needs of students there's just not that joint planning and then embedded teaching those are the classrooms that the teachers are ESOL endorsed so if you're ESOL endorsed you may or may not have additional support in your classroom to support ESOL students. Um, so those are the three models that we're really focusing on. Again, really not really trying to move away from the pull out model, more inclusive and making sure that

055our students have access to grade level content. I'm going to talk a little bit about our newcomer programming. We're really proud about our newcomer programming and where we're at. Um, newcomer programming and support students in second through 12th grade with in limited English proficiency. So, these are students who are recent arrivals to the United States and on the placement test they are very basic level. So, we are happy that we are able to provide additional supports for these students in our in 16 of our comprehensive schools. So we have 10 elementary schools, three middle schools, and three high schools. The whole plan is to get students into the classroom with same age peers as much as possible and as soon as possible. So we are really focusing on um addressing students linguistic and academic development

056as well as social emotional and helping students adjust. We can't treat all students the same. Some students come with us with prior schooling and some have had zero schooling and they are age 16. And so we really have to be flexible and our buildings are doing an awesome job at meeting their needs. Again, our goal is to fully transition into general education classes within one to two years, if not sooner. As soon as they're ready, they're in there. In elementary, we're really trying to move towards a model where our students are in with their same age peers the beginning of the day for that second step time, social emotional class meeting time, lunch, recess, specials, science, social studies as soon as possible. And for those core subjects, these are our 16 newcomer sites. We have

057almost 1,200 newcomers as of May 2025. So, our class sizes um are quite large and we've had some support with that um moving forward next year. And also this year we added several we added four new sites. I'm gonna move to that. Um I added we added four new sites this year at elementary um and as as well as paraprofessionals. So, we're pretty excited about um how we are able to meet those diverse needs of our English language learners. Again, here's some trend data for our newcomer enrollment from the past three years. Last year, we enrolled almost a thousand newcomer students and this year almost seven 650. So again quite a few number of students who have a significant need for language development. Some exciting information um I want to share. Okay. Moving beyond newcomer

058classrooms and newcomer programming, some important data where 80% of our ESOL students um our graduation rate in 2024. I chose to focus on that elementary growth with Kalpa. Kalpa is our annual language proficiency assessment that all ESOL students take every year until they're proficient in all four domains. And you can see from 2021 to 202425 school year the um the gains that were made in elementary. I chose to focus on elementary um because we've we've added a lot of additional support to elementary this school year. From 2018 we had an increase of graduation rate 9.3%. some recent rec recent enhancements to ESOL. So last year um we were able to offer ESOL programming in all elementary and K8 buildings. So that was new starting this last year. We opened four additional newcomer sites. We adopted

059a newcomer curriculum for our newcomer programs, elementary, middle, and high. and we added eight elementary pair of professionals in October due to the growth in those buildings um where we added new programs. Some exciting things for fall of 2025, all secondary buildings will offer ESOL programs. So now all buildings K12 will have ESOL, which means students can go to their neighborhood school. They no longer have to go to another school that offers ESOL programming. We're adding 20 ESOL professionals to our K12 schools. We're adding 11 newcomer teachers and pair of professionals. And we developed with working with our newcomer high school teachers, administrators, curriculum specialists, learning services, secondary office. We worked to develop and upgrade our um program of studies for our new for our high school newcomers. So starting this year, they will be

060receiving core credits first year and not just elective credits. So we're really excited about that to get them on a good start. Nice foundation their first year in Waw Public Schools. So, this might be the part the superintendent stole a little bit of our thunder, but why is this important to us? It's okay. It's the last slide before questions and it's okay that it's my slide, not uh Miss Boyers. Um, but really, as we think about the students we serve in Witsaw Public Schools and all the data we showed you, um, our students, our staff, um, are walking in schools reflective of the community, our country, and frankly the world in which we all exist. So knowing we're sending students out to college, career, that is a very diverse workforce, very diverse universities, um whoever

061that might be, our students are being exposed to that, whether they are ESOL themselves or going to interact with others um who have been through an ESOL program. So it's preparing students um both through the ESOL programming, but also our other students to interact with what the world looks like today. It's no longer um I walk in a classroom and everyone looks and talks the exact same way I do. That's not the world in which we live anymore. Um but I also think it reflects the uniquenesses of the different cultures and countries and um all the different places that are represented in our schools. So that's really why we wanted to share this um but also the data and the background of the students and the work that our staff are doing to serve these

062students because it's not easy work. Um, and that's why as the superintendent pointed out, the money to do the work is important. So, with that, that's all of the information we have. And then any questions or anything you want to add? Before we get started, I want to ask one quick one. Newcomer sites. How are how do we select which schools are newcomer sites? Great question. Um, so we as we added the four new sites, we went to where students live, what's their base school closest to where they live. So really worked with transportation. Um Fabon was great in helping us map that out like why this school might have been a neighborhood that previously had a large newcomer population but it doesn't anymore. So we need to shift and move that. So that is

063their base school. Um so it doesn't work in every scenario but in most it does. So it's their closest school. Okay Kathy, thank you for sharing that with us. Um, I know it's going to make a student feel a lot more welcomed if they learn how to speak the language. How long has the district offered this program? I'm just looking for a little bit of the history of it. Do you know, Kelly? No. Well, I've been in the district 23 years, so I know at least that long. Okay, that works for me. And much longer before that. I I wish I knew I don't have the answer. I can give that for you. I I think it's I think it's really crucial to have this and I'm really glad that the district offers it because

064of such the diversity that we have in our school district and don't we all want our students to feel welcomed and safe? So, I think this is good. Thank you. Thank you, Kathy. Stan, I just wanted to please pass on to the uh newcomer staff uh my appreciation of their efforts. I've uh visited uh several newcomer classes in the last couple of years and I've always impressed with the eagerness of these kids to learn. It reminds me, it reminds me of a simpler time when kids came into school like sponges and these newcomers uh are just so excited to learn and they are so excited to be here and all the time while they're adjusting to a different culture and our staff has been doing a wonderful job. So, I just wanted you to please

065pass on to the staff how much the board of education appreciates their extra effort. Thank you. They work extremely hard. Um, not only newcomer teachers, newcomer pair professionals, every staff member in the building helps create this environment where students feel welcome and they're able to thrive with that. So, and and just the desire to learn is off the charts. So, thank you. Thank you, Stan. Knock. Thank you. Can you speak more to what determines when a kid moves out of the newcomer program? Sure. We've worked um really hard with teachers and learning services in the last few years to really determine what that what that is. Um this is only going to be my third year going into new into this position. Um before I I don't know if there was really established criteria necessarily

066or we just think that they're ready. Um but we have put in some criteria that really helps teachers use data to help drive these um decisions so that students are not held in newcomer classrooms that they're um out working on their language acquisition as soon as possible. So we've worked with teachers um to establish us using a lot of the same data that our other teachers are using as well as some oral language proficiency assessments. And so you mentioned that typically kids in new in the newcomer program stay like one to two years. Um two years is really what we're what we're working at. Um when looking at analyzing some data some previous data that's usually where about students were exiting two to three maybe four years. Um but two years was on the average

067of where students were exiting. So we didn't just like decide that two years was a was a good time. um we use some data to help us make that decision. What are the uh average class sizes for uh newcomer classes compared to uh like other classes? Well, they're extremely large honestly. Um and thankfully um our elementary office, secondary office, um financial office, title office have been very helpful in making a plan to help with that those class sizes moving forward. So they are large. Um anywhere from 16, we have had some middle school classes up in the 40s, which some of that is those enrollment trends, right? Like you can't predict when you may get 13 new students that are coming into a newcomer program. So it's being flexible, as flexible as we can be

068inside school classrooms and where the programming is offered. in our district. Is there a shortage of uh newcomer teachers and newcomer paras or u not traditionally we've been able to fill those vacancies before other vacancies? We do have a few right now, but those were late added positions or um teachers who um went to another position in in our district or another district. So, can I go back to your timing question? Oh, yes. I wanted to add something else. It's not two years and you have to you have to leave newcomer. If the student is not ready, we're not going to like say you have to you have to leave. We really want it to be good time um good timing for them but also using data to help drive that decision. You addressed a

069concern of mine. Thank you. Thank you. No, Melody. You um you know I'll echo what everyone has already stated. I've also been able to attend some of uh the classroom settings, uh even participate in some of the programming. I'm thinking about Pando at um when they do their financial literacy over at Coleman. And that was absolutely fabulous to be able to watch because what I was able to see was something maybe similar to what I was hearing in um Stan's comments and that is are the students that are already pretty adept in English uh English speaking skills kind of latch on and um really do kind of kind of take them up under their wing in order to help them to um I guess you could call it assimilate, but certainly uh to become a

070part of uh the the educational community andor a school community. And I I really loved seeing that. It was just it was just um not amazing but just very very heartwarming to just you know know that um they come here and typically in our settings they're going to be not only accepted but they're going to be richly uh just come on in you know let's let's work let's work together. I know that's probably not going to be everyone's um experience, but it is what I was able to see. So um that was that was fantastic. Um actually knocked asked one of my questions and that was the number of students and so what I heard was a range of 16 to 40. And how about at the I know the 40 was possibly middle school.

071How about at high school? We don't have a class size last year. We didn't have a class size over 28 in our newcomer classrooms at at the high school level. Yes. So, speaking of the high school andor secondary, um we have 21% of our student population that's approximately 21% that are ESOL. Do they all when do they actually participate in state assessments? Great question. So, if you're a newly arrived student, so newly arrived to the United States, you're you are exempt from taking the ELA assessment for that first year. You take all other state assessments. That next year, your year two in the United States in Witchaw public schools or any Kansas public school, you take the Kansas state assessment, every test regardless regardless of your competency of the English language. Yes, ma'am. You're going

072to take it. Just another point that we have been as a board as well as a um as a district have been looking at how how different uh USD2590 is comp in comparison to uh so many other urban districts and particularly rural and suburban. Of course, districts are aware of this. Um, but it does impact what our state assessment scores um end up being and um but we don't that's just doesn't seem like that's anything that is considered, you know, when from a legislative perspective particularly. Um they don't seem to be able to factor that in. that we're not this 21% of our student population is not necessarily competent. In fact, it's probably I mean it's more than that, but I mean 21% of our population have not become quote unquote literate in the English

073language, but yet they are of course still going to be assessed. So, um and it does impact our scores. That's a commentary. I'll continue to make it uh as we move forward. The other the other one is so we say that um not K but second through 12. Can you share what goes on K to and first grade? Sure. Our kindergarten, first and second grade classes are teaching those foundational literacy skills that we feel like all students would need and benefit from. Therefore, we feel like they need to be with their same age peers gaining language acquisition at the same time as their as non excuse me as English speakers. So, we want to make sure we want them to be with their same age peers learning those foundational literacy skills. We teach in our

074newcomer classrooms. I'll let you on. Um in our second through fifth grade classes, we teach those foundational skills. So, if you go to a high school newcomer classroom, year one, you're learning decoding and he phmic awareness. you're learning those foundational skills, which is kind of a shift. We haven't always done that. And so, um, we feel like our second our kindergarten through second grade classrooms are really filling that need. And so, I think I was at, um, gosh, I have to remember the who's right at Oliver and right off of Jefferson. Jefferson's um, so I was there and are they pulled. Are they pulled out or are they still in in their own classroom setting? K1 K1 are with their same age peers in general ed classrooms. General ed class. K12. Yes. Sorry. K1. K1.

075I think those are the questions that I had. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Melody. Knock. Sorry, I had some more questions. Uh, so can you go back to the elementary Kalpa growth chart? So for uh clarification, is that the uh percent of students that you know met the standards or is that the percent of students that like improved? Those are the students who met the standard. They were at a level four on each of those domains. Okay. Thank you. Uh and then the uh the next question I had so fall 2024 uh ESL programming is provided and all elementary schools all K8 schools and then uh fall 2025 all secondary schools will offer ESOL programs. Uh correct me if I'm wrong. So previously uh there were only like a select schools that you know had

076the ESOL programming. Uh so like when you had like the district-wide uh implementation were there uh like any growing pains or like any unintended consequences with just like like this like rapid expansion if you will? Sure. Um, hence the adding eight elementary paras in October. So, we I'll use White Elementary for example. White Elementary previously had a lot of students on waiverss. They're waving out of their ESOL services because they wanted to go to their neighborhood school. Well, you now have ESOL services can be provided there. So, those students, those families reverse their waiverss because we can now provide that service and support for them. So, they went from having like eight ESOL students to 50 ESOL students. So, we did have some growing pains. Um, with going district-wide elementary, we let our families choose.

077We wanted them to stay and most families wanted to stay at their school that they had been at because they had created a community. They love their teachers. They knew that they knew the staff. They didn't want to leave. They wanted to stay. But families have a choice. you want to you can stay or do you want to go to the school Kelly Elementary across the street? So, we we're letting families choose and they get to stay until they're finished with fifth grade, 8th grade, 12th grade. Thank you, Knock. Uh Christina, you had mentioned that there was a change in the high school. Um now we do decoding. Can you explain the history of that and when those changes took place? Well, it really happened with all of our letters training that we've had. Um,

078luckily we've been able to have this learning um that's focused in finan and the foundational literacy. And so, how are we going to, you know, have a student in 10th grade read biology text and they know very few letter names and sounds. So, the science of reading really helped us with moving forward and changing our curriculum to make sure that we're meeting the needs of those students. So probably in the last two to three years is when we really developed that. Okay. Um so what were we doing before that? So say we have uh a student who's a freshman or a sophomore that's entering high school. They're they're here in the country probably for the first time and they do not speak English very well. What would usually happen to that student? Well, they were

079in they were in classes. They were in literacy classes. there was a curriculum um but it didn't necessarily meet that need for the phonics and phmic awareness that we felt like our students and our that we or our teachers felt like they we needed. Um so it was a variety of things that that teachers were using to meet the needs that um they felt like they needed to they needed to meet. So it's just a much more structured way of instruction. Yes. Giving those students that that basic foundation of English. Yes. Um so one thing um in this program of study she's talking about so what might have happened a student might be in uh a literacy course for their English one credit also a literacy intervention and then maybe another literacy so they might

080have had like in a high school block schedule three of their eight classes all around literacy. Okay. Where now they might have a newcomer course and their English class then freeing up that third block since we have a more as you said structured curriculum and approach to that support they need. So then they can also be working on whatever elective credits or earning other core credits versus just being in kind of that newcomer literacy support for almost half of their school day or uh program of courses. So, that was really the work um Christina and her team did in really looking at what credits do they need, what credits are we already issuing, and they don't need to take just all of these elective credits. We needed to make sure they were getting science, they

081were getting social studies, they were getting math credits um early in their high school career versus waiting to year two or year three. Okay, very good. Well, seeing no further questions from the board, uh thank you ladies for all of your hard work and as uh Stan had mentioned, please pass along uh our gratitude to each of the staff members that you work with because we are very grateful for the hard work that you guys do day in and day out. So, thank you. Okay, Lona, next item, financial oversight committee report. So Patty is coming and we're gonna have two presentations that are separate but the same and connected and it's all it's hard to to differentiate you know where where one stops and where the other starts but uh we're going to start with

082financial oversight committee presentation and then um she'll stay put and do the budget presentation. So take it away because I have to talk into the mic. Um, uh, good evening, President Albert, Superintendent Bilofeld, esteemed members of the board. My name is Addy Lol. I'm the chief financial officer for Witchaw Public Schools. It's a pleasure to be here this evening to do an official report out of our newly established financial oversight committee. Um, it's been a privilege to lead this work. Um, we've gotten to work with some very experienced and engaged individuals to collect a lot of really candid feedback. Um, and I'm excited to share some of those points with you this evening. Um, when we established the financial oversight committee, it was immediately following a the failed bond issue in February of 2025, knowing

083that our um, funding shortages were not going away. um and a plethora of opinions uh faced before us on all the reasons why we lost a bond, if and when we should go again, how we should uh approach our our funding gaps. We knew it was best to reach out to the folks who live and work and have kids in this community um to to gain that feedback, which was why we established this oversight committee. Um and so we needed to work quickly because our issues are urgent as you guys have all heard this evening from several of our speakers. Um and so we met three times once in April, once in May, and once in June um to kind of solve the three issues um on the slide. So our committee was tasked with

084developing an unrestricted reserves policy. This makes sure that even in the face of urgent facilities needs, we still have safe cash reserves to ensure long-term sustainability for our operating budget. Um, we evaluated short-term funding or one-time cash um, year and cash recommendations. We also reviewed some longterm funding or bond issue recommendations. And so, I'm going to go over some specifics with you this evening. Um, I've shared this particular slide with the board previously. Um and I'm just going to reiterate for the benefit of repetition um for the board this evening uh some of the pressures that we face on our capital alllay fund which kind of feeds into that urgency um that that we're that we've been expressing with that funding gap um that we have right now. So right now in capital capital outlay

085our consistent revenue streams were budgeted this fiscal year well the pre previous fiscal year. Holy cow it's fiscal year 26 already. Um, our consistent revenue streams were $50.2 million and this was made up of um mostly taxes, property taxes, motor vehicle taxes, and state aid, which is another version of sales tax, income tax, etc. Um, and so we budgeted an extra $10.7 million as miscellaneous income that's not included in the $50.2 million. And that's mostly interest. And that number was about $400,000 four years ago. So this is not income that's consistent. It's not income we can rely on. We know um consistently we're looking at about $50.2 million to fund the plethora of capital outlay expenditures that you see listed on the right hand um right right hand side of this slide. We don't just

086fund facilities out of capital outlay. Um we have to fund a lot of our instructional operations out of our capital outlay fund. Some of those examples include um CTE technology and equipment, student and staff hardware, student and staff um technology and equipment. We do fund school safety facilities, repairs and preventative maintenance, um furniture and equipment replacements, uniforms for sports teams, all the good things. So, we cannot just use that money, all four facilities. It does have a lot of conflicting priorities and things that our students and staff use every day in schools. um the the gift that keeps on giving, the consent agenda items for East High and North High. Um so we've shared this information with the board as well, the growing costs at just two of our um 84 attendance centers. To date,

087East High has racked up about $19 million in structural repairs. Um, North High, we're I think we're through phase one and phase two in total um for costs that are have been encumbered up through the end of fiscal year 25. And phase three and phase four right now are estimated at an additional $22 million and that will come in upcoming fiscal years. Um, so to date, these two schools, we're planning on them costing around $65 million. Um, again, this is just two of our attendance centers that are creating a lot of pressure on our capital outlay fund. Um, and these are things we have to fix. We can't have crumbling walls, crumbling floors. Um, we have we don't have extra high schools lying around. And so these are schools that have to be have to

088be repaired and fixed. Um, I've also shared this water waterfall chart. Um, again, just to add a visual to the urgency of where our capital outlay cash is. Um, we get a lot of criticism for our cash balances. I think, uh, you'll hear from the report out this evening that we have very conservative cash. Um, and and I think our unrestricted reserves policy will help support where our cash is sitting and give you a clear picture of that. Um, but capital outlay is something specifically um, I know I watch very closely in my role because capital outlay is a fund that we don't get reimbursement for until January and February when our fiscal year starts in July. So, in order to operate at all, we have to have more than half a year of cash

089in that fund just to support operations and and and keep consent agenda items moving and so forth. And so I've kind of updated this. So we we had some estimates based on two-year averages of spending. I've updated it for what has actually happened um and estimates going forward. So there's no surprise um that our consistent revenue for fiscal year 25, we budgeted 50.2, we received $50.4 million. Um on average, we are spending in um just south of $80 million. 79 um 066588. Um and so without adding any additional funding, miscellaneous revenue, transfers from the general fund, etc., our ending cash balance at the end of the fiscal year with actual information that that our actual expenditures and revenue would have been $54 million. You add in just this next fiscal year, just what we're going

090to review in our budget report this evening. Um, so a year of average revenue and an another year of what we've been spending on average over the last three years on facilities repairs. Um, and our cash balance gets down to $25 million. That is far lower than I would ever recommend from this seat of capital outlay being that does not get us to January and February in terms of when we have cash going out the door to pay for operating expenditures. So that's just by the end of next fiscal year. you come out one more fiscal year to fiscal year 27 and we're in the hole. Um this is not something that's going to happen. This means we have to make choices. We're we're we have to cut expenditures. We have to make a lot

091more choices without any additional revenue to support facilities needs. So that picture has not changed. Um something I want to echo about uh the intention with the financial oversight committee was around these three goals. Um I think when when the bond issue um at the height of all the excitement around the bond issue, some of the feedback that we got was around improving uh accountability, um strengthening trust in the community and increasing transparency, which goes back to communicating plans. Um, we've heard a lot about the 2008 bond issue and needing to add some clarity about um all the circumstances that that changed um and address some of the concerns around the use of the 2008 bond issue funds. And so from my seat, those are the things that we are honoring through this committee. We

092want to improve accountability. We now have a 23 person oversight committee um that that has their eyes and is getting their experience with our financials and hearing firsthand from experts, not just district staff on um the financial and facilities challenges that we face. Um and so just that added layer of external accountability was something that I think we achieved with the financial oversight committee. Um we definitely want to strengthen trust. I I I said this in March, there's no way we could be any more audited than we are. Um, reading audit reports is not fun. Um, and so finding ways that we can strengthen trust outside of, you know, using creative methods, um, that, you know, maybe our other engagement opportunities haven't garnered a ton of engagement. Um, no one goes online to read our

093annual comprehensive financial report um, but they want to engage with us in person. And so adding some opportunities to strengthen trust through building relationships was another goal that we set through this financial oversight committee and increasing transparency. Um everything was laid out on the table. There was uh every every truth about our potential cash balance uh forecast and outlook was provided to the committee. um options for how we either do cost savings, uh creative revenue solutions were all presented. And so giving an opportunity to um be very transparent and honest about our circumstances, the facts, not misinformation, the facts at hand about our budget, our operating budget, and our um capital outlay, bond and interest budget was something that I think we accomplished with this financial oversight committee as well. Okay. So, I'm going to

094circle back to the actions that this committee took um and give some additional context uh that's relevant to the board. So, that first action item that we reviewed with the financial oversight committee was that unrestricted reserves policy. You um did see this at the May board meeting. Um we kind of reviewed a draft of the policy and gave some examples of what this would mean for Witchaw Public Schools. And so I believe that is on the agenda this evening for action and I'm very excited to see this policy uh go into effect to guide our work with cash balances going forward. Um so just another quick overview of this policy. There's a minimum and maximum threshold. The minimum threshold is no less than the average of one state aid payment and the maximum threshold is

095up to two months of regular operating budgeted revenues or expenditures whichever is greater. Um, if unrestricted cash exceeds the maximum threshold, uh, the board will have some jurisdiction over deciding, um, on some one-time investments that don't recreate recurring obligations, one-time taxpayer relief measures, or reallocation to restricted reserves for future anticipated obligations. We've shown this before. Um, so just for the sake of repetition, why do we need cash on hand? We need cash on hand because our district functions almost 100% on a reimbursement basis. Um, we have to collect the property taxes in order to fund our budget. State aid, the first LOB and sped state aid payment doesn't even come to us until October um when we've already been operating for four months of the year. A third of our fiscal year gone and we

096have not received any major state aid payments. Um, so there is a significant reason on on why we need a lot of cash on hand. We have to operate for an extended majority of the year without receiving state aid payments and property tax payments. Um, the topic of the hour, another reason why we need cash on hand, and this is an opportunity I will take to give a brief federal funds update. Um we got word on June 30th when the fiscal year is starting on July 1st um that dispersements to states for our formulaf funded grants that are listed here. So not all of them but a handful of them. Um our migrant are title 2a effective instruction, title three English language learners, title 4a academic enrichment and title 4b 21st century learning or stealth

097as you may know it um are being held at the federal level for review by OM. Um and that is all the update we have gotten from the federal government at this point in time. Um, this is why we have to have cash on hand in order to continue to cash flow the essential programs that are being provided by federal funds when unforeseen legislative action comes our way and unforeseen legislative action comes our way almost every year. Um, and so this is another critical reason why we need healthy cash reserves on hand. Um, just to to hopefully provide some piece on this topic. Um, and I will give you our our current KSD guidance is budget like you have it, spend it like you won't. Um, luckily we're in a better position to where we

098can make some different judgment calls on how we proceed knowing that funds are not the cash isn't coming to us yet. Um, it's in review. It's not cut for 2526. We're just waiting on further guidance. Um but in in light of those developments, we want to make sure we reassure our staff in um any grant-f funded FTE positions, there's no cause for concern um regarding their pay or their position. The district has sufficient cash reserves to continue to support these programs without interruption. Um we will, as we have it, share additional information regarding non salary spending on these grants. um from any of these impacted grants and we'll share as soon as we have updates on um on additional guidance. So, that's the message I'd like to share this evening on federal programs. Um, seemed

099to fit well fit well in our talk about cash. Can I just make sure we we're clear? Yes. We don't need to cut staff because of this situation. We are not cutting staff. We are not pausing programming. Um, we are proceeding with district support regardless. We can cash flow the programs. I still anticipate for us to be able to receive these funds at some point. Um, again, the guidance has been that it's under OM review and um, so it should be released to us. We'll we'll wait for further guidance from OM and from KSD, but we will continue to support these programs. All staff will keep their positions. They will keep their pay. Um, and programs will be offered. Melody, I clearly understand that. But of course, I'm looking forward um and really being able

100to kind of glean from some of the other activities and actions that have been taken by this administration um particularly some of the comments that have been made about public education. What if they do not release those dollars? I understand that you're saying that we have the um dollars in reserve currently. For how long? So would we start would we have to start prioritizing and looking at budgeting differently? I think every year, right, every year we have to make choices. We have legislative action um that causes us to prioritize our budget. Um we have cash reserves. We have methods of prioritizing spending. Um, I don't have a long-term answer. Uh, I think this is something that needs to go back to district administration just to talk about options. Um, this is not I don't think

101there's cause to get reactive in terms of making judgment calls on cutting programs. Um, again, we have a large budget and we can do anything with a large budget. So, um, certainly Witchaw Public Schools has offered more flexibility in terms of our ability to absorb the $6.3 million of federal funds that are currently on the table for being held. Um, so long-term is is kind of a it's a different answer certainly. Um, but we don't have enough guidance to to add any clarity if that makes sense. And I I don't know if Superintendent Belle wants to jump in. and not being reactive, but I'm talking about being proactive and actually putting pen to paper and looking at, okay, so if this scenario presents, how would we uh react to it? I'm really trying to be

102as diplomatic as possible to push us as a district in the direction of actually doing that and not just waiting. Yeah. And I think we I was going to go into some of this during my superintendent report, but um I can jump in a little bit now. um you know, Congress allocated the dollars, which is their job, and the executive branch allocated the dollars in March, which is their job. And so this caught us off guard. Um but I think I think what you're getting at is if you look down the road, it feels like more cuts could be ahead, right? So we have been advocating um both as council great city schools and as a district uh we not recently not in the last week but earlier about how important these federal funds are

103for our district. Um and again it's just kind kind of like the so conversation you know if you go back all the way to the beginning you can tell why this started right why why do we have these funds in the first place um after 50 60 years sometimes we we might forget well why why do we have these funds and especially when they have innocuous names like academic enrichment right like if we all said what does that mean we would have seven different answers up here so we would need to get into what does this program look like who does it serve, how many kids, all of those kinds of things. That analysis that we honestly do uh in an ongoing way. Um but we know those of us that have been here for

104the last two years, how difficult these decisions are. And um if if these funds go away, what portion of our budget, our total federal funds? Uh 17%. 17%. That's that's more than the 42 million we just had to cut over the last two years. So it would be And I'm not saying again, we don't need to be reactive. It's not doom and gloom. It wouldn't all go away in my guess, my estimation. Um, but it is concerning. It is concerning. $6.3 million, which is the total value of the awards that are currently being held at the federal level, is the same amount of our budget deficit that we had to resolve this year. And that was grueling work. Um, so again, not saying there's no cuts being proposed. Um, we have flexibility in order to

105look ahead and be able to absorb costs. We're lucky to have a large budget. Um, but prioritization is something we do every single year with every program. So, and and cuts at any level, federal or state, would mean prioritization. So, thank you. Um, so we reviewed the example of this policy in action on fiscal year 24's information. Um, I wanted to add some context which will be uh beneficial when we go over some unencumbered cash balances. Um, for fiscal year 24, our minimum reserves looking at the average of one state aid payment put us at uh 43.7 million. Our maximum looking at two months of operating expenditures was $92.2 million. Uh at the end of fiscal year 24 that was 58% funded at $71.6 million. So let's go ahead and look at where this is

106for fiscal year 25. Our state aid grew, our operating budget grew, our unrestricted reserves did not. Um, so our minimum reserve amount increased to $46.4 million. That maximum reserve amount is 97.9 million and we're currently funded at 42% or $68 million. Um, we'll we'll go over some recommendations that came from the financial oversight committee. Um, but we were not able to backfill some of these unrestricted reserve funds with any additional dollars to prioritize some short-term funding for facilities needs. And you can see that in um in our unrestricted reserves still within range. Um we've certainly just just lowered a bit in terms of how wellunded our um unrestricted reserves are. Action item number two. Oh, sure. real quick and see are there any any questions about that and and wanted to make sure uh framing

107this because I think this we have Eddie said there's three things you know and this we're through with the first one um so making sure we we define what it is we're talking about with this relationship between you all and the financial oversight committee um and we we do a training in the district called adaptive schools and one of the adaptive school strategies is defining the sandbox so you know as a person and group. What is my sandbox? What are my options? What are we doing with this? Um, from the get-go and continuing tonight, the Financial Oversight Committee is a recommending body. They are not a decision-making body. So, they recommended this policy that you have in front of you, but they don't make policy. You guys make policy. So, they can recommend this and

108you could say, "I don't like it, right? Or I want to change it or whatever." Or they're super smart people. It makes sense to listen to them. um but they are just making a recommendation to us. And so I think in in terms of all of these conversations, we've heard a lot about unencumbered cash balances, right? We've heard a lot of feedback from this. And so having this other group look into it and provide feedback and create policy. I think um it makes a lot of sense when it comes to these other things we're going to be talking about as far as um financial planning or facilities planning, long range planning, short-range planning. Um, again, they're making recommendations to you all. Um, and they are also topics that we've received a lot of feedback about.

109You guys have all received a lot of feedback about. So, I just want to make sure that we don't that that the relationships are clear, right? That that's the trust is built on clear expectations. And so, I wouldn't want anyone from the financial oversight committee feeling like they are a decision-making body because they're not. They made a recommendation to you all. But I also don't want you guys feeling like like you aren't the decision-making body, right? They bring you a policy, you get to decide if you like it or not. And we'll go on through numbers two and three. And I think the financial oversight committee as we continue on will have great value in all sorts of other because we have plenty of other topics that we feel like need input and need this

110kind of scrutiny and and input on. Um but ultimately the recommendations are brought to you all. I should have said this at the start. recommendations brought to you all, but it's up to you guys to make a decision to make a a final vote on these things. So, in this one, we got a little bit wonky because you actually are going to vote later on this one, but um that's part of why I wanted to stop for questions just to make sure we were good. So, uh and for the record, district administration would advise that the board approve and adopt policy 3460. Also recommend. Yep. Um okay. Action. Sure. Thank you. So my question it and actually it's clarification uh it's I'm looking at the um diagram on yeah the slide on 16 and so

111um and you already mentioned it our revenues or the the amount of funds dollars that we have was it grew 92 what 92.8 million And um but it's going but it's it's reducing. So how what are we basing that on? It's you're ahead. You're you're ahead a little bit. You haven't gotten there. Okay. Are you looking? Yep. Is it number five? Yep. So number five was an example of what capital outlay cash does without miscellaneous revenue essentially. No, I I was ahead. I Yeah. No, I I moved ahead. I got a song. That's my Eddie, could you please give us a a brief overview of why this policy is is being even recommended and why the the minimum and the maximum were established. So, um the the the minimum is essentially the um unpublished guideline

112that the district has used for ages for the balance of its contingency reserve. So, the one fund that we consider the rainy day fund that has no future planned uses. Um, another oversight body that we work with regularly who um presents us with an award of of excellence in financial reporting every year, government uh finance officers of America recommends that twomon threshold as a minimum of cash reserves. Um, knowing that we have funds that carry other cash balances, um, we wanted to consider GFOA's recommendation for unrestricted reserves for that twomon threshold as the maximum threshold for cash balances. This gives you all um complete transparency on why district administration recommends cash balances to be at a certain level. Um, it holds us accountable for making sure that we are making decisions in the best interest

113of the long-term sustainability of the district and not just issues in front of us right here and right now. Um, to quote um my brilliant colleague Connie Reddic, she said the this and the that, right? Um, we have to do this and that at the same time. And so this policy helps us to do both of those things, make short-term decisions, but also think in the best interests of the students that are going to be with us in a generation from now. Um, and so a cash balance is just a general best practice uh for any municipality to have to help guide that work so we don't get in a pickle. Um, and so that's those are three good reasons I would say we're recommending um a policy be put in place. Okay. Thank you

114for that. I think Stan, did you have a question? ready for ready. So, seeing no further questions, perfect. Continue. Um, so action item number two was a recommendation on a short-term funding solution. um which for us generally means uh allocating some one-time year-end budget fallout, year-end cash savings is what we refer to that as um into either either putting it into unrestricted reserves to better fund those or make um a recommendation to transfer those dollars into capital outlay to help fund some one-time facilities needs. Um and the recommendation from the committee that came from uh district administration's recommendations as well um was the we were able to transfer approximately $17.4 million from the general budget over to capital outlay to help support some of the needs and facilities for next year. I'd like to add

115some context to that. Right. Our anticipated bill for North High next year is $22 million. So, this one-time transfer is not even covering the costs we're anticipating for one high school next year. Um, I also want to recclarify this transfer came from the general operating budget. When we have year cash savings, we have to prioritize what to do with those urine cash savings. And we have a lot of options. We can fund one-time professional development and training for teachers. We can fund future curriculum adoptions, supplemental one-time textbook purchases, book purchases, um supplies for classrooms, additional technology upgrades. We have a lot of options in terms of how we use those funds. without the February 25th bond um referendum and knowing we have some really urgent facilities needs, those were not options for us this year

116and we had to repurpose our operating budget savings to support facilities needs and that came at at um at district administration's recommendation because of all the costs that we foresee coming in the 2526 school year. So without additional funding for facilities, we are diverting general fund operating budget to support facilities needs. I'm going to take this opportunity to kind of go over some unencumbered cash balances with you as well. This is um our year in transfers and cash balances is something that's in your consent agenda item um items and so want to just touch base on some of the major major players in that unencumbered cash balance. So, capital outlay, these are what I I'm going to refer to as the big three, right? Um, they make up a huge majority of our unencumbered cash

117and we can't use them for any other purpose than what they're intended for. So, capital outlay grew from 84 million to almost 93 million. So, an 8.8 million increase. Self-funded reserves. So, this is our um health insurance programs, dental insurance, vision insurance, as well as our self-funded disability program and workers comp programs. So, that cash balance um last fiscal year was 66.6 million, it's sitting at $67 million. And then our bond and interest fund, which last fiscal year ended at $83 million, and we're currently sitting at $94.6 million. Again, every dime of that bond and interest money is set aside for future debt payments. We cannot access it for anything else. So, we've got $94.6 million sitting on the books and we can't do anything with it. Um, it's there because it's obligated already. We

118need it for future mortgage payments. Um, so in total, the growth in those big three funds um was $20.7 million. In total, our unencumbered cash increased from 30 $348.5 million to $362 million. That was only an increase of 13.5 million. So that what that means is while the big three grew and really it's bond and interest, right? we we collected um to to pay off future debt obligations. That means cash balances and other funds decreased um because otherwise our total cash would have grown the 20.7. So cash decreased somewhere. Um so now what you will see in our our state budget forms this year is that unencumbered cash at $362 million. Um, you now have an unrestricted reserve policy that will support you in helping to explain those unencumbered cash balances and you have some

119context to answer questions about the big three funds that make up a huge majority of that unencumbered cash and that we can't use them for anything other than those intended purposes. And boy, do they have plans, let me tell you. Um, so Melody, here's slide 16. Um, this was an update considering the recommendation from the financial oversight committee to transfer that $17.4 million over into capital outlay as well as recognizing um I think it was 13 or 14 million of interest income that we transferred to capital outlay as well. So considering um that revenue and the expenditures for last year, you can see our ending cash in capital is actually $92.8 million. So we're going to do the same forecast. We're going to go out one more fiscal year. Average revenue, not taking no additional

120transfers from general operating budget and the same amount of average expenditures we've been doing over the last three years. We're at $64 million by the end of next fiscal year. That's a decent spot. Um it's it's not quite a year of operations, but it gets us through that January February timeline to to where we have to be able to cash flow expenditures. Going out one more year to fiscal year 27, your cash balance drops to $35 million. That is the lowest cash balance capital outlay will have seen since the Ganon case. 201819. Um, I would not recommend to lower your cash balance to this amount. This does not get us one extraordinary event, aka a a science wing collapsing a high school and half a year of operations. We don't have enough at $35 million

121to fund those two things. So, this is lower than I would recommend by the end of fiscal year 27. So, can I I just need some clarification? Yep. Um looking at our cash balance of beginning balance of the 84097. Yep. And change and then come going over to the 2025 ending balance um 92 887. Are we saying that that increase was mainly bond and interest? No, this is all capital outlay. So this was from general funds being transferred over to capital outlay as well as all the interest income that the district made last year being transferred over to capital outlay. So how much where do I see the breakout of capital outlay and interest? Um there should probably be a revenue report in your packet if if you want the breakout but that's something I

122could provide you. Okay. I just wanted to know. So back on slide five, that was the revenue that $50.4 million. That was the revenue without the transfer and without interest income. Okay, so it's 50.4 without those two things. Adding in those two things, it was that $85.5 million, that first blue bar. And we're estimating we're we're keeping the expenses steady, it appears. Yes. Even though we know that we do transfer funds from our general fund into this fund in order to pay for whatever it is that we need to pay for. We do. Yes. Um there are other options for that uh those year-end budget savings other than facilities. And I'm I'm saying that just to say that that 50 million that's pretty constant is more than likely more than that. It can be more

123than that. Yes, it can be considering those miscellaneous revenue sources if we transfer interest income and if we make a general fund transfer. So that's taking money outside of your operating budget which is mostly you know budgeted for salaries for those ongoing costs of the district. um not necessarily one-time facilities needs. So, we are repurposing funding that was intended for instruction to fund and transfer it over to facilities brick and mortar and that's going to impact our ending balance ultimately. Yep. So, and it did and we needed it to because as you saw the forecast without that transfer by the end of fiscal year 26 was not favorable. um the cash balance was lower than I would recommend um taking capital outlay which means we're cutting expenditures. We're not investing in facilities. So step three

124that green that's the miscellaneous that's the interest and then action step two is the 17 which is the decision being made. Yeah. So you add those two together plus the 50 and that's Yep. That's that. Does that make sense? Yes. But once I get to it, which page you So the very first Yeah. Yeah. The very beginning. So slide Yeah. slide three was the budgeted revenues. We budgeted to receive $10.7 million in that miscellaneous income, which is interest income essentially. Um some random miscellaneous bits of, you know, selling furniture or land. Um, now that ended up being more like 13 or 14 million. Um, because shout out to our treasury program. They do an excellent job. Um, but yes, that that's money that we don't always anticipate receiving. And, um, I don't know how long

125interest rates will stay at their current levels. There's a lot of unknowns in that m municipal market right now. Um, again, four years ago, that number was $400,000. So, it's not a reliable source of income that we can cash flow supporting facilities out 20 years. And I think probably the the larger point, at least for me, from my vantage point, is that's 13 million and 17 million we could have done something else with, but we can't because we have to fix the buildings. Got it. Because because of the situation, we're so textbook adoption. I know you you rattled off a few things. We wouldn't we wouldn't h people with it because it's not ongoing money. It's onetime money. But we could we could do significant things that really align more with our strategic plan. You

126know, fixing exteriors of buildings isn't really part I mean, it's kind of safety. It's kind of safety, but it really isn't the the main parts of our plan that we're trying to achieve when it comes to graduation rate and teaching kids to read and getting them ready for life. So, okay. Good. Okay. Um, so action item number three that we posed to the financial oversight committee um was looking at long-term facilities needs and funding them. Um, the committee was provided with options for funding long-term facilities needs, which included a bond referendum option um with a November 2025 or March of 2026 timeline. Um the committee was asked to collect feedback from their peer groups and community support for these options. Um at this time I'm going to call up uh a very special volunteer um

127Lindseay Po Russo who is the vice chair of our financial oversight committee. Lindsay has offered um significant experience to the committee and I'm very grateful to her for um speaking with you this evening to do the official report out on all of the actions that the committee has taken and to further address um the committee's recommendation for action item number three. So I'll turn it over to Lindsay. Great. Thank you, Addie. So morning, President or Good morning. I'm so used to being at the commission. I apologize. Just autopilot. Don't tell them I did that. Um, good evening, President Albert, Vice President McCrae Miller, Superintendent Bill, and uh, the illustrious board member. So, I do want to take a moment and say, yes, I am a volunteer, but so are all of you. Um, and you're

128here at 7:55 on a Monday night doing work for kids. And so, I want to commend you for uh, what you do and thank you for what you do. It so matters. I do work for Sedwick County and, um, your kids are our future workforce. So, we appreciate you training them up. Good. Um, I also want to say thank you for the financial oversight committee vision that uh I know that you all had. Um, and for allowing us to be a part of it and for uh also letting me sit on it has been I have learned so much. I thought I knew stuff before, but I've learned a lot. So, um, just real quick, I want to say that yes, I am the vice chair, one of the two vice chairs, uh, for our

129financial oversight committee. I sit with Paul Lavender, uh, who is the vice chair for parents. I represent community. So, I'm delighted to stand here in that capacity and speak behalf on behalf of the committee. So, as Addie said, over the past several months, our committee has worked with and learned from district administration. Addie has thrown so much information uh at us and has done a great job of explaining it. Um has been patient with all of her questions and so I just want to express my appreciation. We uh also, as Addie alluded to, have engaged deeply with community members. We were tasked to go out and talk with our circles um and find out why folks voted yes for the bond, voted against the bond, what their thoughts are on another bond so that we

130could come back and give you the best feedback possible. And I will tell you that I was an enthusiastic, proud yes voter um in February and so appreciated the opportunity to to come and learn more about why other folks maybe weren't as enthusiastic as me. So what we have learned um is that while there is absolutely support um in investing in schools, what we have heard from the community is clear and that support for a bond is not automatic. It's conditional. And what they want to understand is what exactly will be funded in a future bond. what's changed since February that would maybe make it why another bond is now uh the right time and how will Witchaw public schools ensure accountability and I think that's something that you've heard from so many of the

131speakers tonight. So there is skepticism unfortunately we all know that there was a great recession in 2008. It affected all of us. It was a recovery unlike anything else. There were federal funds. There were state recessions. There were all kinds of things that came in and played a role in why the 2008 bond issue perhaps didn't work out the way that it was visioned or originally communicated, but folks have not heard that explanation and they want it. We also know that there are uh folks who have seen the facility's master plan of which only a portion is going to be funded with the bond, but some of those items are seen as more once and less as needs. And so again, that clear communication of what will be funded with bond proceeds is going to

132be critical as a part of overcoming that skepticism. Without a compelling and transparent case, it does seem like securing that support is going to be a real challenge. We also know that tax sensitivity plays a role. So, uh, my day job is the CFO for Sedwick County. Please don't throw anything at me. I don't work in the appraisers's office. Uh, but we do hear a lot about property taxes, right? It's the Sedick County treasurer that sends out the bill and collects those funds. It's our Sedwick County Clerk that sends uh your RNR notice, all of the fun stuff that we're about to come through. So, um we know I know that property taxes are an exceptionally touchy subject right now. And so, what folks want to see is that every other opportunity to not do

133property taxes can be evaluated. Are there creative solutions? Are there ways to go to the legislature and talk about a different approach for public schools that rely so much on property tax? Also, if and this was an option that was presented to the financial oversight committee that was then presented to our peers and our circles and that was to ask about maybe breaking the bond into chunks. show the community that a smaller chunk can be achieved, done well, have it be transparent, and then come back and do another bond issue. I do think, you know, in 2008, I was living in Lawrence Rockchock. Um, I have no idea what happened to this community. But it also then means that a lot of people my age and my peer group have no idea what the basis

134was for the 2008 bond issue. We're not used to seeing bond issues on our ballots. So are there opportunities to think about strategies from that perspective? We also know that timing is critical. We have heard the financial oversight committee clearly heard the urgency that is needed. Uh we saw the same financial projections that you did and it is a bleak story. But what we have also heard from the community is that they're not ready for another bond vote. They're not ready this November. There needs to be more transparent communication and explanation and rebuilding that trust. And also nearly unanimously, I was shocked to hear that most folks actually don't want to march election either. Some people feel like they're being the word I I had heard thrown around was strategized um or manipulated to voting

135in in a special election as opposed to a general election. And I certainly understand all of the concerns. If we look at a November 2026 ballot, that's going to be a governatorial ballot. Um, there's likely going to be some constitutional questions. Uh, I've already heard uh I live in Senator Tai Mastersonson's district. I received a mailer uh just a couple weeks ago that talked about a constitutional amendment that would cap assessed values. That would have significant impact on your school district and your revenue source. So, we're not blind to that, but we also want to try and help the district get to yes. And we know that there are significant obstacles. So, for now, the recommendation is not to proceed with a bond vote in this upcoming school year for 25 and 26. And again,

136the concerns that I heard were rushing back to another bond vote, repeating whatever mistakes may have occurred in February, especially I heard earlier about the survey results. Um, and the voting just didn't match the survey results. What caused that? There are some speculations, but digging into that and understanding that uh most vid most voters indicated that they believe in investing in public schools, but they're asking for a more meaningful engagement process. They want clear and repeated communications, not just through town halls. They want authentic two-way dialogue, not just what they felt sometimes were one-way presentations of material. And most of all, a clear demonstration of fiscal responsibility and public accountability. So, with even the financial oversight committee, I think that is an important step. And I don't know how much uh awareness there is in

137the community. That is a great sound effect. You're fine. So, uh, I do think even now, um, as I get to the recommendations, you'll hear that the financial oversight committee has requested to continue to meet to try and help provide feedback, um, to to district administration, to the board as necessary to try and help shape that message and also to understand what are our kind of expanded role here. Three more meetings yet this year. It sounds like we'll have a laundry list of things to do from the superintendent. Um, oh well, you know, we're here. We asked for it, right? So, uh, put us put us to work. So, um, I think there really is a unique opportunity to build a foundation of trust, um, not just for a bond, but for the long-term health

138of Witchaw Public Schools. So again, just to kind of reiterate based on what we've uh heard and learned, the financial oversight committee recommends tableabling any bond vote for the 2025 2026 school year. Instead, we propose the district focus on three car key areas. Trust building through transparent communication, public accountability, and open financial practices. maybe even including review of current policies against best practices from GFOA which is the group that Addie referenced earlier. Um if we can help in that arena we would be happy to cross- sector collaboration particularly for largecale or innovative projects like the future ready center to leverage community and economic development partnerships because again it's a workforce issue. It's something our entire community needs. And then finally, strategic planning for the next bond proposal using community feedback, clear messaging, and verified oversight

139mechanisms to build confidence. Uh I know that our FOC members have other ideas too that they are ready to chat about um to try and add value. Uh and so we can save that for a future agenda item with the FOC. But certainly we are committed to supporting this work. We'll look forward to reconvening in the fall. Um, and again, I want to say thank you for your service, um, for engaging the community in this fashion, uh, for your dedication to fiscal stewardship. The needs are urgent, but we believe with continued collaboration and accountability, we can meet them in a way that earns and sustains community trust. So, sorry that was a lot more than I intended to say. Thank you, Lindsay. We do have a question. Stan, Lindsay, uh, the next time the committee

140meets, would you ask them a very simple question? uh tell me the question and then I'll tell you. Okay. If we wait till November of 26, that means we will have a deficit in the capital outlay budget. We will then be uh looking at telling our citizens for the first half of the school year of that when something happens there's a possibility that we will not be able to fix it. We just won't have the money to fix it. Would that ask ask the committee is it worth heading to November with the possibility that heading to November would mean months of telling the community something won't get fixed and how that would influence the election. I'm gonna take over for Lindsay because uh she probably has her own fiscal year in stuff to worry about

141or um all these revenue neutral rate statements that are about to go out, which is another fun topic we get to address this evening. Um but just for added clarity, because of the recommendations that came from the financial oversight committee, our cash at the end of fiscal year 26 into fiscal year 27 is is fine and healthy. um it's there, but the trend the trend is we're already pulling from the general fund to go over in a capital outlay. And sort of what the superintendent was saying was what we have not been clear about is the fact that and this goes back to transparency and explaining our situation. I will also make the case that a big thing happened in 2008 and that was the death of your traditional media. There is no one way

142to get out a clear message anymore about what we are trying to do with a bond issue. Uh so that is a big that's the big a big thing that happened. But the trend is we're transferring from general funds to capital outlay and if that is and that is deficits that is deficit spending in my mind and so what I'm wonder if we don't keep doing that and we can't keep being creative in the future ready centers is that worth the tradeoff of waiting till November of 26 See, I don't I don't know if that's been discussed enough and it it was and maybe not enough. I I will reserve to others what the definition of enough is, but I will tell you that it was discussed in the financial oversight committee. Um, and honest

143the honest impression from the consensus of the group was that if one went sooner, it would not be successful. That was what we we heard. Now, we're not consultants. We're not experts. We don't study boats. Um we don't know what message strategy can be done. Uh but there were some creative ideas about potentially trying to lower the current mil levy rate from 7.5 mills to allow that to continue for a bit and then potentially if you do chunk out your um bonds into future years and have less of a gap between them. But but potentially there are ways to overcome what you're talking about. Now I am not your CFO. You have an awesome one sitting right there. So, I don't want to speak for her, but I do want to give you some assurance

144that that was talked about and it was a real concern for the group. Addie made an excellent case for the urgency of what is needed for Witchaw Public Schools, but unfortunately, we just the data that we heard from our peers and our circles and again people who want to support schools was that the confidence was not there. Some somewhere there's a gap. So, they feel that a tax rate increase bond issue could win. They're actually while the general consensus from what I heard was that a level tax rate or a decreased tax rate is preferable. If the case could be made, there would potentially be support for that. And then when you went to the bond and said, uh, we're now going back up to 7.5, which is still well below what our surrounding suburban

145communities have invested in theirs. That now we're talking about a tax increase just to get us back up to what we were. My only hope for you is our assessed value is going up. Mine went up 8.6%. So a mill is worth a lot more now than it used to be. Another fun topic that we'll be discussing this evening. It's my only consolation is I I think depending on strategy, which I will defer to Addie, I think there are opportunities. I truly do. I I would not stand here look you in the face and carry this message on behalf of the financial oversight committee if I did not truly think there was a path to success. I want to thank Lindsay and the rest of our committee members who donated a lot of time to

146carrying out these tasks and attending these meetings and learning all the fun things about school finance. Um, these were uh individuals who want a yes vote for Witchaw Public Schools. They want to see us succeed. Um, if they weren't I'm I I I just am incredibly grateful for all of the contributions from this volunteer committee and their work. Um this was not a easy thing for them to take the district administration recommended options and go off chart, right? Um to come back with candid feedback for us to listen to. That's not an easy thing. Um and so I commend Lindsay for your willingness to stand here tonight to share that feedback. I know it's very difficult. Um I I have really appreciated working with this group to making sure that we do what's best for

147kids. Um, sometimes that means we have to do what's best for adults. And so that's what property taxes are sometimes. Um, I the candid feedback was was something for us to consider and think through as we're looking ahead um to mill levy recommendations, looking at assessed valuations, looking at our RNR. Um, and so unless there's other questions, I'd like to release Lindsay. Um, and I can move on to some other relevant facts that I think will help drive some additional conversation on this topic. Lindsay, thank you very much for your time. We appreciate you being here at after 8 o'clock at night with us. Um, we will be here much longer. Uh, but um, with that, Addie, go ahead. Perfect. Um, so I'm going to jump into kind of the budget report. Um you've seen

148some of the action items that came out of the financial oversight committee and and I'll share some additional details about how that looks in our upcoming budget. Um we're approaching um this was kind of our year- end meeting and we need to have some conversation about our mill levies as we approach the July 20th deadline to submit our revenue neutral rate um intent to exceed revenue neutral rate form. Um August 4th we will um look to review to publish our notice of hearing and September 8th is se set for both our budget and revenue neutral rate hearings as well as the budget adoption. So those are kind of the remaining major milestones along our budget timeline. Um so we're going to chat about mill levies and a lot of what we accomplish with the financial

149oversight committee is going to contribute into this conversation this evening. Um so every board member that's here tonight has been through this revenue neutral rate process I think at least twice um once or twice but for the benefit of the group want to make sure that um there's there's a lot of moving pieces and parts in school finance and so reminders at times are nice. Um, so revenue neutral rate means that for the upcoming tax year, so we're looking ahead at 2026, um, that we would generate the same property tax revenue as we levied in the previous tax year or 2025. This means if we do not exceed the revenue neutral rate, there are no new funds to pay for our increasing funds. We get the same amount next year as we got this year.

150Um, it comes with an added slew of deadlines that do not organically fit into our school finance um, process. Um, so I would never recommend having to publish a um, estimated mill levy on July 20th. Um, but that's the deadline for when we have to submit this form to the county clerk so they can generate estimated property tax bills to send send out to constituents with a mill rate that's not going to be the mill rate that we ultimately adopt and approve in our budget. Um, we have so they'll send out all of those mailers which I think is what generates some activity for you all. And so that's what's relevant in our conversation is I want you to feel prepared for the mailers that will go out um so you can help to deter

151um fears or questions related to those estimated property tax statements. Um we'll hold our hearing on this intent to exceed the revenue neutral rate and our budget um on September 8th. We have to submit our budget to KSD by the 20th um and we submit it to the county clerk by October 1st. So those are some of our upcoming combined deadlines. They don't all fit well together. um but we make it work. So when we start this conversation to look at what our mill rates have to be, there is a lot of moving pieces and parts and things that change. Um we talked a little bit about unforeseen legislative activity. Um there's there's some unforeseen activity that occurs um with assessed property values with the state aid rates that we get, but the basis of

152where we start is what do we need to operate in the upcoming fiscal year? And that comes back to our budget. And so, um, I've shared this with the board a couple of times previously. I do want to share an update to the base state amount. We've been previously, um, looking at estimated operating budget amounts with a base dated amount of 5611 that has finalized and is 56:15. So, it's positive. Move in the positive. Um, these numbers will adjust slightly as we complete the state budget forms and bring our notice of hearing back to you because we want to estimate a little bit higher. We want our legal maximums to give us some flexibility um just in case we have, you know, additional prek enrollment, additional ESOL contact hours, etc. So, we're going to come

153in a little higher. Um, but that's what we actually anticipate will will be our budget in the upcoming fiscal year. So this is the basis of where we start. So then we have to take other factors into consideration. Um Sedick County assess valuations um is an unknown to us. We have to receive these amounts by June 15th when we start our fiscal year on July 1. That's not a lot of time to plan. Um and so we get these estimates and these are not finalized until November. So these numbers change for property owners as well. We operate on these estimates um to create our budget and and then they kind of finalize on property tax statements through November um for the 2026 upcoming tax year. Right now we are anticipating an average increase of around

1548.7% on property values in Cedric County for Witchaw Public Schools um property owners. So LO um will is looking at an 8.5% increase in assessed property values. The general fund is 9.8% and capital outlay is 8.28%. Um so when we have an eight um eight mills levied on capital outlay and and um and your assessed valuation goes up and we're keeping our rate the same. We do generate more in local property taxes. Let's talk about where this bites us in the the behind. So in our school finance formula, we also receive some equalization state aid and various funds. And so what the state does is they collect all the property tax values from every county across the state and they index you. They say, you know, on the spectrum, this is where your district falls

155in terms of how wealthy or poor your district is because of your assessed property values. And so they place you on that index. they assign the rate of of equalization state aid you are going to receive. So we're talking about planning for your 71 fiscal year start date based on data that they don't give to us until after June 15th. Um counties don't have to report this until June 15th. So somewhere in between the last three weeks um KSD was able to give us these equalization state aid rates because of the rate of how our assessed values have gone up in the in this in this upcoming tax year. We are actually losing money on our state aid percentages. Um the rest of the state did not keep up with our assessed valuations. That means

156the state expects us to use more of our local property tax dollars to support those budgets. So we are seeing significant decreases in the level of state aid we will receive in the supplemental general fund, the capital outlay fund, and the bond and interest fund. So yes, while our assessed valuation goes up, our state aid goes down. It's a net net, right? For my clarity, as much as anything, that index that you talked about was completed by county. So, the the counties complete all of their assessed valuations and they all have their own methods for how they value um you know, value properties in their counties. They submit that data to KSD. KSDE then puts every district on a scale essentially to determine where you fall across all the districts. If you fall in the

157middle, if you kind of are on the higher end, if you fall on the lower end, and then they assign you a state aid rate based on where you fall in that index By district. Yes. By district. Thank you. Um so again, decreases in state aid percentages means that all of these associated budgets need to be supported with larger percentages of local property taxes. So here's the fun slide and we'll just go line by line. This is another commentary but um it's the state. I mean, they supposedly gave us a property tax reduction and then they reduced our state aid based on the fact that they didn't increase their assessed valuations. What the heck? Well, I have the same question. Um, the the intention. And so the the history of the equalization state aid is

158that um that poor districts are getting a higher proportion of um of state aid distribution and because assessed values in Sedick County have increased that that means our wealth is higher compared to other districts in the state of Kansas. So the mechanism is working as it was designed in the current school finance formula to help supplement districts who don't are not driving property tax um revenue because their assessed values are lower. It goes to support them and we have been the benefactor of that. Many school districts do not receive any equalization state aid. So we do benefit from it. um it's not a bad thing, but the concept of assessed values are increasing. So that means your budget is going up, that's not always true either. Um we are impacted in multiple ways in multiple

159revenue streams. And um this year, not every year, this doesn't happen to us every year. This year, because of that very high rate of increase to our assessed valuations, we're losing money in state aid and we have no control over this. So, it's not always a bad thing for Witchaw public schools. It has benefited Witchaw public schools a lot to have that equalization state aid. This year, it didn't help us. These these decreases are bigger than these I have never seen us I've really only seen us increase or stay pretty flat. It's been within 2%. So, this 7% decrease in state aid on capital outlay and bond and interest is painful. Yeah. Wow. It's painful. And this was um details we learned after the last financial oversight committee, right? So um these constantly changing circumstances

160are always coming our way. Another great reason to have cash on hand. Gosh, I am just a broken record tonight. Okay. Um so here's kind of a revenue neutral rate summary. And I know there's a lot of numbers on this slide, so I want to go slow and I want to make sure um that we have a deep understanding of of what each of these things mean. So I'm going to start in that kind of second teal column, 2024 25 actual mill rate. Um so this is the mill after all the final assessed valuations and all the property tax collections have come in. This was what we actually levied and the mill rate that was used to levy those taxes for last fiscal year. Um so the general fund again is uh set by statute

16120 mills capital outlay 8 mills um maximum also set by statute. Our supplemental general fund last year um was at 15.776 mills. Um you see an asterk next to this because you will remember that we bought this down using some contingency funds. We intentionally lowered this mill. Um it this supported us with some budget reduction process. So, we intentionally bought this mill down. Um, our actual bond and interest mill rate after final assessed valuations, it wasn't 7.5, it was 7.511. That just comes because after final final assessed valuations were a little lower in November than they were in July when we prepared our budget last year. And so, these numbers always change. They always change a little bit. um for special liability uh we levied a 0.1 and the cash balance in that fund decreased

162significantly because in order to help levy or um uh level out the rest of the mill we wanted to take that one down a bit but we still needed enough coming in to help support operations in that fund. Um, so that total other funds is the combination of supplemental general, bond and interest and special liability. And that is pertinent because the county only gives us a revenue neutral rate for all three of those funds combined. They don't break it out. And so we combine them for those purposes. Our total mill rate for last fiscal year uh was 51.387. So this revenue neutral rate process, the county then communicates to us what our rate would have to be in order for us to stay revenue neutral. And you can see that in total, and I'm going

163to drop down to the very bottom row, total increase or decrease. In order to stay revenue neutral, we would have to decrease our mill rate by 4.14 mills. This board always takes a conservative approach with our mill rate and offers property tax savings through reducing the mill rate when possible. I have never seen a mill rate reduction of that amount. Um, and as you will see in kind of that green column next, it's really not possible with our budget this year. We cannot stay revenue neutral. There is no way without significant cuts to our budget. There's no way to stay revenue neutral. Um, so the 2526 estimated mill rate column, and I want to reiterate, this is still an estimate. Staff are still working with those budget forms. There's still a lot of incoming facts.

164We don't have all the facts to build this budget yet. Um, so even between now and the 20th, things may change a little bit between now and August 4th when we bring our kind of final budget picture to you, this will change. We'll have a more solid picture. So this is estimating conservatively. Um, and so we'll just kind of go through these these pieces as well. General fund again set by statute 20 mills capital outlay considering our extensive facilities needs. I would never recommend loving anything less than the maximum authority of 8 mills. right now in the supplemental general fund because we bought that down and we cannot continue to buy our mill rate down forever. Um because our state aid has decreased in our supplemental general fund and we have to make that up

165with some local property taxes. Um our estimated mill rate in the supplemental general fund is 17.314 mills. So that's up a bit from the 15.776 that we ended the last fiscal year with. Looking ahead at bond and interest um with the assumption of not having an active bond referendum in the 2526 school year, but still looking ahead at what we need to collect to support our existing debt schedule. having to take into consideration that our state aid decreased a lot in bond and interest as well. Um our financial adviser has recommended a mill of 5.5 mills in bond and interest for special liability. We did drop that down intentionally last year. our cash balance dropped and and we do have um costs coming out of that fund and it needs some replenishment and so looking

166to levy a.5 mil for special liability. In total, our estimated mill rate right now is 51.314 mills which is just a slight decrease. Um you can see the additional taxes each of these mill rates levies based on the assessed valuations of um each of these individual funds. Um but this is the money that we need that will essentially replace the state aid that we are losing from that equalization aid. Um so in total that's kind of what our estimated mill rate is going to be. I want to talk um about what this means for taxpayers. Um, again, this is not final, but this may be an example of what they could see on their um, estimated statement that will go out here in just a few short weeks. Um, and this is the just for

167the median home price in Witchah right now. And again, not every single homeowner or property owner will see that flat 8.7% increase. Some may see higher, some may see none. Um, so this is not a acrosstheboard methodology that will work for everyone, but on average, if you have a median home price of $200,000 last year, um, with a 51.387 mill rate, you were paying $1,181.90 to Witchaw Public Schools. considering an 8.7% increase to your um your appraised value of your home um with a 51.314 estimated mill rate. You're generating your home is generating um $1,282.90 for Witchaw Public Schools. So, this would be an incre an annual increase of $101. It's about $841 a month for um a property owner of a median home price. So, what is our revenue neutral rate form going to

168look like? Um, there's still a lot moving, lots of pieces and parts, and I my job is to allow us as much flexibility as possible as we approach, uh, approving and adopting those mill rates in the budget. And so, um, giving us some leeway once we fill this form out and those estimated property tax statements go out, we cannot levy any more than we have put on, um, on that statement. So, and we we come in lower. So, we always want to go high on this form because there's no opportunity to go higher after we fill this form out. So, I wanted to provide you what uh what you will see even on your own estimated property tax statements from Sedick County and what constituents will see in terms of that estimated mill rate. This

169will not be our final mill rate. It's higher. We're going to come down when we look at the budget in August. Um, but I think it's fair to share with the board ahead of you potentially see receiving some feedback um on from from local constituents on um this estimated property tax statement that they'll be receiving. So, with that said, I think that's the end of all the fun topics I have for you all this evening. And I know we're eager for some discussion and questions. I'm going to look to Superintendent Beldeld to add some context. So, I one question I should know this stuff, you know, I've been here three years too. So could you tell us if you go back to slide 25. Okay. I think I understand but I want to make sure

170it's clear for everybody. Why is there no bonded interest in that middle column? Um so when they give us that revenue neutral mill rate from the county they lump all of those other funds into one number. Okay. So they don't break out what would be revenue neutral between lob bond and interest and special liability. They just give us one lump sum. So if the decision was to stay revenue neutral, we would take that lump sum and we divide it between those. That's right. Yeah. Okay. Um the other thing that that Addy and I I obviously the the state aid curveball that happened in the last I think it was right before week and a half. Yeah. Yeah. about 10 days ago when Addie texted and was like, "Hey, by the way." Um, I think that

171that changed some things. I think there'll there'll be more information to come. Um, I do think there's there's no decision tonight that needs made other than is the consensus to exceed revenue neutral rate. So, we don't have to we don't have to land on a on numbers tonight. Um, and I think it would make a lot of sense to schedule a workshop in the next week or two to dig into this, be able to ask some more questions because it's a lot to swallow. So, um, I'm not saying we have to do that, but I would just offer that as a suggestion because heck, I've had a lot of questions tonight, so I'm sure everybody else does, too. So, okay, Kathy. Oh, yeah. Can you not Oh, I'm sorry. Can you not log in, Kathy?

172Thank you. Okay. So, you kind of alluded to this that this information on the state aid rates came out after the oversight committee met. That's right. Do you think that if the oversight committee learned this, they might change their mind? I am not going to ask Lindsay to step back up to the podium or speculate about um about political opinions, but well, I think that it would behoove the district if the oversight committee knew about this as soon as possible um because if they needed to come up with some creative ideas um to move forward with what the district needs. I mean, and also I wanted to this kind of goes with it, um, with with the federal pause, how is that going to affect all of this? And that we're at a critical point

173right now with our district and we are going to have to do something and if the oversight committee can come earlier than later and um yeah, the committee did request some additional dates in the fall. Um and so we're eager to share developments with the committee, extra pressures that the district is facing financially. Um the truth of the matter is every year we face these kind of pressures. We're in we're in a state of declining enrollment. We're constantly having to evaluate financial pressures. Um so this was a very experienced, very intuitive, very supportive group of individuals. Um and so you know I think they see the challenges, they know the challenges. Their kids go to school in our buildings. They they see it firsthand. Um so they they want um you all to be successful.

174They want us to be successful. So their feedback was um in the best interest of that success and um yes I think the committee was very well aware that there's constantly additional pressures that are facing but everything's moving. Um so what's going on right now might not be going on next week. Well and this goes back to what the superintendent said about the committee made a recommendation about facts that they had as of June 18th. facts have changed and um you all are the deciders. Um they made a recommendation about the facts they had and the info they got. We have additional facts. Um we will continue to have additional facts that will impact our our budget and our decision-making. Those will never stop. Um and so you all are ultimately you guys get to

175adopt and approve the mill rate. Um you guys are the ones that um that adopt and approve a bond resolution. So you can take the facts from me, you can take the feedback from committees, you can take the feedback from um our amazing principles who came back and spoke this evening, from our business partners and community partners um to ultimately make that decision on behalf of the district. And this is just one piece of the puzzle that we have to have done and do by July 20th. That's it. Knock. Yeah, I was going to say I support the recommendations of the financial oversight uh committee. I support Trish Hollowman's recommendations and I do support Katie Warren's uh recommendations. I do want to elevate one recommendation in particular and that is to for the financial oversight

176committee uh moving forward to have a designated educator representative and to have a designated uh classified staff representative um on the financial oversight committee. Um, if a board motion and a board vote is what it takes for that to transpire, I will gladly uh initiate that process. Thank you. Um, I will pose the question to you, Addie. Uh, what options are there on the table? I guess Gil is the is the official chair of the financial oversight committee to answer Knox's request. Um and you know Katie and I have had really good conversations about this and I think um uh the the intentions from the get-go with the financial oversight committee were parent and community, right? That that was the whole point of it. But have we seen a lack of engaging educators in the

177last few months? 100% yes. I don't know that the solution is to add communic, you know, staff onto this group. Um, but there is in my mind there is a solution where we engage staff in a in a in a better way, a different way and not necessarily a different way, but maybe a parallel way. Um, we have a meeting tomorrow. We really wanted to get through tonight to see kind of where everything what what the timelines were like. Um, we have a meeting tomorrow at at 11 to for this very topic of what does uh staff engagement look like moving forward. Um, so I don't know if that is the answer, but that's that's the answer at at 8:30 tonight. Um, I I recognize it. I mean, I recognize that uh we can't do

178this without um not only just teachers, but you know, Matt and Connie and everybody else, right? Um, we need those folks that live it to help us understand it. Um, because even a financial oversight committee, our kids go there, right? But our kids all go to different schools. There's 90 schools. Um, we don't live it, right? We don't live it the same way that a teacher does. So, um, but but I don't I I'm not I'm not certain that the answer is if we if we put one teacher and one classified staff member on this group, problem solved. Engagement happens, right? I I don't know that that's really the answer. So, I don't know. Is that fair? We we just to go back, um, Superintendent Bofeld mentioned a parallel way to engage staff. I think

179we have some ideas. Um I'm only one human. I can only do one committee thing at a time. Um lots of ideas as I've stepped into this role in terms of how we can engage staff in meaningful conversations around the budget. Um the financial oversight committee is a very directed group um with a task assigned and delegated by the superintendent. Um, I do think that parallel opportunity to engage staff um to to have those meaningful conversations and prioritizing the budget and spending is what we are looking at had to do with one priority over the other. Um, and the the thing about the financial oversight committee that I reiterate, I see the value in engaging staff. Um, you heard from two of our excellent principles who live this and breathe this every day who spoke

180to you this evening. tremendous value in what they bring. Um, oversight comes with a need to have a um, no personal stakes associated. I think Connie and Matt were so brave to come and and share their challenges and their recommendations, but sometimes sharing opinions in a room that that needs oversight, it needs true oversight. Um, there's not safety in the room. when when personal stakes are in the picture, it can change opinions in terms of recommendations that may come to the board. Um, right, like bringing an employee uh some details about, hey, we've got some year in cash savings, where should we transfer them? The conversation may become about like, well, why didn't you pay me more? And that's not really the priority of the group. Um, there are other opportunities for those conversations and

181we want to have those other opportunities. is. And so I will just reiterate, we've got thoughts around that parallel opportunity. Um and so I don't think it needs to be a board vote. Um we want to continue working in that direction and intend to. So um and and just want to engage in future conversation about what that right engagement opportunity is. So I think what I'm hearing from tonight in Knox's comment is there is support for a parallel opportunity to engage more staff members. Um because one of the things I've heard multiple times this evening is we want to hear creative solutions to solve some of the the budgetary issues and uh also in building management and that probably comes best from the people that are living in the buildings day in and day out.

182And so I think having a parallel group where we can hear more staff member voices instead of just adding uh maybe two people to the financial oversight committee might be a better option um to hear these voices directly uh and engage with them in a different way. So I think moving forward the board would probably like uh an update on what the district's plan is to engage staff on a better level. We should have this week. Okay. Yeah. Very good. I do want to point out like I do think um um I won't steal an example, but teachers are some of the most create creative people I've ever met. And if if there is a a leak, they will figure out how to put a bucket under the leak and teach around the leak. If

183there is a AC that doesn't work, they'll move to the hallway. I want to be careful with the word like creative solutions because we already do these creative solutions because the facilities aren't adequate in too many of our buildings. So, it's good to be creative. I think we want to stretch I mean we want to stretch ourselves and we don't want to just you know have our hand out for more taxes all the time. Um but there is a limitation I mean when um the county faces the same things. I know there's a limitation to the ability to to go after grants or to go after private donors or to go after whatever. We've done a number of those things and we're working hard on those things, but um there's limitations to that and we

184have needs that are very very big. So, and I didn't mean to discount what you were saying by being creative, but we've heard it a lot from from all sorts of people that teachers will be creative, man. They they will be creative. Um but is that really what we want our employees to do? um to duct tape the window so the snow doesn't come through. That's super creative, but is that fair to our employees? Not really. Right. It's not. So, and I think to to my end of the creative solutions, and I think to other comments, I appreciate you bringing that up, but um sometimes and a lot of times the people that come up with the best solutions are the people that are in the buildings day in and day out for this example.

185And the board members are not typically the ones in these buildings 40 50 hours a week. And so we want to give an opportunity to hear from the people directly. Um and I think it creates a more organic solution. Um so I don't I don't want the I don't want staff members to come with ideas of duct taping the window shut. I don't want to hear that kind of creative solution. But uh to your end that staff members are super creative. Um I think there's probably untapped ideas out there that we haven't really heard because we haven't given that space for it. And so um I think what we're trying to do is just create a framework where we can hear that hear those suggestions, hear those comments, and a lot of times make direct

186changes from that. And so um so staff hear me clearly. I don't want to hear duct tape windows solutions. I don't I don't want God bless you for being creative. But um I think there's a higher level of problem solving that is housed within our district and and those are the kind of solutions that I think the board would like to hear. Okay. Uh Julie, I just have clarification questions. Yeah. First of all, the only decision we have to make is whether or not we're going to exceed revenue neutral. Um, so there's no vote. Um, it doesn't require a board approval. My unless there are concerns to be discussed at the board table about our intent to exceed. I will provide you with the final form before we send it out so you all are

187prepared for the mailers. Um, what I've presented to tonight is there's the estimated mill rate that I want you um to feel comfortable with as we approach August meeting and then you've got the example of the form that will be sent out and I will send you the final final version. Um, I just wanted to make sure tonight's meeting is all about making sure that we're on the same page of we do intend to exceed the revenue neutral rate. So, but but the the numbers that you had in the form are not necessarily firm. They are not. Okay. It's just that we intend to exceed correct. Correct. Okay. So, that's my first clarification. My second one is on this on our form here slide number 25 um where you know we've get the final number

188of the 15 million 15 and a half approximately additional taxes raised. You said all that does for us is just make up the difference. Not 100%. And so the general fund um that we don't get equalization state aid in the general fund, right? But pretty much in every other fund, not 100%, but most of those additional property taxes raised are going to offset the loss of state aid. So when a lot of times when we're looking at this number, we're thinking, oh, that's the additional revenue that we're going to have in order to give teacher raises or this, that, and the other. But all that does for us this year is just offset what we're not going to get from the state. That's right. To piggyback on Julie's question on slide number 24, we've got

189percentages of what the state aid decrease is. Do we know what the numbers are? The dollar amount is Can you repeat that? Uh on slide number 24 we have percentages of the decrease. Yes. Yes. So Julie's asking about there's a 15 dollar increase, but what is the dollar value of the state aid decrease? Yep. So we can know what that difference is. Are you done? Okay, Melody. So actually I'm going to go back to the request that um board member Nakan has made and that is and ask from a legal perspective is it the role of the board to make that decision to vote um whether or not if we'd like to add an additional individual if it's UTW president um to the committee. So, this is a superintendence advisory committee, not not a board

190of education advisory committee. Um, so, well, what what I'm hearing is he works for the school board. So, is there so is is there any reason from a legal perspective um to far that out? I I'd like to know. I'd just like to know who's I understand that it's the superintendent's board. There's no or committee. I don't think there's any legal issues. Is that your question? No, not that's my question is under whose authority is it is and decision is it as for who who selects members to go on the board? I know we gave recommendations as board members. We didn't make the selection. So we can legally add So I'm hearing from board member, we can add. We could legally add. Yes. Okay. Well, it sounds sounds like I've got my answer. Okay. So,

191it sounds like that the board can make that decision. Well, I have a question and piggyback on you. What was the reason that they were not invited in the first place? Well, I mean, why are we here? Why are what here? Why are we at this point where there seems to be a conflict, but they need to be present because Aren't they part of the district? Well, so no, the the makeup of the committee with the three meetings that we decided on at the beginning was that it would be community and parents. Okay. There that no staff members vote on this committee. The only voting members are are community and parents. Correct. So that was that the right way to do it? I don't know. I mean, you could anybody could say nope, that was

192a bad way to do it. But that's what we decided. We decided we're going to have three meetings in March, April, and right after tonight. We we really needed tonight to kind of gauge direction and board um desire of of where we go from here because they I mean they made a recommendation. Lindsay did a great job of explaining it and now we're kind of at a point where we have a decision to make and not necessarily tonight. That's why I think we need a workshop, right? But I do think it'll be important to know from you guys perspective what do you want if we're going to have three more financial oversight committee meetings? What do we want those to be about? Right? What do what's the intention of those meetings? What are the problems

193we're trying to solve? So, I guess I'm talking about something different. I was talking about what knock brought up about getting other people the union into this group because they are part of the district. Yeah. So, and my question was why weren't they there in the beginning and you told me so what is stopping this board from saying you know they can they need to have a presence there? Sure. I mean, nothing. That's all I wanted to know. Yeah, I think that was maybe Melody's question, too. And you did. You did. So, yeah, it was just just clarification. I don't know that I don't know that we would I think adding staff members as voting members of this group changes the group. So, if that's the will of the board, we could do that. But

194I think Connie was Connie Reic was on the team, but she wasn't a voting member. Right. They don't have to be a voting member, but they need to have a presence to be there at the meeting, right? To be in the circle, but perhaps not a voting member. I don't know. Yeah. No, but to your to your point, the conversation that I I heard when um UTW President Katie Warren gave her her her report was that I I don't think it was it was about voting. It was about actually being able to have com to hear from individuals as um board president Diane Albert has mentioned also the importance of having those voices at the table when these decisions are being made. So it it's it wasn't about the vote I don't think. I think

195was more about the conversation and the voice that um the the expertise that those individuals bring. So, so back to the point if this it I will um sorry place on the table for our president to you know to either or if if board member uh Nvon wants to call a vote. It sounds as though the board is potentially uh ready to to make a decision here. But I'll leave it to you. If I I'd love to make a recommendation. I I I really feel like we have some um after we get feedback from tonight and we can collectively put our all of our better heads together tomorrow, bring back a report to kind of that parallel opportunity where staff will have a better voice to participate in giving feedback on financial issues. The financial

196oversight committee is very narrow in focus. they're going to get one issue per year to look at. Next year it might be enrollment fees. Um I don't know how much um excitement there is going to be on attending three committee meetings um reviewing local enrollment fees and um there could be a lot. I don't know. It's a very narrow focused group and I think what what we want to honor is that experience and we value educator opinions and feedback on our budget tremendously. and we want to give a more meaningful opportunity to engage staff on on meaningful things that that impact our budget versus the narrow focus of the financial oversight committee. So, and it's possible we could do both, right? That's possible that we could do what Eddie just said and add teachers to

197this group. We haven't scheduled any ex more meetings for the financial oversight committee. Is that true? That's true. So, I think once we get to that step, we can evaluate. Um, this is from from some of you guys. I mean, I of course appreciate the feedback, right? Um, as always, if this is the will of what we want to do, I don't have any problem with it. I I I do truly believe though it needs to be something more than just that. Even if we do that, right? If you want to take a vote, put somebody on the committee, that's I don't have any problem with that. But it really needs to be more than that. I don't know that that would be sufficient. So for me for what I think we need so and

198I think we're very much um in agreement with that because again my my take is that uh like hey this is just uh one small step one small solution toward this broader uh process and goal of you know how do we more meaningfully engage uh staff families uh communities and the decisions that we make uh as a district. So I appreciate the discussion. And I think um the will of the board without taking a vote necessarily is that we do hear more from staff. And I think the previous conversation of potentially having a parallel uh financial oversight committee with staff members and then probably adding on some staff members onto uh the existing financial oversight committee would probably be a working solution. and what I'm hearing from you, is that something that um you guys

199are going to be discussing and looking into? Yeah. So, I would say the second part of what you said, yes. The other part, what in my mind, if we were to pull 12 staff and create a committee, I still don't know that that would be adequate voice in my opinion for really what we need to do, right? So, in my mind, it's it's probably much broader and bigger than that. So, I just don't want to commit to that, right? say, "Well, Kelly said on July 7th there was going to be a parallel group, and so when they vote and they vote and it's all the same topics, I'm not I'm not sure that's exactly what we need. Um, it's probably not enough." So, if they're okay with that, yes, that's fair. Um, I guess and

200we're getting off into the weeds on the discussion. So, um, to continue off into the weeds just for a few more minutes, um, I think there are, you have talked about major changes to the building site committees and so maybe that is an avenue to collect this information because that would be made up of staff members and community members and local businesses and everything to get a broader perspective. Um, and maybe we can use that as a framework to to hear sufficient staff voices for this. Um, that's just an idea. Um, putting that out there for you, but that is something that is uh a large change that's going to be happening this next school year for previous school years. Yep. Yeah. And I think the point one of I don't want to put words

201in Lindsay's mouth, but I do think this is this is bigger than just a yes no bond vote, right? This is bigger than that and this is not a one-time thing. Um this is an ongoing conversation that that needs to continue and some of what we've needed to do um is align our infrastructure to match this demand. Right? So we've added um the parent engagement specialist that's working with Gil. Um we we're we're going to reframe the community engagement position. Um it should be posted if it hasn't posted already sometime soon. Um building side councils, right? It's not just about we we can't just show up once every 20 years with our hand out and say hey go vote yes. It has to be something ongoing and that's with staff as much as it is

202with Joe Blow community member and parents and community and business and everybody. So um we've definitely learned that and that's a bit why I think I've told most of you guys on the board um in a in a weird way even though it's a ton of work. a ton of work. Um the no vote might have been the best thing that happened to us as a district because it's really made us evaluate how we've operated in some of these spaces instead of just saying um you know here's how we go after a bomb vote. You listen to a consultant and you do this. Um it's really how do we really engage in a meaningful way that's not just one time it's ongoing. Um and we've done some good things with the building needs assessment. I

203think I think that's been a good start, but I think there's so much more we could do um with this and we're trying to put some things in place to to be able to move that direction for next school year, but we we've really been building it this summer. I mean, in a lot of ways. So, I can offer an update this week and then you guys give me feedback on that. How does that sound? Does that I think that sounds good. Uh so, next steps moving forward. Um, thank you. Uh, getting back onto the topic. Uh, Stan. Okay. I was just going to ask a clarifying question. Uh, since knock raised the question, it has set off kind of a workshop discussion. And so I need a clarification. Uh, Kelly, you mentioned our next

204workshop and it and what is exactly that workshop going to be on? Well, I think um this slide and looking at the decisions of uh I guess and I I speak for Addie. I think you know general and capital outlay funds 20 and8 we're good there. We're not going to budge those. But what do we what is it what are the implications to leaving the LOB where it's at uh buying it down or not buying it down? What are the implications to 5.5 for the bond and interest? and then what's the implications of the 0.5 for special liability and just answer those questions to walk through that. Could we address guard rails about the financial uh oversight committee because there's some uh I kind of allude to it to my questions with Lindsay. There's still

205some clarifying questions that I want if they're going to meet this fall. I'm just wondering if the work next workshop we can have this ongoing discussion in a uh informal setting um where we talk about guard rails on what we're look because we we're at a big turning point in this district and it's going to be the seven of us that make the decision on what direction we head and I think we're going to have to include this in the workshop. Yeah, I think that'd be And so when is that tentatively? I think we need to do it before the next board meeting for sure. Okay. Don't you knock if if you before July 16th. Okay. Would you be willing uh and I think Kathy expressed some concerns or pre uh well we all have.

206So I mean is this something that we you your questions can be asked at the workshop? Yep. Okay. Okay, any further questions from the board? Okay, seeing none, Addie, thank you very much for your presentation. Um, we would like the follow up on the the state aid payments though. Um, and we can have that discussion at the workshop. Thank you. Okay, Latona. Next item. Executive session attorney client privilege. I move that the board go into executive session for the consultation with the district's general counsel, which would be deemed a privilege in attorney client relationship for 15 minutes. The executive session will include all the board members present and the general counsel Dan Lawrence. Motion made by Diane, seconded by Stan. Uh let's add in a fivem minute break in there. Latona for bathroom for the

207board. So 9:05. So the board will return back in this room at 9:20 and we'll resume the meeting then. Oh, uh, all in favor raise your hand. Motion passes 70. Thank you, Lona. Okay, the board is back from executive session. Uh, Latona. Next item. Consent. Agenda. Second. Okay. Motion made by Stan, seconded by Kathy. All in favor, raise your hand. Motion passes. 70. And I will just remind the public that the board does review consent agenda items at a open public meeting the week prior to these board meetings during the summer months. uh check online for the exact schedule, time, and location. Um but during the the school year, they are typically the Friday prior to the board meeting. So these are reviewed and openly discussed by the board. Are the minutes available for the

208public? Uh we do not keep minutes on this. Not for our workshop. Not for workshops. No, but they are open to the public every time that we meet. Okay. Uh Latona, next item. discussion on call general contractor various sites. Okay, we'll call up uh Luke Newman. Welcome, Luke. Good evening. Thank you. As per our newish process, um when board members want to pull things out of consent, um we put them on the regular agenda. So, Luke is here to answer any questions and then I think we want to call for a vote tonight if possible, too. So, Okay, very good. Julie, did you have some questions? Yes, I did. Um well, and I guess um as much as anything, it's just a comment. Um we discussed in workshop that um that um this contract had

209been used um in a general contract format format where a sub was included under the amount to do asbestous removal. and um that the entire 250 that we had approved had been utilized on the one project and you were needing an additional 100,000. Correct. Correct. Yeah. We would have had enough money to do the whole project had we not rolled the asbesus abatement subcontract under underneath. Yeah. and and my comment just was that um when I would have voted for this well first of all um I'm supportive of the work here at AAC to remodel the room um for the board meeting room and I'm also supportive of this general contractor they're an excellent general contractor but when I would have voted for the 250 for the on call contract it wouldn't have been for

210this type of project with just one project and subwork under the direction of that one project. So just because it's not in line what with what I would have voted for I won't be voting for the change order. Sure. Yeah. As you know I I agree with you. This isn't typically the kind of project we would use our on call general contracting agreement with. Um due to the urgency of the project, it was around April we made the decision to move board meetings over here and do do the remodel work. Um and we wanted to take advantage of the summer months because that's kind of our downtime with scheduled meetings in the space. And so uh kind of had to get things going as soon as possible and at the time the project was was

211going to be a little smaller in scale. The table was going to be at the front side of the the north wall. Um, so we wouldn't have needed the same backdrop and everything that we're doing now. Um, we reoriented the board table to more I'm sorry I'm repeating this. You've heard this. No, just for public benefit. Sure. Absolutely. I was going to ask you Luke, can you just give us a brief overview um if people hadn't been at the agenda review so that way they can kind of understand what is the conversation is happening. Yeah, essentially um you know that when we first initially planned the planned the project um it was one that didn't seem like it needed um a designer's input, it was simple enough. We were planning on moving the board table

212from North High uh over here. Um, and as we got into um, planning for the project and we coordinated with uh, the AV side of things, we found there was a little more electrical than we initially thought there was going to be and the board table moving over wasn't really going to be, uh, conducive for the space. We're going to have to put it up on casters and have to move it around a lot for PD. And so, um, ultimately decided to reorient the board table to where it's more in the corner. Um, it's better for safety and security. Um, it's going to improve accessibility. Um and it just improves the functionality of the space um quite a bit um to where it's gonna it'll it'll work better the orientation for both the board meeting

213space and PD use. Um and then in addition to that there's the mezzanine uh space that we use well kind of used loosely as as a meeting space currently but my understanding is that it's not very usable uh because it's open to the the space below. And so, um, that was another change we also decided to implement was just framing up the walls up to the ceiling, uh, taking out the stairs that were in there to where we actually have a true dedicated meeting space up there. Um, so all the changes were all really good changes. Um, made a lot of sense for a lot a lot of reasons, but ultimately unfortunately brought the budget a little higher than we had the money available for. And I just want to throw out a couple other

214things. We the budget we had already budgeted for this. We have a budget for non-attended setters that we allocate every year. Um, so there was already budget for this. This didn't come from some other place. Um, and Isabella was able to attend the meeting tonight in a wheelchair because uh, we were here and that wouldn't have been possible at North High. She could have she could have found a spot, but we don't really have anything that's that's ADA accessible in the way that we can here as we design it. Um, and same with the technology. Um, we were able to to do some things with technology that will be allow us to use this room four or five days a week instead of just every now and then like we do at North High. Um,

215and I believe we can design um, Terry's on this, but we can create some security measures here that don't exist at North High for you all. Um, which will be it's important also. So, yeah. And and like I said, I'm supportive of the project. I just wish we could have designed it and bid it and approved the bid as opposed to the on call contractor process. Yeah. Okay. Thank you, Luke, for the background. Thank you, Kelly, for the information of uh why we are moving the boardroom from North High to AAC. Um, and so with that, this is an action item and so uh we do need to call for a vote. got more questions. Oh, I'm sorry. I I am so sorry. I just switched screens. So, uh, Stan, that's okay. That was actually

216heading in your direction. While I'm sympathetic to uh Julie's concern about the use of on call on this, I do think there were some unique situations that came up on this and this whole process of either repairing North High or has been unusual from the very start. And now that we're at the finish line, I'd like to move that we adopt uh on call general contractor various site diligent 8.1 just in order to help the conversation move forward. Diane second. Very good. Motion made by Stan, seconded by uh Melody. And we do still have more questions. So Kathy, thank you. I just want to make sure I understand. So the on call contract that we voted for last year was for something specific. So what we're doing now is we're borrowing from that fund. And

217are we going to be able to replace the money back into the on call account? So, the on call agreement is um it's a yearly renewal that we we so we bid it out every three years and then we can renew it for so we can renew it for three years and then after that three-year period then we rebid it. Um I think we have we're coming up into our this is our final year of renewal with the current contract. Um and the board just approved that last month for this next fiscal year. So it's it's not for any specific project. It's for urgent projects that arise. Um, and we've been really good uh fiscal stewards of it throughout this whole year. Um, we to your point uh Miss Cedric, we uh we really try

218to keep things get things bid out um make sure there's a design and bid it out and so um we we did a great job with that throughout the year and because of that we had enough funding available in that contract. We hadn't used any of it. Um so we're able to put it towards this project. So, as it says here, this is an urgent project because it is right. Right. Okay. I mean, I think the project is great. Don't get me wrong. I I think it's great. I just wanted to know about the monies. I mean, are we borrowing from Peter to pay Paul or is this just a No, we're just going to use it. We have a new one coming up you all voted on, right? And this is just the way

219it's going to be. So, we had the 250 from last year. We're adding 100 onto it from so from last year on top of last year's contract. And then we have another 250 that the board's already approved for this contract. We're voting on $100,000 extra tonight, right? And um but it said not to exceed. So that's why we have to take this vote, right? And you're not going to come back for any more, are you? No. Okay. You're not going to come back for any more, are you? No, ma'am. Okay. Uh seeing no further questions, uh we do have a motion on the table. It's seconded. And so let's go ahead and call for a vote. All in favor raise your hand. Motion passes six to one. Thank you, Luke. Latona. Next item. Action. Council

220of Great City Schools board of directors representative. So, uh, we have had Hazel Stabler serve as the representative for the Council of Great City Schools, um, for the last few years, and it is her request to continue on with that. Um, and so, uh, the motion I'll make the motion that we, uh, appoint Hazel Stabler as the board representative to serve on the Council of Great City Schools. Motion made by Diane, seconded by Kathy. All in favor, raise your hand. Motion passes 70. Uh, Latona. Next item. Policy 1231, artificial intelligence. We have seen this on the last uh I think three meetings. Um, Rob has spoken to this. Are there any questions regarding the AI policy? Stan just to help along the conversation. I move that we adopt the policy. Second. Motion made by Stan,

221seconded by Melody. Not not quite. Well, Melody's just right in my ear, so I'll listen a little closer for you next time. Knock all in. All in motion made by uh Stan, seconded by Melody. All in favor, raise your hand. Motion passes. 70. Latona. Next item. Policy 3460 unrestricted reserves. This is another policy that we have seen a number of times. Um are there any motion made by Kathy? I'll second. Seconded by knock. All in favor raise your hand. Motion passes. 70. Latona. Next item. Superintendence report. All right. Kelly. All right. Um, I alluded to some of some things earlier tonight, but I I guess I'll I'll reiterate. Um, but start with a little bit of a reflection. Um, we don't we're pretty busy most of the school year as a family. We don't watch

222a whole lot of TV and just recently we've had some downtime and able to watch um there's a pretty cool thing on Netflix I think about the Challenger uh mission and all of that which my kids knew nothing about but I distinctly remember being at McKinley Elementary in Abalene as a second grader on the playground when we found out about uh the tragedy. Um but it stood out and I I thought this but I didn't say it. My wife actually said it to me if you haven't watched it. Um it really stood out that um the person that the society decided to send to space was a teacher, right? Not some rich person, not Katy Perry, right? A teacher and President Reagan and Vice President Bush. And they talk about how it's it's like the

223coolest thing that you could do is send a teacher to space because that person was of the highest most utmost kind of respect in the in the country at the point. um super sad uh what happened, but it did it was telling to me um just how how different it is today and how hard it is for our teachers. And um I don't think that some of the um volatility I think is probably the best way for to put it. some of the volatility that happens with all the things that Addie was talking about with funding and finances and um everything that goes on um makes it even harder and harder to be a teacher. So um I wanted to comment just a little bit on the the federal funds um situation that has just

224come up in the last week. Um we are gonna again talk we got a busy day tomorrow. We're going to talk tomorrow more about what this means for us. Uh we're going to plan some parent uh some parent communication because I know people people were talking about a a staff note about um staffing and some of that those sorts of things. Um but I think it's worth saying that uh we do a good job of being like the shock absorbers for the district, right? Um especially our finance department that as we hit bumps and potholes, we try to keep the whole thing pretty stable. Um but we can't drive the thing off a cliff and expect to survive. And so while we don't want to be reactive, we we need to understand that 2025, 2026,

225and 2027 um we we face big big potholes. Big big potholes. And so um some of that's some of that's locally with the bond issue and what we do with that. Some of that's at the level of Topeka and a school of finance formula. Um that is um the current conversations I feel like are somewhat concerning. Um and then the federal level and not having really any idea what's going to happen um with some of those you know 70% of our budget. So I say all that not to scare but but to to prep us for being ready to uh respond and respond quickly as a district. Um, we have a voice. We have, um, advocates. We have, um, I think six senators and 20 representatives in Topeka that cover our district. And those people

226need to hear us and hear how important um, Christina's presentation tonight, right? That is vitally important. If we want kids to read, and we know it takes six years for anybody to moves to a country to become fluent in that language. Um, we can't act as though holding us accountable for test scores and dangling the carrot of money over our heads is going to motivate kids that don't speak English to do better on a test, right? Um, and so I just I I want us to be ready. I want us to just think about what these next couple years will could look like. Um, and again, it's it's volatile. It changes. Um, but we we need to be ready for for significant impact. um on all of these things that are up in the air

227um and and be willing and ready to advocate as we need to. So um our teachers deserve it, our kids deserve it. Um every one of our kids needs a highly qualified teacher in their room and um we got to support them as much as we can to make that happen. So, um, I'm not too polyiana to think we'll go back to 1985 when I was a second grader and and think that teachers are the beall endall like, uh, a lot of people did back then, but I think we can move more in that direction. And part of it is truth, truthfully, that rebuilding of trust that we've been talking about tonight, too. Right. I think Lindsay's comments were were on point um, for a lot of the things we've heard and how important it

228is to do that. Um but part of part of trust is truth. When people know the truth that matters and so they hear things that are not true and they believe them and that erodess trust. Um and so making sure we are we are speaking from the truth and we are addressing things that aren't true is also a big piece of it too. So um always always a chance to do better. Um, but I think that that's um that's what's on my heart tonight and and now and hopefully this federal fund situation gets figured out quickly. Um, and we can we can move forward. Uh, that's kind of been the the the progress. You know, we hit the but we hit the pothole, we swerve a little bit and then we get back on track.

229Um, because we've got a lot of important things to do. We need to teach kids to read, teach kids how to do math and get them ready for the future. So, I think that's it. Thank you. Very good. Thank you, Kelly. Latona. Next item, new business and board of education requests. Okay, I do have new business for the board to bring up. Um, as many of you know, there was a joint town hall between the county, the city, and the school district. Um, that was held last month and I think you guys have all received a report on the feedback from that and that was assembled by the Kansas Leadership Center. Uh four times a year the the county and the city get together for meetings called Onbach and they have uh a meeting scheduled

230for July 29th at 9:00 a.m. and they have extended an invitation to the board of education to be present there to discuss what was um said and revealed at the town hall and to discuss uh potential shared services and to also discuss the framework for uh the town halls moving forward um datetime locations topics different things like that and so uh they have requested our presence um I think it's the first time uh ever that all of the three governing bodies with all the representatives are together in a room. So I think it's a a pivotal and important um moment for the electeds to get together and have a conversation. This will be held at the Kansas Leadership Center. Um and they are going to facilitate the discussion amongst us. It will be an open

231and public meeting. Um so the public is welcome to attend, but the purpose of the meeting is for the electeds to have a discussion. Um, and like I said, it'll be facilitated by the Kansas Leadership Center. So I think this is a a very important time for electeds to get together to talk um and then also to uh create that time space and framework for us to all hear from from our constituents um from people across across the Witchaw area and to come up with some creative solutions. not duct taping windows, but but true real solutions because we have complex problems and issues that are very serious. And um this is this is to address some of that. And so again, that's that is July 29th at 9:00 a.m. at the Kansas Leadership Center and

232we'll get a calendar invite sent out to the board members for that. I was going to say, can we add it to the board activity calendar, too? I'll get Latona the correct information and she'll get that in our calendars. uh probably tomorrow. She's usually pretty on top of it. So, that is all I have for new business. Anybody else? Julie? Yeah. Excuse me. I have a I have a board of education request. Um, I would just like information on classroom sizes at district high schools to determine if um the class sizes are equitable and appropriate for students and teachers throughout the district or if modifications are needed. Okay, very good. Thank you, Julie. Knock. Oh, does this go to Latona? Does it go to Either way? Is this where when we make board motions or

233um No, you can ask questions and uh request. Yeah, make requests. Oh, so so no board motions or no. What's what's on your mind though? Oh, it's just the financial oversight committee, all that jazz. But I mean, we're going to talk about at the workshop. So, yeah, I think uh what we're I think Kelly's got a general direction and uh it sounds like he'll give us an update soon on that and probably expanding more information at the the workshop that we'll get scheduled. I'll be watching. Okay. Um I might suggest check um next Monday the 14th we could do the workshop because requested prior to we can We don't need to do it right now. It feels feels a little rushed. It is a little rushed, I know, but for for a bunch of volunteers

234to get together that we'll try to get something next week. Okay. So, reach out. Okay. Yeah, Lona does a good job of kind of giving us uh two or three options and then we can find something that works for the whole board. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday is best for me. And I think the sooner we do this, the easier ad's going to feel and our superintendent is going to feel we're here to support the Okay. Uh, seeing no further requests, Latona, next item, adjournment. Okay. Is there a motion to adjurnn? Move to second. Okay. Uh, motion made by Melody, seconded by Kathy. All in favor, raise your hand. Motion passes 70. We are adjourned.